While the blues were being embalmed over on PBS, this twenty-something Akron white-boy duo released a great, contemporary blues album — to absolutely no acclaim. The Keys may pillage the occasional Stevie Ray Vaughn or Hendrix lick, but they're not playing the blues to be precocious. They're doing it because Dan Auerbach's rusty holler is 100% pure ache.
Best Tracks: "Thickfreakness," "Midnight in Her Eyes," "Hard Row"
Epic times call for epic art, and nothing moved us more than The Return of the King. Other things we loved: Louis Vuitton, William Boyd and BBC's The Office And to the Atlanta group OutKast, we say "Stank you very much!"