The original title of this post was going to be “Free Crowded House!,” as in I have their new single “Saturday Sun,” which they briefly made available on their web site. I’d repost it here, but that just doesn’t seem right. Plus, I’m loath to do anything that HMFIC, who’s a lawyer, would disapprove of. Sorry, guys. For what it’s worth, it’s good.

The Silver Seas – The Best Things in Life
Their first album, High Society, is one of my favorite albums of the 2000s. Their new one, Chateau Revenge, isn’t far behind, and who knows, it may eclipse its predecessor. It’s not quite as high on the ’70s AM radio sound as the first one, but is yet another first-rate batch of classic pop songs just the same.

April Smith and the Great Picture Show – Movie Loves a Screen
I just love this girl’s voice. Impossibly sunny, and what great pitch. She doesn’t dance around notes – she fucking hits them, hard. And what a sweet refrain. “I just want to mean something to you.” I love a little moon-eyed optimism. It’s a nice antidote to our snark-laden world.

Grosvenor – Taxi from the Airport
Think Joe Jackson’s “Stepping Out” covered by Double (of “Captain of Her Heart” fame), and you’re close. Sophisticated synth pop.

Trentemoller – Sycamore Feeling (Remix Edit)
Fans of Hooverphonic and Propaganda, take note. This moody slice of electro-pop is right in your wheelhouse.

Burning Hotels – To Whom It May Concern
Next time the Airborne Toxic Event is looking for an opening act, they’d be wise to pick these guys.

Kids of 88 – Ribbon of Light
Is it wrong of me for wishing MGMT’s new one sounded more like this?

The Brute Chorus – Could This Be Love?
Attention, Anglophiles. Here’s your next UK buzz band. I like this one because it has a little American swagger in it.

Lawrence Arabia – Apple Pie
Yep, I’m still a sucker for the power pop stuff. Sue me.

The past decade to me was less about musical trends and styles, and more about how I listen to music. I’ve always been a mix tape guy, and as the ‘90s moved to Y2K, I was entering the world of burning mix CDs. But then around 2004, everything changed, and changed for the better, when I discovered iTunes. Now I could not only make up my own playlists from my music collection, but I could order single songs for 99 cents and add those to my collection. Suddenly I was re-discovering songs from my childhood and teen years, and basically every phase of my music-listening life. And I could arrange all those songs any way I liked…playlists galore and, as I described them, “kickass mixes.” Every four to six months, I make a new play list of what I’m currently listening to, and date that as a new Kickass Mix, something I can go back to that makes me remember what I was doing and feeling at that point in time.

As for the actual music I’ve been listening to and enjoying, there are a few acts that have entered my iTunes world this decade that have become favorites that I can’t get enough of, no matter how many times I listen: The Damnwells, the Silver Seas, Ari Hest, Jason Spooner and Butch Walker, to name a few. I know that radio is basically a shell of its former self and we find and listen to music in so many different ways, but I, for one, have fully embraced the digital world of music.

Here are my picks for top albums of the decade.
1. The Silver Seas: High Society
2. Jason Spooner: The Flame You Follow
3. Ari Hest: The Break In
4. Stereophonics: Langauge, Sex, Violence. Other?
5. The Damnwells: Air Stereo
6. The Southland: Influence of Geography
7. The Damnwells: One Last Century
8. Josh Rouse: 1972
9. Butch Walker: Left of Self Centered
10. Paddy Casey: Addicted To Company

RIYL: The Silver Seas, The Shins, The Feeling

Not to be confused with Jupiter Rising, the California duo who received a rather harsh, but fair, beatdown from our own Jason Thompson in 2006, this New York indie pop quartet brings the hooks by the truckload on their sophomore effort Sunshower. The heart of a late ’70s pop band beats at their core – check the cymbal ride, handclaps, and Moog solo in the super-cool “Simple Stones” – but they’re not hiding behind a gimmick. They’re like an American version of the Feeling, comfortable in the present but having more in common with rock bands of the past. “Flaming Arrow” would have fit perfectly on the Silver Seas’ album High Society (itself a brilliant modern-day slice of AM radio heaven), while the power popstastic “Anna” sounds like a lost song from an ’80s soundtrack (starring John Cusack, of course), and “Lights Go Out” recalls a more restrained Foo Fighters.

What this means is that Sunshower will be adored by soundtrack supervisors around the world, but will need a “Garden State” moment in order to break the band into the mainstream. This isn’t right or fair, but this is the music business we’re talking about; half the bands that sell millions don’t deserve it, and vice versa. Sunshower is one of the vice versas. (Rykodisc 2009)

Jupiter One MySpace page