Music by the letter

This isn't my highly anticipated must-have music post, nor is this a strangely titled commentary on my, rather enjoyable, trip to College Station. I'm going through my alphabatized compact disc colletion and picking my favorite album for each artist letter. I'll also include symbols and numbers as a selection. Just for clarity, it's alphabatized by artist, not album

The 6ths - Wasps' Nests If you like the Magnetic Fields, then you have no excuse to not like this band.

Ash - Trailer This album contains the first song that I ever learned how to play as well as the first song that I ever played with a band. It's awesome.

Boy Least Likely To - Best Party Ever This probably isn't the best of the "B"s, but it's my current favorite. One song references being a country disco band, which I think captures this album. It's fun. It's happy. It's everything nice about music.

Clem Snide - Your Favorite Music I started liking this band at a really strange time in, not just my life, but damn near everybody's lives. In September of 2001, I saw them with Underground at the Continental Club. It was an amazing show and I bought this album at Waterloo the following day. It's sad without being depressing and uplifting without being cheesy. I could have picked almost any of their albums, but this is the one that I liked first.

Deerhoof - Apple O Ryan recommended this to me while I had my radio show at KVRX and I really liked it. I like that it's structured but unclean on the edges, sort of like Austin. It's noise combined with musicianship.

Ex Girl - Back to Mono Kero I don't really like many bands whose name starts with E, or if I do I don't own any albums by them. Sorry. I've seen this band twice. The second time was for a birthday at Emo's. They put on a really exciting live show that doesn't quite translate to the album. If you like Japanese pop, then I'd suggest giving them a try.

Foo Fighters - the Colour and the Shape Dave Grohl poured water on my head and generally put on the best and most energetic show that I've ever been to. I may have been 19 years old, but it was awesome. Every song on this album is good, really good.

Godspeed You Black Emperor - Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven Think Mogwai but better and more interesting. Did you think that music for the climatic scene of 28 Days Later was awesome? If you did, then you would like this. If you didn't, then I don't care for you (you know I really do).

Headlights - Kill Them With Kindness I think I have mentioned them before. They have a pretty pop sound with shoegaze qualities for depth. It's really quite a good album.

Islands - Return to the Sea I know I've mentioned this album before. It's like the Unicorns, but cleaner and maybe more structured.

the Joggers - Solid Guild Now, the Joggers are a good reason to move to the Pacific Northwest. They're a hard band to describe. The mix multiple guitar lines and multi-part harmonies with a loud, but not noisy rock sound. They can be close to perfect. I'd definitely recommend seeing them live if you get a chance. Another band that I'd recommend seeing live is the Harlem Shakes. They have a similar style as the Joggers, but a slightly different take on it. Their harmonies are better live than on the EP.

Kaito UK - Band Red You thought I'd pick the Village Green Preservation Society, didn't you. Band Red is a great noisy rock album. I called it one of my favorites from 2003. It's female voices with loud instrumentation and driving drumlines.

Les Aus - Haranna Hanne This may be cheating since they are a Spanish band, but I don't care. The "Les" counts. Les Aus is a mixture of traditional Spanish folk music and noise rock. It's more of a salad bar mixture as opposed to, say a melting pot. Several songs are folk instrumentals and then several are really energetic noise rock. They also seem to be really nice. I saw them in Little Rock and they put Ted Leo to shame with their performance.

the Murder City Devils - Empty Bottles, Broken Hearts This may have been the hardest so far, but I had to be honest with myself and not pick Malkmus. This album gets me excited every single time I hear it. It's loud and it's catchy. Plus, people used to tell me that I look like Spencer Moody. This led to the formation of the Birthing Farm Angels, a band which rivaled the Murder City Devils in name only. Had we ever played music, we would have been awesome.

Billy Nicholls - Would you Believe Some people called this the UK's response to Pet Sounds. That's a pretty reasonable description of it. The people at Waterloo seem to love this guy. It's really good.

Old 97's - Too Far to Care I may be wrong on this one, but I think that any of their first three albums would be a good choice here. This particular album just seems to be a perfect balance between their raw early stuff and their overly polished more recent work. It's got all the energy that you could ever want and it still sounds like it's inspired by Johnny Cash.

Pavement - Slanted and Enchanted Luxe-Redux I was torn on this one too. I'm trying to balance between the albums that I think are the best, the albums that I enjoy the most, and the albums that I've been listening to lately. One of the Peter Bjorn and John albums could have conceivably worked here since I've listening to them a lot lately, however, I think Pavement is the best band of the past 35 years and this is my favorite album, plus the second disc has the Watery Domestic EP included. That puts it over the top against it's primary competition, Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinels and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. If you don't have a complete Pavement collection, then you really should get working on that. It's a negative statement on your character.

Quicksand - Manic Compression Surprise, it's a really noisy rock band. Onward.

the Rentals - Return of the Rentals This was the first of two for the Rentals and I tend to think that it's better than Seven More Minutes, although not by an overwhelming margin. I think that this is a logical progression from the Blue Album, although not the same band. The Rentals are apparently in the studio recording a new album. Awesome.

the Shout Out Louds - Howl Howl Gaff Gaff This is the best pop album that I own. It's an all growed up version of Return of the Rentals. My love for this album has made my anticipation for the new release reach an insane level. Our Ill Wills will be released in the US by Merge Records on September 11, a date with no bad mojo whatsoever. Our Ill Wills should be available in the US as an import in the next week or so if you want to spend $30 on it. It may be worthwhile.

Thin Lizard Dawn - s/t I think that members of Thin Lizard Dawn now are in Hotsocky. The album is a series of really well-written pop songs with enough of a lo-fi sound to satisfy me. They clearly liked Bowie and the Beatles. They nicely mock Oasis. It's good.

the Undertones - the Very Best of the Undertones Greatest Hits albums are for suckers. Hi, I'm a sucker. If you like pop-punk, then the odds are that those bands you like are cheap ripoffs of the Ramones and the Undertones. It's probably safe to call the Undertones the Irish answer to the Ramones.

the Vaselines - The Way of the Vaselines You've probably heard one of their songs without knowing it. Nirvana covered several of their songs. To be fair, the Vaselines sound nothing like Nirvana. They're more of a lo-fi pop band. It's a great album if the Nirvana covers don't ruin the originals for you.

Weezer - Pinkerton Every guy in his late teens or early twenties can relate to this album. It's the only Weezer album that doesn't sound polished. It's very raw. Pinkerton made Emo music poppy. That's really the only negative to the album. It is also the last decent Weezer album.

XTC - White Music This is early XTC, before they got really bad. I think that post-punk is just code for "sounds like early XTC." White Music has a lot of classic pop songs on it.

Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out This is basically the soundtrack to my relationship with Mrs. LaBlog. You're damn right it will be my pick here. I do think that Nothing is everything that is good about Yo La Tengo's music. It's pretty, it's interesting, it's melodic, and sometimes it's funny. Other than Nuclear War, I don't think a person could go wrong with Yo La Tengo.

the Zombies - Being Here The Zombies were making pop music as good as any other band for a brief period of time. I was torn between this and Odessey and Oracle, but I chose this. Both are great albums. I just went with the pure pop album as opposed to the more psychadelic Odessey.