Throughout December, CHIRP Radio presents its volunteers’ top albums of 2015. Our next list is from DJ and Online Media Director Clarence Ewing.

Not only do I love the 2010s, but apparently I’m still really into the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s. History doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme - several of the records on my list take their sound and inspiration from past Rock eras. My top album, in fact, is directly from a brief, glorious bygone time of Chicago Dance music. A famous TV gangster once said that “remember when” is the lowest form of conversation. But great music is great music no matter when or where you find it. Here’s what I found this year…

#1   Ultra-High Frequencies: The Chicago Party by Various Artists (Numero Group)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

An electrifying collection of post-Disco Soul/Dance tracks from a short-lived early ‘80s South-Side Chicago TV variety show. I’m not only giving props to this particular compilation, but also the label that put it together. Numero Group has been doing fantastic work locating and re-mastering all kinds of music that might have been lost to the mists of time forever if not for their meticulous restoration efforts.

#2   Space Is Still the Place by The Bright Light Social Hour (Frenchkiss)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

Pure X and Secret Colours had a love child in Austin, TX, put it in a time machine, and sent it back to 1973, where it grew up listening to FM Rock Radio and learning guitar from the Triumph/Aerosmith/Allman Brothers crowd. "Sea of the Edge" and "Infinite Cities” would have spent a lot of time at the top of Casey Kasem’s weekly countdown, once upon a time.

#3   Fingers, Bank Pads & Shoe Prints by RP Boo (Planet Mu)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

Meanwhile, in the not-too-distant future: Chicago producer RP Boo (Kavain Space), the guy who led the creation of Chicago’s newest music style, lays down what will prove to be one of the definitive examples of Footwork. Beats move at the speed of thought while hooks and sample bob and weave against the rapid-fire percussion like boxers in a prize fight. This is not music to lay back to. It’s the sound of agitation and unrest, reflecting the neighborhoods that shaped it.

#4   Pan by White Manna (Captcha)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

Grooves on fire with an EP that emphasizes the "Rock" half of “Psychedelic Rock" quite nicely. What separates this Humbolt, CA group from the West Coast jam bands of old is their sense of urgency; Even the slow songs have a front-of-the-beat charge to them. Good stuff to rock or space out to.

#5   Dark Energy by Jlin (Planet Mu)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

A brilliant, scary, exhilarating album from an artist from Gary, IN who has also spent some time in Chicago. This is an intensely psychological record where the beats and samples express ideas any rapper would have a hard time putting into words. Reaching from electronica into realms of musique concrète, sex and violence flow through the speakers with unspoken menace.

#6   Summertime ’06 by Vince Staples (Def Jam)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

No doubt, Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly and Dr. Dre’s Compton are going to get well-deserved praise this year. But this is the Hip-Hop record that spoke the most to me. Staples cranks up the bass and takes the listener for a ride through his world with a decidedly old-school technique.

#7   WHITEGOLD by WHITEGOLD (Self-Released)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

In only 29 minutes, this Chicago band (now known as SUPERMAGICAL) rips through an impressive cycle of lively, experimental-ish Dance-Party Pop. I hear echoes of ‘80s Punk and synth-Pop in the instruments and Siouxsie Sioux in the vocals. The sound is anything but retro, though.

#8   Mutilator Defeated At Last by Thee Oh Sees (Castle Face)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

The 14th studio album from Thee Oh Sees is more of the superb kind of hyperventilated psychedelic garage Rock listeners have been expecting from them. The vocals alternate between hushed whispers and primal yelps while the instruments create some powerful grooves that smolder in the soft sections and blaze in the loud ones.

#9   The Deepest Lake by Dengue Fever (Tuk Tuk)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

All I can think to say about this records is: Dance, dance, dance to the groovy grooves of Dengue Fever, who’ve been at it since 2003.

#10   Lucidity by ATOMIC (JazzLand)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

Some tasty Modern Jazz from Scandinavia, “part academic lecture, part a fun night out on the town” according to them. What it means is music from a group that has mastered the elements of Avant-Garde improvised music and yet still knows how to swing.

1/2 Decade of Wonder (2011-2015)

Five Things About the Last Five Years: When I finally write my book about American music in the 21st century, these are some of the debatable observations and opinions I’ll focus on in the “2011-2015” section…

What is “Pop Music?” The creative process that’s been in place since Tin Pan Alley is pretty much gone. What is this ultra-streamlined, exhaustively data-researched process that seeks to churn out musical “moments” as consistently and reliably as Apple iPods used to roll off the assembly line? Corporation Rock? Mass-Market Music (MMM)? And does it matter?

Rap music enters a new phase. In the ‘80s Rap was the CNN of the streets. The ‘90s were Rap’s Gangsta Phase. The ‘00s were Rap’s Bling (and Bloat) Era. And now we have the ‘00s, featuring introspection, depression, and increasingly political reactions to problems that continue to face the community.

The Internet destroyed the music industry, not music. Despite what Metallica and the major record labels thought, music continues to be produced by musicians who continue to be employable. Granted, snorting cocaine off a hooker’s backside in a stretch limo is now a luxury reserved for an increasingly select few, but a living can still be made in the profession.

Independence is...? From music to movies to restaurants to coffee shops, the differences between the corporate and that-which-is-not corporate have never been more stark.

Next step, consolidation? Events like Pitchfork’s recent acquisition by Condé Nast and the expansion of the Secretly Group reminds the eternal flux of the music industry while also making one wonder who will be next to join forces.