R.E.M. - Reckoning (Deluxe)

R.E.M.'s debut album, Murmur, was Rolling Stone's 8th best album of the 80's, just behind Michael Jackson's Thriller, and was RS's best album of 1983. No wonder its Deluxe Edition release was so highly anticipated last year, and with its rousing live bonus disc, it earned a 10.0 on the notoriously stingy Pitchfork. Their sophomore record, Reckoning, was released as double disc Deluxe Edition last week, quiet as a murmur. If not Murmur's equivalent (Pitchfork will probably give this deluxe treatment a nine-point-something), Reckoning was still critically acclaimed, with the Washington Post declaring that the songwriting even exceeded that on Murmur, and its release was an affirmation that the band was far from a fluke. Some of R.E.M.'s most endearing and enduring songs are on Reckoning, including So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry), which was their first performance on national television, on Letterman, prior to the release of the album (see the video below), and (Don't Go Back To) Rockville, Mike Mills' plea to girlfriend Ingrid Schorr, of Rockville, Maryland.

As good as the early studio albums were, R.E.M. fans know that if you haven't seen them live, you don't know R.E.M. The second disc in Reckoning Deluxe is a live show from the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, in 1984, broadcast on Chicago radio station WXRT. Like the extra disc accompanying Murmur Deluxe, it's a revelation of the band in action in its earliest years. This is a live version of the second song on Reckoning.

R.E.M. - 7 Chinese Brothers (Live, Chicago, 1984)(mp3)



*update, 11:32 AM 7-2-2009: Fluxblog has the Deluxe disc version of Letter Never Sent, and a good paragraph about it. Also, Pitchfork's review just went up today. I was wrong. The reviewer gave Reckoning a 10.0, and flirted with calling it R.E.M.'s "best" album.

White Rabbits on The Current, 6-29-2009

The Dead Weather - Treat Me Like Your Mother (Live from The Basement, 6-22)

Astrud Gilberto - Bim Bom (1966)

Bat For Lashes - Sleep Alone (Live on Jools Holland)

Okkervil River on KCRW, 6-25-2009

Okkervil River is on tour through September, and were recently taped for an episode of Austin City Limits on PBS. If you're really lucky, you have tickets to see them with Wilco. Last week, they played an in-studio set for KCRW, and this was the second song from that set.

Okkervil River - Pop Lie (Live on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic, 6-25-2009)(mp3)



Download the entire uncompressed FM recording here (.flac torrent), and impress your friends with the Pop Lie
single.

Phoenix, Live on KEXP, 6-26-2009

You can download (mp3 podcast) or stream the recent in-studio performance (recorded 4-23-2009) by Phoenix on KEXP here.

Amazon's Music Bestsellers: Pretty Much MJ...Off The Wall & Bad Special Editions - $7.97

Michael Jackson's albums are the Top Music Sellers on Amazon.com

If you follow The Smudge, you know that if you get just one (assuming that you already have Thriller), I recommend Off the Wall (Special Edition).

Norton Records Hates CDs (still.)

Those vinylphiles (or is it digiphobes?) at Norton Records have released another winning amalgam of 45 rpm rarities, digitized it, released it for our convenience, and ironically titled the epic collection I Still Hate CD's: Norton Records 45 RPM Singles Collection Vol. 2.

I get what drives purists to hate CDs and other digital formats - the same cold, hard metallic data storage devices that are also great for holding (egad!) work references, educational software, spreadsheets, databases, and infinite other forms of anti-art. There's the impersonality of bits, the miniaturization of cover art, the burnability of digitized information, the deprived lack of a needle contacting a grooved rotating surface, this digital monoculture in which everything is turned way up and subtlety is crushed like brittle vinyl under a boot, the absence of organicness, of analogness, of warmth and romance...and that annoying mettalic rainbow that obscures your reflection on the back of the thing.

And so progress makes you want to, as Ione Skye so elegantly declared in her graduation speech in Say Anything, "Go back." There was a time when music came on something more substantial. But you won't get the heft of vinyl with this collection.

Still, for all the disadvantages of the digital format, what you CAN do with this collection hooked into your hi-fi that you CAN'T do with the cool, dusty individual 45's from which they were born, is to simply push play. There's no need to "shuffle" these, as they are already pretty much placed in a beautifully random order by Norton. You can go on to entertaining your summer partygoers, manning the grill, and you're good: no standing by the record player unsleeving and resleeving your records, no dirty barbecued kids' hands flipping through your collection. And taking it a step backward, Norton has already taken the pleasure, and I say that without a needle tip's worth of irony, of saving you the time and money involved in sifting through the dustbin detritus to find the hidden gems - from Gino Washington's "Are You Ready?" introduction in the smoking "Out of This World," to the Pleasure Seekers' swaggering declaration "well, I may not make it past 21, but...whew! what a way to die!" to Charlie Feathers' trademark twang in "We're Getting Closer to Being Apart," and I could continue 42 more times, but that would just make this a lengthy this begat that begat that exercise. All 45 - ALL 45 - are worthy of your deck, back yard, balcony, or - sacrilege! - the earbuds of your iPod.

Long live Vinyl rips, and Norton - thanks for the Easy Button.

Pleasure Seekers - What A Way To Die (mp3)
Also, check out the I Still Hate CDs Vol. 2 Sampler (mp3)

R.I.P. Michael.

I hate, hate, hate to see you go. Thank you for the music and the memories that went with it. See you in the big Hitsville in the sky.

Jackson 5 - Never Can Say Goodbye (mp3)

Bat For Lashes, Live on the George Lamb show, 6-24-2009

Listen to the in-studio session here.

Also check out last night's performance of Daniel on Kimmel.

Phoenix, Live on The Current, 6-23-2009

Click here for popup streaming audio player.

Woe!

Beck - Woe On Me (mp3)

From One Foot in the Grave (Remastered)

Dean & Britta - I'll Keep It With Mine, Live in Studio (Dylan)

Dean & Britta - I'll Keep It With Mine (Live on KCRW, 6-18-2009)(mp3)

Watch streaming video of Dean & Britta's entire performance on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic site. The uncompressed audio is available as a torrent here.