The Blow - "Babay (Eat a Critter, Feel Its Wrath)"

This silly, happy duo have sat with me for a few weeks now. At first, I didn't pay attention to them, but now I'm rapt. Radio pop done at home, better than most of the radio pop it sounds like. It's like surfing, if surfing could be done at a really slow pace. It's like skateboarding through sunsetting streets. [Buy track from K]

The Blow - "True Affection"

A quality that pervades the album, in a beautifully unself-conscious way, is a feeling of adolescence. References to books you read in high school, discoveries you have as a teenager, but genuine, not mocking. Something about it being made by K Records makes it all the more. Watch the video on their MySpace of them making the album; there's Calvin Johnson, unexpressively helping all the way along. Proof of love. [Buy track from K]

other songs worth buying:
"Parentheses" - when you're holding me, we make a pair of parentheses
"The Long List of Girls" - this is a top 40 hit, despite whether it is or not.