a couple i'll toss in:
talk talk--spirit of eden. always thought of these guys as middleweight duran duran wannabes, but this record, however, is incredible--trippy, intense, hypnotic. i bet radiohead spent alot of their formative years listening to this one.
aimee mann--charmer. like her last few, i didn't like this at first--too many synthesizers and bitter midtempo diatribes--but it's really grown on me. she's damn smart, if cheerless, and she still writes the best hooks in the business. "barfly" and "labrador" are great songs.
shoes--ignition. i expected that (like the recent dbs and feelies) this would capture the sound but not the essence of these 80s icons, but it's surprisingly good guilty- pleasure guitar pop, as if they haven't aged in the 30 years since they started making records.
