Tops of My Pops for 7/22/07

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending July 22, 2007
1. The Church
2. Spoon
3. Röyksopp
4. Maps
4. Lee "Scratch" Perry
6. The Upsetters
7. The Sea and Cake
7. Beck
9. The Field
10. k-os
10. Ulrich Schnauss

"The Soundtrack To Summer". That's what I'm calling this week's chart. How can you think of any of these artists without involuntarily imagining sunny days and warm weather? A few shout outs:

• I've been inspired recently (my my old pal dnl's review of Gold Afternoon Fix) to reconsider The Church. Turns out I didn't have any of their catalog on My personal jury is still out on the later stuff, but I have truckloads of good will for their first several albums. They've traced an interesting creative arc over the years, going from a Aussie indie rock sound in the 80's to super radio-friendliness in the early 90's to somewhat experimental art rock today. They're no Talk Talk, but hey -- who is really?
  
• Plenty's been said elsewhere about Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, the new release from Spoon, so I'll choose not to belabor the point here. I will say this: it's their best album since Kill The Moonlight (not a comparison I make lightly).
• Maps (James Chapman) is on the Mercury Prize Shortlist this year for their debut, We Can Create. He's been thrown in the nu-gaze bucket already (and not completely without reason) but he seems to be pushing beyond that as well. I can't quite put my finger on it, but he wholeheartedly embraces sweet melodies without going for the pure pop jugular the way his shoegaze ancestors often did. The songwriting casts a broader net than that, and the music is richer for it. For some weird reason I'd like to put Maps and The Decemberists in a room together and see what they could cook up.
  

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives