I’m not a fan of OK Go. That’s not backlash against the band’s impossible-to-avoid videos from a few years back, but rather a reaction to the band’s music, which I find cloying, and it’s stage presence, which is annoying. A slot opening for Fountains of Wayne several years back left me aggressively hostile toward the band.

But this week it offers another of those benchmark moments in the shift from tangible plastic to intangible bits in the world of popular music. This might not hit the history books the way Radiohead’s pay what you want model did (or even OK Go’s viral marketing model did), but it’s certainly instructive.

In an open letter on the band’s message board, singer Damian Kulash explained why the band’s new video for the song “This Too Shall Pass” is not embeddable on blogs and other web sites. At least, why the version on YouTube is not. That’s strange, given that the very act of embedding YouTube videos for “A Million Ways” (the backyard dance) and “Here it Goes Again” (the treadmill dance) is what made the band big enough to deserve making a third album in the first place.

It comes down to money, of course. The band’s label, EMI, has a deal with YouTube, as do other labels, to pay a fee each time one of its videos is played. The catch? The plays aren’t tabulated on embeds, so EMI wants everyone to watch on YouTube. Kulash understands, enumerating the various ways the label has funded his band’s efforts, but also is frustrated because its success is largely predicated on the band’s own actions and the way fans spread those actions around the globe.

Kulash finds a workable solution that does undercut YouTube and EMI, but adheres in principle to what both parties want: He sends fans to Vimeo, where they can find a legit embed code. So, they end up with a higher-res version that cuts YouTube out all together, and the whole thing might just help the band to duplicate — on a much smaller scale — its success with the previous two videos.

You can see the video below. The song is catchy, showing the band making some real strides (literally, as you’ll see, and figuratively). The problem is that the video version of the song is altered to mesh with the marching band theme, and that version is significantly better than what the band came up with for its album. The marching band drums, the swelling horn section… it’s an inventive tune. On record, it feels like the same old thing.

Surprise, surprise: album sales continue to drop in the U.S. Industry folks will blame illegal digital downloads, and there is certainly a case to be made. But the real culprit is likely the abundance of free and legal ways to hear music coupled with the disposable nature of what is produced. When you can hear a bad song once, you’ve no need to drop money on the right to hear it again and again.

According to industry figures, album sales dropped for the eighth time in nine years, falling 12.7 percent to 373.0 million units in 2009. Want to know why? Michael Jackson, whose sole appeal during the year was that he died, was the top selling artist. He didn’t release new music during the year, which means the rest of the world’s artists couldn’t compete with someone whose music is already in many, many collections. Taylor Swift and Susan Boyle also were in the upper reaches. I’m sure Swift is a nice girl, but I haven’t heard a note of her music and can’t say I feel any detriment from that lack. And Boyle is a novelty who was guaranteed to sell. No one else singing that kind of material will ever sell like she did, so that’s an anomalous blip and nothing more.

While Internet piracy is blamed, it’s interesting to see that in a recessionary year, spending on concerts actually increased. Could it be true, as often stated, that getting music into peoples’ hands, however it is done, can create fans willing to spend money on other experiences? That seems to be the case.

Legal downloads continue to climb, with sales rising 8.3 percent to 1.16 billion tracks. Most amazingly, some tracks sold more than 4 million digital copies. That’s an amazing statistic that shows people are engaged with music, they’re just choosing to get it in different ways. Has a single in any past format — 7″ vinyl, cassette or CD — ever come to 4 million in sales? It seems as if the era of ubiquity in pop singles is over, but I’m probably wrong, chalking it up to the fact that I’m old and haven’t listened to anything but NPR on the radio in a decade.

One report on the sales figures from the Chicago Tribune‘s Gret Kot points out “one of the more delightful oddities of the digital era, vinyl album sales continued their recent resurgence. Though representing only a small fraction of the overall market, vinyl is the one physical product that continues to defy trends, with sales up a whopping 33 percent to 2.5 million.”

That’s no surprise, however. People willing to spend money on music are passionate about it. The most passionate are those willing to spend money on vinyl. While a digital download is an afterthought, a vinyl purchase is a declaration of intent: I like this artist and want the most permanent artifact I can acquire to cement that fact. There is more great music being made than ever before, it’s just not selling worth a darn.

