For the first time this year, the effects of file-sharing on personal taste became unmistakably clear: the indie community’s palettes– and everyone else’s– have broadly diversified. Freed from the careful decision-making that comes with $12 purchases, we can now easily branch out beyond the genres we’ve always loved and discover the inherent worth in all of them. Pitchfork

Sufjan Stevens – For The Widows In Paradise, For The Fatherless In Ypsilanti Before Mumford And Sons ruined the banjo for every musician on the planet, artists like Sufjan Stevens made incredible songs with them, and this is one of the best. stereogum

The Shins – Saint Simon somewhat of a reviewer’s wet dream: you don’t have to analyze the lyrics to uncover any deeper meanings or hidden metaphors. You don’t have to dig for clues to the lead singer’s critical opinion about the situation of women in Morocco, or his feelings after his third wife abandoned him and took his five children. Or at least: you don’t have to pay attention to the lyrics to have a great time listening.

Just listen to a song like “Saint Simon,” which is easily the highlight of the album with its astonishing multi-layered choruses. It feels like the thing that you’ll hear when you enter heaven. tinymixtapes

Camera Obscura – Suspended From Class definitely belongs with the British indie purists. Simple melodies, cut and paste arrangements of horns, organs, and guitars, combined with softly sung female vocals. They are unprepossessing in style, dainty and sweet in quality. John Peel even seems to likes them; so, you get the idea. Only, there seems to be something slightly sinister about the whole affair. I find myself whistling those inconsequential hooks all day long. Dammit, this stuff is more infectious than Kylie tinymixtapes

Belle and Sebastian – Stay Loose The accepted narrative about Dear Catastrophe Waitress is that it was a return to form, pairing Stuart Murdoch’s finest writing since the nineties with producer Trevor Horn’s ability to coax hits out of a diverse array of artists. … album closer “Stay Loose,” one of their greatest musical departures from the signature Belle & Sebastian style. Horn managed to push the band’s sound without changing their instrumentation. The dual electric guitars are echo-y and syncopated. The backing vocals including someone singing an octave below the lead. The most prominent keyboard is a thin, reedy organ. The bass is more prominent in the mix. I don’t know why, in 2003, Trevor Horn thought making Belle &Sebastian sound like The Specials would be their path to crossover success, but I’m sure not complaining. sportsalcohol

Belle and Sebastian – Desperation Made A Fool Of Me it’s a daily-grind/killing-me-softly type song about dashed expectations and the harsh yet strangely rewarding reality of an often difficult life– one on which Murdoch’s weary vocal matches the song’s sleepy, worn tone and content. pitchfork

The New Pornographers – All For Swinging You Around If an album was ever designed to kick off the summer months this is it. New Pornographers are a Vancouver seven-piece featuring three singers (including alt.country star Neko Case), offering a ceaseless blast of melodic sunshine… Half an hour of their sugar-coated jauntiness is just about perfect, after which the listener would be well advised to reach for a disturbing book or pray for rain theguardian

The Postal Service – Such Great Heights The Postal Service’s lone album has proved surprisingly influential, casting a long shadow over the 2000s. Not only did it show up in films and on television… but its songs were covered regularly by a wide range of artists… For better or for worse, for a little while, the Postal Service made laptops the new guitar. pitchfork

one of the most perfect singles of the 00’s that never become a hit. The verses and chorus are equally hooky, and it’s guaranteed to put a smile on all but the grumpiest faces popmatters

Amy Winehouse – Fuck Me Pumps a scathing character study that takes us back to the ‘Footballer’s wives’ era of the early noughties.

In this (WAG)gish riposte, ‘Fuck Me Pumps’ contains lyrical gems such as “You can’t sit down right ’cause your jeans are too tight/ And you’re lucky it’s ladies’ night” and “Don’t be mad at me ’cause you’re pushing thirty/ And your old tricks no longer work.”

