12 Delights of Christmas

(6 of 8)

For almost a decade Spoon has been indie rock's reigning "if there were any justice ..." band, as in, "If there were any justice, Spoon would wake up with Nickelback's money." A lack of good Karma hasn't stopped lead singer-songwriter Britt Daniel from soldiering on and producing yet another album of tense, cliché-avoiding, minimalist rock songs, capped by I Summon You, which has to be the most perfect 3 min. 55 sec. of music this year.

Best Tracks: Sister Jack, I Turn My Camera On, I Summon You

BRIGHT EYES

I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning; $12.98

At 25, Conor Oberst, a.k.a. Bright Eyes, is expert at turning his disenchantment into fuel. He's not wild about himself or his country at the moment. But instead of sounding desperate or polemical, the best of these quiet, well- observed songs do something far tougher--create a mood. Lua, about seduction and loneliness, feels like a shameful walk home on a winter morning, while Landlocked Blues starts as a breakup song and meanders its way into an antiwar ballad. The link, at least by Oberst's reckoning, is futility, and whether you agree with his politics or not, his emotions are believable.

Best Tracks: Lua, Landlocked Blues, Road to Joy

NEIL YOUNG

Prairie Wind; $18.98

These spare, mostly acoustic songs about death, loss and life's rearview mirror make for a draining listen. But they're not a drag because Young knows exactly how an album this thematically grim--he wrote and recorded it between being diagnosed with and treated for a brain aneurysm--needs to sound. At his most frightened (Falling Off the Face of the Earth), there's an easy melody and notes of assurance from the impeccably played instruments. And when he contemplates all his choices (The Painter) and wonders if he has got lost, the voices that rise behind in the chorus are so unmistakably warm that you feel certain they will guide him back.

Best Tracks: The Painter, When God Made Me

LEE ANN WOMACK

There's More Where That Came From; $13.98

Unlike most country singers, Womack knows that ballad singing isn't an Olympian test of lung capacity. She hush-sings her way through Twenty Years and Two Husbands Ago and a delicate cover of Sonny Throckmorton's Waiting for the Sun to Shine, providing a much needed reminder that country, more than any other musical genre, still has the potential to offer instant intimacy.

Best Tracks: Twenty Years and Two Husbands Ago, Happiness, Waiting for the Sun to Shine

FRANZ FERDINAND

You Could Have It So Much Better; $13.49

These disco-loving Scottish art-school punks spend much of their second album boasting of their badness. Singer Alex Kapranos is blessed with Mick Jaggeresque persuasiveness--Evil and a Heathen and I'm Your Villain would be musts on any syllabus of "Songwriting for Cads"--but he's also growing in ways that suggest depth. The fast songs have more than one musical thought (some even scoot past the 3-min. mark), while the slow ones have the courage to be pretty (Fade Together) and vulnerable (Eleanor Put Your Boots On).

Best Tracks: This Boy, Do You Want To, Eleanor Put Your Boots On

RAY CHARLES

Pure Genius: The Complete Atlantic Recordings (1952-1959); $149.98