Jesu - Ascension. They seem to have remembered to be heavy. Now if Justin can get into the country for the next MDF and I can see Godflesh one last time. BTW I will murder someone during that set if it happens.

The Dear Hunter. Wow.

Converge and Cold Cave are doing a free show in Brooklyn on the 24th.

Someone go so I feel bad about missing it.

The Gaslight Anthem: American Slang is really, really good. Why didn't I get this last year when you guys were pimping them.

The Head and the Heart


Mumford and Sons


Regina Spektor


Foster the People

Love the Mumford and Sons album.

agreed, the Head and the Heart album is awesome. I'm just sayin

Head and the Heart is very good on my first few spins.

This group The Black Ghosts I'm trying are cool.

The Mountain Goats' All Eternals Deck is solid.

The Dear Hunter is crazy good.

City and Colour is a really good soft album.

My 2011 shortlist for best albums that I'm maintaining on Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/user/kusand/playli...zI8GxmjOj0S0CCG

If you need an invite, shoot me a PM with your email.

RE EDIT:

Let's listen to the Rapture!

Yes!



Yes!



Yes!



Yes.



Yes.



The Head and The Heart is my favorite album of the year that came out last year. (Not to be confused with my favorite album of last year, though it would have been in the running.) My second favorite album of the year that came out last year is Lissie's Caching a Tiger.



Sweet -- Thanks for that.

Gillian Welch has a new album out that I'm enjoying so far. Also, that Sarah Jaroz album Mike mentioned a while back is really good.

And, speaking of folksy female singer song-writer types, an older album that gets a lot of play in my house is Antje Duvekot's Boys, Flowers, Miles. Saddly, it's not on Spotify but my favorite song off it is:

http://open.spotify.com/track/2Boc3tuX6ng9QTGY7qnsTA

Here's another good song off the album for those of you without Spotify:



As for this year, I will spoil my end of the year top ten favorite album by saying that I'm still obsessed with The Joy Formidable to an almost unhealthy degree. J Mascis knocked it out of the top spot for a couple of weeks but it didn't last.

Time to listen!



Also, I'm totally grooving on All Eternals Deck still. Damn These Vampires and High Hawk Season just kill me. Damn These Vampires has some great, great lyrics and a great sound.

Love seeing Manchester Orchestra in your list... Though I'm more fond of their older material I still really enjoy Simple Math.

I've been spinning Thrice a bunch lately, getting more and more excited to hear their next release. If you haven't heard of them you should definitely check them out.

Here's a mix of some feel good summer music:

http://open.spotify.com/user/rightbug/play...LYTI0tRalkNBktC

I just listened to Watch the Throne today. I am not a Kanye fan at all. And I really, really liked this album.

These guys are Carousels and the song they have out is awesome:

The Mountain Goats closed an outrageously good day of music for me at Lollapalooza last Friday. They are as catchy and engaging live as they sound elsewhere, and for someone who writes such intricate lyrics, it is amazing how clearly you can understand everything when you see the band live.

I don't know what I expected from Lollapalooza, but I definitely did not expect that much good music and such a great day. Probably because I thought of it as an outdated festival, but the lineup was loaded with a lot of the bands that we indie weenies gush about in here. It was crowded but easy to get around, and you could get up close to most of the stages if you were so inclined. Plus, the aftershows are great as well. I got to catch Foster the People open up for Lykke Li on Friday night at the House of Blues, for example, which was predictably amazing. Highly recommended for anyone considering a trip in the future. Plus, Chicago just fucking kicks ass.

Jen C. - you should be glad that you didn't make the trek to see the Foos - right before their set to close the festival, there was a torrential downpour. Interpret that as you will.

After catching their set, I will have to give Le Butcherettes a good listen. When watching, I kept thinking, "this is what it would be like if Wanda Jackson was backed up by The Misfits". Just crazy, all out, Mexican horror punk. Really awesome.

Tune-Yards is growing on me, which frightens me, because they're SO FUCKING ANNOYING. It's somehow catchy despite being unbelievably annoying pseudo-electro-noise music.

