“Hey Ya!”– OutKast “All For Swinging You Around”– The New Pornographers “No Culture Icons”– The Thermals (Sub Pop) Standing among the ruins of the once-great state of Popunkia- looted, impoverished, covered with “GREEN DAY RULZ!” graffiti- The Thermals don’t draw up a blueprint to rebuild, they just wail away on their third-hand equipment and play fast, loud & melodic the way it was meant to be played: with twitchy urgency and self-deprecating wit. Remember, kids, Green Day does rule, but when they sang “Do you have the time/to listen to me whine/about nothing and everything all at once?” they were only half-serious. They also didn’t intend for you to steal their brilliant melodies and replace their lyrics with your “hardly art, hardly garbage” diary drivel “By the Sea”– The Essex Green (Merge) So beautiful and soothing it’s bound to be bastardized by a Volkswagen ad where yuppies drive to the beach and don’t leave ‘til the stars come out “Train”– Goldfrapp (Mute) Sexier than a European cabaret dancer unzipping her leather corset, it’s an anomaly on the sleep-inducing Black Cherry “Move Your Feet”– Junior Senior (Atlantic) If you don’t like this song, you’re probably a white boy who can’t dance and/or fears people will think you’re gay “Fix Up, Look Sharp”– Dizzee Rascal (XL) Zeus-on-the-trash-cans percussion and chopped up power chords sound lifted from Rick Rubin, though it’s actually sampled from hair-metalhead Billy Squier’s “The Big Beat” (in related news, pop continues to eat itself as Rubin’s awesome production “99 Problems” on The Black Album samples…you guessed it: Billy Squier’s “The Big Beat”). But 18 year-old Dizzee owns this track with his spasmic British cyborg spitfire. The rest of his album, Boy in da Corner, which is denser and darker but no less impressive, will be released in the States next year and subsequently ignored by American audiences who won’t understand what the bloody hell he’s saying “Stand Up” Ludacris (Def Jam South) A few months ago I took a bartending class and met an adorable middle-aged Colombian woman. She barely spoke a word of English, but when this song came on the radio she sang “When I move, you move/Just like that” like she was an 18 year-old from Queens. Now that’s crossover appeal “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” – Jay-Z “Callin’ Out”- Lyrics Born (Quannum) Listen to this song and refrain from clapping along. I double-fucking dare you “Sit Down. Stand Up”– Radiohead (Capitol) Sorry to turn the dance floor into a foggy London ghost town, but once “The raindrops! The raindrops!” start to fall, you’ll feel orgasmic shivers down your spine “I’ve Been Riding With the Ghost”– Songs: Ohia (Secretly Canadian) Exquisitely haunting like Neil Young’s nightmares “Sleeping In”– The Postal Service (Sub Pop) Already makes me miss college days when I could skip class and lie in bed daydreaming to songs like this “Now”- Daniel Johnston (Gammon) Schizophrenia is a hideous beast, but for these two and a half minutes, Johnston slays the demon magnificently “Dreaming of You”- The Coral “If She Wants Me”- Belle and Sebastian (Rough Trade) A prettier blue-eyed Smokey homage than The Strokes’ “Under Control” “Horrorshow”- The Libertines (Rough Trade) Just one more bit of Strokes backlash, promise- I was in Virgin Megastore a while back when I overheard a woman listening to The Strokes remark, “They sound like The Clash.” Jackass. This is what The Strokes would sound like if they sounded like The Clash “I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself”- The White Stripes (XL) Timeless song, killer performance. But if Jack wins that Grammy, he better be sure to thank Bacharach, Cobain, and Plant.