But am now planning on at least checking out due to their proliferance on other people’s year-end lists (or specific comments on the lists of people whose other choices I am down with, even where they differ from me). (Largehearted Boy has a huge list of links to people’s lists. Fun, fun!)

• Bat for Lashes “Fur & Gold”
  
• Burial “Untrue”
  
• Justice “[cross]”
  
• The Field “From Here We Go Sublime” (‘quiet is the new loud’ / minimal techno)
  
• Animal Collective “Strawberry Jam”
  
• Jens Lekman “Night Falls Over Kortedala”
  
• Smashing Pumpkins “Zeigeist”
  
• Bowerbirds “Hymns for a Dark Horse”
  
• White Rabbits “Fort Nightly”
  
• Clorox Girls “J’aime Les Filles”
  
• Caribou “Andorra”
  
• Mavis Staples “We’ll Never Turn Back”
  
• Jarvis Cocker “Jarvis”
  
• Miranda Lambert “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”
  
• Avett Brothers “Emotionalism”
  
• The Perishers “Victorius”
  
• The Octopus Project “Hello, Avalanche”
  
• Akron/Family “Rise Above”
  
• Moonbabies “Moonbabies at the Ballroom”
  
• Franklel (Michael Orendy) “Lullaby for the Passerby”
  
• Lucy Wainwright Roche “8 Songs”
  
• Wintersleep “Welcome to the Night”
  
• The Cobbs “The Deathcapades”
  
• Vampire Weekend
  
• Au Revoir Simone

Already bought based on others’ lists:
Brother Ali “The Undisputed Truth” (like it!)
Albums/Bands for which I cannot even comprehend the hype (and I’ve even seen these acts live):
Battles
St. Vincent
Deerhunter
Surprising Comments:
One review referred to Ben Harper’s “Lifeline” as “tepid.” (But another had it #1.) You know I don’t think there’s anything tepid about that boy.
Hilarious reviews:
This dude’s take on Rufus Wainwright’s “Judy Does Carniegie Hall” is hilarious.
The comment that “Young Folks” made whistling cool again. “And we mean cool as in annoying.”
Great way to start a year-end list:
We’re already at the end of another godforsaken year…

New albums by two of my favorite bands of recent years:

• Athlete “Beyond the Neighborhood”
  
• The Thrills “Teenager

And trying out two new boys:

• Jeremy Fisher “Goodbye Blue Monday”
  
• Fionn Regan “The End of History”

Purchased:

• James Blunt “All the Lost Souls”
  
• Hard Fi “Once Upon a Time in the World”
  
• Eddie Vedder “Into the Wild” (soundtrack)

Considered, Sampled, But Ultimately Not Purchased:

• KT Tunstall “Drastic Fantastic”
  
• Aline Simone “Placelessness”
  
• Jesca Hoop “Kismet”

I was (clearly) all about the boys last night.

Albums:

• Kanye West “Graduation”
  
• Rogue Wave “Asleep at Heaven’s Gate”
  
• Meiko (thanks to Byron for the recommendation…see 9/6 entry)
  
• Tricot Machine (if Alison‘s listening to it, it must be good…)

Singles:

• Shiny Toy Guns “Le Disko” (you’ve heard this on a commercial, where they throw their cell phones at each other and the cell phones cut through their clothes…)