top 100 reasons that El Gran Silencio's Super Riddim Internacional Vol. 1 is the best album of the year, #'s 40-49

40. Because Shelby Lynne's Identity Crisis slows down a little too much.

41. Because Nappy Roots have no sense of humor.

42. Because Daude's record is less fun than Cibelle's album, and EGS is more fun than both.

43. Because Trap Muzik is the best hip-hop album of the year but has no range, really, no stretchability. Plus too many swears to play often.

44. Because, for me, Kish Kash gets more credit than it should. Yeah, it's great dance music, and I don't mean to slight dance music as a genre, especially when it's as rubbery and bouncy as Jaxx makes it. But I'm more into organics this year, I guess, kinda...no, I'm not. Not really. I'm not sure exactly why I'm not swooning for Kish Kash the way everyone else is. Oh, probably just perversity, or old-fogeyness-to-be-specified-later, or "wanting to seem cool," or something. I liked it from the moment I first heard it. But that was it: just like, not love.

45. Whereas I LOVED this baby from the first time I rocked it.

46. Did I ever tell you about how I first heard this record? Well, first it will be helpful to have you read this thing in which I discuss how rockin' Chuntaros Radio Poder is.

47. So when I found out that Super Riddim Internacional Vol. 1 was coming out, I started searching all around. (By the way, it IS Vol. 1, not Vol. 2 like I somehow wrote down at first here, that was stupid and hopeful and wishful, I've changed it, full admission.) My local indie stores? Nah. Barnes and Noble, which sometimes has world stuff that no one else has? Nah. Only Circuit City reps the Latin music well up here in frozen Wisconsin, my friends, and that's where I went. Any Mexican CD that I've loved, I've bought there, I think. (Except maybe for Nortec.)

48. It was an afternoon, I took off early from work because I had to go to an evening speaking gig in West Allis in my other life. So I didn't have much time. I waltzed into CC, grabbed the thing, paid cash (no credit card paper trail, baby), waltzed out already unwrapping the thing, tore that top stickery thing off with no residue, popped it in, and was on my way. Is there any greater feeling than the anticipation of a new disc? Maybe the anticipation of great sex, or the culmination of great sex, or the moment between. But I get a lot more CDs these days than sex. (Haha "these days".) So for me, backing out of my stall in the parking lot of CC hearing the Intro track with the bells and the spoken voices, and then the pumping of the bass on the first real track as I pulled out onto Mineral Point Road and then the quick right onto the Beltline, to connect with 90/94 North by which point we were probably already at "Ingratos Corazones" to that quick offshoot to 94 East to Milwaukee by which point I have no idea what song was on but I was bouncing up and down in my seat, oh yeah baby, this is completely living up to expectations, it's EXACTLY what I hoped it would be, I'm the happiest boy in the world.

49. And the disc lasted, improbably, exactly as long as my drive, with "Ya" and the Outro track pumping as I sat in the Starbuck's parking lot across the highway from the school. Really the most perfect listening experience since I used to sit and listen to Electric Light Orchestra's A New World Record or Stevie's Songs in the Key of Life on rainy Oregon Saturday afternoons while eating four-layer peanut butter and raisin and banana sandwiches and drinking very large glasses of milk and dreaming of being an adult and being able to listen to music in my car someday, some new exotic music I'd never dreamed of or heard before, something that would blow me away completely.