1. Madness – Muse – I know, I am even more shocked that this burning soul rock song, which uses the simplest of bass licks for the entire song, even replaying it on synth, even maintaining it through a fuzzy guitar solo, to all the rewards imaginable. This takes U2 in the late 80s and maintains it for a song. I have never come close to liking Muse till now – Grade: A
2. Children Of Darfur – Tomas Doncker – Tomas throws everything he has, including relentless bongos and background chicks, and if my complaint is the lyric is prosaic in the extreme, to pretify it with poetry would be to belittle it. The spoken word is horrifying. But it fails to transmogrify the horror, the primary intention of all art if not all polemics. I wish more people would fail like this – Grade: A-
3. Raging Down On Me – Jack Phillips – Off his next album, a gorgeous blues based song with more guitar than piano – Grade: B=
4. Taken For A Fool (feat Elvis Costello) – The Strokes – At MSG, Elvis blew the young turks away – Grade: A
5. Spitting Image – Freelance Whales – Bored me to death at Gov's Ball, this is over arranged indie rock – Grade: B
6. Hot Cheetos and Takis – Y.n.kids – Like being mugged by chipmunks – Grade: D+
7. Nothing's Gonna Stop Us – The Darkness – A song in search of an anthem and finds it in the chorus – Grade: A-
8. Reagan's Skelteon – Yeasayer – Why oh why did I buy a tix to see em at Summerstage? – Grade: C
9. One Day Like This – Elbow – They are English, right? – Grade: C-
10. Pound The Alarm – Nicki Minaj – Made in the US, just check the label – Grade: B-