10-PREFAB SPROUT-Let’s Change The World With Music (Kitchenware)
Veteran artists were the happy beneficiaries of the big appetite an audience of young and not so young people still has for everything coming from the last two decades of the XX century. Bands like Sonic Youth; Yo La Tengo or Super Furry Animals maintained a privileged position, fed by more than decent releases. Some came back to take their classics on stage (Pixies; The Vaselines); some others also dared to record new songs (Polvo; Built To Spill) or to rescue lost records from their career (Prefab Sprout’s follow up to “Jordan: The Comeback” which had been archived by Sony). And some even went two ways –Neil Young toured with hits anthology and kept on releasing lesser enjoyable material; Kristin Hersh got Throwing Music together for the festival circuit, whereas she gave away the bulk of her work with new band 50 Foot Wave. New supergroups like Monsters of Folk were also formed; but the saddest story of the year was the aborted return of Sparklehorse; whom after recovering from depression had put together an impressive project alongside Danger Mouse, for which alternative stars arrived en masse (Wayne Coyne; Gruff Rhys; Julian Casablancas; etc.) and even David Lynch offered exclusive photographic work for the accompanying book; just to see how it all turned sour when record label EMI prevented the release claiming some obscure copyright issues. The project went ahead in true XXI century manner in the format of the book plus a blank CD, with which the creators invited to illegally download the music.
9-BUILT TO SPILL-There Is No Enemy (Warners)
8-MEW-No More Stories Are Told Today…(Columbia)
7-MONSTERS OF FOLK-Monsters Of Folk (Rough Trade)
6-50 FOOT WAVE-Power + Light (50 Foot Wave) Free Download
5-SPARKLEHORSE & DANGER MOUSE-Dark Night Of The Soul (Unreleased)
4-SONIC YOUTH-The Eternal (Matador)
3-SUPER FURRY ANIMALS-Dark Days/Light Years (Rough Trade)
2-POLVO-In Prism (Merge)
1-YO LA TENGO-Popular Music (Matador)