A new Spoon album is a big event, so I carved out time to give the stream up on NPR this week a listen. The verdict? I’d say it’s not what I expected, but with Spoon, it’s difficult to know what to expect. It feels like both a logical progression from the last two albums and a retrenchment of sorts to the sound of the two before that. Somehow, it is all of those things, and yet what it most resembles is the new Spoon record. How’s that for circular logic?

Here is a track-by-track first impression. Listen for yourself here.

1. Before Destruction – A keyboard that sounds like something lifted from Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan anchors the beginning of this track, with that giving way to rather lo-fi vocals from Britt Daniel as the song builds (or rather, deconstructs). This sounds like a demo that was used as the base of a finished track. Given Daniel’s acumen and the fact that the band produced itself for the first time here, that’s entirely possible. It’s a slightly odd opening track, because it isn’t immediately gripping, but as a scene setter, it may very well be the perfect introduction. Some nice backing vocal effects as the song progresses add some beneficial texture. I may be humming this a couple of weeks from now after a few spins, but for now I’ll file it in the “grower” category.

2. Is Love Forever – Ah, much more Spoon-like, with Daniel’s stabbing guitar chords driving things from the get-go. A slightly out-of-sync doubled vocal track gives this a spacey, out of focus vibe. I keep waiting for the drums to fully kick in and propel the song into a more dynamic chorus, but so far, no go. Again, not much to latch onto here. It’ll click eventually, but Daniel’s typical sticky melodies are absent here.

3. The Mystery Zone – Even more Spoonesque. If you seek a first single, this could suffice. The beat is more traditional, the melody more conventional and the sound more fleshed out. This could easily appear on any of the band’s last three albums, though it does hark back more specifically to Kill the Moonlight. That’s the dilemma, however; because this sounds most familiar, it has the most appeal now yet will probably be one of the tracks that wearies most readily. There’s a nice long unadorned Jim Eno drumbeat that would make a nice sample for a future rap single. Heads up, Kanye.

4. Who Makes Your Money – This is a strange one with an odd little keyboard line driving it before Daniel starts singing in a restrained, almost pained way: “Japanese John, his slight face fur/Still just as confused, still just as sure.” The chorus finds Daniel singing the title in a phased way that brings to mind the old hit “Crimson and Clover.” Then, about half way through, a slight guitar riff pushes the song, both rhythmically and sonically before fading to let the keyboard figure back to the surface. After a couple of albums where Spoon added layers back to its sound after the spartan Kill the Moonlight, this feels like an about-face back toward the stripped-down aesthetic.

5. Written in Reverse – The first song made available as a stream (not counting “Got Nuffin,” which anchored an EP last year) has a bit of a Paul McCartney vibe, with the 4/4 drums and a pounding piano as a complementary rhythm instrument. It, too, recalls past Spoon albums, but this time out it’s Girls Can Tell, the album that found the band’s reach and grasp aligning to produce a clutch of wonderfully off-kilter pop songs. Daniel sings with conviction here while the guitars slash and dive. It has a nice false ending, too.

6. I Saw the Light – The tempo doesn’t shift much between these two tracks, with the beginning of “I Saw the Light” almost feeling like an extension of “Written in Reverse.” Then, about halfway through. The song morphs into a double-time instrumental propelled by piano and bass. Guitars again slash through as the song builds, but it never feels like a part of the same song.

7. Trouble Comes Running – Lowest of the lo-fi, at least for the first few second, with a creaky strum replaced by full-on rock. Daniel sings what sounds like “I was in a functional way, I had my brown sound jacket, queen of call collect on my arm.” While the backing continues to sound lo-fi, as if cut on a four-track, the vocals and guitars sound hi-fi, giving them prominence in the speakers. The song is a kick, with some nice mid-60s Who backing vocals on the chorus and a generally ramshackle stumble of an arrangement.

8. Goodnight Laura – If memory serves, the first true Spoon ballad. Over nothing more than a piano, Daniel sings what amounts to a lullaby. There is nothing crafty or obtuse about the lyric; it’s simply telling Laura, whoever she may be, that everything will be all right and that it’s OK to go to sleep. A sweet song that shows more range than Daniel has revealed previously.

