TCB
Music news
By Christopher Gray, Fri., Jan. 6, 2006

(Inter)National Top 10
What good is listening to albums if you can't arbitrarily rank them?
1) White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan (V2)
2) Wilco, Kicking Television: Live in Chicago (Nonesuch)
3) M.I.A., Arular (Interscope)
4) Franz Ferdinand, You Could Have It So Much Better... (Sony)
5) Doves, Some Cities (Capitol)
6) New Pornographers, Twin Cinema (Matador)
7) Kaiser Chiefs, Employment (Universal)
8) High Dials, War of the Wakening Phantoms (Rainbow Quartz)
9) Audioslave, Out of Exile (Interscope)
10) Pitty Sing (Or)

Austin Top 10
Most, if not all, of these outrank even the highest entries on TCB's national list.
1) Spoon, Gimme Fiction (Merge)
2) Okkervil River, Black Sheep Boy/Black Sheep Boy Appendix (Jagjaguwar)
3) ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Worlds Apart (Interscope)
4) Milton Mapes, The Blacklight Trap (Undertow)
5) Patricia Vonne, Guitars & Castanets (Bandolera)
6) Glass Family, Sleep Inside This Wheel (I Eat)
7) Nic Armstrong & the Thieves, The Greatest White Liar (New West)
8) James McMurtry, Childish Things (Compadre)
9) Ghostland Observatory, delete.delete.i.eat.meat (TrashyMoped)
10) Banjo & Sullivan, The Ultimate Collection (Universal)

Austin Honorable Mention
Because 10 is hardly enough for a town with this much music.
11) Manikin, Still (Super Secret)
12) Moonlight Towers, Like You Were Never There (Spinster)
13) White Ghost Shivers, Live on the Radio (Chicken Ranch)
14) Single Frame, Body/End/Basement (Volcom)
15) Secret Weapons
16) Crack Pipes, Beauty School (Emperor Jones)
17) Voxtrot, Raised by Wolves EP (Cult Hero)
18) Elizabeth McQueen & the Firebrands, Happy Doing What We're Doing (Freedom)
19) Winks, Too Hot to Be This Cool (Super Secret)
20) Gorch Fock, Lying and Manipulating (Australian Cattle God)

wait, there's more
Neither, come to think of it, is 20.
21) Cruiserweight, Sweet Weaponry (Doghouse)
22) Attack Formation, Somebody as Anybody (Australian Cattle God)
23) King Tears, Rope Chair Needle
24) Octopus Project, One Ten Hundred Thousand Million (Peek-a-Boo)
25) Handsome Charlies, Gentlemen Never Tell (I Eat)
26) Los Super Seven, Heard It on the X (Telarc)
27) Small Stars, 8 Stereo 8
28) Yuppie Pricks, Brokers Banquet (Alternative Tentacles)
29) Aster, Suitcase Sessions EP
30) Honky, Balls Out Inn (Small Stone)

Holdovers
Released in 2004, cast considerable shadow into 2005.
1) Arcade Fire, Funeral (Merge)
2) Kelly Clarkson, Breakaway (RCA)
3) Gwen Stefani, Love Angel Music Baby (Interscope)
4) Killers, Hot Fuss (Island)
5) Green Day, American Idiot (Reprise)
6) My Chemical Romance, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge (Reprise)
7) Keith Urban, Be Here (Capitol Nashville)
8) Cam'ron, Purple Haze (Roc-a-Fella)
9) Jesse McCartney, Beautiful Soul (Hollywood)
10) Rascal Flatts, Feels Like Today (Lyric Street)

Garage Days Re-revisited
Good year for yowling guitar combos that start with "The."
1) Clutters, T&C (Chicken Ranch)
2) Ponys, Celebration Castle (In the Red)
3) Dials, Flex Time (Latest Flame)
4) Willowz, Talk in Circles (Sympathy for the Record Industry)
5) Schoolyard Heroes, Fantastic Wounds (TCG)
6) Catch, Get Cool (Made in Mexico)
7) Soviettes, LP III (Fat Wreck)
8) Bloody Hollies, Fire at Will (Alive)
9) Deathray Davies, The Kick and the Snare (Glurp)
10) Deadly Snakes, Porcella (In the Red)

