R. Kelly – Write Me Back

As a person of sound mind, I have never listened to R. Kelly before and all I knew about the man was that he was accused of peeing on some ridiculously young girl a few years back. However, Write Me Back is surprisingly fantastic… it’s like if Burt Bacharach was cool, and not old, and possibly not dead. Really not sure on that last one. Synths are far from ear, and there are flutes… beautiful cheesy flutes. I really love this, almost all the songs are just a smidge over the perfect three minutes, and it sounds like some lost ’70s R&B songbook. Now we all just gotta relax, put it on, break out some terrible unsubtle wine, sit for a time in the hot tub, get all out of our polyester clothes and get our sweet sweet water sports on baby…

The Temper Trap – The Temper Trap

How many bands can you name that are as dull as The Temper Trap? Keane maybe? The most fascinating aspect of the band is that the lead singer’s name is Dougy. I really hope that the idea of ripping off early Radiohead ripping off early U2 dies soon, for some reason it has survived and flourished for far too long. In the words of Smokey the Bear, “Only you can prevent forest fires”, by which I mean, please, please don’t pay money for this swill just because it’s Australian and for some reason our law requires you to worship their louse ridden and bullshit encrusted mouth holes. That was a little harsh… just don’t buy it, if you do, you have failed a moral challenge and will surely plummet in a spiral of shame into a pit full of mediocrity and regret.

Regina Spektor – What We Saw From the Cheap Seats

I’m a little late on this one because I’ve been lazy and marathoning Breaking Bad, but I wanted to include this one, as it is a great collection of songs and sometimes you need to take a break from Bryan Cranston cooking meth in his underwear. What We Saw From the Cheap Seats expands on Regina Spektor’s usual schtick, and for the first time in her catalogue uses guitars to great effect—instead of sounding awkwardly incongruous like one of those adult baby fetishists at a bris (see Seinfeld’s “The Bris” for clarification, if you haven’t already you sick freak).

Beach House – Bloom

Another one I’m late to the party on but merits a mention as it is one of the best albums to come out this year. Far from the hipster-nonsense bin I had formerly thought Beach House surely belonged in, this is well-crafted and dreamy pop music well above the standard of the moronic swill that is perpetually farmed out to anyone who likes fuzz pedals and gloomy looking girls in ripped tights and grandma knits. That said, it has got a hidden track, which is one of the stupidest things you can possibly do in an era where albums will be mostly consumed in the form of mp3s and everyone can see it is there and has to sit waiting awkwardly while eight minutes of silence just drags on and on and on while you stare across at some person you don’t really care about.