
We've made to the fat on top, or the fruit at the bottom, in other words the top ten…I bought way too many seven inch singles this year. I'm not trying to brag. It's a problem really. The seven inch is like crack to the record geek, a fleeting moment of pop perfection and then it's off to either flip the record or put on another one. This was a daunting task this year and I feel like I left out a lot of stuff, but a top 60 would have been too much and limiting it to 40 makes [...]

Here is our usual end of the month round up of the very best tracks posted on Mad Mackerel, with a couple of new ones too. A perfect mixtape for May. Wilderness of Manitoba – Hermit mp3 Intimate and gorgeous, with haunting guitar lines and beautiful harmonies. Buffalo Moon – Beach Boy mp3 Summery pop, beach references, breezy beats and sweet lounge vocals. Sun Kil Moon – Australian Winter mp3 Sparse, bleak and mesmerising. Lille – [...]

We're a little late to this one, 600,000 Bands being a 73 single that came out at the tail end of 2009. However, it is one of those songs that once you've heard it, you shake your head, play it again and see if it was quite as original and surprising as you first thought. It is! The band, Felt Letters , are a trio from Washington DC with Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty propelling the song along as vocalist Ian Svenonius intones a lyrical diatribe about the vast number of bands that are trying [...]

photo from Consumer Reports I can't remember a previous January where there has been this much new music coming out, but I'm old and my synapses don't connect they way the use to. I do remember maybe a few releases trickling out at the end of January and then not much happening until March or April. Well, it's a new decade and we've hit the ground running, out with the old, etc. The last few weeks have been total pop overload, and to give you an idea of the crazy amounts of good [...]