New albums come out on Tuesday. I don’t know if you kids knew this, what with your digital thievery and what not. I don’t think there’s an official day for leaks.

Tuesday used to be a big day for me. I used to wait in line to buy new albums the night they were released. I remember waiting in line for the midnight release of Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral album at Wherehouse Records in Ann Arbor. I was pretty pumped for that record, apparently. And when I got it, I ran screaming back to my dorm room as if on fire and made my roommate listen to it on repeat for the rest of the night while I poured Goldschlager shots down his throat. I don’t know if that last part happened. But that’s definitely what I would do if The Downward Spiral was released today.

Well, it’s Tuesday, and it’s Awkward Press, and I have new music, and that means one thing: it’s New Muesday! In which I take a good, critical listen to the 5 latest records that have found their way into my iTunes. (By good, critical listen, I mean I will have it on in the background while I do other things.) They may be new records, they may be old records, but one thing is for certain: they will not be records. They will be digital globs of ones and zeroes that produce pleasing tones. Are we ready? Let’s do this bitch!

1) The Brokenmusicbox: Waking the Sound
Date added: 8/18/09
Recommended by: Jon Harmon

Lovely music for a Sunday morning. If you were sad on a Sunday morning and didn’t quite feel like crying but couldn’t handle Rammstein, this is the record you would put on the whatever kids listen to music on nowadays. It sounds like the Sundays, actually. Quite a bit. Only there’s a guy. I often wonder how people have the confidence to play slow music. I think it takes a lot of guts. With a fast song, you can obscure what you’re doing. There’s no hiding behind a slow song. I know all of that because I majored in being smart about music.

This album may take a few spins to break in. It was very nice in this context, in which I had to pay very little attention to it. I don’t know that I’d rush to throw it on at my next party. (Full disclosure: I don’t have parties.) But it is definitely the finest Excel background music I have heard all day.

As I was listening to this album, I heard geese squawking in the background, which is a very odd sound to hear in LA. I can confirm that this album also blends very nicely with geese squawking.

Conclusion: Steal it!

2) Jay Z + the Beatles (mixed by Danger Mouse): The Grey Album
Date added: 8/16/09

Yeah, I know, what is this, 2004? (Full disclosure: it is not 2004.) I snagged The Grey Album the other day because one of the tracks from it came up on a mix I was listening to and I realized I had never heard the whole album before. You probably know the story already … Danger Mouse mashed up Jay-Z’s Black Album and the Beatles’ White Album into The Grey Album. It was never available commercially because the Beatles would make you pay every time you accidentally caught a glimpse of one of their album covers if they could. But you can still find it on the World Wide Web if you know how to find things. (Hint: It starts with “goo” and ends with “le”. Also, there is another “g” before the “le.”)

I don’t know how to critique this record. It sounds cool. I don’t know the original Jay-Z album, so I can’t tell how different it is. I know the White Album. But a lot of the music is so hacked and flipped and reworked that it’s completely unrecognizable. I don’t understand remixes. Like, with technology, can’t you just put anything through the blender and make it sound fresh? Danger Mouse constructed all the drumbeats on this album from the original White Album drum parts, which is sort of impressive. But like, he’d take one drum hit and put it in a sampler and double it up until it became a totally different beat. So, what’s the point? Other than being able to say you did it.

I mean, no disrespect to Danger Mouse, this record is undeniably dope. And I bet it was a fun project to do. It’s just hard to get blown away by the technical work behind it without knowing anything about how difficult it would be to do. But, I guess if you’ve always wanted to hear Jay-Z rapping over totally reworked Beatles loops, this is probably the album you should get. Or Frampton Comes Alive, which is almost the same thing.

Conclusion: Steal it! (That’s the only way to get it.)

3) The Bitter Tears: Jam Tarts in the Jakehouse
Date added: 8/14/09
Recommended by: Ben Boxer

Ben Boxer has good taste in music. He told me this band was a nonstop well of hilarity. I’ve listened to this record probably 3 times, and I don’t hear it yet. Good band, but hilarious? I don’t know. Ben Boxer is hilarious, though, so he probably knows what he’s talking about.

They sound like, um, I dunno. The Glands. They sound like the Glands. Do you know the Glands? Everyone should know the Glands. Go check out the Glands second album (also called the Glands) and get back to me. Unheralded masterpiece.

I have to cop out on this one. I need more time with The Bitter Tears. Does that defeat the purpose of even discussing an album, to say that I can’t say whether I like it or not yet? It falls into that world of mid-tempo country-ish rock that is really difficult to get a bead on right off the bat. I’ll probably grow to love it. If Ben Boxer loves it, it’s okay by me.

Conclusion: Listen to it more! Not you, me.

4) The Low Anthem: Oh My God, Charlie Darwin
Date added: 8/14/09

Emusic is the best and the worst. I know, people who pay for music in this day and age are fools. I can’t argue with that. But here’s what I like: I like getting full albums. I like getting full albums easily. I like being bored and wanting new music and being able to easily hook up with a band I’ve never heard of. And emusic provides that. Please note, however: they are an awful, awful company. They don’t let your songs roll over from month to month. Their website is useless in many ways. They just raised their prices because they made a deal with some major labels to provide music that I would never in a million years have any interest in.

But that being said, there is something psychologically exciting about going to your emusic account and seeing that you have 50 credits which, even though you pay for it every month, still feels kinda like a gift. I rarely use emusic to buy anything I would normally buy elsewhere, because I normally just buy that stuff through normal channels like normal.com or whatever. Emusic is used for discovering new music.

Like these fellows here, the Low Anthem. Never would have heard of them if it weren’t for emusic, and I’m happy I did, because this is some damn fine stuff. It’s a great mix of Fleet Foxes-esque pastoral symphonies (that’s a music thing, look it up), late-night country lullabies, and feet-stomping bluegrass rave-ups. The third track, “Ticket Taker,” is the best secular gospel song I’ve heard in ages. The pretty songs are gorgeous, the rocking songs are bangers, and according to my wife, I laugh in my sleep. FYI, that last part didn’t really have anything to do with the review. Regardless, this one will be getting many spins on the machine I use to spin my mp3s.

Conclusion: Buy! Buy! Buy!

5) Nellie McKay: Pretty Little Head
Date added: 8/14/09

I avoided Nellie McKay for many years because I knew she was a jazz piano prodigy who wrote Cole Porter-esque songs and sometimes rapped. The jazz piano and Cole Porter parts were okay, but combine that with rapping, and you have a perfect recipe for quirk overload. But, as I said before, one sometimes needs to get rid of one’s emusic credits, and so one takes a shot on something that one might not buy for oneself other one wise.

And so I ended up downloading Nellie’s first album, Get Away From Me, which kind of blew my mind. Yes, it contains some pretty unbearable white-girl rapping. But it is also filled to the brim with witty, catchy pop songs that manage to transcend their quirkiness.

Her second album, Pretty Little Head, was one of those Yankee Hotel Foxtrot records that everyone loved but the label refused to release, for whatever reason. And then I guess they finally released it, because I have it now. And once again, it is filled with witty, catchy pop songs that get in your head and refuse to leave, even when you threaten it with a hammer. It’s a more mature and polished effort than the first one, much less quirky, and also there is a guest appearance by Cyndi Lauper, which, okay, maybe that’s kind of quirky. I don’t care. I’m going to listen to this one again right now.

Conclusion: Buy it, but only if this description sounds appealing, because if you’re like some Sunn O))) fan, you’re going to pick up this record and probably think it’s some kind of bullshit.