9. Out Go the Lights – A bit of normalcy after some more challenging (by mainstream standards, of course) tunes. This is the most straight-forward song on the album, though it is still spare and, thanks to its mid-tempo beat, will rely on multiple listens to reveal its charms. Daniel seems to be doing more with backing vocals on this album, and the oohs and ahhs that buttress his main vocal here are a good example of their effective use. This staggers to a close more than ends, with instruments falling away to leave only Eno’s drums to carry things to the conclusion.

10. Got Nuffin – This is the oldest track here, and it fits well with the album. Given Spoon’s penchant for non-LP releases, I’d have preferred leaving it to its namesake EP to make way for another new song here, but it does give the album a needed boost of energy in the penultimate spot. Along with “The Mystery Zone,” this is the most Spoon-like track on the album, a propulsive rocker with a solid hook and well-placed guitar lines. It’s also the only track that makes use of Daniel’s unique spelling, with past song titles like “Don’t You Evah” and “Rhthm & Soul” earning the scorn of English teachers.

11. Nobody Gets Me But You – The burbling bass and drum machine make this sound like an outtake from a 1980s DeBarge record, but Daniel clearly makes the song his own in short order. Could this be a paean to the listener: “No one else gets what I’m doing,” he sings. Of course, given the band’s rising profile and growing commercial footprint, that’s not such an exclusive club. This is a strange closer, but, like much of the album, that obtuse nature makes me want to listen again to figure out all of the angles, and that’s not a bad trait for an album to possess.

All told, this isn’t the album I expected from Spoon, nor is it necessarily the one I wanted. But Spoon has succeeded and thrived precisely by delivering the unexpected, and Transference will likely be no different. If this feels like a retrenchment of sorts, it’s at least a return to a time when Daniel and his band found very fertile ground to explore. While certain tracks c
ould be considered growers, the entire album feels that way when one takes a step back. While “The Mystery Zone” and “Got Nuffin” offer immediate rewards, tracks like “Who Makes Your Money” and “Nobody Gets Me But You” surely will offer the highest yields over the long term. Transference is a good record that, with enough dedicated listening, promises to be a great one.

2009 was the year that I “got” the Knife, thanks to the marvelous solo debut of Karin Dreijer Andersson under the name Fever Ray. That led me back to 2006′s Silent Shout, which placed high on many best-of lists that year but which eluded my ears.

With that background, I’m primed for whatever the duo has to offer from here on out, and it seems as if I’ll be handsomely rewarded with their next effort. The pair, in collaboration with performance artist Mt. Sims and and musician/visual artist Planningtorock, will release the Tomorrow, In A Year, a work commissioned by Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma for its opera based on Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species. It will be available by digital download on Feb. 2, and in stores March 9.

There are certainly elements of opera in the first track released from the set, the 11-minute “Colouring of Pigeons,” but it is even more interesting for the revelation it provides about the Knife and where it is capable of traveling. There is more warmth and space in the music than on past work from the duo, easily absorbing the operatic elements to create a unique and captivating hybrid. The learning curve to get there was steep, according to Dreijer:

“We’d never been to one. I didn’t even know what the word libretto meant. But after some studying, and just getting used to opera’s essence of pretentious and dramatic gestures, I found that there is a lot to learn and play with. In fact, our ignorance gave us a positive respectless approach to making opera. It took me about a year to become emotionally moved by an opera singer and now I really do.”

To hear “Colouring of Pigeons,” visit the band’s web site.

Is a pending greatest hits disc from Pavement the final sign that indie rock is all grown up or that it’s dead? However you see it, Quarantine the Past will signal that event upon its March 9 release.

The obvious thing for a blogger to do at this point is to nitpick and/or parse the tracklisting. Alas, the folks at Matador have turned that exercise into a game. Or rather, a contest. The collection will feature 23 tracks, the first of which is “Gold Soundz.” If you’re the entrant who comes closest to picking the correct order, you’ll win a pair of tickets, with flights and hotel rooms, to see Pavement at Central Park Summerstage on Sept. 21. Not a bad prize. A few more hints, via the Matablog: “3 pre-Matador tracks are included, plus one song that originally came out on a compilation. Every Matador album is represented, plus Watery, Domestic.”