I swear, I was listening to that album earlier this week and was thinking, "I can't tell if Kusand would like this or absolutely despise it." So I was both right!

I love it. Especially "Gangsta" and "You Yes You." The power of her vocals is what does it for me.

In fairness, my initial source of hatred is Gangsta. It's got such a great beat, and her vocals sound fantastic, but then that distorted voice siren thing kicks in and I just can't take it. I actually threw it on in my car tonight just to verify, and it actually sounded better - I'm wondering if my speakers on my desk are just getting overdriven by it or what. At any rate, the first few songs do sound between good and excellent, so I'm going to give them another shot.

I just think that I could never play Gangsta for anyone I know in real life.

I think you guys would like this. I'm not sure, but what the hell.

Listening some weird Scandinavian music...

If you like this song, check out their song, Kennedy Street.



This song is super weird but for some strange reason, I dig it. Sounds straight out of a video game.

Which is funny because I was feeling the same ambivalence as but where I finally came down on it is that Gansta is the only song I like while the rest of it is so pretentious, there are not enough scarf wearing dogs in the world for me to punch in retaliation.

It's cool, man. Not everyone gets the whole Afro-beat/industrial thing.

I was trying to look up a picture of Merrill Garbus on AllMusic so I could mock her but it couldn't find Tuneyards because it's actually spelled tUnE-yArDs.

Anyway:

She's cute. I'm gonna go home and type her a letter on this cool vintage Underwood I found in a shop in Bushwick last week.

Of course it is.

You should look up the album names.

Regarding TuneYards, I really don't know what to think. They are so off the wall its interesting to hear them, but that doesn't make them good. They may grow on me, they may not. Right now, I think they are just trying to do too much with the music and it is ridiculous.

I cant believe there's someone named Merrill Garbus.

Well, I'm going to see her in September and i dOn'T carE wHat anY of yOu tHinK.

Maybe you can take DoMmOoReBaByDoLl with you!

Kasey Chambers - "Train Wreck".

Shazammed this while I was in Barnes & Noble because it reminded me of X circa "See How We Are".

If you guys really want a reason to hate "Gangsta", here is one, courtesy of Ad-Rock:

the component parts of tuneyards ought to result in supremely obnoxious music, but she somehow pulls it off.

On a KMFDM binge since I'm seeing them Thursday.

I want to pass a law that says that all albums have to be 35 minutes and if you've got more songs than that, you have to trim it back to include the best 35 minutes.

I don't really mean that because we'd lose great albums like Janelle Monae's Archandroid but still, too much filler these days. Give me tighter albums.

This post is inspired by Boston Spaceship's new album Let It Beard, which is 26 tracks long. My strategy for listening to this album is to listen to only the last seven songs which results in a totally awesome album. Are there amazing songs in the front 19 that I should include in a pared down playlist? I don't know because that's too much to wade through. The last seven songs may be arbitrary but it works in this case.

Girls are coming out with a new album next month and they're touring now. Here's a sappy song from their EP last year, which I'm finally listening to now and it's worth checking out.



And here's one of their new songs

If you like good music, check out The War on Drugs.

One more:

soulja boy, Andrew WK, and Matt and Kim do a song for Converse

Enjoy. Seriously, you will.

Aisha Tyler's 'Girl on Guy' podcast. Hilarious and SMOKIN' hot.

toph - I think I was sold within about :30 seconds of "Needle in Your Eye". I see that Kurt Vile was one of the original members, and I really like some of the songs on his new CD.

Spotify's got both Beaster and Copper Blue by Sugar. It's like freshman year of college again.

Excellent choices, haven't heard those in ages.

There's been a lot of Prince playing on my Spotify account lately. I blame some of my journalist-type friends and their Twitter accounts.

I started playing some Journey in Spotify before I caught myself and switched to the new Foo Fighters.

Speaking of the Foos, I watched the last hour of Back and Forth and now the Wembley concert is on TV.
I cannot wait for the concert, which is almost a month from now. So excited.

Does Spotify have Take U To Da Movies by Bangs? YOU BETTER FUCKING BELIEVE THAT IT DOES.