Updated on 5/11/2012 to include: My Bloody Valentine’s Isn’t Anything and Loveless.  Who didn’t see this coming once they were finally released.

Updated on 12/9/2011 to include: Can’s Tago Mago [40th Anniversary Edition]. Apparently I missed this one.  Thanks to a few readers for pointing it out.  They got it right with this one; it’s a pretty great album.

Updated on 12/7/2011 to include: Throbbing Gristle’s 20 Jazz Funk Greats.  I don’t know anything about this album; this will change soon.

Updated on 11/28/2011 to include: The Smashing Pumpkin’s Siamese Dream Deluxe Edition.  Does this reissue deserve a perfect 10?  The answer is an overwhelming yes.  This is probably my quintessential album of the 90′s, or at least the one I remember listening to the most.  I’m certain that I  heard “Today” one million times during the early to mid-nineties.

Updated on 11/2/2011 to include: The Beach Boy’s The Smile Sessions. The legendary album finally gets a proper release and not surprisingly it lives up to all the hype built over the last forty some odd years. That’s impressive.

Updated on 10/21/2011 to include: Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock. A gorgeous album that I’ve never spent enough time with. Hopefully that will change soon.

Updated on 9/27/2011: to include Nirvana’s Nevermind [20th Anniversary Edition], an album more than worthy of the coveted perfect 10. Of course it also has the changing music as we know it thing going for it. Not to mention it was the soundtrack to my twelfth year, for no other reason than I knew it was supposed to be.

Updated on 1/11/2011: to include The Dismemberment Plan’s vinyl reissue of Emergency & I. I’m glad to see this album grab a perfect 10. I listened to it a lot last year as I started the slow painful journey to 30. Yep 30.

Updated on 11/22/2010: to include Kanye West’s album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.  This is the first real non-reissue to get a perfect 10.0 since Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot received a 10.0 in 2002.  It is also only the 12th “new” release to receive the coveted perfect 10.

This is pretty surprising,  I thought P4k was finished giving 10.0′s to new albums.  I guess I was wrong.  Although if a recent album deserves a 10.0 it is probably this one.  It’s one of those albums that I can’t quit listening to.   Every listen is such an emotional roller-coaster, but rewarding in the fact that it brings something new and amazing to the table.  It really is an incredible album that I’ll be listening too for a long time to come.

Updated on 11/3/2010: to include Weezer’s Pinkerton Deluxe Edition.

Updated on 6/10/2010: This update adds The Cure’s Disintegration [Deluxe Edition] to the perfect 10.0 list.

Updated on 5/19/2010: This update adds The Rolling Stone’s Exile on Main St. to this list.

Updated on 3/30/2010: This update adds Galaxie 500′s deluxe reissue version of On Fire to the list of perfect 10.0′s.

Updated on 3/8/2010: Pavement’s first retrospective compilation, Quarantine the Past, has been added to the perfect 10.0 list.

Updated on 3/2/2010: Pitchfork have added Spiritualized’s Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating in Space [Collector's Edition] to their list of perfect 10 reissues.

Updated on 12/11/2009: P4k have added Neil Young’s Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and After the Gold Rush reissues to their list of perfect albums.  A couple of good choices in my opinion.  Harvest missed out by receiving a 9.3.

Updated on 9/11/09: Jesus Christ all these perfect 10′s in one week has to be some type of record for P4k.  Today they handed out another one for the 20th anniversary reissue of the Stone Rose’s self-titled album.  For those counting they’ve issued seven 10′s this week.  Of course they’ve all been deserved in my opinion.

Updated on 9/10/09: To include the Beatles’ Stereo/Mono Remastered Reissues of The White Album and Abbey Road.

Updated on 9/9/09: To Include the Beatles’ Stereo/Mono Remastered Reissues of Rubber Soul, Sgt Pepper’s, Magical Mystery Tour and Revolver.

Updated on 8/25/2009: To include Radiohead’s Kid A: Special Collectors Edition.

Updated on 7/2/2009: To include R.E.M’s Reckoning (Deluxe Edition) reissue.

