5.2.11
Two things that seem utterly wrong: a collaboration of some sort between Modest Mouse and Big Boi (both of whom I love, but who I can't imagine working together) and Miley Cyrus doing a cover of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit". The Miley thing is absolutely terrible, and even if she had somehow pulled off the performance (which she didn't——seriously, it would be bad even for karaoke), it would still be terrible on a philosophical level. At least with Big Boi and Modest Mouse, we don't know for sure that it's going to be awful, and there's a good chance that if it is awful it will never see the light of day. But the Miley Nirvana cover is out there in the world now, and it can't be undone.

5.3.11
I just found out that, back in 2006, the Cowboy Junkies returned to the Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto, where they recorded their seminal The Trinity Session, to record those same songs in the same venue for a 2007 album called Trinity Revisited. The new sessions include vocals and other musical contributions from Vic Chesnutt, Ryan Adams, and Natalie Merchant, but Margo Timmins still takes the lead on several tracks, and otherwise the album is a song-for-song remake of the original.

I'm kind of torn about whether to buy this or not. I'm a huge fan of the original album, and the idea of revisiting that setting to give it another shot (in case you don't already know, the gimmick of the first album was that it was recorded all in one day with live takes and a single omni-directional mic, and they used many of these same techniques in the redo) really appeals to me.

But I'm concerned about the presence of the guest stars, and I really wonder if it's possible to improve on the original performances, which either means reinterpeting them to purposely not sound like the originals (likely to the songs' detriment) or recreating them note-by-note, which seems kind of pointless.

I don't know. Still thinking about this one. If I had to guess, the curious/overly-sentimental side will win out and I'll end up buying this, but it might take me a while to finally make that decision.

5.4.11
Alright, Tune-Yards. You've convinced me to buy your newest record, but when writing about you, I refuse to use your messed up alternating caps spelling (tUnE-yArDs), and although I will concede to writing the album name in all one case (whokill or WHOKILL, but there's a lack of consensus as to which is correct), I will not include the alternating spaces (w h o k i l l or W H O K I L L).

Now that we've got these ground rules straight, I'm ready to give you a chance.

5.5.11
I bought Painted Palms' debut EP, Canopy, on iTunes mostly because they are opening for of Montreal and Kevin Barnes has been praising them on Twitter. I listened to the song samples first and liked them, but I'm not convinced that I would have purchased the EP if not for Kevin's tweets (such is the power that of Montreal still has over me).

It's decent after a few listens, although it's hard to get a sense of who they really are. They sound a bit like of Montreal in the same way that the first MGMT album sounded a bit like of Montreal, and they sound an awful lot like MGMT. But there's also a definite Animal Collective influence——it's dreamier and hazier than of Montreal's work, and that helps their music feel like an evolution of of Montreal's and MGMT's sound rather than a straight imitation.

Not sure when their full-length is due, but I'm interested to hear it, especially if they're going to be recording it after the of Montreal tour.

5.6.11
Several new CDs arrived from Amazon: the Streets' final album, Computers and Blues, Tune-Yards' whokill, Acid House Kings' Music Sounds Better With You, and Thao & Mirah's eponymous collaboration.

These could all be amazing or they could all be duds; I'm hoping at least a couple of them will be compelling enough to sit in my daily rotation for a few weeks.

5.9.11
Even though he's a pretty major artist in Britain and his previous records have gotten decent reviews overall in the US, the final album from Mike Skinner using the Streets name, Computers and Blues, has yet to see a physical release stateside (it came out in the UK back in February). Amazon had the MP3 version for a reasonable price, and it also had the CD available as an import for about twice what a domestic release would cost, but I hesitated making a choice because I really wanted to have the physical CD——it's the last album he's going to make as the Streets and I have all the others on CD. But I wasn't sure how good it would be, and if it would be worth the cost of the import, so I waited, hoping a domestic label would release it here.

As it became clear that that wasn't going to happen, at least not in the near future, I decided to take a chance and order the import version from Amazon. And I'm really glad I did; this album is his best since his masterpiece, A Grand Don't Come for Free, and it's a nice way to cap off his career. It's got the energy of his debut, but it's much more sophisticated; in another universe, this could have been a great sophomore album on the way to a career-defining third release.

I've enjoyed all his albums, but the I'm-rich-and-famous braggadocio of The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living felt shallow compared to the first person working class tales from his first two records, and although Everything Is Borrowed showed a more mature side, it was also pretty boring, and it felt like he had already given up on being a performer. Given that, Computers and Blues could have been a pointless waste of everyone's time, but instead, it's a return to form that makes you wish maybe he'd reconsider making this his last album.

It doesn't have as many hit singles as some of his previous records, and there's no knockout track that's going to define the album, but it's very listenable as a whole; it's easy just to start the first track and let it play through to the end. If this is really the final release for this project, I'm happy that it ended like this instead of with the dour, doleful Everything Is Borrowed.

