In keeping with global trends since we take our global trends seriously, our productivity this year slowed to something akin to a crawl, (calling all O/L writers - Now Is Your Time). Still. What our stalwarts did, they did brilliantly well, of course. No let up in quality. And readers read, and this is what our readers read the most...

1. Five Great Love Songs of 2009 (so far) by Alex V. Cook
   We pause in the midst of this summer heat wave for the cares of some of the greater love songs of the year by Bill Callahan, Camera Obscura, the Moore Brothers, the Horse's Ha and Stuart Murdoch. And not all of them are about masturbating.
2. Goddamn Lonely Love: M. Ward, Lucinda Williams, and Jason Isbell by Alex V. Cook
   Love and its wonderful, devastating effects romanticized, unencumbered by messy analysis, abound on new releases by M. Ward, Lucinda Williams, and Jason Isbell
3. Happy Shopper #29: Brad Miller by LamontPaul
   RocknRoll photographer to the Stars! Brad Miller also happens to be Outsideleft's neighbor in Echo Park CA
4. Because We are all Like That: Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte by Wayne Wolfson
   Wayne Wolfson ponders Da Ponte and Mozart and what becomes of us all...
5. Panther Burns and Howls by Joe Ambrose
   Joe Ambrose article on Pather Burns, revised but mainly reproduced from Headpress 28
6. Stop Me If You've Heard This Dinosaur Joke Before: Morrissey and U2 by Alex V. Cook
   Once mighty forces that roamed the earth, the persistent embodiments of U2 and Morrissey may not pack the wallop the once did, but you still watch as the trudge by.
7. You Gotta Stay Positive: The Music of 2008 by Alex V. Cook
   The soundtrack of this landmark year is filled with the personal, the diffident, and the hopeful.
8. Preaching to the Choir: Phil Kline and Arvo P�rt by Alex V. Cook
   We take a brief break from pop culture matters to check on the state of the choral symphony with recent works by Phil Kline and Arvo P�rt
9. Bow Wow Wow! - Mighty Doglude by Joe Ambrose
   Joe Ambrose gets wowed by The Mighty Underdogs
10. Heralds of the Groove: The Budos Band by Wayne Wolfson
    Wayne Wolfson's heard his first Fela Kuti record in a small Parisian record store, from there, to the current album by Daptone's Budos Band, it has been an unquenchable unending journey into sound
11. My Love Re-explodes: The Dukes of Stratosphear return by Alex V. Cook
    Right at the zenith of XTC's powers, they dropped their guard a bit as well as their calendar. The colors are still just as bright two decades later.
12. Radio Mania: File Under Section 15 by Henderson Downing
    Kirk Lake Week provokes yet more barefaced nepotism here at Outside Left
13. They're All Normal and Want Their Freedom by Alex V. Cook
    MV + EE, Megapuss, and Fire on Fire all examined through the kaleidoscope of Love's masterpiece of baroque psychedelia
14. Songs That Lux Taught Us by Lake
    "If you can't dig me you can't dig nothin'" - in praise of the late Lux Interior
15. Trading the Bellowed Anthems for the 60-cycle Hum by Alex V. Cook
    The breast-beating of 2008 has thankfully given way to a more cerebral 2009, at least as far as Jon Hassell, Animal Collective, and Madlib are concerned.
16. Michael Jackson and plunderphonics by Alex V. Cook
    In 1989, radical composer John Oswald made a statement about copyright and the true nature of the artists, and in some ways, predicted the unfortunate future of Micheal Jackson
17. Telepathe: The Sinister Side of The Real Bang Bang by Alex V. Cook
    On the surface, Telepathe seems like amiable enough new wave revisionist trifle; but something darker lurks within.
18. Aural Dream Door; Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande by Wayne Wolfson
    The Wolfson anti-column returns with a vertigo inducing visit to Guanajuato, coffee and cigarettes with Ambrose Bierce and a revisit to Debussy's lone opera, and home again. Not even the names have been changed to protect the innocent
19. Kirk Kirk Kirk Does Rufus Rufus Rufus by LamontPaul
    An interview with the author of the new Rufus Wainwright biography.
20. Creosote on my Soul by Shane O'Reilly
    King Creosote return with one of the brightest releases of the year so far