In the accompanying music video, Amy fights off laughter as she beams her words into the camera, sparkly-eyed and waltzing playfully down Landan Town. I pop this track on whenever I’m getting ready for a night out, armed with a glass of vino and the dream that one day I’ll become Mrs Grealish 69 clashmusic

The Libertines – Don’t Look Back Into The Sun perhaps the best example of Carl keeping the Libs moving while everything crumbled around him. According to Bernard Butler, who produced it, this indie-pop masterpiece was “one of the biggest endurance tests of my life” because Pete could barely be arsed to turn up to the recording sessions, “and when he did turn up he did the bare minimum – he wasn’t in a good way”. But Bernard, John, Gary and Carl managed to find beauty in the wreckage…Another painfully poignant lyric in hindsight: “Oh my friend you haven’t changed, you’re looking rough and living strange.” nme

Cinerama – Don’t Touch That Dial Dave Gedge relocated from West Yorkshire to the west coast of America earlier this year but fans will be delighted that he has taken his tastes for romance and melancholy with him. This transatlantic debut is a piece punctuated by chiming guitars and occasional, epic crescendos and at the heart of it all remains Gedge’s wonderfully incongruous northern lilt. It just goes to show that you can take the boy out of the north… manchestereveningnews

The Decemberists – Red Right Ankle In a 2007 interview with the AV Club, Colin Meloy is asked why his songs drift toward obscure history, and why he doesn’t just write songs about his girlfriend. Meloy responds that he does write songs both about and for his now-wife, Carson Ellis. Beyond being the inspiration for some key Decemberists songs, Ellis is also important to the band’s story as the illustrator behind their album artwork. “Red Right Ankle” still, isn’t a typical love song, and of course a “gypsy uncle” appears, as does a “hideout in the Pyrenees.” But the last verse, after a lovely accordion breakdown courtesy of Jenny Conlee, that Meloy sings to the boys that loved Ellis, to those that broke her heart and to those whose heart she broke, is a moment of genuine inspiration for Meloy as a songwriter. It’s a territory that love doesn’t want us to explore, considering the past lovers of a current flame, but the maturity and compassion of Meloy in this verse is uncommon and quite beautiful. stereogum

Guided By Voices – The Best of Jill Hives As anthemic as Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me”, with all that song’s pomp and exuberance and power pop catchiness, “Jill Hives” struts across a crisp, driving bassline, Pollard’s echo-delayed vocals outlining a melody both plaintive and stirring. One listen — maybe two — and you’ll be unselfconsciously singing it in the shower, damn near guaranteed popmatters

The Essex Green – The Late Great Cassiopia easy on the eardrums, but like bingeing on a snack food, you’ll be hungry again an hour later pitchfork

Radiohead – There, There Alluding to a failing relationship, the song’s real merit is encouraging people not to believe in illusions, no matter how alluring they may be. Faroutmagazine

Blur – Out Of Time could easily be dismissed as some bass-led Radiohead-y soft song, but in its textures (the squirk of fingers sliding along the sitar(?), and whatever that reversed string/distant-train sound is in the pre-chorus that sounds like a star imploding) and the humanity to his voice, elevates this gentle, seemingly desolate song into something devastating and full of wonder

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Maps When it comes to “Maps,” your age, sex, relationship background, musical preference, opinion on Karen O’s voice or thoughts on a bass-less garage-rock trio didn’t matter. If you didn’t feel anything by the time Zinner ripped into his triumphant, octaved guitars or Karen O confided “They don’t love you like I love you,” you might not have a beating heart. Pastemagazine

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Pin is about the self-inflicted pain and fleeting joy of reuniting with a former lover. She knows it’s wrong, “pushing in the pin.” But her disposition quickly sways: “We’re gonna go back in / We’re gonna go, go, go.” Thundering vocals and an infectious riff take over and she’s in the thick of it. There’s no turning back. Stereogum

The Strokes – What Ever Happened? Because opening up your insanely-anticipated second album, the follow up to a record that turned you into superstars, with the line “I wanna be forgotten” will never not make you a bit of a lovable troll. The forty five

Regina Spektor – Carbon Monoxide the quirky songwriting style (vocals and words only; the music itself is always classy) is numbing at first. The first few plays require a bit of patience, but this is a unique new talent… At first, you may frown at the lack of subtlety, but then the songs are in your head and you can’t get them out. You start to appreciate all the messy idealism of them. Popmatters

Broadcast – Colour Me In No-one makes music like Broadcast; the strength of their aesthetic alone is to be commended in an era when cultural cross-pollination is in danger of diluting even the most individual talents.

