A Chilling Preview of Things to Come

Happy July 4th party people. I hope your weekend was made up of onion-laced burgers, pool parties, blueberry peach tarts, kielbasa sausages, the lovely bay from Sausalito and endless pints of Fat Tire. Just me? Well, shoot, I didn't mean to brag.

Independence Day always reminds me that we've made half way though the year. I just wanted to let you know for the next two weeks, not only will I be pushing my beloved Oakland A's to keep the hot streak going (along with the "Winner Gets Homefield in the World Series"-advertised All Star game), I will be coutning down all of my hits from the first half of the year.

Yes, if I know anything about music critics it's that, as much they might deny it, they love making lists. Now, I'm ain't going around tellin' nobody I'm some hotshot critic, but let me tell you, I love making lists.

I will be shouting out 25 of my favorite songs so far in 2005 for an awesome mixtape (which is really for me, so I have no idea whyI felt the need to include that). I've already put in tons of thought into who's made the cut and I can already tell you these guys barely missed out: Stephen Malkmus ("Pencil Rot"), Animal Collective f/Vashti Bunyan ("Prospect Hummer"), Keren Ann ("Le Forme et le Fond"), Gorillaz ("Last Living Souls"), Okkervil River ("Black"), Jennifer Gentle ("Tiny Holes"), Patrick Wolf ("Teignmouth"), Electrelane ("Bells"), Petra Haden ("Our Love Was") and The Russian Futurists ("Paul Simon"). It should be also very apparent that I'm horrible at making decisions especially conerning what goes on the list, thus the mini-list above. And while I'm at it, The New Pornographers "Use It" is a fabulous song, but there's still about a month before Twin Cinema is released and I have a solid 5 months to sing my praises. There is time.

So alright! Let the real list begin! Uh, tomorrow.