Trip to Borders this week netted a bunch of albums I’d been meaning to pick up for some time but hadn’t gotten ’round to yet:

• Modest Mouse: Good News for People Who Love Bad News
  
• The Vines: Winning Days
  
• TV on the Radio: Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babies
  
• Franz Ferdinand: Franz Ferdinand
  
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Fever to Tell

Happy with all of them so far, and also a bit heartened to see that the music I’m listening to is now apparently pretty mainstream: All these albums were prominently displayed as featured recent-releases above the music racks. While I wasn’t actually a big fan of the whole Nirvana/Smashing Pumpkins/Pearl Jam axis that was flooding the airwaves back when I was in high school, it was at least (in retrospect) interesting, moderately original music. The kind of stuff you can recognize the value of even if it’s not to your taste. It seems like pop music was a kind of wasteland for a few years after that, though: A steady diet of boy bands, Britney clones, fratboy bullshit, and unimaginative hip-hop for the better part of a decade. If albums like those listed above are the new face of pop, count me a happy camper.