…There is some pleasure to be gained from spotting the bizarre selection of tunes that they’ve ripped off, unconsciously or not: on opener Colour Me In, Petula Clark’s Downtown lingers under the surface noripcord

The Coral – Pass It On They’ve made the heady transition from twee-rock misfits to not-to-distant cousins of The La’s without even breaking a sweat drownedinsound

Ambulance LTD – Stay Where You Are Not everybody breaks new ground. Not very band has to be difficult. Most people are far more fun to be around when they’re happy than when they’re trying to show off. Why should a record be any different? If more good bands were prepared to just make uncomplicated pop records, the world would never have had to suffer Maroon 5 filling the gap drownedinsound

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – Vanessa From Queens What Malkmus does that everyone has always loved is that he still, to this day, refuses to give much of a fuck about convention or lines and songs that have finite interpretations, that can be unscrewed and figured out pastemagazine

Loose Fur – Elegant Transaction an intriguing collaboration between avant-rock omnipresence (and recent addition to Sonic Youth) Jim O’Rourke and Wilco guitarist and drummer Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche – an improbable alt.rock supergroup bridging the hitherto unrelated worlds of country-rock and free improvisation…

a song about the random nature of relationships and recollections, where O’Rourke’s stylish convolutions surely reflect his Burt Bacharach influence: “And don’t strike a conversation with a cigarette/ Like an old flame, Burned up, and out of breath” independent

Chicks On Speed – We Don’t Play Guitars this has more front and unhinged ideas in its squelchy four minutes than most bands muster in a month. First off, the Chicks make it clear that they don’t play guitars. Through the title of the song, in fact. Then they start talking in monotone robovoices about how, instead of possessing any kind of desire whatsoever to fiddle around with six-strings, they’d rather go supermarket shopping like their heroines The Slits. Then they decide that they also like using gaffa tape, probably to hold their broken keyboards and paper dresses together. You should be really disorientated by this stage, but Canadian filth queen Peaches comes to the rescue, wailing away like a non-cheesy Eddie Van Halen during – heretic! – a guitar solo. A contradictory, demented and thoroughly silly record this, but one that leaves the world a happier, odder place. Nme

M83 – Run Into Flowers blended electronic music, chiptune, post rock, and shoegaze in a way that still sounds ahead of its time stereogum

Daniel Johnston – Fear Yourself Alternately lonely, funny, lost and wincingly vulnerable, occasionally astonishing even, this collection of piano ballads and mid-tempo quirky pop-rock songs is rich pickings provided you suspend that knee-jerk cynicism and listen with your heart. Pastemagazine

The Fiery Furnaces – Up In The North Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger are a sibling double act, and their debut album, Gallowsbird’s Bark, is a riot of restless invention independent

Adam Green – Jessica His songs negotiate a deft conflation of gutter poetry, quasi-obscenity and buoyant melodic skill. Jessica, a skilful dissection of the blonde American former pop princess Jessica Simpson and, by extension, celebrity itself, wouldn’t sound out of place on Radio 2 theguardian

Slumber Party – Your Friends sometimes, as is the case here, imperfection is quite enough– the constant threat of an unwanted sunrise or a noisy misstep adding to the important beauty temporary shadows cast upon the prosaic parts of your day. Pitchfork

Scout Niblett – Linus This kind of record is no fun to rate, because where I’d want a little more anything (more developed songs, maybe, or a little more emotional range in these parched-earth vocals), I know that others will be hit in the gut by every weird little tune on this album. Like any kind of nakedness, it’s up to you how to take it. Pitchfork

Yo La Tengo – Little Eyes Thirty-seven record-store clerks are missing and feared dead in the aftermath of a partial roof collapse during a Yo La Tengo concert Monday.

“We’re trying our best to rescue these clerks, but, realistically, there’s not a lot of hope,” said emergency worker Len Guzman, standing outside the 40 Watt Club, where the tragedy occurred. “These people are simply not in the physical condition to survive this sort of trauma. It’s just a twisted mass of black-frame glasses and ironic Girl Scouts T-shirts in there.”

