by Moses Namkung

Five long years after she burst onto the indie music scene with Anniemal, a debut universally embraced by indie music critics, Annie is finally releasing her much-delayed sophomore effort, Don't Stop. A lot has changed in the industry and in Annie's music-making process since Pitchfork named "Heartbeat" the best song of 2004, so we sat down with Annie in the lobby of her hotel and chatted about those changes, the process of creating Don't Stop, where her music fits into the spectrum of pop and her substantial magnet collection.

SFist: How do you feel about Don't Stop versus when Anniemal came out? Do you feel as good or do you feel more excited for this? It's been a long time coming.
Annie: Well, I definitely feel much more secure. When I did the first one, I was just sort of making an album, but I didn't really know how to make an album, I was just making a lot of songs. And also for this album, I made so much more music, I wrote probably like 300 to 400 songs and had to pick out the ones that I thought were the best but it was really difficult so I spent probably two months just finding the ones that I thought would fit together and sort of represent where I am now.
SF: Did you do something similar for Anniemal?
Annie: No, there I made like 13 songs and that was it. I remember that some people were saying maybe you should do much more and that would make it easier, but I was just like, these are the songs; this time I wanted to have a lot of stuff to pick out so I could sort of feel like, this is the album. And it was nice, it was different. Also, you learn a lot of stuff. I was touring a lot when the first album came out and also I got to know the business much better.
SF: What are your hopes for the album?