Ariel Pink or Ariel Rosenberg is really where the new Millennium started, some of the albums at the top of this list (oh the anticipation!) in retrospect now seem like great end of 90's pieces. Whereas Ariel belongs squarely in the new millennium, with a whole shtick so post everything, and haunted by an enormous musical past and Ariel seems influenced by almost all of it. Previous practitioners who borrowed from older styles, even when good could come off like either pastiche (Strokes, White Stripes), or wacky and ironic (Beck, Beastie Boys). Where Ariel differed was that you can hear his love for 80's indie and pop, but you never felt like he was taking the piss out of it. In fact on his first run of records he often sings and beatboxes with a passion that can be intensely moving.