Also believed to be among the missing are seven freelance rock critics, five vinyl junkies, two ‘zine publishers, an art-school dropout, and a college-radio DJ. Theonion

King Creosote – Missionary a history lesson. Anderson is the head of the so-called Fence Collective, a coterie of like-minded musicians who use folk music as a jumping-off point for “skewered folk, folkadelica, nonsensical, bluedoh and swampguff” (as the Domino Records press release tells it.) Other Fencers include the James Yorkston, Lone Pigeon (Anderson’s brother Gordon) and countless other bands –- Supershitbox, HMS Ginafore, etc. Homemade CD-Rs are the order of the day for most of these acts, but occasionally an official Fence Collective release finds the light of day on Fence’s own label, or through Domino or Bad Jazz Records. With that groundwork laid, King Creosote’s Kenny and Beth’s Musakal Boat Rides splits the difference –- appearing on Domino records, it’s a compilation of home recordings and earlier label offerings dating back to 1995. Popmatters

U.N.P.O.C. – Here On My Own one of those albums you get recommended or stumble over rather than one that you purposefully look for because the tastemakers tell you that you should. I found it because a fellow amateur reviewer was so enthusiastic about it and I hope that in reading this your curiosity may get the better of you too and eventually you’ll recommend it to someone else and so on. Fifth Column is one of those albums that the appreciation of gets passed from one person to the next by word of mouth alone, not by a marketing exercise. It’s beautiful, it’s unique and it really is very special. Backseatmafia

Stellastarr* – My Coco manages to be stupidly uplifting, clever, and catchy, with not a second wasted drownedinsound

The Stills – Still In Love Song tipped as the latest ‘bright young things’ to emerge onto the soundwaves – all hail the saviours of music (haven’t we heard this before?). Bearing in mind the current scene consists of Pop Idol and Fame Academy winners and losers, it wouldn’t be hard for this Canadian four-piece to save us from what is undeniably a dry period for any serious music fan. Counterculture

British Sea Power – Carrion as pure a song as written by any band – it is their ethos distilled and bottled into four and a half minutes. Despite this the intrigue remains throughout “can stone and steel and horses heels, ever explain how you feel? From Scapa Flow to Rotherhithe I felt the lapping of an ebbing tide” and the listener still doesn’t quite know who the band are by the end. Here lies the genius of the song though; British Sea Power have achieved what many artists spend a full career attempting to do unsuccessfully – create a song immediate in its accessible music, yet ultimately unknowable in its lyrical composition drownedinsound

Evan Dando – All My Life the former Lemonheads frontman puts his misdeeds into perspective with a tinge of regret. But Dando didn’t write the song. The Australian singer-songwriter Ben Lee wrote it for him. “He got it way better than I could have, ever, because he obviously has a clearer perspective on what I am,” Dando said. “Ben knows me so well that he wrote my song, especially about my mid-life-crisis years. And he got it great.” Rollingstone

The Concretes – Seems Fine It starts with a horn solo, which I would normally find to be indescribably annoying. In this case, it’s only mildly annoying. There isn’t much time, but the rest of the song makes up for the trumpet (or whatever the hell it is). There’s also some keyboard sound running throughout the song, some synthesizer mimicking a horn. For some reason, though, I don’t find that to be annoying. I kinda like it. Thisisthatsong

The Sleepy Jackson – Good Dancers You can never have too much indie pop (so far, anyway), and these folks seem to know what they’re doing. By “folks”, I mean basically one guy. One guy bent on world domination, and a bunch of hired hands….

Catchy? Yes. Blatantly derivative? Hell, yeah popmatters

The Tyde – Henry VIII the kind of album I love, and all my friends find pleasant but bland tinymixtapes

The Hidden Cameras – Ban Marriage More heinous overstaffing in indiedom, with a dozen Canadians playing what they accurately call “Gay church folk music”. You couldn’t have made this up a year ago, but here are The Hidden Cameras, a divine combination of Belle and Sebastian’s winsomeness and The Polyphonic Spree’s mob-handed euphoria nme

Deerhoof – Flower Every song they present is a staggering collage of guitars and drums, bells, tambourines, brass, and every other manner of beep or squeak under the sun, all falling in line in lush, swaying arrangements. Pitchfork

Eels – Rock Hard Times Musically and lyrically, E is spent– out of ideas, out of innovation, unable to cough up anything but by-the-numbers pop in the fourteen originals he wrote for this disc. The self-loathing and despair that seeps in around the edges touch so lightly that they can’t give it a backbone. I’m not slamming this album to diss the man behind it, but to tell him he can do better. Much, much better. Pitchfork

