This year’s catalog of pop is not available for download. The reason is that I would like to send real envelopes to real addresses with real handwriting, etc. etc. You know … how they did it in the 20th century.

Nick Hornby wrote so eloquently about the art of the mix tape in High Fidelity. I wish I could match his prose. And that I still owned a casette player. Regardless, choosing these songs from an initial playlist of about 100 and then 50 and then 20, was an excruciating process. Music, it means a lot.

If you would like a copy of this sheep-adorned album, please email me at osopecoso@gmail.com with your address and let me know whether you’d like a good old fashioned CD or an mp3 cd ready to be put on the iPod. Hopefully after two years of blogging I’ve amassed the credibility to fool you into believing that I will not toilet paper your house.

I’ll Believe in Anything – Wolf Parade

I’d take you to where nobody knows you and nobody gives a damn

Moreno said if I didn’t put a song by Wolf Parade on this year’s mix he would kick my ass. He said if I chose track number three, he would also kick my ass. So here it is, I’ll Believe in Anything, the “other catchy song” on the album. It also pretty much sums up how I’ve been feeling for the past couple months. Conservativism, liberalism, assimilation, segregation, whatever, I’ll buy it, sounds good to me. They say journalists and judges are the ones who lose a sense of subjectivity. Abo and I both seem to be sliding down that road of having no opinions whatsoever.

Moreno, the only faithful member of this team with any sense of self, still thinks we should kill all republicans.

Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day) – Broken Social Scene

I got shot

I don’t know who Ibi is nor why he/she is dreaming of pavement, but god damn is Broken Social Scene one badass band. (Update: Ibi is a writer friend) Prior to this year, I was really only familiar with two BSS songs – “Looks Just Like the Sun” and “Pacific Theme” – both of which are great tracks. This year though, I’ve gone BSS crazy. So jealous was I when my man Revaz got to check them out with Feist in San Fran. Next time they’re in San Diego, I’ll definitely be going.

Your Ex-Lover is Dead – Stars

And all of that time you thought I was sad, I was trying to remember your name

I might as well repeat myself: this is my favorite album of 2005. From start to finish, it’s excellent. Choosing a single song was impossible so I chose the first as a trailer to the whole.

There is a tone to this song. A tone which persists throughout the entire album: the city, the taxi, the rain, the detached desperation. Believe it or not, I have been in this situation. I have been face to face with an ex-girlfriend who I had dated for three months several years earlier. And I could not for the life of me remember what her name was. But just like the tone of this song, I wasn’t filled with nervous anxiety, only amazement. Amazement that I had woken up next to this girl at least weekly for a couple months and now I could not even recall her first name. Amazement of just how little the mind and memory can be trusted.

This album is a work of art.

Be – Common

Never looking back or too far in front of me. The present is a gift. And I just want to be.

Last year’s catalog reeks of righteousness. Like I knew what I was talking about. Like I had some sort of “path.” Goals. Or “evolution of thought.” That’s the funny thing about our brain. It takes all the arbitrary situations and random observations and makes it seem like they somehow all make sense. Last year … I still had opinions.

This year’s catalog of fine music and beats stands in proud opposition, even protest, of anything considered reasonable. It presumptuously hopes to tell it as it is: unruly, confusing, chaotic, and without meaning. And it leads with Common telling us to forget about the past, the future, and to just be. This isn’t about postmodern skepticism of enlightenment thinking. It’s about letting go. Which is what music is for. It’s about buying a joint from your neighborhood teenage drug dealer, taking a walk to whatever nearest thing resembling “nature” has survived into the 21st century, and bringing this album with you.

Bonbón – Rosal

Tu mama debe ser pastelera porque vos sos un bombón



If a woman, any woman, of any shape, size, or color, were to ever stop me in the street and tell me exactly that, she would be mine forever. We would embrace, we would elope, we would be happily ever after. I love this song. It’s poppy, it’s catchy, it’s shallow, it’s perfect. I even love how I came about it. One of my favorite blog discoveries this past year – and there have been many – is Zona Indie by Fernando Casale. The Spanish version is updated more often than the English site, but still, every week or so he’ll mention a little known Latin American indie band and link to a few of their songs.

Rosal reminds me of both Camera Obscura and early Stars. In some songs the vocalist has a Julieta Venegas thing going on as well. I’m hooked. Both the Educacion Sentimental E.P. and the self-titled full length debut get tons of play on my iPod.

Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood – Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah

There is nothing left to fear now that Big Foot is captured.

