I kinda like that new Malkmus track though I take your point about his new stuff versus the Crooked Rain track. I thought his second solo effort was dreadful, with songs devolving into ackward noise and boored sounding vocals a 1/3 of the way in (where pavement at least waited until 2/3 of the song had expired before pressing the distortion button and checking out). While Pavement was never a band to carefully polish its musical arrangements into packaged little pop ditties, the noise and distortion seemed to serve a purpose, with overlaid guitars crunching along in an ode to kicking back, and clever lyrics suggesting that they could be making a more profound statement if they bothered. And I dug them. Still do.

Also dug the Cloud Room track you suggested. Perfect track to kick off the summer and looming may 2-4 weekend. I usually check that salon site every week or so but hadn't done so in awhile.

Just did a check of my itunes and noticed that I've downloaded/ripped just over 1,000 songs this year (2005), most of them from legitimate sites, some from emusic.com, some from borrowed/bought cds. Here's a list of my faves thus far (have included links to free tracks where available:

"Fortress" - Pinback
"Broadway (So Many People)" - Low
"Engine Driver" - The Decemberists
"Sunshowers" - MIA
"Woman King" - Iron & Wine
"So Little to Give" - Creeper Lagoon (from 2002 but just discovered this year)
"In a Funny Way" - Mercury Rev
"Take it Easy/Love Nothing" - Bright Eyes
"Let's Move" - The Foreign Exchange