I really enjoy when the big time artists have to battle it out on street date. It is like presidential elections or the Olympics. I just really love myself some serious competition. But I don't really like sports events... maybe I secretly do down deep somewhere and just let myself enjoy them every 2 years for the Olympics. Only a couple months to go until august and the summer Olympics will be here before we know it. Let's just hope China can become a little bit nicer by the time that rolls around. Every once in a while two big releases come out to compete against each other for sales, but it really seems that most days there is always an easily predicted winner. Of course, the top seller at Amoeba and the top seller around the country are rarely the same. Belle & Sebastian or Living Legends might be our number one record while Carrie Underwood and Clay Aiken take the lead across the nation. Last year Kanye and 50 Cent battled it out for the number one spot.  I was really hoping for a battle between Madonna and Mariah Carey this year. I tried to persuade Madonna's label to bump the release date up a couple weeks like they had for Gnarls Barkley -- that way Madonna could have battled Mariah for the number one spot somewhat handicapped, without as much time for promotions and advertising. But it didn't happen. We just get Mariah this week. It does sort of amaze me that she is still relevant and making hit singles. I thought she would have gone the way of artists like Taylor Dayne and Jody Watley at this point in music. They all had huge top singles and albums at one point but quickly fell off the charts. They may still put out albums and play the gay pride circuit but they just don't have that crazy staying power that Madonna and Mariah have. I also find it hard to believe that Mariah Carey has the most number one singles of any solo recording artist. Even if you are not a fan of these ladies you got to give them respect for surviving this long in the business and still putting out singles and albums that drive their fans crazy. Other than a new Mariah there is not a whole lot out this week, but I am excited I get to finally talk about my favorite album of the year. I have had a couple but this new album for sure takes over as the best of the year. The band is called M83. Please join me in loving them. They are fantastic.

Just in case you were wondering  what an "M83" is, it is an intermediate spiral galaxy approximately 15 million light years away, also known as the "southern pinwheel galaxy." But it also a fantastic band from France. Saturdays=Youth is the fifth album by M83. They put out an ambient album last year called Digital Shades Vol. 1, but I have yet to hear that one. The last real album was Before the Dawn Heals Us, which came out in 2005. Mute is the brilliant label that brings us these great albums. Like most electronicy "bands" there is one main person doing most of the work. M83 is basically Anthony Gonzalez. He parted ways with his past collaborator Nicolas Fromageau for this new album. The music is of course a shoegazing sort of sound, which seems to be all that I am listening to lately.

I get really excited about new music all the time-- sometimes it is a bit overwhelming. There is literally so much out today that I don't even know what to talk about. The writers strike may be over, but you can obviously feel its effect when you look at the movies out now in theaters. I have never seen it look so bad. I never thought I would actually choose to go see movies like the Bank Job and 21 simply because there was nothing else out there. But there has been no strike in the music business-- the albums just keep on coming out and I am not even getting time to spend with the albums I love. I have to move on to other ones and leave my favorite albums from weeks ago behind. I like to think that I have good taste when it comes to music, but I seriously have been liking a lot of albums lately. This week some of our old favorites have fantastic new albums. The Breeders have a new album out called Mountain Battles. I will forever love Kim Deal because of the Pixies, so she can really do no wrong. This album has grown on me and I find myself liking it much more that their last one. Nick Cave also has a new album out today. I have not had much time with it yet, but I do like it so far. I really can't stop thinking about seeing him at the Hollywood Bowl. The show is like a year away but I am already getting so excited. The Hollywood Bowl is one of my favorite places in the world. And Nick Cave + Hollywood Bowl = magic. Trent Reznor decided to do a completely instrumental Nine Inch Nails album. It is called Ghosts I-IV. I listened to it today and I sort of forgot it was Nine Inch Nails halfway through it. I do like myself some instrumental music and there were some really great songs on it, I am just not sure I really get it yet. I did find myself wishing for those Trent Reznor vocals on many of the songs. I just need to give it some more time. The Drift has an amazing all instrumental album out today called Memory Drawings. The album sounds similar to their label mates Explosions in the Sky. I know Wumpscut is not for everybody, but I found myself obsessed with their album Bone Peeler from a couple of years ago. I seriously listened to that album over and over again. Sometimes I need some hard and intense dark music in my life. And Wumpscut don't ever let me down.

