What's worth downloading on eMusic?
Posted by Leedsboy on 26 February 2008 - 6:35pm.
I have been subscribing to eMusic for around 6 months and there are some great albums available. However, it requires having a trawl about on the site and it can be a bit hit or miss sometimes.
I have made an assumption that a number of Word readers subscribe so wondered if it was worth sharing what good stuff you have found on eMusic.
My starter(s) for ten would be
Boxer - The National
Alligator - The National
Ash Wednesday - Elvis Perkins
Ma Fleur - Cinematic Orchestra
Trials of Van Occupanther - Midlake
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga - Spoon
The Ideal Condition - Paul Hartnoll
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These are ten great records I've bought lately
Ben Webster & Joe Zawinul: Soul Mates
Bill Evans: Riverside Profiles
Clifford Brown: Overnight in Paris
Sonny Rollins: Saxophone Colossus
Noel Coward: In Las Vegas
Justin Adams: Soul Science
Easy Star All Stars: Dub Side Of The Moon
M.I.A.: Kala
The Ghost World Soundtrack
Orchestra Baobab: Bamba
Not readily available elsewhere
Grinderswitch - Pickin' the Blues (John Peel's theme tune - it doesn't seem readily available elsewhere)
Nick Lowe - Untouched Takeaway (live acoustic album - also not readily available elsewhere).
Other tracks I got on offer some time ago included Ted Hawkins (lots for completists); Rev Gary Davis (Hesitation Blues); Easy Dub All Stars (Paranoid Android) and Dan Reeder (either album).
Here are few that I've been enjoying...
Seabear - The Ghost That Carried Us Away
Moondog
M. Ward
Laura Cantrell
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Josh Rouse
Burial - both albums
The Mountain Goats
The Whitest Boy Alive - Dreams
Shrift - Lost in a Moment
El Perro Del Mar
Fink
Eels
& Nick Lowe's Jesus of Cool re-release is up there now as well
Loads of good stuff on there
These are my favourites so far:
Also...
The National albums get my vote as well - 'Boxer' particularly is superb...
The last time I was on emusic,
They had the first two Decemberists albums and a couple of rareities of theres well worth searching out.
Where do I begin?
A big fan of e music, often using it as a launchpad for future orthodox purchases, or for tying up the loose ends in a catalogue/repertoire. This is not a complete list of my downloads, merely those artists that I feel other correspondents would be interested in, given the name checks in many strands. Be careful of the myriad top hits type genres, viz guitar rock of the 70s etc, most of these are new and inferior recordings or appalling live recordings, of which there are also many of in their own right, many sounding as if they were recorded by mistake, by someone with a dictaphone in their pocket (step forward the live in australia Fairport Convention: they should be ashamed of that!)
Here goes: A girl called eddy, aimee mann, alpha blondy, asleep at the wheel, azzdine with bill laswell (lots of bill lasswell),big star, bill jones (excellent folkie, overlooked at the last renaissance thereof), bill kirchern (ex commander cody), caitlin cary and chad cockerill, cake, cat power (her new covers is there already, as well as the greatest), camera obscura, chuck prophet,coleman hawkins, colin blunstone, damien jurado (brilliant!), danny thompson, darden smith, delbert mcclinton, dick gaughan, derek bell (late chieftains harpist), drive by truckers, dwight yoakam, guy clark, hot tuna, (the new) john fogerty, john hiatt, josh rouse, kate rusby (including the oft overlooked lp with kathryn williams), lucinda williams, marah, maria muldaur, martin simpson, michael weston king, mojave 3, oysterband, paul brady, peter case, planxty, richard thompson (quite a lot), richard cheese (yay!), rickie lee jones, robert earl keen, rosie thomas, stephen bruton, susan tedeschi, balham alligators, (later period) flying burrito bros and burrito deluxe- be careful, some clunkers, strokes, thea gilmore, walkabouts, those darn accordions (off the wall accordion driven versions of rock "standards") tom waits, vassar clements, wreckless eric and zion train.
