The first six months saw the release of most of the best albums, while some of my favorites have already recorded next year’s contenders but won’t release them until ‘12. These heavy hitters include The Foreign Films, Explorers Club, and Bryan Scary.

One: Marco Joachim, “Hidden Symphonies.” “Hidden Symphonies” is a pop masterpiece that achieves a Sgt. Pepper-like grandeur through constant melodic and textural invention. “Gramercy Park” is as memorable as anything the Beatles achieved in later years. “Cellophane Sue” is an obvious goof on “Polythene Pam” and a solid hit in its own right. Marco is immeasurably aided by producer/guitarist Jon Gordon whose epic guitar is all over these tracks.

Two: Cirrone: “Uplands Park Road.” These Sicilian brothers (with Ferdinando Piccoli on drums) reinvent the modern pop song drawing on the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Big Star, the Byrds, Crosby, Stills and Nash, the Hollies, the Zombies and every other great power popper, but they have a unique sound built around three-part harmonies and Alessandro’s and Mirko’s thrilling guitar work. Don’t believe perfection is unobtainable. Listen to this record.

Three: Supraluxe: “The Super Sounds of Supraluxe.” The Twin Cities-based trio don’t sound like a trio due to the density of each member’s contribution. Every song burrows into your skull and contains a surprising but logical development. “Lester Bangs” pays tribute to the late writer (who once slept in my bed) with a rockin’ raver. “Sunday’s Not So Bad” should put-paid to “Easy Like Sunday Morning” once and for all.

Four: Bookends: “Proud Of My Stereo.” Silly name for an album of sweeping grandeur and emotional range. Like Supraluxe, this Finnish trio casts a spell out of all proportion to their size. The songs by Lauri Leskinen and Ville Terila shun Brill Bdlg. conventions in favor of an experimental melodic palette reminiscent of XTC. “Shaking Off the Mantra” has more melodic invention than whole albums by other groups.

Five: The Secret Powers: “What Every Rose Grower Should Know.” Mad pop experimentalism along the lines of Yes and XTC yields TSP’s best record yet. The title track in particular is pop rococo, each change-up sucking you deeper into the experience. And has there been a better animals song than “Tarantula?” Or a better Ennio Morricone/Sergio Leone riff than “The Desert?”

Six: The Turnback: “Drawn in Chalk.” Another trio with an enormous sound, The Turnback absorbs every great power pop trope of the past forty years and feeds them back fresh. Echoes of the Beatles, Moby Grape, The Cars, the Plimsouls and you name it find their way into the songs which emerge totally fresh. The record serves as a partial soundtrack to singer/songwriter/actor Todd Giglio’s gut-wrenching film of the same name, which asks the question, When do you give up on your dream of being an artist and face the real world? But not all these great songs appear in the movie. More about the movie later but in the meantime this is a must-have.

Seven: Radio Days: “C’est La Vie.” Like the Turnback, this Italian quartet has absorbed every power pop trope and turned them into something unique, with stunning harmonies, more hooks than a Russian trawler, and Omar Assadi’s massive guitar to which he frequently adds a lounge-like coda, like a drop of black paint in a bucket of white that ultimately results in the paint appearing even whiter. “Dirty Tricks” with its stop and go rhythm is a dirty trick on the listener as you want the song to go on forever.

Eight: Meyerman: “Who Do You Think You Are?” Gotta love a power pop pioneer who wears his heart on his sleeve. Theo Mayer’s quartet, with guitar monster Mike Eckhart, worships at the Fountains of Wayne, the Move, and Ed James, whose “Welcome to the Show” is a predecessor to Meyerman’s “Intro/Tonight” and “Permission to Rock You,” a one-two punch that will leave you reeling and gasping for more.

Nine: Kelly’s Heels: “Playing Into Your Hands.” Another trio with an enormous sound because they all sing. Bob Kelly’s songs are reminiscent of the Mamas and the Papas and their greatest acolytes, Marmalade Souls. That is, these are songs of sweeping emotion, brilliant hooks and unending musicality.

