April 8, 2008

Music: Today’s Top 5* CD Releases and a Word from Critics

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At this point, waiting for a release date, putting on your hat and coat, runing to the record store and plunking down cash bills for a plastic-wrapped compact disc is so retro, it’s almost a novelty, like a horse-and-buggy ride through Central Park. Remember, kids, back in Grandpa’s day, we couldn’t just google the band’s name and “Rapidshare” to find variable bit-rate mp3s in a password-protected RAR file three months before the release date, I tell you what. Awww, Grandpa!

*According to me.

mojo-cover-cave.jpg1. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Dig, Lazarus, Dig! (Anti-)
“Triumph” – UK Observer Music Monthly, 5/5
“Gold” – Entertainment Weekly, A-

mojo-cover-breederssm.jpg2. Breeders
Mountain Battles (4AD)
“Raw” – Rolling Stone, 3.5/5
“Lively” – Radar Online

mojo-cover-tapes.jpg3. Tapes ‘n’ Tapes
Walk It Off (XL)
“Swarming” – Rolling Stone, 3/5
“Messy” – BBC

After the jump: Old trees, and old Russian guys.

mojo-cover-wyeoak.jpg4. Wye Oak
If Children (Merge)
“Mellow” – Prefix Mag
“Ethereal” – Aquarium Drunkard

mojo-cover-boris.jpg5. Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
Pershing (Polyvinyl)
“Likable” – Spin, 3.5/5
“Amiable” – Georgetown Voice

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It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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