nine inch nails, the slip. well, duh. when trent reznor was on the sauce (and…uh…everything else in the cabinet, so to speak) he would sit in the studio and tinker relentlessly with records. the new trent reznor, freed from both recreational pharmaceuticals and destructional record companies, likes to make shit and just give it away. for cheap (see: ghosts i-iv). and for free (you can still get it online). tighter than year zero, as techno-funky as his best, the slip is a good promise of trent reznor to come.
metallica, death magnetic. if this record was the debut of some teeny-bop group of williamsburgers in tight jeans instead of the over-the-hill brazillionaires in armani, it’d be the greatest thing to hit metal since that mastodon craze of a few years back. how much do i like this record? i always skip tracks seven ("unforgiven iii?" really?), eight (a mess), and nine (*yawn*), and still think it sounds so good, it's almost ironic metal, which makes it even cooler. which would be ironic in itself, because it's metallica.
vampire weekend, self-titled. astonishingly simple, mind-numbingly catchy, and undeniably whistle-able. perhaps i’m still in a little afterglow of having seen them this past weekend, but you just can’t deny the attraction to this "upper west side soweto" shit. look at all these little kids, taking care of the music biz!
tv on the radio, dear science. perhaps i’m still in a little afterglow of having seen them buying coffee after me at the rabbithole a few months back, but you can’t deny the awesomeness of tv on the radio; of any hipster band out there, i can see tv on the radio having that kind of career where my kids ask, years from now, "you, our totally-uncool father, saw tv on the radio at a coffee shop?" and i will not only confirm that story, but lie and tell them that they asked me to play the zimbabotron with them for one week.
portishead, third. some bands go away, come back, have a lot of hype and glossy postcards to announce their return, and deliver a squishy turd. while portishead didn’t have to meet chinese democracy-level expectations, they still had two per-fek records to live up to. and they did.
living colour, live at cbgb’s. 2005 set of scorchin’ tracks at their home club; they still got it!
rivers cuomo, alone ii. "my day is coming," "my day is coming," "my day is coming."
nine inch nails, ghosts. well, duh. it was just a regular sunday, like all the others, when suddenly there was a new nine inch nails record. for five bucks. a nice background to many different parts of your day, this 36-track instrumental record is suitable for reading the paper in the morning or walking through dark parts of brooklyn late at night.
colin meloy, sings live. mr. meloy is always charming and engaging in concert, and this one’s worth the price of admission just for “dracula’s daughter,” which mr. meloy maintains is the worst song he ever wrote.