[UPDATE: Torrent links removed as courtesy to artists] As we said above, all of these direct Amazon links have audio previews, and some of them have exclusive Amazon-only free downloads, so there’s really no need to torrent. Have fun!

50. Woods – Songs of Shame

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49. Cass McCombs – Catacombs

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48. DOOM – Born Like This

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47. Zomby – Where Were U in ’92?

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46. Dan Deacon – Bromst

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45. The Mountain Goats – The Life of the World to Come

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44. tUnE-yArDs – BiRd-BrAiNs

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43. Cymbals Eat Guitars – Why There Are Mountains

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42. A Sunny Day in Glasgow – Ashes Grammar

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41. Baroness – Blue Record

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40. Mos Def – The Ecstatic

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39. Jim O’Rourke – The Visitor

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38. Major Lazer – Guns Don’t Kill People…Lazers Do

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37. The Antlers – Hospice

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36. Dinosaur Jr. – Farm

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35. jj – jj n° 2

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34. Passion Pit – Manners

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33. Bibio – Ambivalence Avenue

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32. Bear in Heaven – Beast Rest Forth Mouth

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31. Sunn O))) – Monoliths & Dimensions

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30. Röyksopp – Junior

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29. Yo La Tengo – Popular Songs

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28. Micachu and the Shapes – Jewellery

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27. Various Artists – 5: Five Years of Hyperdub

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26. Bon Iver – Blood Bank EP

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25. DJ Quik and Kurupt – BlaQKout

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24. Bill Callahan – Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle

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23. Memory Tapes – Seek Magic

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22. Wild Beasts – Two Dancers

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21. Neko Case – Middle Cyclone

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20. Real Estate – Real Estate

Amazon | Torrent

19. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

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18. Atlas Sound – Logos

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17. The Very Best – Warm Heart of Africa

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16. Antony and the Johnsons – The Crying Light

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15. Japandroids – Post Nothing

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14. Neon Indian – Psychic Chasms

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13. St. Vincent – Actor

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12. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz!

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11. Fuck Buttons -Tarot Sport

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10. Girls – Album

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9. Fever Ray – Fever Ray

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8. Phoenix -Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

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7. Bat For Lashes – Two Suns

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6. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest

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5. Raekwon – Only Built for Cuban Linx Part II

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4. The Flaming Lips – Embryonic

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3. The XX – The XX

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2. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca

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1. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion

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If your dad was anything like my dad, he walked 17 miles to work every day in 6 feet of snow, barefoot, with a headwind both ways, and ate boot broth soup for lunch, so he could make 13 cents a week. He also might look at you funny when you used a calculator to do some multiplication and say “Puh! We didn’t have them things in MY day“, and prove it by asking for some big numbers and then piss you off by easily multiplying pairs of two-digit numbers in his head. My dad could do pairs of three-digit numbers, but would have to stare off into space for a second mouthing and moving his finger in the air. My generation – on the whole – couldn’t do this, but seems to me to be a little more in possession of average intelligence across the board. But when I meet today’s kids, I don’t meet many “average” kids, they all seem to be vidiot savants who can’t spell but can ace you on any video game known to man or fix your wireless network, or Einsteinian freaks who get Montessori training, business and accounting tutoring, and therapy twice a week. I personally think this can all be explained by the toys we had or have. And I have to add that if you ever want to take control of my mind, set me loose in a toy store for about an hour, and after the spontaneous hypnotic age regression that occurs, I will be a pliable drooling zombie drone that will do anything you say. The same thing happens when I browse the doodads on Amazon, which I made the mistake of doing yesterday, and which led to this roundup of high tech toys I wish I had when I was a kid.

I’ll just be picking this “toy” up for myself, thank you very much.

Nerf toys got tired pretty fast when I was little, but that’s because we didn’t have a Nerf N-Strike Raider Rapid Fire CS-35 Dart Blaster. Although on reflection, Nerf toys that got boring really fast might get boring even faster if someone is machine gunning you with one of them. Along the same lines we have Wild Planet Dodge Discs, which at least have a bit a rethink of the idea, and with melon candy pastel colors! And speaking of a rethink of the “violent assault with spongey objects” idea, you can also piss off your overly-PC friends by shooting FOOD around with a Cheetah Marshmallow Shooter. It’s hip, it’s pink, it’s in a cheetah pattern. Lady Gaga could wear it as an accessory. Just you watch, marshmallow will be the new black. And speaking of shooting people, I have a theory that the recent generation of school shooting teens was the result of boomers not letting kids play with guns like previous generations did. I mean, most of my family and friends had guns all over the place, we shot them, I had all the toy guns a boy could want, and as an adult, I really don’t like them around, and I know why. So we have two more ideas for introducing war and violence into your kid’s life. First up: Battleship. In grade school, my best friend and I were MENSA wannabes, so although Battleship was one of our favorite games, we always wished there was another layer of action. We would have, er, killed for something like Electronic Battleship Advanced Mission. And since we live in a more cynical, more globally connected era, you might as well get the kids used to the horror of frag grenades and cluster bombs with toys like the Wild Planet Spy Gear Roll-In Blaster. I have to say, the company that makes that toy (Wild Planet Spy Gear) must be run by the NSA or something. They make some “questionable” toys, but they’re all also toys that my generation would’ve loved; I mean, who wouldn’t have died for a Spy Gear Motion Alarm or Spy Gear Lazer Tripwire to keep the siblings out of your room, an Educational Insights Sonic Sleuth to spy on your older sister or brother, or a Spy Gear Voice Scrambler for prank calling. I think my favorite of these Wild Planet “toys” is the Spy Safe Cracker, which includes in the main review the observation that “Parents may wish to consider the philosophical implications of a toy that teaches kids how to commit felonies, but even youngsters who are not preparing for a life of crime are likely to be entertained and challenged by this set“. Awesome. They also have Spy Gear Handcuffs, but I’ll just be picking a pair of those up for myself, thank you very much.

