Last night I ran around cleaning up my messes around the house, awaiting Jen’s return from her parents’ place. I plugged a vodka tonic in and let her talk for a couple of hours, and she went down hard at about 1am. This week we have a few minor gift items to wrap up, and we’ll celebrate our own holiday outside the vortex on Thursday evening.

Here’s something to read and think about as you throw that credit card down to pay for sparkly presents under the tree.

Looks like everybody’s doing their top ten lists already; I’d have one for you here, and it would be nothing but new 2004 music, but money for new CD’s is a luxury, which means I am at the gentle mercies of rich and generous friends. I’ll attempt to give you an unordered list here with stuff I’ve found in 2004, which is almost as good as the real thing.

• The Presets, Girl and The Sea (via MP3Blog.) Catchy, bleep and drum-machine pop with strong melodies and instrumental breaks. Somewhere between Howard Jones, New Order, and a sprinking of the Fixx. But better.
• Styrofoam/Death Cab For Cutie/Postal Service/Dntel – I’ve written about it here before, and you’ve most likely heard it already. Just get some.
• Franz Ferdinand – Yeah, again, you’ve heard it before. Good stuff.
• The Secret Machines, Now Here Is Nowhere. Good alterno-prog rock-type-stuff, with vocals that balance on the edge of annoying.
• The Go! Team, Thunder Lightning Strike (via MP3Blog.) There are no words to describe this, other than hyperactive cheerleader multiple-personality disorder. Clap yo hands.
• Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, Shake The Sheets. Excellent stuff. Sort of a newer, 2000’s Look Sharp era Joe Jackson.
• Skalpel, Sculpture (via MP3Blog.) Very ambient, quiet, jazzy mood music. I’ll be buying the rest of this one.
• Spacemonkeyz vs. Gorillaz (via MP3Blog.) I’ve heard one track from this, but the play ranking on my iPod tells me the rest of the album is most likely worth the price.
• The Killers, Somebody Told Me. The standout track on this album. The one I played over and over again.
• Probot – One half annoying, the other half inspired. Lemmy’s track is the gem on this one, but, hey man, he’s Lemmy.
• The Shins, Chutes Too Narrow. – Thanks Rob. Good stuff, this.
• The Stranglers, Golden Brown (via MP3Blog.) – The first song ever to convince me that harpsichord might not be evil after all. You’d really have to hear it.
• Air, Talkie Walkie – besides being straight-to-commercial fodder, there are a ton of good tracks here. Mike Mills was in heavy rotation this fall.
• Kings of Convenience, Quiet Is The New Loud. A Scottish Simon & Garfunkel. Beautiful music.

Got something to add? Drop me a line.