Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

In no particular order this year. Dawn Landes- Meet Me At The River (Yep Roc) Austin Lucas- Immortal Americans (Cornelius Chapel) Pig Destroyer-Head Cage (Relapse) Fucked Up-Dose Your Dreams (Merge) Sleep-The Sciences (Third Man) Ken Mode-Loved (Season of Mist) Grant Lee Phillips-Widdershins (Yep Roc) Damien Jurado-The Horizon Just Laughed (Secretly Canadian) Superchunk-What a Time To Be Alive (Merge) Nothing-Dance on the Blacktop (Relapse) War on Women-Capture the Flag (Bridge 9) Neko Case-Hell-On (ANTI-) Jeff Rosenstock-POST- (Polyvinyl) Lucero-Among the Ghosts (Liberator) Bettye Lavette-Things Have Changed (Verve)

Honorable Mentions (In No Particular Order): Fuzz - Fuzz II (In The Red) Meatwave - Delusion Moon (SideOneDummy) Hop Along - Painted Shut (Saddle Creek) The Bottle Rockets - South Broadway Athletic Club (Bloodshot) Lucero - All A Man Should Do (ATO) Will Johnson - Swan City Vampires (Undertow) Turnpike Troubadours - Self-Titled (Bossier City) Lou Barlow - Brace the Wave (Domino) Eileen Jewell - Sundown Over Ghost Town (Signature Sounds) Yo La Tengo - Stuff Like That There (Matador)

I've been a fan of Cory Branan since I stumbled on to him during a Revival Tour (an acoustic, mostly ex-punk review) date a few years ago with Chuck Ragan of Hot Water Music and Tom Gabel of Against Me; I was blown away. Ragan has always put on an awesome show, and to be truthful his set was the best. I've never been much of an Against Me fan, and although they have a few good songs here and there, they've never done all that much for me. Gabel's solo set was fine, but not explosive, even though our group quickly realized that much of the crowd was there for him. He wasn't able to make me a believer in his punk retread as acoustic act though. Overall, the set was quite impressive.  Branan was the unknown variable, and we found ourselves transfixed beyond expectation. He had heartfelt lyrics, drunken amiability, and a penchant for damn good storytelling, complete with a catchy rhythm style that got us dancing. He was all over the map, and drunkenness was o...