Album Of The Decade - Someone To Drive You Home by The Long Blondes

Here it is... my album of the decade and I can already hear the chorus of "who?" and "why?". Well, let me tell you about The Long Blondes.

For me, Someone To Drive You Home yielded the total package: great songs, hyper-literate verses coupled with anthemic choruses, a slinky ingenue lead singer singing the songs of a svengali guitarist, and a packaging aesthetic that speaks the language of record store aficionados. There's an overall intrigue and mythos to The Long Blondes and that's something lacking in a lot of bands these days.

Will you like it? You should. The Long Blondes are pop fans, and they have distilled their love of 60's Britpop and 80's indie into rocking songs as well as drawing on cult classic film and literature cues in their lyrics. There's a familarity to the music without feeling overly derivative. (But if you must... I reckon it's a combo of the Smiths and the early days of the Pretenders.)

Is this the best album of the decade? Probably and probably not. My Top 10 is honestly a toss-up. Illinois is a beautiful album, The Bees, The New Pornographers and MGMT made incredibly fun records, and Sarah Harmer and Broadcast created some amazing stuff as well. But The Long Blondes, in the end, got played the most.

But hey, check them all out and for now, let The Long Blondes take you to Giddy Stratospheres.