The Radio Dept – 1995 NME granted the band two single of the week accolades and listed Lesser Matters in its top 10 albums of the year list for 2003 (it would also later make NME’s album of the decade list). In 2006, Sofia Coppola featured three Radio Dept songs in the soundtrack for her film Marie Antoinette. Even if their underrated second album 2006’s Pet Grief was less well received, a good platform for reaching a wider audience had surely been established. Or would have been, were this not a group who seem to fear even the merest prospect of compromise like the bubonic plague. “To be forced to print the Warner logo on our records would be a bit like having to get a McDonald’s tattoo on the neck,” said Duncanson in one interview, with characteristic diplomacy, about the prospect of ever signing to a major label. He and Larsson preferred to support themselves with day jobs in mental institutions than go pro on the mainstream music business’s terms. Theguardian

The Lucksmiths – There Is A Boy That Never Goes Out This one is just fun, and it brings to mind their name-checked heroes. I always thought it was funny that they so identified with the Smiths. They feel like totally different animals. Where the Smiths were constantly swinging for the fences, the Lucksmiths seemed perfectly content to play small ball; a double here a single there, sacrifice to bring a man home. Thenewvinylvillain

Sodastream – Blinky Sodastream makes nice, quiet music. Fine popmatters

Devendra Banhart – The Charles C Leary It’s the middle of the night. You’re sound asleep. Suddenly, the phone rings and all the sweet, sweet serotonin gets sucked straight from your brain in a mere instant. So now you’re awake, but you’re too tired to get up and answer the phone. The machine picks up, and someone on the other end starts plucking a guitar and singing in a vaguely creepy, almost gender neutral tenor. It’s bone-chilling in the darkness. When it’s over you struggle back into fitful, paranoid sleep, and in the morning when you wake up, the message is there. After several listens, you still don’t know who it is, but the song is starting to make sense. It’s actually pretty good. Pitchfork

Kings Of Leon – Molly’s Chambers The dirty, flirty riff-chugging mess of a debut single that got the Followill boys dubbed the “Southern Strokes” (ugh). They had it, we wanted it rollingstone

The White Stripes – Black Math the most badass song about the classroom since “School’s Out.” There’s something thrilling about witnessing a small amount of people making a huge, gnarled racket, like when Nirvana combined for the annihilation of “Milk It.” There’s just a primal thrill about the imbalance. What elevates “Black Math” from the Stripes’ other cranked-to-11 assaults is the bouncing betty riff, that stoner metal breakdown, and — most crucially — those closing yeahs dropping with the snark of 25 teens preying on a substitute teacher. Stereogum

Vue – Look Out For Traffic combines a nasty, gritty Rolling Stones rhythm guitar riff with some very cool, contrasting lead accents that chime and echo, as if The Smiths’ Johnny Marr was playing Replacements covers with Mick and Keith Popmatters

Bearsuit – Itsuko Got Married

Franz Ferdinand – Darts Of Pleasure Franz Ferdinand not only create the beats that make girls dance,but also the music that will make indie kids spazz out. These “Darts” hit a bullseye spin

The Futureheads – First Day a sarcastic Sunderland Devo nme

The Cribs – You Were Always The One Rule Number 1 of indie-rock longevity: make a so-so debut with a handful of great songs drownedinsound

Misty’s Big Adventure – I Am Cool With A Capital C chorus (“walking around with my head to the ground, saying ‘I’m so cool with a capital C’”) can’t fail to raise a smile. Pennyblackmusic

The Go! Team – Junior Kickstart the Go! Team dump everything they’ve got into the instrumental song; and that’s saying a lot, considering the album’s got female rapping, walls-of-sound summoned whenever needed, and a library of synthesizers, just to catalog a few. A truly triumphant horn section and exhilarating live drumming carry the tune, which could score anything from a way-too-hip retro cop show to a badass car chase tinymixtapes

The Aislers Set – Langour In The Balcony We’re surrounded by pop music, yet it’s rare to find full albums packed solid with irresistible, brain-picking hooks, melodies so catchy you can identify the exact note or syllable that addicts you. How I Learned to Write Backwards is the rare exception. Never merely “nice” or “fun,” Amy Linton’s songs are chiseled like diamonds, and set to some of the coolest arrangements ever taped in somebody’s basement. Pitchfork