That means “Box Elder” and two more from the Westing (By Musket and Sextant) collection, as well as a smattering of “hits.” I’ll certainly give the contest a shot. How much might that package net on eBay?

In other news, Matador reports that it’s biannual release of a deluxe version of one of the band’s albums will culminate this fall with the band’s swan song, Terror Twilight.

2009 was a very good year to be a Big Star fan. Rhino graced us with a boxed set that gathered up seemingly every stray sound recorded by the band, while a limited-edition two-CD version of Chris Bell’s lone solo album (the posthumous I Am the Cosmos) rescued every scrap he laid down.

But, strangely enough, the best Big Star-related thing wasn’t something you could listen to, but rather something you read. Bruce Eaton’s entry in Continuum’s excellent 33 1/3 book series dealt with Big Star’s Radio City, the band’s sophomore outing. In the book, Eaton offers not only the most complete history of Big Star during that period, but he actually gets the notoriously difficult Alex Chilton to talk about that era. He places the album in its proper context both in terms of the work of the musicians involved and its place on the music continuum in general. In doing so, he does what the best 33 1/3 books do: He gives new life to an album that rabid fans likely thought they had completely absorbed. I came away with a much better understanding and appreciation of a favorite album, hearing it in a completely different — and superior — way.

Eaton knows of what he writes. He backed Chilton on some concert dates in 1979, has promoted concerts and written about music. All of this experience is brought to bear on his subject. Any Big Star fan worthy of the name has or soon will acquire the boxed set and the Bell release. But to really appreciate what you’re hearing, getting a copy of Eaton’s book is essential.

By the way, that’s Eaton in the photo above, performing with Chilton on June 23, 1979, at McVan’s nightclub in Buffalo, N.Y. Eaton keeps a great blog where he writes about the book, the band and his other experiences in the world of music.

TIRBD: Why Radio City and not #1 Record or Third?

BE: A few reasons. It’s the Big Star record I heard first and spent about six months absorbing it before I could track down a copy of #1 Record. Also, given that I could only write about one record, Radio City encompasses the range of Big Star the most of the three records. You can relate #1 Record to Radio City and Radio City to Third, but Third doesn’t really connect to #1 Record unless you’re familiar with Radio City. I thought it would provide the broadest platform for the living central members to discuss. It would be hard to write about #1 Record without Chris, and Third wouldn’t include John Fry much, let alone Andy Hummel (or even promo man John King). So it was the best of the three to explore Big Star and tell a good tale in the process.

You spend a lot of time with John Fry, which was illuminating. Why do you think other analyses of Big Star’s sound have given him short shrift, and how important is he to that sound?

John was everything to the classic power pop Big Star sound. He built the studio, chose the equipment, taught everyone how to use it, gave them the time and space to experiment, and laid down the standards for how things were recorded at Ardent. And he by all accounts was an exacting genius at recording and mixing. Listen to a Raspberries album back to back with Radio City. The difference is 99% Fry. And as Richard Rosebrough said, Radio City was his zenith.

I think John has been overlooked for a few reasons. First off, he retired from working behind the board fairly soon after Big Star so he didn’t really build up a significant body of work over decades. A lot of what he did wasn’t really high profile in terms of big credits on albums (Stax) or big hit records. You really have to read the fine print on albums to pull together his resume. It happened over a relatively short period of time over 35 years ago. Also, John doesn’t fit the image of a rock and roll guy. He looks and dresses like an engineer working in the business world. He’s a fascinating, down-to-earth guy. I thought his personal story was really fascinating. Those teens in the 50s doing all those grown-up things — recording, broadcasting, setting up businesses, flying planes… really amazing. Getting to know him a bit was for me a major highlight in writing the book.

Listening to #1 Record, Radio City, Third and some early Chilton albums, I’m struck by how clear the evolutionary line of his sound is. Why is the common story that he radically changed, and why is Radio City seen as being of a piece with #1 Record when it’s clearly a transitional record between chiming power pop and atmospheric oddity?

I think the main reason for this is the change in producer/engineer from Radio City to Third. I’ve sometimes tried to listen to Third imagining what it would have sounded like with Fry behind the board and doing the mix I think then that the three albums would have seemed more to be part of continuum rather than Third being a sharp left turn.

