Halfway Point 2010: 66-70

66. Shout Out Louds – “1999”

Sweden Fun Fact: It's the country with the highest daily newspaper reading frequency in the world.

67. Jeremy Messersmith – “Knots”

Minneapolis singer-songwriter with forgettable name and memorable songs ... it's just a failure of marketing that he isn't already huge - if, instead of releasing songs under his own name, he started a band with a cutesy/clever name and just put out the same records, it seems like he would own the Shins/Death Cab for Cutie market.

68. Black Keys – "Tighten Up"

Strong says: "Listened to the Black Keys' album Brothers today on the way home from training. Man, that's good stuff. I love the bluesy sound. I feel like for most of their songs the best place to listen would be in a sweaty smoky bar in the deep south with extremely low lighting, possibly even red lighting."

Strong also alerted me to this video:



69. Arcade Fire – “Month of May”

Might be kind of a placeholder for my excitement over the new Arcade Fire album, which miraculously hasn't leaked yet - early blog hype was that this one would "melt your face off," but my face is still largely intact.

70. MGMT – "Congratulations"

For me, this is the other new MGMT song that kinda works, but Ilana thinks it's boring, and I think I might be losing interest, too - probably would have been in my top 50 a month ago, but the smart money is on this one missing the year-end list.