Twang Thang
Country gold from Nashville, L.A., Austin, and beyond.
1) Dwight Yoakam, Blame the Vain (New West)
2) Lee Ann Womack, There's More Where That Came From (MCA Nashville)
3) Knitters, The Modern Sounds of ... (Zoë/Rounder)
4) Rodney Crowell, The Outsider (Columbia)
5) Patty Loveless, Dreamin' My Dreams (Epic)
6) Brad Paisley, Time Well Wasted (Arista Nashville)
7) Hank Thompson & the Brazos Valley Boys, My Personal Favorites
8) Martina McBride, Timeless (RCA)
9) James M. White, Broken Spoke Legend
10) Gretchen Wilson, All Jacked Up (Epic)

H-Town Triumphant
Top tracks from the Bayou City's blockbuster year.
1) Legendary K.O., "George Bush Don't Like Black People"
2) Paul Wall, "Sittin' Sideways"
3) Mike Jones, "Still Tippin'"
4) Chamillionaire w/ Lil' Flip, "Turn It Up"
5) Z-Ro, "From the South"
6) Beyoncé w/ Slim Thug, "Check On It"
7) Bun B, "Draped Up"
8) Slim Thug, "I Ain't Heard of That"
9) Mike Jones, "Back Then"
10) Trae w/ Hawk, Fat Pat, "Swang"

Comp Time
Like an iPod shuffle, only on one disc.
1) Appetizers & Leftovers (I Eat)
2) Turn 1 (Almost There)
3) Big Sweet Life: The Songs of Jon Dee Graham (Freedom)
4) KVRX Local Live Vol. 9: College Ruled!
5) Future Retro (Rhino)
6) Sunday Nights: The Songs of Junior Kimbrough (Fat Possum)
7) XIT: Ten in Texas (Icehouse)
8) Suicide Girls Black Heart Retrospective (Epitaph)
9) I (Heart) Guitar Wolf Very Much (Narnack)
10) Business Deal Top 40 (Business Deal)

blasts from the past
Believe it or not, these albums all came out in 2005, not 1995, 1985, or even 1975.
1) Depeche Mode, Playing the Angel (Sire)
2) Billy Idol, Devil's Playground (Sanctuary)
3) Oasis, Don't Believe the Truth (Epic)
4) New Order, Waiting for the Sirens' Call (Warner Bros.)
5) Alice Cooper, Dirty Diamonds (New West)
6) Eddy Arnold, I Need You All the Time (RCA)
7) Juliana Hatfield, Made in China (Ye Olde)
8) Wallflowers, Rebel, Sweetheart (Interscope)
9) Al Kooper, Black Coffee (Favored Nations)
10) Hootie & the Blowfish, Looking for Lucky (Vanguard)

Thanks, But No Thanks
Albums we could, and probably should, have gone without.
1) Scott Stapp, The Great Divide (Wind-Up)
2) Black Eyed Peas, Monkey Business (Interscope)
3) Cowboy Troy, Loco Motive (Warner Bros.)
4) Prussian Blue, The Path We Chose
5) T.A.T.U., Dangerous & Moving (Interscope)
6) Disturbed, Ten Thousand Fists (Warner Bros.)
7) Jack Johnson, In Between Dreams (Brush Fire)
8) Pussycat Dolls, PCD (A&M)
9) Regis Philbin, The Regis Philbin Christmas Album (Hollywood)
10) Various Artists, Killer Queen: A Tribute (Hollywood)

Only the Beginning
More SXSW 06 performers to tide you over until the full list, some 800 strong (and growing!), comes out next week. Subject to change, of course.
Arctic Monkeys; Be Your Own Pet; Billy Bragg; Calexico; Neko Case; Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!; Jamie Cullum; Dashboard Confessional; Destroyer; Dirty Pretty Things; Elbow; Erase Errata; Flogging Molly; Giant Sand; Gogol Bordello; Go! Team; Clarence "Frogman" Henry; Kaki King; Lady Sovereign; Barbara Lynn; Peaches; Plimsouls; Saves the Day; Two Gallants