Takin’ It To The Streets: Best CDs of The Year
By: Nicole Sligar

For the last ten years I have been on the streets of Las Vegas working behind the scenes of our local music biz. Chances are, if you have gotten a flyer for a concert, it has come from me or someone on my team. While we are out and about, we get to hear about a lot of cool stuff. This month, my team and I have been asking you about the best CD’s of the year. Here is what you had to say!

Christine Collins
Brown Jr. High School
The best CD to have come out this year would have to be the new Career Solders CD Finding Freedom in Hopelessness. I absolutely love that CD. In my opinion it's the best CD to come out in a really long time. Their music is really great and I just love all the guys in the band.

Sylvia Martin
Las Vegas High School
Hawthorne Heights Silence In Black and White is by far the best CD to have come out this year. It has amazing songs that are easy enough to sing along to, but also throw in enough screaming to get your teen angst out. Ha ha. Awesomeness all around!

Nic Ferguson
Mojave High School
Ashlee Simpson - and what is good about it is Ashlee! I love her! I love her music! This was one of the few albums that I actually liked every song on it. Most CDs I buy only have a few good songs. It is a really good CD.

Omar Lopez
Recent transplant from Miami, UNLV student
I want to point out the band TV ON THE RADIO. Their album Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes is great source of clarity amongst the shitty music that seems to reproduced at an alarming rate in the U.S. lately. Tracks like "Dreams" and "Staring at the Sun" conjure up great visuals, thousands of images, and what is music if it doesn't paint pictures, right? They are a blend of smooth vocal harmonies over minimal but very interesting guitars and delicious beats. Think of Peter Gabriel meets some very cool and updated doo-wop group that plays synth pop........with guitars!

Sara Robbins
Palo Verde High School
I'd have to say Northstar's Pollyanna. The band definitely made their big come back to the music scene with this album. It features extremely beautiful lyrical flows, and melodies that remain in my head for weeks. It came out at the beginning of the year, and I still have it on constant repeat.

Desiree Rayos Del Sol
House Of Blues
I can't get enough of In Love & Death by the Used. It's addicting and shows the maturity of the band from EP, to their LP two years ago, and to the band they are today. The Used have truly grown to be original musicians. Nothing but raw and hard-hitting tracks on this record.

Dave Rosen
at Wax Trax Records and Sony Music Rep
It’s really, really tough to decide since Lola Ray, Hope of the States, The Cure, and The Coral all had great CDs this year, but my number one CD of the year is The Hive's Tyrannosaurs Hives. It's 32 minutes of PERFECTION. There are only 2 tracks that aren't amazing, but are still good, and the rest of it is so perfect and it doesn't even get old a little bit. Every song has a little something different than the song before while keeping to the 3 minute garage/punk rock formula.

J Citoli
Orleans Hotel & Casino
I have to say Atreyu's The Curse because every song on that CD, in some way, shape, or form is a cry from my pathetic shattered heart.... word for word, beat by beat. It reminds me of how I truly feel inside.