You got more out of Chilton than anyone else in a long time. Do you think you understand his motivations and goals for Radio City now in a way you perhaps didn’t before?

Great question and, yes, I do see it all a bit differently. I think that Radio City represented at the time a natural progression for him. He had been in the Box Tops, a band over which he had little creative control, if any. He had fooled around with solo material and recordings but probably realized he had a way to go. He had joined Big Star as an already existing artistic platform and a step up from the Box Tops as they were a “real rock band” and he would be allowed to contribute freely. So when the suggestion was made to make another record (Radio City), my guess would be it seemed like a n
atural and easy progression. When he joined Big Star, he was a co-pilot to Chris’s vision. Now he would be the pilot more or less and free to follow his muse in terms of experimenting with song structures and recording. I think he probably saw it as yet another way to grow as an artist within a band and environment that he felt comfortable with. He liked all the people involved, it’s all right around the corner from where you live: why not give it another try?

I also think it was probably the last time he allowed himself to be optimistic about the commercial potential for a project in any serious way. After the failure of Radio City, I think he makes records as musical statements and moves on. I doubt he’s ever looked at a copy of Billboard or any sales chart for any record he’s made since then.

There have been a lot of bands over the past couple of decades that are compared to Big Star or cite the band as an influence. Is there anyone who really captures Big Star, either in sound, attitude, songwriting or in some other way?

I think there are bands who are reminiscent of Big Star (or obviously imitative) but, as with any great band or artist, there isn’t anyone who really captures them because that’s really close to impossible. Everyone has influences. But the great bands are able to transcend their influences and become something unique, usually fairly early in their careers. When someone tells me that a band sounds like “X meets Y with a little bit of Z” I’m not really that intrigued. I’m far more interested in bands that sound totally like themselves (if that makes any sense). Think of any number of great bands from the 60s or early 70s. Whether it’s the Stooges or Santana (and you could spend all evening making a list), they started almost right off with a fully formed sound that transcended their influences. So while there are a number of really good bands that are influenced by Big Star that I can appreciate and who can even make for enjoyable listen or night out hearing live music, in the end I don’t think anyone captures the band. And I think that’s sort of the nature of the beast…

Perhaps it’s the fact that I turned 40 this year, or that my job was busier than ever, or that playing with my kids takes up a lot of the time I used to devote to music. Whatever the case, I found my tolerance for challenging music that required multiple listens before I would “get it” was limited. At the same time, I probably listened to more albums all the way through than I have in years. It was a case of constantly seeking out the new thing and being disappointed. So many bands were hyped this year (which is, of course, nothing new) that were good but nowhere near as great as promised. Woods, Dan Deacon, Fuck Buttons, Memory Tapes, Real Estate… the list goes on and on. I liked something on all of these, but none were anywhere near the best thing I’ve heard all year.

I found that what it came down to, the thing that put something on this list more than anything else, is that I enjoyed listening to it. Now, that may seem obvious, but any look at a usual end-of-the-year list proves that it is far from it. People often populate their lists with challenging music, either because they want to impress readers, or because they truly spent the time to figure out what was going on and want a pat on the back. I have certainly been guilty of that in the past.

Not this year. In 2009, if you didn’t captivate me right out of the gate, you were tossed on the one-and-done pile. That’s not to say there isn’t challenging fare on the following list, but rather that even the most perplexing albums at least had something that immediately grabbed me and made subsequent spins seem worthwhile.

With that, I present the Things I’d Rather Be Doing list of the best music of 2009. Following is a short list of great reissues and collections.

1. Deer Tick – Born on Flag Day – If fun and enjoyment are the bellwether’s of a great disc, then Deer Tick wins hands down. Born on Flag Day is the most rousing, irreverent goodtimin’ disc I’ve heard in a long time. John J. McCauley III succeeds despite the fact that his reach does not exceed his grasp; one feels like he has much better stuff in him, but what he’s doing now is still awfully good. Live, the band puts on the most entertaining show I’ve seen in years, and you can just tell that as good as songs like “Easy” and “Smith Hill” are, this is only the beginning.