"Lock the Locks" is the perfect track to close the book on the Streets. It's ostensibly the story of a man packing up his desk at a job he's leaving, but there are strong undercurrents of lovers saying goodbye after a breakup, and it's also Mike Skinner saying goodbye to his audience. Lyrically and musically, it's one of strongest tracks on the album, and it's a good final memory to leave us with.

5.10.11
Tune-Yards are making inroads into my brain, but I'm not sure I'm completely sold yet. There are standout tracks——"Es-So" and "Killa" are already favorites——but there's a lot of stuff that I don't know if I'll ever take to, and I always have to question the authenticity of a white American who appropriates so much from African traditions.

Still, there's something very endearing about frontwoman Merril Garbus, and there is a sincerity to her enthusiasm that mitigates concerns about the band's use of African sounds and rhythms. And the songs that I do love, I love a lot. My reaction to the record so far reminds me of trying to come to terms with the Dirty Projectors' Bitte Orca, an album which I like as a whole, but which my song-by-song reactions tend to be either very positive or very negative.

5.11.11
There's not a whole lot new to say about the Feelies latest, Here Before, a surprise new record after a 20 year hiatus, except that Here Before is a very apt title for anyone familiar with their earlier work. The songs are instantly recognizable as the Feelies, and aside from a cleaner, brighter sound on the production side, the band hasn't skipped a beat in the two decades between their most recent releases.

It almost goes without saying that fans of their previous work will find a lot to like about this record, and for newcomers, this actually wouldn't be a bad place to start. Only Life will probably always be my favorite, but Here Before can stand alongside it without shame.

5.12.11
Last night I went down to the 9:30 Club with a friend to see Echo & the Bunnymen play their first two albums, Crocodiles and Heaven Up Here.

The opener was a guy named Kelley Stoltz, and by far the most interesting thing about him is that he first gained musical notoriety by recording a song-by-song remake of Crocodiles (titled Crockodials), playing all of the instruments himself. He's since signed to Subpop based on his own compositions and released several albums of original material.

I really, really wanted to like his music. He seemed like a nice enough fellow, and it's clear that opening for Echo & the Bunnymen was a big deal for him——they are clearly his favorite band of all time. But you wouldn't know it from his music——every now and then I'd hear a Will Sergeant-like flourish in the guitar solo, but otherwise, his songs seemed much more influenced by 60s rock, from the Beatles to the Stones to the Velvets.

But mostly it was unremarkable; as soon as a new song started, you instantly forgot the one he had just finished, or you couldn't really tell the difference between them.

5.13.11
The Bunnymen themselves put on a really odd show. Musically, it was very strong——although I did see them once back in the late 80s, it was at a larger venue, and they stuck to mostly stuff from Songs to Learn and Sing (a collection of their hits up until that point) and the self-titled Echo & the Bunnymen record from 1987——and the loud, visceral live presentation of the songs from their first two records really gave the feel of what it must have been like to see them performing in small clubs when they were just establishing themselves as a band (they even recreated their trademark early career theatrics by draping the stage in camoflage netting and wearing fatigues or army coats).

The weird part of the show was that the only two original members of the band (and the two big creative forces), Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant, were the two least visible presences on stage. Most of the touring band members (drummer, bassist, and rhythm guitarist) were crowded on the right side of the stage, but they were well lit and fairly animated (especially the guitarist). Will Sergeant, meanwhile, was all by his lonesome on the far left, and spent most of the concert looking intently down at his guitar and his effects pedals; you could have been forgiven for thinking that he was the backup guitarist and the rhythm guitarist on the right was the main guitarist, especially because many of the rhythm parts on the songs were much more substantial than the leads that Sergeant was playing.

And then there was McCulloch. His voice was in pretty good shape, but the entire show he stood in a circle of unlit blackness at the center of the stage, hiding further behind sunglasses and a heavy army field coat. The only time you could see him at all was when some very powerful strobes were turned on, but then you were so blinded by them that you still couldn't really see McCulloch. So the two real Bunnymen, the ones the audience most wanted to connect with, were essentially inert figures on stage. In the end, it was like watching a really excellent Echo & the Bunnymen cover band, but it was hard to convince yourself that this was the real band.

After they played Crocodiles and Heaven Up Here, they returned to play some better known tunes from later in their career, including "Lips Like Sugar", "The Killing Moon", "Bring On the Dancing Horses", "Do It Clean", and even the title track from their latest album, The Fountain (which morphed into a cover of Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side"). They closed with "The Cutter", which is probably their most consistently popular song.

So it was a pretty good show musically, but I wish there had been more engagement from McCulloch and Sergeant. Still, I'd love it if they returned next year to play Porcupines and Ocean Rain, my two favorite records from the band.

5.16.11
I got the new Okkervil River, I Am Very Far, last week, but I haven't been able to get into it despite a couple of serious listens. Their last two albums were slow growers for me, but there were songs that I instantly fell in love with, and my love for those tracks led me to eventually get into the rest of the album. But on this one, at least so far, there's nothing that stands out, nothing that makes me want to put the record on to see what other gems might be waiting to be revealed.