Phew......
It's like Aladdin's cave in there...
...there's stuff I've had on my CD Wishlist for years, bands I've been turned onto by Word coverdiscs, early back-catalogue of artists I've latched onto mid-career, obscure jazz artists I've heard on jazz podcast such as "In The Groove", and more besides. Every day I trawl the new additions, adding any goodies to my wishlist for the next time my 90-download credit refreshes. Most months I have at least 90 tracks I'm waiting to grab, so gradually my backlog is growing, not shrinking. At present, having just downloaded my February/March allowance, my backlog currently stands at 438 albums still awaiting the credits to download. That's albums, not tracks (we may be in the song-oriented End Times, but I'm still an albums guy at heart). Anyway, this month's goodies are:
Oxygene and Equinoxe by Jean Michel Jarre
Phoenix by System 7
Jesus Of Cool (with all the bonus tracks) by Nick Lowe
Men-An-Tol by Men-An-Tol
Underwater Dancehall by Pinch
Fab Four Suture by Stereolab
Shadow Cat by Robyn Hitchcock
Together by McCoy Tyner
...plus a single track, Paper Planes by M.I.A. to make the round 90 tracks.
I'm a latecomer to Stereolab, so I'll be downloading the other 3 albums eMusic have, when my credits permit.
Other good stuff I've downloaded recently includes:
- Most of British Sea Power's catalogue, including the newest album.
- Both Burial albums.
- The entire output of nu-Prog behemoths Explosions In The Sky.
- Hot Chip's Coming On Strong.
- Both albums by the splendidly named (and wonderful) Holy Fuck.
- Tinariwen's Aman Iman
- Loads of John Fahey (thanks to David H).
- Horslips's The Book Of Invasions, which I've been trying fruitlessly to buy on CD for nearly 2 years, but which suddenly appeared on eMusic recently, along with most of their back-catalogue.
- Tons of roots music from the likes of Steeleye Span, Martin Simpson, Waterson-Carthy, Kathryn Tickell and Billy Bragg.
Oh, truckloads of great stuff. Finding time to listen to it all, enough to do it justice, is the only problem!
And more...
Some FANTASTIC Aretha Franklin, original recordings, basically most of the stuff you'd want.
Barbara Thompson - Songs From The Centre Of The Earth - bewitchingly beautiful solo saxophone versions of folk songs from around the world, recorded in a 14th Century French Cathedral
Lots of Bjork
Carla Bruni's recent one
Chet Baker Sings, Plays
All the Cocteau Twins albums (probably the whole 4AD catalogue, in fact)
Cristina - that legendary cover of Is That All There Is which Annie Nightingale used to play
Espers
Gillian Welch
The wonderful JILL SOBULE, subject of a recent thread
Lauren Hoffman - Choreography - sweet voice, great songs
Lene Lovich, all the hits, maybe more than you remembered, and sounding better than you remembered
Maria McKee - Late December, opening with Season of the Fair, possibly my favourite song of the last 5 years
Mariza - Fado Em Mim
Oh Susanna - Sleepy Little Sailor is on there, I think, which I already have, and is brilliant
Propaganda - A Secret Wish, Trevor Horn's finest three quarters of an hour
Ron Sexsmith, nuff said
Tamara Williamson, a true English Original, though now based in Canada
The Lilac Time - Looking for a Day in the Night
The entire Tiger Lilies back catalogue
Tim Buckley - Dream Letter, one of my favourite live albums ever.
And this is all stuff that hasn't been mentioned already on this thread!
And if anyone joins on the strength of these plugs.....
....please mention our names, so we get the 50 extra free downloads for recommending a friend!
And 6 months later.......
Never mind, but here is some Heavenly news, the Rockingbirds first eponymous CD is again available, thru' e music.
Calloo callay!!