2. Neko Case – Middle Cyclone – Neko Case has such an identifiable sound that one fears she’ll run out of ways to excel. No such worries yet, however. Middle Cyclone may well be her best album (and that’s saying something), because it finds ways to push her sound forward while making it clear that we’re still listening to Neko Case. Her songwriting, a pleasant surprise on Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, is in full bloom here, proving Case to be a formidable multi-talented performer.

3. Fever Ray – s/t – I never really saw the appeal of the Knife, the band of Fever Ray’s Karin Dreijer Andersson, but for some reason her similar solo work smacked me upside the head and forced me to listen. Where Silent Shout seemed unremittingly cold, the Fever Ray disc used that icy tone as simply one of many tools. The songs seemed more fully formed, and despite the chill, they were still a pleasure to listen to. Andersson’s gimmick of altering the pitch of her voice to add menace to the proceedings, deployed on the Knife’s music, worked even better here. The most revelatory thing I heard all year.

4. Flaming Lips – Embryonic – The F’lips last, At War with the Mystics, was awful, one of the worst albums from a beloved band I’ve ever heard. I had hoped Wayne Coyne and Co. would retreat somewhat, but never expected they would regress so far. Had this album come after the majesty of Zaireeka, no one would have been surprised. That this swirling cloud of cacophony and blissed-out beauty followed the band’s first true dud was the most pleasant surprise of 2009. There were no real singles, and it essentially stopped the band’s commercial momentum in its tracks. But it proved that the band has much more up its sleeve, and makes the future seem very bright indeed.

5. Grizzly Bear – Vekatemist – The Grizzly Bear backlash has begun, and it is not without merit. The band, while making gorgeous music, does so in a largely soulless, rather mechanical way. Vekatemist has its share of absolutely stunning music (“Two Weeks” is among the five best songs of the year without question), but it is music made seemingly without passion. That missing ingredient kept this disc away from the upper reaches of this list. Here’s hoping they find it in years to come.

6. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – s/t – Ah, sweet nostalgia. Had this been issued in the late 1980s on Sarah Records or K, it would be seen as a classic of the college rock era. Instead, it comes 20 years later, proving that at least someone who was listening to their big brother’s record collection was absorbing the lessons on display. This is a fun, raucous disc that sounds a bit like Belle and Sebastian had that band been formed in a garage instead of a college rec room.

7. St. Vincent – Actor – Annie Clark is a wildly talented woman: a singer, songwriter and guitarist who puts all of those skills to work on her sophomore outing to create a bracing rock album. It’s hard to point out any one thing and say, “this is St. Vincent.” Instead, Clark has (not so) simply assembled a disc of great songs that make the best use of her strengths.

8. Nirvana – Live at Reading – Truth told, this may be the best album of the year. It’s hard to award a nearly 20-year-old live album from a band that stopped making music more than 15 years ago the title of album of the year, however, so instead it sits here in the bottom of the top 10. There’s little that can be said that hasn’t been said before. This is one of the best bands of its generation playing its strongest songs in a take-no-prisoners performance before a powerful, adoring crowd.

9. DJ Spooky – The Secret Song – When I first popped this in, I was intrigued. As it continued to play, I was continually blindsided. Is that a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused”? At times this sounds like the great lost Beastie Boys album, at others it rivals the best of DJ Shadow or the Jurassic 5 or Springheel Jack. Translation: this is a little something of everything. By the end of its 20 tracks, you feel spent, but it isn’t long before the desire to cue this up again takes over. That’s a good thing, because it’ll take several spins before it all sinks in.

10. U2 – No Line on the Horizon - This pick will surely earn me some catcalls, but hear me out. “Get On Your Boots” is a fairly awful retread. “I’ll Go Crazy if I Don’t Go Cr
azy Tonight” is Bono the old man trying so hard to connect with the kids and failing so miserably. “Unknown Caller”‘s lyrics peppered with computer terminology are inane. That would be enough to sink most albums, but not this one, for the rest of it is as accomplished and flat out stunning as anything U2 has made since Achtung, Baby 20 years ago. “Magnificent” is the kind of anthem you wished the band had cranked out instead of by-the-numbers tunes like “Vertigo” and “Beautiful Day,” while the title track is a perfect blend of the band’s pomp and producer Brian Eno’s circumstance. And for the band to be able to craft something as beautiful as “What as Snow” at this point is remarkable.

