Monitoring pre-CMJ tweets, people were apprehensive about the lack of big buzz bands on the roster. I had low-grade concerns that the talent would be as flimsy as this year’s badge lanyard, but fully believe that CMJ doesn’t need bands already anointed with big label approval. Two years ago The xx played seemingly a hundred shows when they didn’t really need to, since they were already branded stars. Not exactly underground.

And while bands don’t remain undiscovered in New York all that long, CMJ is by far the best opportunity to find diamonds in the rough. It’s all so concentrated. Talking with publisher Jen last week, we decided that if you just parked your ass at Pianos all week, you’d probably hear everything you needed to and more.
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Psyched for CMJ? Yeah, us too. Aside from our dope showcase (Tuesday! Pianos! Noon til the margaritas run dry!), we’re looking forward to seeing one artist in particular: Julia Easterlin.

Whozat? you say. Check it. Girl is a highly impressive one-lady-band! She weaves together recorded loops of her own gorgeous voice and keyboards and then sings over it, building full-blown songs as she goes. Her cover of Radiohead’s “There There” is incredible – she brings an alluring femininity to Yorke and Co’s slow burning barn-stormer. As the lyrics say, “There’s always a siren singing you to shipwreck…” Easterlin’s lush voice could drag even Odysseus down to the ocean floor.
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Call them what you will — “swing folk,” “sassy Americana,” a “hyper ho-down” — but Boston’s Kingsley Flood sure combust live on stage. They’re a six piece that treads a delicate line between earnest and knowing, style and substance. We caught them at CMJ last year and were certainly wowed. Check out their brand new video premiering on TMS for the single “Mannequin Man” off their second LP to be released late 2011.

So whet your appetite here and then go see them at Bowery Electric in New York on Saturday. And, of course, catch them at SXSW (full tour dates after the jump) where a dust storm will be stomped up that only a Flood can assuage.

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Well, what can we say about 2010? It’s hard, you know, what with the mainstream sounding so bright and brash and ground-breaking and all. Whut, no. If all y’all kids were stuck on the knobs of pop radio, I don’t know what to tell you… But there was so much, too much to get caught up and in making this list, I felt like I was excising beloved children to the basement on Christmas Eve. Stay down there, Glasser, Lady Gaga, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.! Daddy will be down with a flashlight soon…

And with that my top 20 tracks of the year:

“I Can Change,” LCD Soundsystem: plaintive, yet sassy with that slippery beat, this track makes you want to shimmy up to a handsome stranger and please, please fall in love.

“Dancing On My Own,” Robyn: Robyn broke out of the gate with this track early in the year and set the bar precipitously high for every other pop star. Nothing has come close to knocking it from its rightful pedestal.

“USA Boys,” HEALTH: simply, a rolling thunderstorm of sex.
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Who feels right rough today? CMJ blistered, deafened, and ran me over, but it was my own fault. I asked for it. What bands made it worth it?

French Horn Rebellion: color me surprised that an actual French horn was played during these disco kids’ set. Given that irony can camouflage all sorts of bad taste, FHR are unabashedly reviving 70s dancefloor. Against your better judgement, you will be seduced by their whispered plea: “Baby, we just want you to dance… will you dance with us?” And wow, if you don’t find yourself vibrating with bass in the middle of the dancefloor, you are made of iron. Heavy with synthy, fat beats, FHR is silly, yes, but highly addictive.

Wild Nothing: caught them twice, hard not to, since they, along with Oberhofer and Surfer Blood, seemed to be everywhere at once. Good on them, since their hazy, upbeat, 80s-revival pop grew on me the second time round at the Bowery Ballroom Saturday night. Part surf anthems, part John Hughes prom scene score, Wild Nothing’s songs are wistful little gems and conceal a serious soul beneath surface delicacy. Tunes for daydreamers.

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