This is the kind of old geezer that always blocked the counter at the hobby shop when I was a kid

I was going to include something about how the crappy walkie-talkies in my day weighed two pounds and had a range of twenty feet, and how they now have wristwatch walkie talkies, but as I started typing, my seven-year-old nephew called me on his cellphone and I realized it was kind of a dead issue. I will say though, that as a kid, I would have been thrilled to have even a broken modern flip phone to “play Star Trek” with. I hate you children of today. I hate you. I also got sort of gypped the other way around; when I was a kid, radio controlled planes were the domain of adolescent old men who could dish out the several hundred bucks to buy one. The memory of these old geezers blocking the counter at the hobby shop to buy toys that were rightfully MINE is still fresh in my memory. I shake my now adult fist at you bastards! I hope all of your planes crashed, costing you thousands of dollars! But today we not only have radio controlled airplanes, we have freakin’ radio-controlled helicopters. And things that would’ve been AWESOME when “playing Godzilla” with our Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars, like radio control dinosaurs and tarantulas.

Cool, but it just doesn’t smell right.

One last item actually got me thinking about the realities of our petroleum-addicted culture: the Razor MX350 Dirt Rocket Electric Motocross Bike. As cool as it may have been to have one as a youngster, and as much as I love the idea of alternative energy vehicles, I also had flashbacks thinking about the dirt bikes that I had as a youngster. I can’t begin to imagine riding trails as a teen without the grit, petrol smells, and raucous noise of those things. I can see how that must have plugged into a lot of the boomer generation’s obsession with fuel inefficient monstrosities like Harleys and Hummers. But enough of my reminiscing and bellyaching…any toys you wish they’d had when you were a kid?

Everybody knows that the shopping that we do on Black Friday is really just a desperate attempt to get along with annoying relatives that are visiting for the holiday, which partly explains why per-shopper sales were down 8% from last year. The other reason those Friday sales were down is because everyone is slowly learning that the Monday after a holiday isn’t for getting back to work, it’s for shopping on line while getting paid. As a borderline socialist, I of course have mixed feelings about how much you shop today, but as an Amazon affiliate, I have a keen interest in helping you shop to your heart’s content. As long as you do it through our product links and search tools. To that end, I want to help you realize that Amazon sells more than books. Maybe you need some Liquid Ass Fart Spray, or have been looking for that perfect product to help you Stop Eating Poop. Or maybe you’ve been meaning to out yourself for a while, but haven’t had the nerve. Try some Man to Man Gay Attraction Body Mist to get things rolling, and if it is your first time, consider pulling out all the stops and picking up a Dr.J Anal Dilator Kit. Yes, Amazon has it all. Thinking of starting a war, or a business? Why not order up a Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank or a NorTrac Bulldozer? The bulldozer will be handy for clearing the lot for your Self-Contained Branded Drive-Thru Kit. No more waiting in line at McDonald’s, and it’s only $89,000.00! Speaking of McDonald’s: as an American, you probably already know what fat looks like, but don’t let that stop you from picking up a Five-Pound Fat Replica. Interestingly, the “Frequently Bought Together” suggestion on that page lists “Five-Pound Fat Replica, One-Pound Fat Replica, One-pound Muscle Replica“, which is probably pretty close to the average American’s fat-to-muscle ratio. Moving along, if you’re looking for a gift for the nutjob conspiracy theorist in you life, give them a little peace of mind with a professional UFO Detector. As one customer shared in the reviews: “I purchased this item and am blown away by its effectiveness. I started this device up and immediately detected not one, not two, but five seperate UFOs in my immediate area. I am currently working on a way to communicate with what I assume is an intelligent species visiting our planet, but so far, I have been unsuccessful. I am waiting to see if this company will be selling a UFO communications device in the near future. If it is anything like this detector, I will be extremely happy. Thank you for a great product !” This same friend of yours may be interested in a copy of People Who Don’t Know They’re Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It , or perhaps Children of the Matrix: How an Interdimensional Race has Controlled the World for Thousands of Years-and Still Does. You think that books like these and How Green Were the Nazis?: Nature, Environment, and Nation in the Third Reich don’t make it onto Oprah’s book club lists because of the content, but it’s really just because the titles are too bloody long. And speaking of bloody, if you’re British, we’d just like to point out that the Cunt Coloring Book (maybe NSFW, unless you work in a gynecologist’s office) isn’t a book of pictures of your pals that you can color. And on that note, if you don’t speak English at all (and in keeping with the theme of ridiculously long titles) consider a copy of English as a Second F*cking Language: How to Swear Effectively, Explained in Detail with Numerous Examples Taken From Everyday Life. So you see, Amazon really does sell much more than books. And I defy you not only to come up with stranger items than I have, but to BUY THEM.