11. Love Language – s/t
12. Yo La Tengo – Popular Songs
13. The xx – s/t
14. Joe Henry - Blood from Stars
15. Bonnie Prince Billy – Beware
16. Gomez - A New Tide
17. John Wesley Harding - Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead
18. Ike Reilly – Hardluck Stories
19. The Dead Weather - Horehound
20. Boston Spaceships – The Planets are Blasted

Reissues/Collections

Nick Lowe – Quiet Please
Emitt Rhodes – The Emitt Rhodes Recordings 1969-1973
Tin Huey - Before Obscurity
The Jayhawks – Music from the North Country
Big Star - Keep an Eye on the Sky
Richard Hell – Destiny Street Repaired
Close Lobsters - Forever Until Victory

It’s a shame that it took Chris Knox having a stroke to lead to this, but the new 2-CD tribute to Knox, Stroke, is a fantastic collection of songs from the New Zealand songwriter performed by 34 simpatico artists. The proceeds from the set go to help Knox, who suffered a life-altering stroke on June 11 of this year.

Albums like these are usually a bit spotty, but the participating artists all seem to not only understand Knox and his music, but are able to approach it with the same wild and wooly spirit he brought to his songs.

The disc is a who’s who of New Zealand pop, with luminaries like the Chills, Peter Gutteridge, Shayne Carter (Straightjacket Fits), Alec Bathgate, the Bats, David and Hamish Kilgour and others in the fold. Several U.S. indie acts also contribute, from Bonnie “Prince” Billy to Bill Callahan to, most marketably, Jeff Magnum.

You can purchase the set right now digitally from Merge Records for just $11.99 ($14.99 for FLAC files) or spring for the limited-edition 2-CD set for $19.99. That one will be mailed in late February, but you’ll get the MP3 version right away. Do the right thing and spring for this. All of the money goes to help Knox with his recovery.

I saw Knox perform a solo show in the mid ’90s, and it was one of the most captivating, enjoyable shows I’ve seen. His energy made it all but impossible to remain passive, and his knack for strong hooks made each song a singalong despite my never having heard some of them before. To know that this energy was bottled up because of the stroke and the resulting health woes is saddening; to know that Knox seems hell-bent on recovery and that this 2-disc set might help in some small way to speed that process, makes it doubly good.

To learn more about the disc, go to its web site, which features information about each track and contributing artist.

Disc 1:
1. Jay Reatard – Pull Down The Shades
2. The Checks – Rebel
3. The Bleeding Allstars – Ain’t It Nice
4. Peter Gutteridge – Don’t Catch Fire
5. The Chills – Luck Or Loveliness
6. David Kilgour – Nothing’s Going To Happen
7. The Crying Wolfs – All My Hollowness To You
8. Stephin Merritt – Beauty
9. Portastatic – Nostalgia’s No Excuse
10. The Mint Chicks – Crush
11. Jay & Sam Clarkson – I’ve Left Memories Behind
12. Sky Green Leopards – Burning Blue
13. Shayne Carter – The Slide
14. Pumice – Grand Mal
15. Hamish Kilgour – Knoxed Out

Disc 2:
1. Boh Runga – Not Given Lightly
2. Red & Zeke (Feat. Bill Doss and Neil Cleary) – Bodies
3. Jeff Mangum – Sign The Dotted Line
4. Bill Callahan – Lapse
5. Genghis Smith – Growth Spurt
6. Yo La Tengo – Coloured
7. AC Newman – Dunno Much About Life But I Know How To Breathe
8. Alec Bathgate – Glide
9. Don McGlashan – Inside Story
10. Sean Donnelly – The Outer Skin
11. Lambchop – What Goes Up
12. The Mountain Goats – Brave
13. The Tokey Tones (and friends) – Round These Walls
14. The Bats – Just Do It
15. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – My Only Friend
16. The Finn Family – It’s Love
17. Jordan Luck – Becoming Something Other
18. The Verlaines – Driftwood
19. Lou Barlow – Song Of The Tall Poppy
20. The Nothing – Napping In Lapland
21. Tall Dwarfs – Sunday Son