Updated on 5/26/2009: A commenter by the name of Chris was kind enough to point us to a web archive that shows Pitchfork as if it were 2001 (Thanks Chris!).  This is actually pretty fun  to look around.  The first news topic talks about Radiohead announcing the Amnesiac tracklist via bulletin board. After looking around for quite sometime I forced myself to focus and as a result I’ve updated all the links to show their original reviews. Some of these reviews I couldn’t find links to in the first place (cough cough Kiss) so there might be some new materiel for you guys to check out.

Updated on 4/20/2009: To include the Radiohead reissues of OK Computer and The Bends.

Updated on 3/26/2009: to Include Serge Gainsbourg’s Histoire de Melody Nelson.

Updated on 3/19/2009: It appears that in their recent site redesign Pitchfork decided to get rid of any album review that was over ten years old. This means reviews to albums like OK Computer, The Soft Bulletin and I See A Darkness no longer exist. I’m not sure why they did this, but I imagine it had something to do with reviews like this one.

Updated on 2/13/2009: to included the Beastie Boy’s 20th anniversary reissue of Paul’s Boutique.

Updated on 11/24/2008: to include R.E.M.’s Deluxe Edition of Murmur.

Regardless of how you feel about Pitchfork, I don’t think any of us can argue the sites relevancy within the small confines of our music world. Needless to say Pitchfork is always a polarizing topic. You have those that hate the sheer existence of it and consider the writers pretentious music elitists with a little too much power, and then there are those people who appreciate the site and rely heavily on its recommendations. Regardless of what side of the fence we are on when it comes to this issue, we all still inevitably read Pitchfork. Truthfully, I read it every day and I look forward to it. I don’t always agree with their reviews (I’m looking at you Fuck Buttons), but I have my coffee, check the news and right before I start working I check the Pitchfork reviews.

I do hate that so many people put so much stock in their reviews, but like it or not a good/bad Pitchfork review can make or break a band. Many people claim Pitchfork is responsible for breaking bands like Arcade Fire, Sufjan Stevens, Interpol, Wolf Parade, and Broken Social Scene. I think it’s safe to say all these bands have plenty of talent, but I’m sure the little nudge Pitchfork gave them didn’t hurt their chances. On the other hand a poor Pitchfork review can destroy a band’s career just as quickly. We all remember the monkey drinking its own piss review of Jet’s, Shine On, and the satirical review of the Black Kid’s Partie Traumatic.

I haven’t heard much from Jet lately, and I guess we will have to wait and see if the Black Kid’s can overcome their poor review. This got me thinking about how consistent Pitchfork has been with their reviews in the past, so I decided to try to find a list of albums that have received perfect 10.0’s throughout the years as well as a listing of those unfortunate albums that have received 0.0′s.. I didn’t have to look very long as some members of the Ateaseweb forum kindly pointed me to Pitchfork’s wiki page complete with all the information I needed.

I went ahead and linked to as many of the real reviews as I could, but some of them have been taken down over the years. The list is broken down into three categories. The first list includes actual albums that received 10.0’s upon first release, the second list included albums that received 10.0’s upon re-release, and lastly is the list of albums receiving a 0.0.

View the lists after the jump…

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Schoolboy Q’s album Habits & Contradictions might be the first contender of this young year. One listen through and I’m convinced we’ll be talking about this for 11.5 more months and then we’ll stop abruptly because it will be old news then. Anyways, it’s good.

Spotify that shit.

Buy the album here.

Sleigh Bells forthcoming album Reign of Terror will be available February 21 and we here at SDM are pretty excited about it. Check out two of the tracks below.

“Comeback Kid”

“Born to Lose”

Epic might be the best word to describe this. John Fullbright solo on the piano during the annual Cherokee Creek Music Festival in Cherokee, TX. (Via Music Fog)

It’s been a delightfully deep year for music. One might even say it was rolling in the deep. Sorry. Anyways, it really has been a great year for music which made putting an EOTY list together very difficult. This also helps explain why I am publishing it so late; I wanted to give every potential candidate a fair shake.

Annnnnnndddd here it is. After the jump that is.

If you hate cover art and soundcloud files for some reason you can skip to the very bottom for an easy to read list.

Also, haters gonna hate. Probably.

Oh yeah, here is a Spotify playlist to my top songs of 2011. RIGHT HERE!

Read the rest of this entry »

Hey Everyone.  Halloween is almost here.  You know what that is?  It’s great news, that’s what it is.  I’m sure we can all agree that Halloween is the kickoff to the best time of the year.  Yep.  I’m talking about sweater season. I’m so ready. Are you ready.  Of course you are.  That was a dumb question.  My apologies.

