It is now December 1st and officially the last month of the year. Only Twenty Four Days until Christmas. And the Oscars are just around the corner. The Golden Globe Nominations come out Thursday December 15th. The Golden Globes Ceremony is Sunday January 15th. The Oscar Nominees are announced Tuesday January 24th. And the Oscars are on Sunday February 26th. Most of the nominated movies are released in these last couple of months of the year. And most of these movies have some great scores and soundtracks to go along with them. I like to think of it as soundtrack season as well. I almost love soundtracks as much as I love movies. It really is one of my favorite things about watching movies. The music is often what really makes me fall in love with the music. It is those cinematic moments with no dialogue and just the music that I really appreciate most.

Two of my favorite movies of the year so far came out a couple of months ago. Both Beginners and Drive are two of my favorites and they both have great soundtracks to go along with them. The Drive Soundtrack features songs from The Chromatics and Desire and an amazing score by Cliff Martinez. Beginners features songs from Jelly Roll Morton, Josephine Baker, and Mamie Smith. Another one of my favorite films of the year was the latest by Woody Allen. However, Midnight in Paris did not get a proper soundtrack release. The Soundtracks to Drive and Beginners are out now..

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It looks like we are in the middle of November. I hope you all are ready. The releases keep coming throughout this month. But will soon be slowing down a bit. It has been a busy couple of months. We now need to all take some time and cherish these music releases and give them the time that they deserve. You might need to go back a couple of months and catch up on some new releases you have missed. Or spend some more time with some of the albums that you just didn't have time to listen to. I know that is how I feel. I am in the middle of compiling my top 50 albums of the year. And probably more than half the list will be filled with albums out the last couple of months.

I finally broke open my This Mortal Coil Box set today and I couldn't be happier. I still think it is a bit too expensive for what you get. But it is almost worth it. I guess. I do love This Mortal Coil. I have loved them for so long and spent so much time with these three albums over the last 20 years or so. I guess they deserve me spending some money on them after all they have done for me. I can't really imagine getting through the 90's without This Mortal Coil. They were really not like much else that I listened to. But I needed them. These albums helped me go to sleep at night. They helped me get through the rough times and heartache. The albums are all dark and dreamy. But I never looked at these albums as depressing. There are actually some pop songs on these albums too. They are just all beautiful pieces of art. The artwork is amazing and perfect. And the songs flow great on the albums. I think I actually picked up my first This Mortal Coil album based solely on the artwork. And I may have actually gotten into This Mortal Coil before The Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance. This Mortal Coil was sort of like my gateway drug to 4AD. It was all over at that point. I was hooked for life on 4AD. I posted some info on preordering the box set last month. Here is the info on the This Mortal Coil box set preorder. However, It is of course out now. And I am proud to be in the same company of those of you who preordered the box. I did give you a chance to get it early! We are currently sold out of the box at Amoeba Hollywood. But hopefully will be getting more stock in the next couple of weeks. The albums sound fantastic. Just as great as you remember but better.

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OUT 11/21...
	Kate Bush 50 Words for Snow CD - $12.98 LP - $20.98
	The Rolling Stones Some Girls Continue reading...

I have been a huge fan of the label Captured Tracks since I first heard anything on that label. There are just some labels that you can always count on. You can trust them to bring you the best of a particular genre. I can honestly say that I love Captured Tracks. They released two of my favorite albums last year by The Soft Moon and Wild Nothing. They both ended up in the top ten of my Top 50 Albums of 2010. I have been closely following this label ever since I first discovered them. If you are a fan of shoegaze and what it has evolved into in the recent years then this label is for you. The releases on this label tend to be on the dark side of things. The label really is as consistent as a label like 4AD. Maybe even more so. I have yet to be disappointed. In November of last year Captured Tracks released the Golden Haze EP by Wild Nothing and the Land & Fixed album by Blank Dogs. Idle Labor by Craft Spells was released by Captured Tracks this last April. And I of course fell in love with this album as well. It is dreamy and gazey and just a beautiful little album. A bit more pop music than the releases from The Soft Moon and Wild Nothing. But still a fantastic album. The excellent Soft Metals album was released in August of this year. Captured Tracks has done it again and released two new albums this first week in November. A new EP from one of my favorites The Soft Moon. And the debut album from Blouse.

I have been waiting for this week to arrive for a long time. The long awaited box sets by The Smiths have finally arrived. There are a lot of Smiths fans out there who have been counting down the days for these box sets to arrive. We all probably have about 4 or 5 all time favorite bands. Those bands that we love more than anything else. We collect everything we can by them. We have probably owned their albums on cassette, CD and LP. We have listened to their albums over and over again. We have watched the videos over and over again. We have read all we could about them. We have spent hours reading magazines and books about them. We then later spent years looking for articles and blogs on them online. Or spent hours and hours on message boards or chat rooms. We have seen them live in concert as much as we could afford to. Assuming the band actually toured when we could see them. These bands are usually the bands that you were really obsessed with in your late teens and early 20s. At least that is how it was for me. The bands that you discovered in junior high that you then became obsessed with in high school and college. The bands that your older siblings or cousins got you into. The bands that your friends that were cooler than you found out about first.  The bands that you can't imagine your life without. They are the soundtrack to our lives. We listened to them in our bedrooms late at night by ourselves. We later listened to them late at night with our best friends and girlfriends and boyfriends. We listened to them in the car with our parents and later with our friends. We listened to them on our first dates. We put their songs on compilations and mix tapes. We danced to their songs in our bedrooms by ourselves and later at clubs and parties and at friends houses. These are the bands that helped to create our favorite moments from our past. The songs that helped us to remember those memories.