It’s hard to believe how big Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah got this year. Which is how every single article about them starts. In fact, the New York Times today (12/30) says the same thing. We’re all sick of them, I know, but it’s still one of my favorite CD’s of the year and more important is what they represent: a new musical era where hard work and good sound replace big record contracts and blind luck. These guys didn’t sell out and for that – no matter how sick of the album you are – they deserve a giant round of applause. (I also love how this song ends their CD, leaving you wanting more.)

Always Tomorrow – Bob Mould

Doesn’t matter how much I say. Wouldn’t register anyway.

In the 90’s I listened to neither Bob Mould nor Matthew Sweet. Their time has come. I listen to this song while I climb hills on my bike.

I raise my glass to groundhog-day broken relationships. I raise my glass to being single.

Little Man – Atmosphere

The heavy rotation in any location, you’re not ready to face that you have no steady vocation. Plus you’re getting old, your raps are exhausted. Stop it, everyone knows that you’ve lost it. Singing for these kids that you don’t know when you should be at home with your own instead your on your telephone, fighting with your girl like it’s you against the world.

That stanza pretty much sums up how most critics and a lot of my friends described Atmosphere’s new album. The thinking went: he was too good too early. Nothing he writes these days could ever match the poetry in Lucy Ford and God Loves Ugly. It’s the same thing people say about Zadie Smith after White Teeth or Dave Matthews after Under the Table and Crash. Call me a freak, but for me, this album is absolutely up to par. Especially the second half. Maybe the hooks aren’t as catchy. Maybe it’s more raw, even less ambitious. But what’s important to me is that it’s just as honest and just as beautiful. Slug could very well be my favorite poet of his generation.

Guero – Beck

Andale joto, your popsicle’s melting

Rarely – as in never – do I listen to the radio. But coming back from 6 months of TV Azteca, Televisa, and rock en español in Monterrey, I was curious to see if the same radio stations were even still on air in Dego. That’s when I heard Beck singing “Que onda guero?” and I’m like, what the fuck is going on here?

Beck somehow managed to capture my entire 6 months in Monterrey in a single song. The joviality, the shit talking, the doble-sentidos. You guys have absolutely no idea how many times I was greeted with “que onda guero” while walking around the skinny streets of downtown Monterrey. My name could have very well been “que onda guero.”

Not only that, but hearing Beck (Scientologist and introduction writer to this year’s Best Non-Required American Writing) sing “andale joto, your popsicle’s melting” is absolutely one of the greatest musical moments of the year. Apologies to the politically correct crowd.

Jardin – Liquits

Pastel de fresa mezclada con peyote natural

So much good music has come out in the second half of this year that it is too easy to completely overlook what filled my headphones from February through July in Mexico. Decades from now, if any album will serve as a nostalgic ambassador of my time there, it is Jardin by Liquits. Again, like Be by Common and Set Yourself on Fire by Stars, this album is solid all the way through. Don’t let its popiness and typical 2005 latin-punk-ska sound fool you into thinking this is just one more Latin American band influenced by Blink 182.

The lyrics are surreal and dream-like. In fact, the entire album is one big, absurd Willy Wonka Factory dreamscape. But especially this song. The garden of Eden on acid, which is then – brilliantly – transformed into your typical cosmopolitan city, be it Chicago, Guadalajara, or Monterrey. This is art at it’s finest – forcing you to soberly look at the familiar with a drug-induced eye towards the implausible.

The Nurse – The White Stripes

It’s always with trust that the poison gets fed with the spoon.

A fun and brilliant song that only The White Stripes could pull off. I’m down with the entire album – start to finish – of Get Behind Me Satan; something I cannot say of any of their previous albums. What’s up with their covers always being red and black?

Sugar Magnolia – Grateful Dead

We can have high times, if you’ll abide.

Haha, fooled you. You thought everything on this mix was going to be from this year. No such thing. Digging into my old – and completely forgotten – Grateful Dead albums just a couple months ago was such a treat. It had been years since I listened to them. Largely I was turned off by the whole hypocritical hippie scene, but I also fell head over heels (like so many) for 21st century electro-pop-indie-rock. Radiohead used to be the talented exception to acoustic rock dominance by groups like Dave Matthews Band, Ben Harper, and Ani Difranco. Now all we’ve got is neo-Radiohead everywhere, but the talented, organic exceptions have been left out.

Grateful Dead is – and probably always will be – nostalgia. Particularly, Sugar Magnolia is now the memory of a single afternoon which has come to represent a more innocent epoch of my life. It must’ve been near summer because it was hot and dry. We were in the middle of San Diego’s arid mountains; south of Julian. Just me and my high school sweetheart and we were lost while searching for a promised oasis in my local hiking guide. After three hours of dirt road wandering, the easygoing sweetheart – who knew how to wear Levis – reminded me that the journey is the destination and we parked the car under a single oak tree by a pathetic brook. She ate a juicy mango the only way she knew how: off the blade of a knife. I was whittling a stick. Everywhere was silence and sunshine. We turned on the Grateful dead.