Anyways, I know that as far as scary songs go, most of these are a stretch.  The only real Halloweeny thing about most of them is a scary word in the title (deal with it).

Keeping with tradition I’ve left the songs from all my other Halloween posts. This years additions are at the top.

Enjoy, and happy sweater season.

The Evangelicals - The Halloween Song (mp3)

There are plenty more mp3’s after the jump…

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Another brilliant song and video from the Flaming Lip’s Steven Drozd and the tallest man in Oklahoma City, Alan Novey. What can I say about this? It kind of speaks for itself. Right? I guess I could say that Al and Steve are pretty amazing together. I wonder if Wayne is starting to get worried? Probably not.

Created by Delo Creative again.

Yep that Steven Drozd. Yep the one from the Flaming Lips.  And that’s Al Novey (The Tallest Man in Oklahoma City) doing a dynamite Neil Diamond.  What’s the deal with this?  Well, this just about says it all:

When an illustrious rock star and a golden-throated karaoke phenom are brought together by an insatiable love for Neil Diamond, the result is “You in Me.” It’s a collaboration so heartfelt, an homage so genuine, and a tribute to love in all it’s forms.

The video was shot by Delo Creative at my favorite winter time bar, Juniors.

RAWKKKKK!!! Look for Mastodon’s new album The Hunter on September 27th. Pre-order HERE!

Check out the new single, “You, Me & the Boatman”  from the Austin, Texas based five-piece, Quiet Company.

If you like what you hear you should probably go ahead and pre-order their  forthcoming album, We Are All Where We Belong (Oct. 4th) HERE and get 3 months of free Grooveshark Anywhere as well as a bandcamp download code for Quiet Company’s latest EP, Songs for Staying In, via email within 24 hours of your order.

As always, let us know what you think.

You, Me & the Boatman by Quiet Company

Here’s more info about the band if you liked what you heard:

Quiet Company is from Austin , Texas — a city rich in musical diversity, enormous talent and towering musical history—but the quintet brings their own unique brand of indie power pop that sets them apart.

What started as a solo project of prolific frontman Taylor Muse later became a full blown band with the addition of Tommy Blank (Guitar), Matt Parmenter (Bass), Jeff Weathers (Drums) and Cody Ackors (Trombone). Quiet Company has trademarked its celebratory pop-rock sound layered with introspective lyrics that explore love, death and incisive observations about human nature.

2010 was a breakout year of sorts for the five-piece group upon the release of “Songs for Staying In”, which features singles that landed regular rotations on almost every rock and pop radio station in Austin, and TV placements on MTV’s The Real World: New Orleans, E! Channel’s Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and ABC’s My Generation. The hard-earned buzz earned them a live taping in Austin City Limits Studio 6a, as well as acting roles (as themselves) in NBC’s former documentary drama My Generation.

The band’s latest endeavor, “We Are All Where We Belong”—mixed by legendary engineer Tim Palmer (Pearl Jam, U2, Goo Goo Dolls)—chronicles the many different emotions that a person goes through in a break up: sadness, resentment, self-doubt, but ultimately hope and the indescribable joy and freedom that comes from the realization of making the right decision.

“It is easily the most personal thing I’ve ever written,” Muse said. “It is, essentially, a break up record, only the romance that’s ending was between myself and religion.”

Musically, the album maintains the band’s richly arranged, consistently catchy pop hooks and encompassing vocal harmonies but explores new territory with full orchestral arrangements and new sonic textures. Lyrically, the album is a departure from the former “Songs For Staying In” but
the juxtaposition makes for an engaging, above-the-cut musical experience.

Quiet Company recently teamed up with Grooveshark and Rocket Science to release the new album. Leveraging the strengths of both companies to spearhead a truly progressive music marketing endeavor, the relationship provides a realistic strategy to provide a road map that artists can use to achieve success in a rapidly changing industry.

Since the band’s inception in 2005, Quiet Company has traveled the country far and wide, logging more than 400 shows since 2007 including performing in front of 10,000 people at KGSR’s annual Blues On The Green in Zilker park, several sold out shows at House of Blues and have had the opportunity to share the stage with bands such as Toadies, Rooney and Bob Schneider among others.