Ten: Kensington: “Borders.” This Dutch quartet sounds like a cross between Field Music and the Byrds with great jangle and Everly Brothers harmonies courtesy of the two guitar slingers, Casper Starreveld and Eloi Youssef. Youssef has a unique guitar style that sounds almost pizzicato.

His op-ed skills, alas, need some fine tuning.

McMurtry took to the pages of The Washington Post this week to share his thoughts on the Tucson shooting and the ensuing cultural debate. He’s a longtime Tucson resident and felt he had something to add to the conversation.

“Brokeback Mountain” screenwriters Larry McMurtry, left, and Diana Ossana with director Ang Lee

On second thought …

His rambling essay contained the usual liberal bromides spelled out in convoluted fashion. And, worst of all, he apparently has serious misgivings about the free and unfettered political debates in this country. Why would an artist who makes his living with words fear a spirited body politic?

After a quick attack on Arizona’s lax gun restrictions – a subject wholly relevant to the matter at hand – McMurtry brings out his big guns.

Oh, sorry. Is that hate speech today?

He applauds Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik for blaming heated political rhetoric for the killings, even though the entire civilized world now knows there isn’t a microscopic scrap of evidence to bolster Dupnik’s case.

That doesn’t seem to bother McMurtry.

I thought that he was magnificent and his point obvious. Ask the Indians and the Mexicans; the latter are usually referred to as “illegal aliens,” though none of them comes from outer space.

Definition of “alien” from Dictionary.com:

1. a resident born in or belonging to another country who has not acquired citizenship by naturalization ( distinguished from citizen). 2. a foreigner. 3. a person who has been estranged or excluded. 4. a creature from outer space; extraterrestrial.

McMurtry recent wrote Books: A Memoir, which recalled his life-long love affair with texts as well as remembrances of his own book collections. Maybe the only edition missing from his book shelf is one written by that Webster fellow.

The Pulitzer Prize winning author then blames Arizona’s willingness to enforce its own border as part of the state’s violent mindset, using a massacre from 1871 to help buttress his case.

“This border has always been cruel,” he writes. “On Ajo Way car wrecks are frequent; the convenience stores sell memorial crosses.”

Wonder if he has any compassion for Arizona residents who deal with the wave of illegal “aliens” on their property, or the crimes a fraction of them commit? And why can’t a nation defend its borders? Does he consider the consequences if immigrants from every part of the world streamed into the country without any sort of control in place?

Of course, you know a slam on former Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin is mere syllables away.

“Palin has attacked journalists for suggesting that violent speech might provoke violent action – but mightn’t it?  We don’t know for sure.”

Actually, we do know for sure in this case. It didn’t. But the monster who shot 19 people Jan. 8 is on record as loving The Communist Manifesto and digging music from Drowning Pool. Where is McMurtry’s essay calling out either source for blame? Don’t hold your breath. Violent fiction doesn’t inspire murder. Criticism of ObamaCare just might, though.

Chalk McMurty up as a literary genius whose skills translate badly to the op-ed pages. He’s also yet another artist willing to use a tragedy to malign those who don’t agree with his ideology.

Mr. Ebner is one of the few writers left today willing to get down in the gutter with his subjects just to hear their truth. In his new book Six Degrees of Paris Hilton, Mr. Ebner takes you to the places they never show you on “Access Hollywood,” because if the general public could access the side of Hollywood Mr. Ebner uncovers, that tub of popcorn in your lap at the multiplex would serve only one purpose, that of a barf bucket.

I recently had the chance to ask Mr. Ebner about his new book and what his thoughts on the state of Hollywood are today.

Tell me about your new book Six Degrees of Paris Hilton.

The book is currently cataloging on Amazon under Biography, Famous People, Pop Culture, True Crime and Criminology. That sounds schizophrenic, but not half as pathological as the real life characters in the book. Six Degrees is a non-fiction Hollywood crime book that reads like “true crime” – partially because of my prose, and partially because, well, it’s Hollywood.

What was the genesis of the book?

