Saint Motel – Forplay EP(2009) – Sorta anti-LA art glam rock with great visuals.
Santogold – Santogold (2008) – An America M.I.A. but I don’t know why.
Scissor Sisters – Ta-Dah (2006) – I know you prefer the first one but this has Elton’s best song of the decade, “I Don’t Feel Like dancing”.
Screaming Females – Power Move (2009) – It’s so new to me I’m not certain BUT it sounds like it is gonna grab me hard soon, sorta prog-punk fronted by Sleater Kinney.
Shakira – Laundry Service (2000) – It would be on here if only for “Underneath Your Clothes” but there is so much more. It’s a sorta salsa rhythm hip hop produced pop stroke with a dollop of Middle Eastern (she is my fellow countryman, being half Lebanese).
Shakira – She Wolf (2009) – After years of fixations, Shakira is back, with a deeply eccentric self-portrait masked as a dance album. Aaaawoooo.
Shinobi Ninja – Brooklyn To Babylon EP (2009) – Wiggers, flygirls and a heavy metal guitarist.
The Shins – Chutes Too Narrow (2003) – This band will change your life
The Shins – Wincing The Night Away (2008) – Their final album? Mercer’s greatest achievement to date: a dyseptic folk-rock skepticism mired in melody.
Sinead O’Connor – Faith And Courage (2000) – and sex.
Sinead O’Connor – Throw Down Your Arms (2005) – Jah willing, many a reggae fan will search out these lovely covers of obscure classics.
Solange – Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams (2008) – An alternative future of R&B.
Spider Bags – A Celebration Of Hunger (2007) – Country rock with a killer hangover it can only drink its way out of. Patrick of Titus Andronicus called it the album of the decade. I have it in my top ten.
Spider Bags – Goodbye Cruel World, Hello Crueler World (2009) – The difference between Celebration and this is: Cruel World doesn’t have a country song as good as “Waking Up Drunk” and Celebration doesn’t have a rocker as good as “Long White Desert Rose”. And both songs are better than anything the Stones -surely the antecedents to Spider Bags, released all year.
Steve Earle – Transcendental Blues (2000) – People think I’m paranoid and I admit I’m getting nervous about this guy, to paraphrase Stevie baby in a later song. One of the great songwriters fucking sucked all decade. Sure, there was a song here and a song there, but this was one of the great country-rockers of all time. The last time I was this sick of a songwriter? Rosanne Cash.
Stevie Wonder – A Time To Love (2005) – Prime Stevie? No. But good enough, believe me…
The Streets – Original Pirate Material (2002) – English rap. NO REALLY REALLY.
The Streets – A Grand Don’t come For Free (2004)- A concept album about how rap would sound with a great Brit pop chorus.
The Streets – The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living (2006) – You know all the shit that’s going down with Pete Doherty, fame and sex and drugs and drugs, the Streets really knew it and really explained it.
The Strokes – Is This It? (2001) – Yup, this is it.
The Strokes – Room On Fire (2003) – Talk to them now they are older.
The Strokes – First Impressions Of Earth (2006) Art rock pretending to be alt rock.