I'd like to whittle this down to 10 and do a proper write-up. Before that, though, I suppose I need to brainstorm. What albums from the last 10 years have been proper brilliant and have had lots of staying power? which are my favourites?

Hmm. In no particular order, my brainstorming list:

Witching Hour
The break-through. The tinny retro-electro sound of their debut got a bit edgier and more fully-fleshed out on Light and Magic, the foollow-up, but it was Witching Hour that blew the door off its hinges. It opens with High Rise, billowing around you like hot plasma,…

So, Sarah Slean's new album, The Baroness, is out.

It feels like Night Bugs and Day One never happened. I expected her to build on those, further explore her fiercely idiosyncratic style.

Instead, this feels like the follow-up to Blue Parade, an album which I appreciate but cannot say I love. I thought she'd found her voice with her last two albums, but I don't hear that same distinctiveness here.

From the unreleased songs I heard live during the Day One era, especially such as My Song, from the dark title and artwork, I expected something…

1. Mirrored - Battles
2. White Chalk- PJ Harvey
3. In Rainbows - Radiohead
4. American Doll Posse - Tori Amos
5. Myths of the Near Future - Klaxons
6. Is Is EP - The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
7. Oh, My Darling - Basia Bulat
8. Oh Perilous World - Rasputina
9. Songs from 5ideways - Peter Gresser
10. Volta - Bjork

I complain about Volta sometimes, but the 5 best songs on it are amazing (especially Wanderlust and Earth Intruders). The Rasputina album is a little disappointing in the context of previous efforts but it is still…

EDIT: So, unexpectedly, I've found this review copied and pasted onto this celeb-watch cultural-commentary blog, without even so much of a "I copied this from lastFM," let alone a link, or my name, let alone a "hey do you mind if I use this." NOT cool. /EDIT

Over-all, American Doll Posse, the new Tori Amos album, is very good. Certainly, it's miles better than The Beekeeper, but beyond that I'm having trouble ranking it among her other albums. As a whole it seems so different from them, yet individual tracks are so clearly like previous releases (i.e. Code…

I figured I'd sit down and try to name my 20 most favourite albums . . .

1. Hounds of Love - Kate Bush
2. from the choirgirl hotel - tori amos
3. mezzanine - massive attack
4. to bring you my love - pj harvey
5. wind in the wires - patrick wolf
6. day one - sarah slean
7. illinois - sufjan stevens
8. the dreaming - kate bush
9. witching hour - ladytron
10. yes virginia - the dresden dolls

11. scarlet's walk - tori amos
12. aerial - kate bush
13. version 2.0 - garbage
14.…

Let's stat it up in here.

I've listened to 5158 tracks since signing up at LastFM.

My top artist is currently (by ONE play!) Tori Amos, with 334 tracks played. 334/5158 = 0.064753780(etc)

So, that's 6.475% (decimals rounded) of my listening to Ms. Amos. What percentage does your top artist take, fo your total cumulative tracks played?

My Top 3 are Tori Amos, The Dresden Dolls, and Kate Bush, with 334, 333, and 319 plays, respectively — that adds up to 986. 986/5158 = 0.191159(etc)

So, that's 19.116% of my listening, taken up by my Top…

I knew at some point I would have to write this. I swear I'll try avoid the clichés of the genre (yes, the "cool kid reconciling and analyzing his/her enjoyment of sorta-uncool Tori Amos" journal entry is a genre, at this point).

Maybe it'll help if I create an "Essential Tori" playlist as I write. Hmm, what to start with? Carbon. Yes. It's got everything I love about Tori: flowing piano lines over burbling shifting time signatures, a good chorus melody, and lyrics that conflate mental illness, chemistry, jewelry, and skiing to evoke the feeling of speeding through…

I'm gonna include the albums I got for X-Mas 2005, because, honestly, it's the new year by the time you get to know the music on those albums anyway.

X-Mas 2005 Haul
Witching Hour - An satisfying, atmospheric listening experience. A very cold, wintery album, but still catchy and dance-able. Destroy Everything You Touch, International Dateline, and Soft Power are the highlights for me, and the fact that they come one-after-the other makes for one of the best 3-song sequences ever. 9/10

Demon Days - A great, smart, successful pop album. I'm shocked DARE wasn't a mainstream hit…

So, in September of this year, on an Air Canada flight from St. John's to Toronto, I heard Muse for the first time, on the in-flight radio station.

Yeah, yeah. I know. "What rock have you been living under?" I can't even claim North Americanism as an excuse for my ignorance; I'd spent most of the previous year living in Ireland.

Anyway, I was surprised by Muse. I had heard people speak of them before, but I always just sort of assumed they wouldn't be my cup of tea. I imagined soft acoustic strummy indie-esque fare, which can be…

Hooray! There are new statistics (or at least, new to me) on lastFM! Now, instead of the number of listeners under an artist's name on their page, we see how many times the artist has been listened to.

I like this, 'cause I think it's a more accurate reflection of the artist's popularity. I mean, I count as just one listener for both Peter Gabriel and The Dresden Dolls, but for the former I might play Sledgehammer once a month, whereas I listen to the latter almost constantly. This new system reflects that.

So I took the old 'calculate…