Out today is the brilliant new album from Sun Kil Moon. The album is full of the intense heartbreaking songs that we have come to expect from Mark Kozelek. I don't know how he does it, but he creates the most depressing songs imaginable and he keeps you coming back for more. I just can't get enough of his albums over the last 15 years or so. They sometimes almost hurt me when I listen to them. Like the emotions actually become painful. I can sometimes feel the tears just by hearing his name or thinking about his music for even a second. It is sort of Pavlovian. My body had been trained to get emotional just at the thought of Mark Kozelek of the Red House Painters. This might not sound like very much fun, but I completely enjoy listening to Sun Kil Moon albums and I can't barely imagine my life without Mr. Mark Kozelek making music. My journey through his music began a long time ago. I still remember going to Morning Glory Music in Santa Barbara to pick up my fist copy of a Red House Painters album. At this point in my life I was very much obsessed with 4AD Records. I was determined to own everything on the label and had not yet been disappointed. I also based some of my purchases on album covers at that point-- this is how I first got into another 4AD band, This Mortal Coil.

The two self titled Red House Painters albums came out in 1993, a year after Down Colorful Hill came out in 1992.  My first album by them that I bought was the "rollercoaster" cover self titled album. The cover was a brilliant sepia colored photo of an old broken down roller coaster. I absolutely love roller coasters and am a sucker for anything with a sepia filter on it. The album included "Grace Cathedral Park," "Mistress," and "Mother."  The entire album is fantastic, and I guarantee you that this album will make you cry. It is really all about that fantastic voice that belongs to Mark Kozelek. The slow, dreamy, folky music fits in perfectly with his voice. Many of the songs on the six Red House Painters albums remain some of my favorites. I became obsessed with Red House Painters after this first album. I went back on bought the other two albums and patiently waited until 1995 for the release of Ocean Beach. This became one of those albums forever attached to a year in my life. I can't really think about 1995/1996 without thinking about this album. It was my last year in college and this was the perfect album to sort of help soundtrack my life that year. There was lots of Blur, Elastica, Gene, Suede, and Stereolab to get my through the year as well, but Red House Painters have been in my life ever since.

I have been really obsessed with Antony & the Johnsons since I moved to Los Angeles. I'm not really sure why. I did first listen to him when I initially moved to Los Angeles in 2001, so maybe I have him attached to Los Angeles in my mind. I was immediately in love with him. He was like a stretched out version of Marc Almond-- a bit more intense and not as flamboyant. I guess he had a different kind of flamboyance. He's also incredibly interesting and completely engaging. I wanted to know more about this man. My love for him grew after I eventually moved back to San Francisco. After recently finding myself living back in L.A. once again, I inevitably began listening to all his albums. I listened to them over and over again as I unpacked and rearranged my new apartment. I even broke out a live bootleg album that a friend of mine had made for me. I normally stay away from the live albums-- I would rather physically be there at a live show-- but I even became obsessed with this live album and soon had all his comments to the crowd memorized as if they were part of the album. So of course I was excited to find out that Antony would be featured on a new album coming out this year. Hercules & Love Affair just released their self titled album in the U.K. on DFA Records. You might have to wait a couple months for a domestic release, but in the meantime it is more than worth the import price for this amazing new debut album. You will find Antony on the vocals for four of the ten songs. He also sings some back up on an additional song.

This is one of those weeks that I look forward to. There are tons of great albums out today. Not everybody is going to like all these albums, but there are seriously tons of records out today that make me happy. It makes me happy to still work in a record store. It reminds me of those days before I worked in a record store when I would go out searching for those new albums. It is much easier to find out about albums these days. It was all about the magazines back then and also just trusting your local record store to promote the good albums. It was also all about getting and giving recommendations to all your friends. That is sort of what I think I'm doing with my blog. I just get so excited sometimes to talk about all the things that I love and make me happy. Back when I was just a slightly obsessive record shopper, it seems like there would be nothing out for weeks and then all of a sudden there would be like 10 albums out on one day and I would need to buy them all. Today is one of those days.

This album has totally grown on me in the last couple of days -- I really didn't think that I was going to like it, but I am just suddenly in love with it. I can't control it. The album is called Volume One by the new band She & Him. Also known as Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward. I am a sort of big fan of her work with her other career as an actress, but I had no idea how addictive this album would be. It sort of sounds like a mix of some Neko Case and Loretta Lynn with M. Ward playing along. I am also a big fan of the biopic docudrama, music biography type of movie, and two of the movies I am looking forward to are the Janis Joplin story and the Dusty Springfield story. I was also excited about the Etta James movie but I am not really sure how I feel about Beyonce playing Etta. But Kristin Chenoweth as Dusty is perfect, and Zooey as Janis is also perfect.