• It takes a brave human being to name a song “Gravy Rainbow,” but that’s what Disasteradio just did. It’s like Dan Deacon with fewer musical chops and more weirdness. That’s a compliment. The album, “Charisma,” is available for free, too. (thanks TNW) source

• Best of the year:

• 
  obvious
• 
  spazzy
• 
  ragged
• 
  beautiful
• 
  hypnotic
  

• Best of the decade:

• 
  balanced
• 
  literate
• 
  yes!
• 
  better
• 
  pioneer*

* – We know this choice is somewhat controversial, because people hate Ben Gibbard for no good reason. But we’re going to say it now: Without this album, you would not have the popular success of indie rock that you see today. “We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes” made it cool. At least cooler than Dashboard Confessional. Which as you might notice, is not on the list. Do you want us to put it on there? Or do you even want to remember “Screaming Infidelities”? Good. Death Cab’s album, beyond being a gateway drug for any college student, also has some pretty amazing songs on it. ‘Nuff said.

• 
  High-Speed Nudity In Matt & Kim’s simple, clever video for “Lessons Learned,” they run through Times Square stripping all along. Best part? The cops that tackle them totally weren’t planned, but make the video ten times better.
• 
  Carl Sagan, Remixed When we posted about this a few months ago, we were shocked at how well this remix worked. Beyond being a good video, it’s a good song – way better than most video mashups turn out being.
• 
  Oddity with a budgetDan Deacon’s been on the winning end of the viral video game before, but he’s clearly never had a budget as big as the one for “Padding Ghost,” which is way more palatable than those videos, but just as fun.

• Beyond his awesomely bizarro music career, player piano supergenius Dan Deacon is the constant target of viral videos, most famously “Drinking Out of Cups,” a Liam Lynch video based on a sonic experiment Deacon made over half a decade ago. Well, after a handful of comedians linked to this video (2.9 million views and counting), he was forced to clarify to the world: No, he wasn’t on acid when he made this. To make up for that, we were on acid when we watched it. source

• one Dan Deacon: King of Wham City, Baltimore hipster freak, Casiotone supergenius, holding the Raymond Scott baton for a new generation of hipsters. Awesome.
• two Deerhunter: Atlanta’s shoegazing innovators, creators of our favorite album of last year, complete with iconoclast lead singer Bradford Cox. Also pretty awesome.
• three No Age: Pretty much the band responsible for bringing noise back to the forefront of indie rock. Leaders of the scene at L.A.’s Smell hipster dwelling. Overrated.
• four The format: Round robin. All three bands set up at once. One band plays a song. The audience moves. Another band plays. The audience moves again. And so on. AWESOME! source

• one The L.A. band noise-rock HEALTH has managed to slowly expand its experimental roots into something palatable, as on stellar new single “Die Slow.”
• two Jay Reatard stinks live – he doesn’t really have stage presence – but he has solid individual songs, such as “See Saw” from last year’s “Matador Singles ’08.”
• three We really dig the noisy lo-fi electronica of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, especially when he covers Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia.”
• four Rough-’round-the-edges Psych-folkie Rodriguez, a Detroit native, became big without knowing it in South Africa thanks to “Sugar Man” and his 1970 album “Cold Fact.”
• five We’re big Dan Deacon fans here, and “Bromst” has yet to go off our musical radar. With songs like “Padding Ghost,” with its euphoric melodies, why would it?

• 8.5 rating of the Wham City dude’s new album source