Here's the second half. By the way, for the sake of covering more ground, I tried to limit the list to one track per artist, including side projects and solo work, if that explains why songs from some obvious names aren't on here. And with that said, here we go: 24. Justin Timberlake - "Lovestoned/I Think She Knows" from Futuresex/Lovesounds (2006) If we were handing out Producer of the Decade acolades, Timbaland would obviously have to be considered. And the apex of his career can pretty much be pinpointed in the last third of this track (or ...

Well, we've hit the halfway point of 2009 and so far it's as if the music world has bucked its ideas up and decided to see this most flatulent of decades out with a load of really interesting albums. Strong debuts from Blue Roses, Broken Records, Dananananaykroyd, Emmy The Great, Fanfarlo, Grammatics, Joe Gideon And The Shark, Micachu & The Shapes, The Phantom Band, Sky Larkin, Wake The President and We Were Promised Jetpacks. Stellar North Americans: Andrew Bird, Collective">Animal Collective, Au Revoir Simone, The Decemberists, Grizzly Bear, Papercuts. Brits singular in their various ways: Bat For Lashes, Brakes, Camera Obscura, Doves, Future Of The Left, Pagan Wanderer Lu. Hell, even style bunnies The Horrors put out a really good record. And the fun doesn't stop there. The second half of 2009 is littered with good things afoot, not to mention ll the surprises. Well, obviously, they wouldn't be surprises then. Just next week there's the amazingly tearful/joyous Slow Club album Yeah, So? August 3rd sees Wild Beasts deliver on their promise of a lightning quick follow-up to Limbo Panto, Two Dancers apparently even more elegaic and odd. Two words which very much describe Mew, a band who have chosen to call their album No More Stories Are Told Today I'm Sorry They Washed Away No More Stories The World Is Grey I'm Tired Let's Wash Away. (But it seems to be fine to refer to it just as No More Stories.) Out on 24th August, they're reunited with Frengers producer Rich Costey and promise a work that's more upbeat and nearly straightforward. That Owen Pallett's a one. Back in late 2006 he said the third Final Fantasy album Heartland would be out in mid-2007. In mid-2007 he amended it to mid-2008. We're now in mid-2009 and he's still working on it, although he's found time to do string arrangements for the Rumble Strips (Welcome To The Walk Alone, July 13th). He promises it'll definitely be out this year, with a Prague orchestra. We'll believe it when we see it. Also imminently approaching studio finality, Lucky Soul's follow-up to the retro timelessly classic girl-pop drenched glory of The Great Unwanted. Like the advance single it's titled Woah Billy! and includes the string section that played on Brian Wilson's re-recorded version of Smile. Hints dropped on their blog about song structures include "Sam Cooke meets Edith Piaf", "Carole King sings Neil Young's Birds", "exactly halfway between The Smiths and Motown", "a weird mix of Stax, Talking Heads, Dolly Parton and The Specials" and "I still haven't finished the lyrics. It deserves brilliance." A rather more forceful brilliance manifests itself in the gentlemen and lady of Digbeth that are Johnny Foreigner. "A year ago we were kinda smartarsed and told everyone it'd be a concept album about a band, yeh, who go on tour a lot and go round the world and then go and make their second album. And thats pretty much what we've gone and made." So says Alexei of Grace And The Bigger Picture, out 26th October, produced by Alex Newport (At The Drive-In, Two Gallants, Death Cab For Cutie, Polysics, The Melvins, Sepultura, System Of A Down) and featuring guest appearances by members of Dananananaykroyd, Sky Larkin, Fight Like Apes and Meneguar. Also quoth Berrow: "one of the songs features a title mostly designed to make Tubelord go "aaaaaaww"". Unfortunately Tubelord might be a little busy, the disorientatingly fearsome Kingston trio releasing their own debut album in October. There's a narrative, it says here. If you want noise on 7th September, you've got it in the shape pf two new releases, Yo La Tengo's twelth album Popular Songs seemingly their most eclectic, while The Victorian English Gentlemens Club, slightly reconfigured and definitely pinging off the wires of their nerves, issue the curiously titled Love On An Oil Rig. And if we're talking inventive, often ear piercing regions, we must as we so often do look to our friends at Smalltown America Records. The Young Playthings have just released their second album, more of which later in the week, and in a Hot Press interview there's the promise of new albums afoot from lo-fi electro-bedroom pop whizzkid Alan MX and hard shell explosives Ice Sea Dead People. Excitingly, there's definite news of a 4 Or 5 Magicians album, 12th October being the landing date for the very much misleadingly titled Empty, Derivative Pop Songs. And... is that a new Jetplane Landing album emerging in the middle distance? What else? Well, a lot of known knowns and known unknowns. Yoni Wolf excelled himself with Why?'s Alopecia last year; the offcuts are being released as Eskimo Snow, "really the least hip-hop out of anything I've ever been involved with". Monsters Of Folk (21st September) is really the least hip-hop thing Conor Oberst, Jim James and M Ward will ...