Paste's Top 50 Albums of the Decade

Music geeks are suckers for lists, and Paste Magazine has another good one as we close in on the end of the first decade of the 21st Century.

Paste's Top 50 albums of the decade makes for some great discussion, as well as a holiday shopping list for stuff I need to discover. And also some discs I already own that I need to re-examine.

Let's cut to the top: I was overjoyed to read that Paste ranks Sufjan Stevens' "Illinois" as its top pick of the decade. Bravo. If I had to put together a Desert Island Discs list, "Illinois" would be on that Top 10. It's  brilliant top to bottom. It's both eclectic and inviting, appealing to music fans of all ages and genres. (Here's a more detailed Paste look at "Illinois").

Sufjan Stevens' "Illinois" (aka "Illinoise") is well worth your money I already own 19 of the Paste 50:

• No. 1. Sufjan Stevens: Illinois
• No. 2. Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
• No. 4. Radiohead: Kid A
• No. 6. The White Stripes: Elephant
• No. 9. The Avett Brothers: I and Love and You
• No. 12. Spoon: Kill the Moonlight
• No. 14. The Strokes: Is This It
• No. 18. Amy Winehouse: Back To Black
• No. 20. The National: Boxer
• No. 28: Paul Westerberg: Folker
• No. 32. The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
• No. 33. Coldplay: A Rush Of Blood To The Head
• No. 34. Various artists: O Brother Where Art Thou?
• No. 39. Arcade Fire: Neon Bible
• No. 40. TV on the Radio: Return to Cookie Mountain
• No. 45. Radiohead: In Rainbows
• No. 47. Arctic Monkeys: Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
• No. 48. Loretta Lynn: Van Lear Rose
• No. 49. Libertines: Up the Bracket

But it's interesting how many of those are not in my regular rotation. "Kid A" remains almost unlistenable to me, but I'll go back and give it a few more tries in light of this Paste ranking (I much prefer the more accessible "In Rainbows"). And I like Wilco, but "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot isn't that good. "The Avett Brothers disc, which just came out, is ballad heavy but great. And I pull out Arctic Monkeys or Amy Winehouse every few months to jumpstart my energy, but most of those others on the list get played once or twice a year.

I'll have to think about discs I think should have been on that Top 50. Give ma a few days and I'll post an update.

In the meantime, feel free to share your lists or take advantage of the lala players Paste has embedded with each listing and try out this great music yourself. 

The Dope Sheet

The Dope Sheet is loaded with detail about the Green Bay PackersBrett Favre's return to Lambeau Field is huge in so many ways, but for Pakcers fans like myself, it's secondary to what is a huge game for the Packers' playoff chances this season. 

If you're a Packers fan, you might be familiar with The Dope Sheet, a weekly publication the Green Bay Packers began distributing to the media way back in 1921. In recent years, they've posted it on their website for all to read. It's information overload but in this day and age, it's a welcome read for fans who can't get enough (here's the 27-page PDF version for today's game).

In the old days, TDS might have been a dozen pages. For today's game, it's 27 pages. And, yeah, since it's coming from the team, there's some biased reading. But there's also insights and detail you can't get anywhere else. Makes for good preparation, something you won't get from all the talking heads who are clueless most of the time.

Engaging or painful design?

I stumbled across a site called Space Collective that features some wild topics and conversations as well asIndex of recent posts on Space Collective an innovative interface.

Visitors are given the option of viewing stories in a simple list format, sorted by headlines on the left and images and author name and avatar on the right. They're also given the option of viewing stories via a panel, with each story segmented into identical panels about the size of a deck of cards, stacked 5 wide and 10 deep.

Here's where it gets interesting. Clicking on a panel opens up story screen but through some Ajax-like call creates a dynamic story view that keeps the visitor on the same page. In the story view, the main element  takes up the width of three panels; clicking to close the story view returns you to the full panel page.

I'm intrigued by the concept, and wonder about the possibilities as they relate to Story view on dynamically created page on Space Collectivea site built simply around the concept of pure serendipity (this wouldn't work for a new site, where hierarchy is important). I'm also intrigued by Space Collective's use of an orange-tagged "Wild Card," which pulls in a random RSS feed from "related sources." (You can see an example in the upper right of the index-page screen grab).

A co-worker thinks it's poor UI because it's free form, has no real center of gravity and doesn't offer enough to keep a person coming back. I see his points, particularly if we were talking about a general information site, but I'm intrigued nonetheless. I see it as kind of like Current TV, which is freeform at its core.

I'll try visiting daily for a week to see if I get tired of the concept and whether the usability -- or lack thereof -- becomes an attraction or a distraction.

What do you think?