The Twenty-Sixth Day.

Finally got USB cord for the iPod. Oh technology.. 

I also got 2 new albums, both compilation cds. One's absolutely fantastic. The other is all covers and I only got 5 songs off of my dad. Some are good, but others miss out.

One is called Dark is the Night. It is insanely amazing, and almost exactly what I need, many amazing artists with fantastic tracks from all of them. Andrew Bird, Arcade Fire, Beirut, Bon Iver, Cat Power and Dirty Delta Blues, The Decemberists, Dirty Projectors and David Byrne, Feist does two separate tracks with Ben Gibbard (of Death Cab for Cutie) and Grizzly Bear, Grizzly Bear, Iron & Wine, My Brightest Diamond, My Morning Jacket, The New Pornographers, Conor Oberst and Gillian Welch, Spoon, Sufjan Stevens, and Yeasayer are all the things that excited me about this album. There are also plenty of other bands that I don't listen to as much, but the whole two CD collection is amazing.

The Sufjan Stevens track "You Are the Blood" is particularly satisfying to me. I'm lacking in a vital music vitamin without him. It's 10 minuets on the album, and is basically a battle between Sufjan's very computer and technical side (ie. Enjoy Your Rabbit) and his much more acoustic classical side (ie. "That Dress Looks Nice on you"). It was a fantastic find, and I'm happy to have it for this year.

Representing Sufjan's music label Asthmatic Kitty, My Brightest Dimond covers "Feeling Good" and when I was watching the few middle school-ers on my bus looking confused as the bus door wouldn't open, I was much happier. It made the situation much more humorous even though I thought we'd be late to school on the day of the HESPAs(NJ state Highschool test, you need to pass to graduate). It's not to innovative, but the song is and always will be fantastic, and anyone that can sing it well should record it.

Yeasayer and Arcade Fire's songs are also among my favorite on the album, but I put the Feist + Grizzly Bear track on the offered blog playlist from the album site. (They know their audience too well.. and I'm one of the suckers that bought into it... oh well. Good music streamed for free is worth it.)

Sweetheart is a Starbucks offer, but there are some decent covers. Actually She & Him cover "I Put a Spell on you" and it's brilliant, and A.C.Newman (of the The New Pornographers) cover "Take On Me" and it's very good even though he kind of sounds like he's swallowing his tongue on the high note, who can blame him?(pop songs where so high pitched in the 80s) Jem covers "Yellow" in a wonderful stripped piano and vocal version, with strings later in the song.

 Rouge Wave cover "Maps" but seemed to miss the memo about how slow acoustic songs and lyric repetition don't always mix. Anyway, it was a good attempt at one of my favorite songs. "Love Song" covered by Death Cab for Cutie is decent, but I'm bias in that "Love Song" never really interested me. Sorry Robert Smith.

Now I have to go get Neko Case's new album Middle Cyclone. They stopped free streaming today with it's release.