1. Butch Walker and the Black Widows - I Liked It Better When You Had No Heart
Butch Walker is an interesting guy in that he’s straddled a lot of different musical worlds, and how you feel about him might depend on which one you’ve encountered him in. He fronted the alt-rock one hit wonder Mavelous Three, developed a successful gig as a songwriter/producer-for-hire for both other rock bands (Weezer, Fall Out Boy) and for pop stars (Avril Lavigne, Pink, Katy Perry), and he’s got a cultish solo career going too. I didn’t really take the time to listen to him until his new album popped up on eMusic, and I thought about how much I loved his work on the last Pink and FOB albums, and I’m glad I checked it out. This is one of the best power pop records I’ve heard in a while, big hooks and silly self-effacing lyrics and ELO-ish string arrangements, just addictively listenable. “She Likes Hair Bands” is the kind of song I might roll my eyes at if it were a big mainstream hit, but as is I just listen to it over and over wishing it was a big mainstream hit.

2. Styles P. & DJ Green Lantern - The Green Ghost Project
Styles is one of the few middle-tier NYC rappers left that’s really worth a damn and seems like he still has music in him that’s as good as anything he’s ever done, and Green Lantern is one o fthe few mixtape DJs/producers who actually has some serious skills in the latter department. I kinda almost wish Green Lantern did every beat and made it an old fasioned MC/producer duo album, but then I can’t complain about the beats by Alchemist and Scram Jones.

3. Freeway & Jake One - The Stimulus Package
Obviously, given my assembly of the top 30 Freeway tracks of 2009, I was looking forward to this album, but after hearing so much music from the guy in the last few months, and one of my least favorite of those releases being the mixtape with Jake One presumably full of leftovers from this, The Beat Made Me Do It, I have to admit I wasn’t in a rush to check this out and didn’t have super high expectations. But this is really dope and maybe his best full-length project since Free At Last, really came together well. “Never Gonna Change” is just crazy.

4. Sade - Soldier Of Love
I’d never listened to a Sade album before or really given them much thought beyond the big singles everyone knows, but “Soldier Of Love” is just so totally badass that it seemed like a good idea to check out the whole LP, and it was, even if there’s obvioulsy nothing else much like it on there. What are the best older Sade albums to check out?

5. The Superions - The Superions EP
I’m a huge fan of Fred Schneider, both with the B-52s and his solo work, so I was pretty excited recently to get thrown an opportunity to interview the guy, which will hopefully happen in a few days. But if that hadn’t come up I probably wouldn’t have even heard that he has a new band that just released a new EP. It’s kind of a synth pop thing, with Fred doing his usual weird sing-speak monologue, some tracks dancier than others (there are 3 songs plus 4 remixes of those songs on the EP), and all you really need to know is that the highlight is called “Who Threw That Ham At Me?”

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