Aaj Mausam Bada Beimann Hai – Mohammed Rafi

More nostalgia. Beware, it’s everywhere, always ready to creep up, especially in the cool winter months of grey mornings and heavy afternoons.

If you actually listen to this song, at least half of it is the same line repeated over and over again. Aaj mausam bada beimann hai means “today the weather plays tricks on me.” What a beautiful sentence.

Some friends joke with me that I’m Mexican at heart. I disagree. I think I should have been born in India. This track immediately brings me back to my month in India a few years ago. It’s misleading to romanticize such an impoverished region of an impoverished country, but I can’t help it. Northern, rural India was just as consistently beautiful as the cheesy Bollywood-style music videos make it out to be. I’d step off the psychedelically painted buses with my dear friend Emily and instantly I was on acid. The bright blue skies, the dragon-shaped clouds, the salt-crystal Himalayan peaks, the 7-year-old snot-faced kid selling me a cup of sweet chai for a few pennies. More here.

Ni Tú Ni Nadie – Moenia

Qué difícil es pedir perdón

The event that had the biggest impact on 2005 was my breakup with Laura. Nothing is more difficult then ending a relationship, but especially when everything had been going so right for so long. It’s also the thing that I really haven’t written about on here. I just didn’t know how to put it into words. But this song does.

Saying that, I should point out that this song is much more than “fuiste tú culpable, no fui yo” (It was your fault, not mine). It’s about being in a dead end relationship or situation. It’s about being stubborn, being proud, and not being able to resolve the damage done. Love hurts.

The lyrics to this song are amazing. When I first heard it, I remember thinking that only a man could write with such detached observation about love and pain. So I was very surprised to find out that Moenia didn’t write this song at all, but rather Olvido Gara.

Little Eyes – Ya La Tengo

You can only hurt the ones you love, not the ones you’re thinking of.

I have no idea what that quote means. It makes no sense to me. But I do agree with the first half. If someone has upset you, it’s probably because you care about that person a great deal. It’s obvious, I know. But it was an important realization for me this year. Yo La Tengo (which in my mind is always “Ya Lo Tengo”) is another 90’s band that I didn’t start really listening to until this year.

This song makes me want to hug people.

Amigo JV – Fabulosos Cadillacs

Even some of the most dedicated Fabulosos fans out there don’t believe me that this is them. I guess it’s typical that Los Fabulosos Cadillacs and Cafe Tacuba are my two favorite “Hispanocantante” groups out there. But they’re also two of my favorite groups period. The consistent quality and the diversity on every one of their albums is incredible. One day soon I’ll be walking down the lonely streets of Buenos Aires, listening to this song, and maybe even occasionally winking at the passerby. And in case you were wondering, I hardly understand half of the words to this song.

Menina, Amanhã de Manhã – Mônica Salmaso



It’s 10:00 a.m. I am at Luton airport in London after just missing my flight’s boarding time by 5 minutes. These Easyjet Nazis, they wouldn’t give me a chance. No smiles, no flexibility. Only the option to pay 35 Pounds – more than I had paid for my original ticket – to reschedule for this afternoon. I was not pleased. Even though I missed the flight because of my own poor planning, it’s inconceivably easy to convince yourself that you are the victim, that the world is against you.

I needed to calm down, to get over it, I needed help. So I sit down and pull out the friendly iPod to see what goodies Georgia left me with last night. Which is when I came across Menina, Amanhã de Manhã by Monica Salmaso. I will admit, I have no idea what the hell this woman is saying. And yet I do. She’s telling me to calm down, to enjoy the present around me, everything will be fine. The music is telling me all of that.

I Slept With the Bonhomme At The CBC – Broken Social Scene

Christmas day was as predictably horrendous as I knew it would be. From 1998 to 2003 I had a beautiful five year streak of not once being in the United States on Christmas Day. One day I will have to write a post about Xmas day on Easter Island – the most thoroughly enjoyable I’ve ever had. But this year I would find myself walking along the rocky (and windy) coastline of La Jolla. And this album was my companion. The entire album – but especially this song – is meant for the sea. It could be an ode to the Pacific Ocean. Or maybe it’s vise-versa. Maybe it was the Christmas sea that was so perfectly orchestrated. The surging surf, the windy white caps, the push and pull of tidal life.

I have this applescript for my instant messaging client which puts up the title of the song I’m listening to as my status message. While I was listening to this song (as I often do right after making my tea and digging into the newspaper), Boris sent me this link.