1. Mirah - I listened to this record with headphones on the bus and train back and forth to PA a couple of times last week. Mirah is just one of those ridiculously musical people. I imagine her singing the grocery list would be catchier than 90% of other music out there.

2. Archers Of Loaf - Something made me dig out the last album. At the time it came out it was a big dissapointment. In retrospect it's a masterful and misunderstood record. So good.

3. Robert Palmer - This was busted out on New Year's Eve, and it's popped up on random a couple of times since. I might have to grab the whole "Clues" album somewhere along the line.

4. 'Til Tuesday (01) - 'Til Tuesday's final album is a masterpiece. One of my favorite 10 records of all-time, and probably the greatest break-up record ever, only possibly rivalled by Seam's "Are You Driving Me Crazy?". You're gonna get two songs from the record this installment.

5. Junior Boys - Something lots of people are talking about, so I had to download some. A good pop song, but pretty unmemorable. I'll have to hear more before I forge an opinion.

6. Stump - A couple of months ago i compared Frog Eyes to Stump. I pulled out the Stump albums and gave 'em a listen, but since I only have them on vinyl, I couldn't include any mp3's up here. I finally found an mp3, so here it is.

7. Electrelane - The b-side to the new single. A pretty fantastic Springsteen cover.

8. The Clash - A live version of "Straight To Hell" I pulled offa some music blog. Must have been amazing to see this song live in person.

9. LCD Soundsystem - The new single "Yeah". Another silly disco hit, but... it's catchy and it's awesome, so who cares if it's silly?

10. The Sundays - From the debut album. Another album to listen to on the bus and train. There has never been another band like The Sundays. This record still sounds as different and refreshing and sparkling as the first time I heard it.

11. Alkali Flats - Demo of a band from Philly. Pretty good stuff.

12. Hall & Oates - This version is good, but hearing Juana Molina sing along to it makes it that much better.

13. The Tinklers - Digging out that Ed's Redeeming Qualities song last time made me think of The Tinklers. But while ERQ are just silly for the hell of it, The Tinklers really kind of mean it. Beautiful song, if you really give it a listen.

14. The World/Inferno Friendship Society - Best song title of the last bunch of years: "Zen And The Art Of Breaking Everything In This Room".

15. Elvis Costello - I accidentally found this online... "Radio, Radio" from Saturday Night Live in 1977. I wish I could say I remember watching the show, and the fact is when I was 5 I often DID watch Saturday Night Live fairly regularly as my parents routinely went out every Saturday night and would get home during SNL. I remember lots of Steve Martin, and I *think* I remember seeing Meat Loaf perform around that time, but, alas... I only know about the Elvis Costello performance because of its legacy.

16. All Night Radio - New on Sub Pop. ANOTHER Beachwood Sparks side project. Great chorus on this song.

17. Translator - Something made me dig them out the other day. Only really ever known for "Everywhere That I'm Not", they had 4 albums of pretty good jangly pop and rock. This is from the third album.

18. Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man - Former Portishead vocalist teams up with Paul Webb, original bassist with Talk Talk. I've only heard this song, and it's just OK. But I listened to it often enough to qualify for inclusion up here.

19. Scissor Sisters - Another dumb pop song... but you really just have to like it.

20. Sasha Frere-Jones - Something else I grabbed from some blog... maybe even from Sasha's own blog. Damn fine romp... the disco guitar, the high school band meets LFO distorted keyboard part... good stuff.

21. Murphy Lee feat. Jermaine Dupri - Dumb dumb single, but you can't say that the damn chorus isn't catchy.

22. Aretha Franklin - This version of Eleanor Rigby has been making the rounds of blogs and postings like mine lately. I'll admit... I downloaded it, and gave it some listens. Not memorable, but very likable while I listen to it.

23. Dorian Taj - Holy shit... the first 30 seconds of this song... so fucking good. Every time it would come up on shuffle I would stop whatever I was doing to open up winamp and see what it was. Invariably, the time it would take to do that would exactly equal the amount of time it would take for the intro to go by and THE WORST FUCKING VOCALS I THINK I'VE EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE to kick in. Now... it's just a demo... so some of it can HOPEFULLY be chalked up to production, but talk about ruining a potentially great song. Yikes.

24. Diamonds - A "friend" of the band forwarded me a link to some Diamonds songs and said "you might like this." I didn't think I did at first, but then this song grew on me. A bunch more listens, and now I really like it.

25. Chromelodeon - I think these guys are from Philly. Somebody forwarded me a link and said I should check 'em out. Prog-y / metal-y / theatrical instrumental stuff isn't usually my kind of thing, but I found this track enjoyable.

26. Fishbone - I played a little Fishbone while playing poker the other night. Sounded great. Made me want to track down the single from "The Reality Of My Surroundings", an album that was certainly partially a soundtrack for my freshman year of college.

27. Read Yellow - Demo from a Boston band. I've missed them the two times I've had the chance to see them, including when they played with The Detachment Kit last weekend. But I hear they're great, and I like this song.

28. Subset - I can hear why Western Keys sound like they do, when I hear this Subset song.

29. The Innocence Mission - Central Pennsylvania's The Innocence Mission just will not go away. They keep making pretty prairie folk... always good, and somehow, for me at least, just never memorable.

30. Azure Ray - This song off the new album really grew on me. I thought I hated it, but then the production of this song just really won me over.

31. Whiskeytown - The prettiest song off of "Strangers Almanac", and a constant reminder that Ryan Adams really IS talented, which is unfortunately often times hard to remember with all of the drama and bullshit with which he constantly surrounds himself.

32. Felt - I finally got some of the re-issues from the UK. Some of the best jangly pop ever put to tape.

33. The Cure - And that Felt song... The Cure might have nicked a bit of the bassline for "Just Like Heaven", or maybe not... But either way the inclusion of The Cure in this week's playlist has nothing to do with Felt, but to the fact that "Wish" was also a good record for the headphones for back and forth to Central PA. What a fantastic record. I was going to go with "A Letter To Elise", as that's my favorite song off the record (and I WAS once known to participate in a cover of that song), but then I chose "From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea" for it's pure epic brilliance.

34. The Posies - There's been a bit of depression and frustration in my life lately... I won't lie to you. So when Ken Stringfellow sings "there's an upside... there has to be an upside." it really strikes a chord.

35. 'Til Tuesday (02) - And when Aimee Mann sings the final "How 'bout we break with tradition?" in this song, just slightly changing the melody of the last syllable... oh my god my heart flutters every time. I don't think I've ever heard a sadder note ever sung.