Let’s celebrate a stellar day of new arrivals!
Cold War Kids, Loyalty to Loyalty: Definitely the big anticipated release of the day, but the album has gotten pretty much uniformly awful reviews. The common complaints have been ham-fisted, overly political lyrics and uninspired songwriting. As someone who has never liked the Cold War Kids (and has had to see them twice live even after my opinion had hardened against them), I don’t feel it’s really fair for me to weigh in on this one. I’ll be following the user reviews closely to see what the real CWK fans think.
Otis Redding, Live In London & Paris: The benchmark that all Otis live recordings must contend with is the Monterey Pop performance of “Try a Little Tenderness,” a startling version that never failed to send aftershocks up my spine once the little snare cracks started (and God, the footage of that performance in the Monterey Pop film, the spotlight blowing out the camera… so amazing). So how do the two performances of “Try a Little Tenderness” stack up? Pretty well! Add in a whole bunch of other Otis classics previously unavailable on eMusic and a flawless recording, and you have yourself a must-download.
Girl Talk, Feed the Animals: Well this was a total (and pleasant) surprise! Here’s my take: Feed the Animals definitely shows more mixing skill than Night Ripper, but I’d still take Night Ripper any day, mainly because hearing that for the first time — and we broke that album first on eMusic, I’ll have you know (for reals; I remember listening to samples in freshly ripped and thinking WTF) — was such an overwhelming experience, and here we know what to expect. Still, if you have not heard it, grab it.
PS: If you want to read the best and geekiest piece on Girl Talk ever, go to my friend Andy Baio’s blog for a statistical breakdown on samples, number used, year from which they came, etc. Fun!
Department of Eagles, In Ear Park: Grab “No One Does It Like You” immediately. It’s “Knife”-level good (Dept. of Eagles is pretty much Grizzly bear). The rest isn’t quite as great, but still very good.
Various Artists, 11 Dots: An eMusic eMployee Compilation: Here’s a fun one that some folks here put together! As you might surmise from the title it’s music written and recorded by various employees here and their various musical endeavors. And it’s free!
Old Crow Medicine Show, Tennessee Pusher: I definitely count myself as an Old Crow fan, but I don’t care for this album very much. I like their sad songs the best and often find the rave-ups a bit hokey, a bit more goofy than I’d like (and there’s already an inherent goofiness in their music). If you liked the past stuff, sample it and see if it feels good. If not, maybe try the second song on this album, which is my favorite of theirs.
Brightblack Morning Light, Motion to Rejoin: I have never heard a note of Brightblack, but I should share that seemingly everyone I know has been raving about this album. Raving.
The Raveonettes, Sometimes They Drop By: Coming off the beloved Lust Lust Lust we get this EP, which follows in its particularly hazy footsteps.
Michna, Magic Monday: I can’t say much of anything about this album aside the fact that Ghostly “Home of Deastro” International released it, and that, judging from samples, it seems like the exact kind of electronic title that does well here. Think of Gotan Project and Nortec Collective and stuff like that.
Thievery Corporation, Radio Retaliation: Music like this was pretty much made by robots to not appeal to me. I definitely seem to be a minority within the eMusic community however; I expect this album to do very, very well.
The Tough Alliance, A New Chance: We’ve had the Swedish version for ages, but A New Chance gets its first official North American release today, and has been getting hyped as a result. Very earnest electro-pop.
Fannypack, Ghetto Bootleg: Collection of outtakes and remixes by the best NYC hip-house group since anyone last cared about hip-house (’92 or so?). They’ve now sadly broken up — although there was nowhere else to go, and the lovely Cat Hartwell now fronts Holy Hail — but this collection seems like an appropriate epilogue.
Friendly Fires, Friendly Fires: 70th generation post-post-post-dance-dance-punk-pop debut album hits the US site for the first time.
My favorite part about your na lists: stuff like “Music like this was pretty much made by robots to not appeal to me.” Classic.
(FWIW, I think side 2 of that one is pretty hot.)
No kidding, it makes this feel like a real conversation rather than pimping for pimping’s sake. Not that there’s anything wrong with that — after all, stewardess, I speak jive. But it makes me look forward to the actual pimping.
Hey, and thanks for the employee joint! One of the best samplers I’ve ever heard here. But for gods’s sake, album notes, man, album notes! Who’s in these bands?
Who’s On the 11dots? I’m listening to it now
Nergal (formerly MiDoJo)
There will be a full post on who’s who on the sampler later today/early tomorrow! Patience, my friends!
I’m also all over the 11Dots! Add me to the list of people asking for the who’s-who of Emu list. Also, to add to your list of stellar releases, the Absentee’s new album “Victory Shorts.” Their first lp, “Schmotime” was one of my favorite albums of 2006 (actually, quite a few Memphis Industries releases made my list that year), and this is another great cheeky let’s-get-drunk album. One of the greatest voices in indie pop today (in my humble opinion)…put the National on uppers with a side order of cheeky self-deprecation and have them gargle gravel with their whiskey and you get something like Absentee.