The Thrills – Santa Cruz (You’re Not That Far) four tracks that saunter instead of swagger and kidnap your heart with a simple charm. ‘Santa Cruz’ opens with a barroom piano and the words “Well, tell me where it all went wrong”… Debut of the year nme

Tindersticks – Until The Morning Comes Most bands don’t have a single idea in their entire careers; Tindersticks have made a career out of refining and perfecting one brilliant idea… Often extraordinarily beautiful – especially in uneasy opener Until the Morning Comes, sung by violinist Dickon Hinchcliffe… this album provides the comforts of an old friend. Theguardian

Elbow – Grace Under Pressure Right, before we get started, could we all agree to forget a few things? 1) That you’ve ever seen Elbow lazily, bracketed with orthodox British guitar bands like Coldplay and Travis. 2) Elbow’s 2001 debut ‘Asleep In The Back’. If you hated it, that is. 3) The misleading idea that Elbow are, simply, gloomy miserablists.

Slate wiped clean? Good. Because, while NME is determined not to slip into hysterical hype, ‘Cast Of Thousands’ is very good. A classic, perhaps. Certainly, a record that anyone who’s ever demanded anything interesting from rock music should hear. Free of baggage, associations and past histories. Nme

Stars – Elevator Love Letter one song form Belle & Sebastian were never real strong with was the boy/girl conversational duet, and Stars are happy to fill the void. “Elevator Love Letter” puts a jangly frame around urban shyness– she’s a rich girl, he’s hot for the rich girl, both have spent too much time under florescent lights. Pitchfork

Saloon – Absence The further away from the ‘Lab and into a more organic sound the band goes, the more satisfying their music is becoming. That’s not just a matter of freeing themselves from the restraints of their influences, but of honing their own strengths as well. Pitchfork

Smog – Butterflies Drowned In Wine When Callahan is at his best, a squealing, distorted guitar can break your heart, a rumination on death can make you laugh, and a joke can make you hate yourself. In a sense, Callahan’s best work is often the most difficult to listen to– a tapestry of revelation, humor, despair, beauty, and noise hardly qualifies as easy listening.

Supper, Callahan’s eleventh proper album as Smog, is a lovely collection of songs. Alternating between confident mid-tempo rockers and acoustic portraits of domestic bliss, this is without doubt one of his most accessible efforts to date. Which is exactly why it’s not his best. Pitchfork

Wheat – I Met A Girl Per Second has an immediacy that it once seemed unlikely we’d ever hear from this band, to the point where some of Wheat’s old fans may not be willing to follow them down their new path. Pitchfork

Dean & Britta – Ginger Snaps If as you should be you’re in love with Luna, who since departing the mothership Galaxie 500 in 1992 have often made the same sleek, sexy, cerebral record, only better each time, you’ll come over all swoonalicious to this subtly sparkling spin-off. Overachieving couple Wareham (voice that, without trying too hard, conveys every emotion half-understood by man; guitar) and Phillips (voice, bass, was once too cool to be a full-on movie star) sing, together and separately, new (very Luna-esque) love songs and interpretations of oddities from The Doors’ “Indian Summer” to Madonna’s “I Deserve It”, from Buffy Sainte-Marie to Opal. You might consider this all very pleasant if inconsequential, but the God’s God of producers, Tony Visconti (for it is he), sprinkles extra stardust on every sigh, turning the bluebirds of their cooing yet knowing happiness into long-legged flamingos who know what a mirror’s for. Honestly, special. Uncut

I Am Kloot – From Your Favourite Sky I Am Kloot live or die by small things: a chord change that grabs you when normally it might not; a turn of phrase that pulls you closer without calling too much attention to itself popmatters

Snow Patrol – Spitting Games veers dangerously close to high school poetry: “My heart is bursting in your perfect eyes/ As blue as oceans and as pure as skies.” Pitchfork

Pernice Brothers – Weakest Shade of Blue I’ve noticed that Sherwin-Williams Paint is using the Pernice Brothers’ “Weakest Shade of Blue” for their theme song. It’s a gorgeous song and I get that a paint company would want to use a song with a color in the title, but do you really want to be tying your product to the “weakest shade” of that color? Wouldn’t a paint company want to make people think of strong colors rather than weak ones? Trouserpress