The book was born out of a feature story I did for the now-defunct Radar magazine about the home invasion, robbery/extortion caper perpetrated on embattled “Girls Gone Wild” impresario Joe Francis. Through an intermediary, Darnell Riley – the guy who put the gun to Francis’ head and videotaped a whirling marital aid riding the crest of his buttocks – sent me an e-mail message from prison objecting to me calling him “Dildo Dude” in a blog post on HollywoodInterrupted.com. I wrote him in prison, and he basically said, “Look – I’m not going to pull an O.J. here. It’s not ‘if I did It,’ it’s ‘I did it…and then some.’” The “then some” became Six Degrees of Paris Hilton.

Has Hollywood always been this seedy or has it gotten worse in the past ten years?

Hollywood has always been seedy and infected with interlopers preying on the rich and famous. But the new breed of con artists and shakedown specialists are more relentless, brazen and, in fact, stupid than they were in the past.

Do you feel Hollywood is worthy of the idol worship the general public lays upon it?

Sure they’re worthy of the worship because, when the idols inevitably fall the general public has the opportunity to feel better about themselves.

How has living in Hollywood and the culture of Hollywood affected you personally?

Don’t let my Facebook friend-count fool you – I can count my real friends on one hand. My life has been compartmentalized to the point of near total isolation from any normal sort of social life. I live out of a post office box in Santa Monica and lay my head down in a 1969 VW bus. I shower at the gym and will have armed security at my book signing on February 11. Other than all that, life is peachy. Honestly, I’ve been trying to write my way out of this sewer since I started two decades ago but Los Angeles, not New York, is really the naked city of eight million stories. Six Degrees of Paris Hilton is one of them.

Have you had any problems with safety since you’ve written this book, any confrontations?

I’ve been mad-dogged a few times by the punks I’ve written about, and lawyers have been baselessly threatening me right and left, but the harassment thus far hasn’t held a candle to the way the thugs in Scientology handle their critics.

[Ebner was one of the first journalists to expose Scientology on its own turf]

Has hardcore investigative journalism, the sort you do, been lost to pandering to the rich and famous?

Tabloid culture notwithstanding, long-form investigative journalism has been dying since the advent of the internet. There just aren’t many outlets left for great think-pieces, and until the web media brokers realize that their servers will be well-served running more than just news aggregation and news/gossip flashes, there will be a lot of journalistic talent withering on the unemployment line. Big Hollywood and the Daily Beast are both a start in the right direction. Ron Burkle is plotting something serious with all his recent media buyouts. It’s slow and frustrating, but I won’t declare investigative journalism dead until there’s no place left to negotiate upwards.

What do you want people will take away from reading your book?

I would love for my readers to take away an experience that they are compelled to share with others. I didn’t write the book to languish in the “criminology” section at some soon-to-be-shuttered Border’s.

Do you feel Hollywood can benefit from having other voices in the political spectrum heard, like what’s going on at Big Hollywood?

Hollywood players will pretend that Big Hollywood doesn’t exist while, at the same time, deriding it vocally at any given opportunity. The more Big Hollywood mocks the Hollywood entertainment industrial complex and calls the shiny townsfolk out on their bullshit, the more they will listen – especially when the criticism speaks to their bottom-line. Hollywood can learn from a conservative viewpoint. Isn’t that obvious already? Oh yeah – they’re still denying it.

How many degrees of separation are you from Paris Hilton?

I ran into Paris the other night at a party celebrating the cast and filmmakers of “Milk.” She said she was going to sue me, but scotched that idea out of concern that Darnell Riley (the criminal anti-hero of my book) would kill her. So, I guess that puts me at ground-zero degrees of separation.

If to get into heaven you had to bring with you one of the lost souls of Hollywood who would it be, and why?

Crispin Glover, because both of us getting on the list and through the gates would be, with apologies to Baudelaire and “Usual Suspects” scribe Christopher McQuarrie, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled.

Thank you for your time, Mr. Ebner

Six Degrees of Paris Hilton will be in books stores Feb 3rd and is available now at Amazon.com