LOL “I have never heard a note of Brightblack, but I should share that seemingly everyone I know has been raving about this album. Raving.”
Yancey, as evidenced in the recent list changing experience you should already know that we’re not a very patient bunch. (kidding, kidding)
As far as Brightblack (as well as add to the beard conversation mentioned in another post), I would like to quote flamgirlant’s descriptor when I said I haven’t heard them yet: “Dude, Brightblack is [like] getting wicked stoned with a superbly bearded boy whilst incense makes the moment incredibly heady and nekkidness is ever so slowly to come about… delicious!” That’s enough to sell me on it.
LOL how’d you miss this
I walk the Line – Johnny Cash featuring Snoop Doggy Dog (oh god I’m going to bust a friggin gut) http://www.emusic.com/album/Johnny-Cash-I-Walk-The-Line-MP3-Download/11286946.html
That Johnny Cash track is terrible, however I have heard the CD it is off of and there are two remixes that are almost amazing by Apparat and Machine Drum. Unfortunately the Machine Drum remix uses a pumping compression on the voice that doesn’t really do it for me, it would have worked better if the voice were less treated. The Apparat remix is pretty subdued. The Midnight Juggernauts mix almost works too.
However, remixing Johnny Cash in general should be a no-no.
re: thievery corporation
i like that style of music, and i always thought they were corny and not very good, so don’t feel like you’re missing out.
Busy week for new releases with TVOTR and Mogwai being joined today by that Otis Redding live album and the Brightback album.
The Otis Redding album gets a big thumbs up from me – it’s a re-release of Live in Europe which cherry picked the best from the two sets and ran them together. This version has both London and Paris sets completely. I think I just about prefer the London one, but that is subject to change…
You haven’t mentioned perhaps the most interesting arrival of the day. I don’t want to even mention the artist’s name, since I’m guessing that the disc will be pulled off-site when someone realizes it’s here,(n.1) but I’ll say that its from one of the biggest UK underground rock acts ever and — despite the paranthetical in the title — it doesn’t sound like “(Karaoke)” versions to me (I’m sure all 22 songs are bootlegs, though).
Best. Rock. Band. Ever., BTW.
_______________________________________
(n.1) Maybe not, though, as I think the disc is available on other legal downloading sites.
Also, what about The Handsome Family’s “Through The Trees,” which appeared today? It received great reviews at the time.
http://www.emusic.com/album/The-Handsome-Family-Through-the-Trees-MP3-Download/11283756.html
—————— Reviews ——————-
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:fzftxq8jldte
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,282112,00.html
http://www.fastnbulbous.com/handsome_twilight.htm
Oh, come on Daniel. Help a brudda out here, will ya?
(begrudgingly heads to the message boards to comb through this week’s releases… sigh)
Don’t overlook the new Mr. Scruff album people.
Haven’t heard it yet, but he’s usually good.
WJ: http://www.emusic.com/album/The-Smiths-Karaoke-Rare-MP3-Download/11284965.html
if you are interested in that, grab it now. i don’t think it will be here tomorrow.
I haven’t heard “Work Is A Four Letter Word” for ages. Listening to it again reminds me of how fresh and innovative they were at the time, at the twilight of the synth era and the dawn of the guitar-based BritRock 90s. What a band. I’ve never updated my “Queen Is Dead” tape to disc, but having heard this bootleg, I’m going to go get it on disc asap (along with the new TV On The Radio, I must admit).
Yancey, I assume you are referring to Smiths and not Mr. Scruff?
Wow, that’s some karaoke. Thanks, Daniel.
The Girl Talk album was a nice surprise. I had 1/2 the songs and it was nice to finally get the whole album.
re: smiths “karaoke”
hunh. how does something like this end up on the site if the copyright holder hasn’t authorised it? did emusic enter into an agreement with a bootleg label, and that label puts up whatever they want…? seems to me somebody’s not minding the shop here. and i benefit.
Oh I didn’t realize it was so obvious the Smiths would never be on eMusic…they seem kind of underground to me. But what do I know I don’t listen to them. Glad Mr. Scruff will be sticking around
Awww… I was too slow on the uptake. Just a taunting rendition of the cover art & nothing else. Micah asks a good question, though… how does something like that get on eMusic, if even for a day?
That bootleg tape has been making the rounds for some time. I am surprised it showed up here, though. Some of those bootlegs were of very good quality and top-shelf material (see, e.g., The Boy With The Thorn In His Side; This Charming Man).
Daniel: http://www.emusic.com/album/The-Smiths-Karaoke-Rare-MP3-Download/11284965.html = Ooops! We’re sorry, but the album that you have requested is unavailable at the moment. Please check back later.
Thanks for the tip. But now it’s presented an interest ethical issue. Did I or didn’t I legally download that?
Can a Musicologist (or anyone
) please enumerate the Original Artists on the New George Clinton and His Gangsters of Love (Obviously some of them are listed in the Review but I can’t find (for instance) who the original Heaven (feat RZA) is by)