To Signal Kin

Though I am bored to death with the glut of year-end lists clogging up the majority of the music blogs that I read at the moment, I would like to point out that there are a few that I think are very smart and well written in spite of my rather extreme distaste for the very concept of such lists. Kyle Whelliston of the Intersection blog has put together a list of records that I’m mostly disinterested in, but his writing is consistently on-point and enthusiastic, and he’s kind enough to supply an MP3 from each album on his list. My favorite bit is his write-up for Sonic Youth’s Murray Street which offers a 9/11-centric take on the record that I think may be a bit of a stretch, but is still rather convincing. Meanwhile, Fred Sollinger over at Vain, Selfish, and Lazy has a list of pop songs which I mostly quite like a lot, with commentary that verges stylistically on being the kind of Village Voice critspeak that I tend to loathe, but somehow manages never to be anywhere near as dumb or as obnoxious as the average Voice review. The highlight for me thus far has been Fred’s review of the Fischerspooner remix of Kylie Minogue’s “Come Into My World”.