MY 2008 BALTIMORE CITY PAPER TOP TENS

NATIONAL MUSIC

Matmos, Supreme Balloon (Matador)
The Atlas Sound, Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel (Kranky)
Prurient, And Still, Wanting (No Fun)
Jason Crumer, Ottoman Black (Hospital Productions)
Silver Jews, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea (Drag City)
Harry Pussy, You'll Never Play This Town Again (Load)
Nisennenmondai, Neji/Tori (Smalltown Supersound)
Burning Star Core, Challenger (Hospital Productions)
Thurston Moore, Sensitive/Lethal (No Fun)
Little Joy, Little Joy (Rough Trade)

LOCAL MUSIC

Ponytail, Ice Cream Spiritual (We Are Free)
Human Bell, Human Bell (Thrill Jockey)
Wye Oak, If Children (Merge)
Cash Slave Clique, White Props (Panic Research Audio)
Beach House Devotion (Carpark)
Jason Willett, The Sounds of Megaphone Limited (MT6)
Wilderness, k(n)o(w)here (Jagjaguwar)
Teeth Mountain, Teeth Mountain (self-released)
Whistletips, Mother Fuckers (MT6)
Rosemary Krust Slow Amber (MT6/Spleen Coffin)

BOOKS

1. Jhumpa Lahiri Unaccustomed Earth (Knopf)
2. Marcus Reeves Somebody Scream!: Rap Music’s Rise to Prominence In The Aftershock of Black Power (Faber and Faber)
3. Tara Yellen After Hours at the Almost Home (Unbridled)
4. Carl Wilson Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste (Continuum)
5. John Joseph The Evolution of a Cro-MagNon (PUNKHouse)
6. Elizabeth Farrelly Blubberland: The Dangers of Happiness (MIT Press)
7. James Howard Kunstler World Made By Hand (Atlantic Monthly Press)
8. David Browne Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth (Da Capo Press)
9. Grant Bailie Mortarville (Ig)
10. Sebastian Horsley, Dandy in the Underworld (Harper Perrenial)