Seems like April just sprinted in and dashed right by like a blur; but hey, we’ve got May flowers, Mother’s Day has passed and Memorial Day is coming up soon. If your April was as busy as ours, and seemed to go by as fast as it did for us, chances are that you missed some of our posts and mixtapes for the month. But no worries, that’s why we do the Music Month in Review.
We’re a few days late with this installment of the month in review, but there are hundreds of selected free MP3s to enjoy, plus band profiles, new artist spotlights, interesting mixes (like Coachella and Time Travel), the weekly Best New Releases and the Almost Missed mixtapes, plus perhaps the most extensive coverage of Record Store Day 2011 that we’ve seen on the web (and we’ve looked) – a three-part series that we put a lot of work into – and enjoyed every moment of it – not to mention the inclusion of rare MP3 versions of tracks that are found almost nowhere else online.
If you’re a vinyl collector, and you were not able to get to a participating record store on the official RSD (April 16th), we have covered appoximately 45-50 of nearly 300 special, limited-edition vinyl seven, ten and 12 inch records, EPs and LPs, compilations, cover songs, previously unreleased tracks, RSD-only singles or samplers, and much more, to make the task of hunting them down on sites like eBay easier, and listening to special MP3s. Also, check out the Top 20 songs of the month, and many other special mixtapes.
It’s a lot harder to play catch up, that’s why we recommend you check out IRC a few times a week, since we post anywhere from four to six posts a week. You might also wish to follow us on Twitter and Facebook since we regularly post goodies to those places that we don’t put on the main site, and vice versa.
Best New Releases for April 2011
In the new releases department, our favorite albums dropped in April include Panda Bear, Foo Fighters, The Kills, The Raveonettes, Tuneyards, The Head and The Heart, I’m From Barcelona, Scattered Trees, Crystal Stilts, Times New Viking, TV On The Radio, Painted Palms, and many others.
So, here are the four Best New Releases mixtapes for April featuring MP3s from all of those bands and many other bands’ new LPs. Just click on the post mixtape title link and go crazy. Additionally, we’ve included the subsequent most played/downloaded song from each week’s Best New Releases mix.
Song of the Week: “Satellite” – The Kills from Blood Pressures (via Top Ten Songs mix for April 3rd – 9th)
Song of the Week: “Surfer’s Hymn” – Panda Bear from Tomboy (via Top Ten Songs mix for April 10th – 16th)
Song of the Week: “Bizness” – Tuneyards from Whokill
Song of the Week: “This Moment” – The French Horn Rebellion from The Infinite Music of the French Horn Rebellion
Recent Releases We Almost Missed – April 2011
For those of you not familiar with the Recent Releases We Almost Missed series, we hope it’s pretty straight forward. It refers to a specific series that focuses on our favorite new singles, EPs and albums from artists and bands who recently released a new record, but for one reason or another, we were not able to feature it in the regular weekly Best New Releases series.
Recent Releases We Almost Missed, Vol. XIX – TV On The Radio, Little Scream, Vessels, The French Horn Rebellion, Honey Pies
Top 20 Songs on IRC – April 2011
This mix is a snapshot of just the Top 20 songs were streamed and downloaded the most on IRC for the month of April. Unlike the weekly Top Ten Songs, the Top 20 is not restricted to the week the songs were featured on the site, but instead, it’s just whatever the top 20 songs are overall regardless of when they were originally posted to the site.
“Windows” – Broken Bells from Meyrin Fields EP
“Greenleaf” – Generationals from Actor-Caster
“Bizness” – Tuneyards from Whokill
“Second Chance” – Peter Bjorn And John from Gimme Some
“Satellite” – The Kills from Blood Pressures
“Recharge and Revolt” – The Raveonettes from Raven In The Grave
“Running With Insanity” – Alcoholic Faith Mission from And The Running With Insanity
“Shell Games” – Bright Eyes from The People’s Key
“Surfer’s Hymn” – Panda Bear from Tomboy
“Dancing Fools” – Alcoholic Faith Mission from And The Running With Insanity
“Ego” – Thom Yorke + Burial + Four Tet
“Lost in My Mind” – The Head and the Heart from The Head and the Heart
“Belong” – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart from Belong
“Under Cover of Darkness” – The Strokes from Angles
“Last Night At The Jetty” – Panda Bear from Tomboy
“Helena Beat” – Foster The People from Torches – out May 24th
“Get In Line” – I’m From Barcelona from Forever Today
“Are We Lovers Or Are We Friends?” – Acid House Kings from Music Sounds Better with You
“Great Pan Is Dead” – Cold Cave from Cherish the Light Years (Bonus Track)
“Pumped Up Kicks” – Foster The People from Foster The People EP
Top 10 Other Posts and Mixes for May*
- Does not include the weekly Best New Releases mix, nor the Recent Releases We Almost Missed. Some results are skewed by the fact that other posts have been out longer, or were published on a day when web traffic is normally higher (Mon-Wed.).
Bull Moose’s Chris Brown Reviews Some 100 Record Store Day 2011 Releases
Okkervil River Will Perform New LP Live Wednesday Night During KUT and NPR Broadcast