Especially after such a long fallow period (they backed up Roky Ericson on an album in 2010, but the last recording sessions for Okkervil River itself took place way back in 2007; the results of those sessions became both of their next two conceptually linked albums, The Stage Names and The Stand Ins), I frankly expected a little more. I haven't given up completely on it yet, but the initial listens are quite disappointing.

5.17.11
I suddenly got interested in rating all the Robyn Hitchcock songs in my collection for no discernible reason, and that's no small task given that I own most of his albums (280 songs, 17.1 hours of play time according to iTunes). So that's what I'll be doing in my spare time for the next week or so.

5.18.11
There should be a SiriusXM station that plays nothing but the Clash. Edit out the weaker half of Sandinista, don't play anything later than Combat Rock, and just put the rest of it on a random shuffle set on repeat. I'd make that one of my presets, no question.

5.19.11
For the month of May, Amazon is expanding its 100 MP3 albums for $5 to over 1500 albums. So let's just get started, shall we?

The must-haves if you don't already: Violent Femmes' Violent Femmes, Arcade Fire's Funeral, the Yeah Yeah Yeah's It's Blitz!, LCD Soundsystem's Sound of Silver, Okkervil River's The Stage Names, Sparklehorse's Good Morning Spider, the Smiths' The Queen Is Dead, Radiohead's OK Computer, Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral, Beck's Odelay, Hüsker Dü's Zen Arcade, Whiskeytown's Pneumonia, the Hold Steady's Separation Sunday, and Massive Attack's Mezzanine.

Good records at a great price: Panda Bear's Person Pitch, Gimme Fiction, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, and Transference, all by Spoon, Dark Night of the Soul by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse, Wavves' King of the Beach, Blur's Blur, the Hold Steady's Boys and Girls in America, Tokyo Police Club's A Lesson in Crime (this is really an EP, though, so the savings isn't as great as it would be for a full-length album), Jonsi's Go, Twin Shadow's Forget, and the Morning Benders' Big Echo.

As for me, I'm considering Dinosaur Jr.'s You're Living All Over Me and Bug (my relationship with the band started with Green Mind, and for some reason I never went back and picked up the earlier stuff), Jane's Addiction's self titled debut live album (which I've heard a million times, but again, I never got around to buying it for myself), Superchunk's Majesty Shredding, Horse Feathers' Words Are Dead, Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti's Before Today, Ladybug Transistor's The Albemarle Sound, and Wye Oak's Civilian.

5.20.11
Listening to 90 second clips on iTunes a couple of weeks ago, I started to fall in love with the Wave Pictures' Beer in the Breakers, so I added the CD it to my Amazon cart. The price was in the low 20s, then it went to the mid-20s, and then it went to $35 because it was listed as import only.

I was hoping that it would get an official US release, but, just as with the Streets' Computers and Blues, it doesn't look like that's going to happen, so then I had to decide whether the digital album would be good enough for me. For Computers and Blues, I decided to buy the import CD, but that's because it was only about $20, I'm a longtime fan, and that's the last album for Mike Skinner under the Streets moniker. But I couldn't stomach $35 for a band that I didn't already have in my collection, so I broke down and got the Amazon MP3 album because it was a dollar cheaper than the iTunes version.

So far the parts that I like on the samples I heard I still love, but those shorter clips omit some mighty long rambling guitar solos, and from what I've heard so far, the less the song is able to support such shenanigans, the more likely the band is to put one in and the longer it's likely to be. So overall I expect to like it, but probably not quite as much as I was hoping to.

5.23.11
Stumbled across the Bingo Trappers' Juanita Avenue while perusing my collection, and decided to give it another listen. They're a Velvet Underground-emulating lo-fi outfit out of Amsterdam, and as far as I know, this was their only American release. I remember liking the album, but not enough to get obsessed, and although most of the tracks were pretty pleasant, there were no standout songs that made their way into my permanent rotation.

And that's pretty much still my impression after listening to it. I rated everything for posterity, and while there were two or three four star songs that might show up every now and then in one of my shuffle playlists, I don't think I'll otherwise revisit the album.

5.24.11
Downloaded the Weeknd's House of Balloons for free from the artist's web site, and I don't know what all the fuss is about. It's like a gangsta rapper tried his hand at straight R&B, except he kept his gangsta lyrics, and it's about as successful as other weird crossover attempts, like Ice-T's foray into heavy metal with Body Count, or Garth Brooks' Chris Gaines alter ego. Have a listen if you'd rather believe Pitchfork's raves, but it didn't do a thing for me.

5.25.11
Panda Bear's Tomboy has so far made absolutely no impression on me. Not sure why that is, but it's definitely a first since I started listening to Animal Collective and his solo records.

5.31.11
Getting on towards halfway through 2011, and some of my favorite albums so far have been from the Streets, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, and R.E.M., and a couple of the least impressive (at this point, anyway——they could still grow on me) are from Okkervil River and Panda Bear. Not what I would have expected if you had asked me six months ago.