this is somewhere makes iTunes best rock albums of the year list

here comes a regular : john doe
Could you encompass my 80’s music experience any more neatly? Doubt it. Here Come A Regular. I was having a conversation with a guitar player I know about early 80’s rock. I spoke about X and The Replacements and that musical connection of a live show and, well, here you go. More...

garotas suecas - "codinome dinamite"
via Carrie Brownstein “The band is called Garotas Suecas, and I urge you to remember the name. Within two songs, I went from sitting at a table nodding my head to the front row — only about eight Brooklynites were willing to dance — at which point I became that person standing in front of the lead singer basically losing my mind. I am 34 years old. It has literally been a decade since I went up to a stage, closed my eyes, danced like a fool and never wanted the moment to end. All I kept thinking was that I wished everyone I knew could witness this show.” More...

alex chilton is gone
Ann Powers at the LA Times blog

I have a tattered souvenir from a Big Star store in Memphis, picked up on a pilgrimage to the South that I made when I was barely 21, when I set forth to find some mineral traces of the blues and early rock heritage I’d only read about in books. What I found on that journey was Alex Chilton. I’d already come to love Big Star’s catalog, introduced to me via the mix tapes my friends and I made for each other as we built our own twisted history of Americana from what the band X once called “the unheard music.” Alex Chilton was a wandering, heretical patriarch of our new religion. Bands like the Replacements and R.E.M. found him inspirational. (Members of one such group, the Posies, would later play with a reformed Big Star.) College radio DJs turned Big Star’s catchy but unkempt songs into the hits they should have been the first time around. The band had been active in the 1970s, but they belonged to us, the kids fighting off the shadow of the Baby Boomers who’d been too dumb to realize how great it was. More...

local natives : airplanes
You can stream the entire album at the band’s homepage.

the bangles : hero takes a fall
First chick band that I thought was great. Listen to those harmonies and that lead guitar sound. Before they “sold out” (which they themselves admit) they had a great thing going. In 1985 I hung out pre and post show with them in a bar in Virginia Beach – still a night to remember. Susanna is still doing it with Matthew Sweet – Rain, Different Drum, Cinnamon Girl, You’re So Vain, Maggie May – check out “Under The Covers”.

zooey for the win
“She & Him” video premier of “In The Sun” – Zooey hula hoops! Stick a fork in me.

lissie : little lovin'
Lissie is one of my favorite new voices.

the unofficial sxsw torrent
5.5 Gigabytes!?! of music from bands performing at SXSW here. Also available are past year torrents. Fire up your client!

cat power : remember me
This cover of an Otis Redding cover tears me up everytime.

brandi carlile : that year