I was asked recently if I had any suggestions of good new music or albums that I’ve come across.  I was a little stunned by the question at first, but I put some time into it and wrote an e-mail back that I’ve included in case anyone else wanted to know what’s crossed my ears lately.

Hi xxxxx,

You had asked about any good album recommendations from 2008, so I put together a short list of things that might be worth checking out.  Bear in mind, some of these are things I discovered this year and aren’t quite so “new” to the rest of the world.  Let me know what you think.

-ptb-

My top three albums from 2008 are Firewater The Golden Hour, The Faint Fasclinatiion, and Portishead Third.  The new Metallica album Death Magnetic is also surprisingly good.  The Fratellis and Dirty Pretty Things both have songs on the Run, Fatboy, Run soundtrack that are a lot of fun.  I’ve heard a lot of things used in TV shows, commercials, and while out shopping  that are surprisingly catchy this year including Placebo, the Black Kids and Smoosh.  Angie uses something called Pandora (which is worth checking out if you haven’t already) when she’s at work and discovered Metric, The Sounds and Ringside using a station based on The Faint or The Teddybears or something along those lines.  We’re also into a band called Nouvelle Vague who do bossa nova covers of 80’s pop songs and through them have discovered a group called the Submarines, both are well worth checking out.

This week Marvel delivers something I find even more exciting than the prospect of Spider-Man vs. Rutherford B. Hayes.  2009 is being hailed as Marvel’s “70th Anniversary” and with that comes a series of commemorative variant covers beginning with January 28th’s Captain America #46.  One of these will ship each month on a series of selected titles, and from from what I’ve seen so far they’re beautiful.  Much of my interest comes from the fond memories I have of the covers from Marvel’s 25th Anniversary celebration in 1964…excuse me 1986.

I had no idea that they made men’s candy.  

My entire adult life I’ve been settling for immature confections, so from now on it’s something more sophisticated.  To the Chinese Grocery! (At least until they start carrying Just for Men SweetTarts at WaWa).

Wednesday night I was reminded of the powerful effect Angie has had on my life.  After arriving at the Comics and More, I discovered that there were no remaining copies of a book I was planning to purchase Read more of this article »