The Hold Steady have been holding, er, steady in the limelight since 2004, picking up a Village Voice cover here and a best album of the year there (2006: The Onion’s A.V. Club), and just generally best-ing all over the place: they were Blender’s 2006 Band of the Year and made it to Rolling Stone’s annual album ranker at number 8. Critical acclaim blah blah blah. The big hit from the big album Boys... more ›

Badly Drawn Boy - Born In The UK (Astralwerks): If Talking Heads were last year's band to emulate, The Boss is certainly the sound of 2006. After seeing a great Springsteen record from The Hold Steady and a suspect one from The Killers, we now find Brit Damon Gough wrapping himself in the English flag and turning up the shiny, Human Touch-style production. Unfortunately, Badly Drawn Boy's main charm were his lo-fi early songs... more ›