They also sell really BIG books. Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey Across the Last Himalayan Kingdom is 5 feet by 7 feet. And only $30,000.00!

Here’s a handy search tool to help you get started:

Nothing. Well, there are good things about it, but nothing great. Frankly, Google’s really starting to get on my nerves. They have a little bit too much of that Lord of the Rings “One Ring to rule them all” thing going on. Yes, it’s kind of cool that if you search for a band or a song, you now suddenly have the ability to play it right there in your search results. The other touted features – like the ability to search lyrics and get the same results for instance – are so inconsistent that I’m surprised the best and brightest at Google decided to include them. And the omission of iTunes and Amazon from those clickable previews is a mixed bag; yes it’s great to see less monolithic companies being promoted, but the fact is that this is probably just Google’s way of launching their own monopoly. It will be interesting to see how that plays out; so far their key partners include Lala, Rhapsody, Pandora, Imeem, and MySpace. I personally buy all my digital music at either Amazon* (which accounts for 10% of U.S. digital music sales) or iTunes (which accounts for 69% of U.S. digital music sales), and have no problem with that. If Google’s foray into the market generates competition and lower prices, or gives indy artists more exposure, excellent. If not, it’s just more search engine clutter, and another annoyingly distracting sales channel that benefits no-one. But don’t listen to me, try it yourself. Here’s a search box…

The Pew Internet & American life project says that about 30% of you are here for no real reason, so I’m here to give your Internet time some purpose. You know that nice feeling you get when you’ve decided you can afford something for yourself, you take a little time comparison shopping, and finally make the purchase? Isn’t it fun to take the item home, and if it’s clothing – try it on again – without the tags, or if it’s a new gizmo, mutter profanities about the bubble pack and maybe draw blood opening it, but then get down to playing with your new toy? It’s really a good feeling isn’t it? It can actually be very calming and gratifying. Well, it may just be the dopamine talking, but who cares? It feels good. And thanks to the wonders of the Internet, you don’t even need to move from exactly where you are right now to get this wonderful set of feelings. That little search tool below? It lets you explore all sorts of products, without leaving this page, and when you see something you like, just click on it, give the invisible Amazon Elves some magic numbers, and within a few days, voila! It’s delivered right to your door. Of course, before you engage in this kind of behavior (continued below)

you should make sure you’re not some kind of Oniomaniac. You can take a quiz to measure your Oniomania , and there’s support if it turns out you are indeed afflicted. I personally scored 13 out of 15, but the quiz had tricky questions like “Are you unable to resist a sale or bargain?” or “Do you get a high from shopping?”. I mean c’mon. Who can, and who doesn’t, right? This doesn’t mean we have a problem. Except the one that any shopper has at the beginning of the buying cycle, i.e.: Problem Recognition. And we recognize the problem, which is that we need to buy something. So go ahead. Do a little “Retail Therapy” right here and now. You’ll feel better.

Where are you in the buying cycle at this very moment?

When you’re looking for some new music to listen to or a movie to rent, nothing beats the recommendation of a good friend. Except maybe a recommendation system. Yesterday a friend mentioned the music site Pandora while I was spending some time pretending I’m not addicted to Facebook (which uses recommender tools itself). Ironically, because of the consulting work I do, I often find myself telling clients to use things I don’t have time to use myself, and Pandora’s a good example of one of the things that you don’t know you’ll be using next year, but that you’ll be more familiar with than I am by the time it becomes pervasive. Recommender engines and software have been in use for some time; the most familiar version being the Amazon “if you like that, maybe you’ll like this” feature. What’s new in this field is that they’re getting REALLY GOOD at it. Something that used to be almost annoying will become something you actually demand. Why? As this CNNMoney piece puts it we’re “…leaving the era of search and entering one of discovery. What’s the difference? Search is what you do when you’re looking for something. Discovery is when something wonderful that you didn’t know existed, or didn’t know how to ask for, finds you.” With Google getting more and more spammed out every day, our mental processes getting more and more externalized, and our lives getting almost over-connected, I for one welcome our new media-recommending overlords. They just have to iron out that little Napoleon Dynamite Problem, and we’ll be all set (here’s a more in-depth look at problems faced by recommendation tools if you’re interested). So hey human, can you recommend a good book?