Now that Memorial Day weekend has passed, it’s pretty much the beginning of summertime in the world of rock – festival line-ups have been announced, bands are on, or getting ready for, cross-country and worldwide tours, labels are prepping big releases for the summer, DIY artists are vying to get heard, and millions of music lovers are making their sunshine plans for the next few months.
IRC’s 2012 Summer Songs Mixtapes will be coming in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, if you’re building a summer playlist, check out our previous summer music mixes – where we’d say 90% of the songs are still active. Other recent posts you may want to check out include Album of the Week: Young Man’s Vol. 1, and the latest DIY Artist of the Week, Thad Kopec. If you didn’t get the chance to listen to the top singles for the week of May 22nd – check out Vol. I and Vol. II.
The BNR playlist post for the week of May 29th is loaded with great singles from new albums by The Walkmen, Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros, Sigur Ros, Regina Skeptor, King Tuff, Sun Kil Moon, Broken Water, Lemonade, White Lung, The Toxic Avenger and others. This is a great collection of singles. The Walkmen’s “Heaven” is one of the best songs of 2012, and the title track of one of the best albums of the year as well.
“Heaven” – The Walkmen from Heaven on Fat Possum
“Man On Fire” – Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros from Here on Vagrant Records
“Varuo” – Sigur Rós from Valtari on XL Recordings
“All The Rowboats” – Regina Spektor from What We Saw From The Cheap Seats on Warner Bros. Records
“Sunshine In Chicago” – Sun Kil Moon from Among The Leaves on Caldo Verde Si
“Keep On Movin'” – King Tuff from King Tuff
And there is more good stuff here…
“Drown” – Broken Water from Tempest on Hardly Art
“Here They Come” – The Doc Marshalls from Look Out, Compadre (self-released)
“Softkiss” – Lemonade from Diver on True Panther/Matador
“Take the Mirror” – White Lung from Sorry on Deranged Records
“The Wrecking Ball Company”– Marissa Nadler from The Sister on Box Of Cedar Records
“Never Stop” – The Toxic Avenger from ANGST on Little Owl Recordings
Soundcloud Songs
Some labels put themselves at a disadvantage by providing only Soundcloud singles from their artists’ new albums. We know for a fact this puts them at a disadvantage and their artists’ singles get less circulation. The reason is that .mp3 links are the way to go because other bloggers can drop them into a post with a built in streamer (like Yahoo Player, which IRC uses) and it’s done. And music lovers are more likely to send them to friends, add them to playlists (since such links allow for a free download which freaks out some labels), post them on social media networks and on and on. You get the point. Soundcloud is like an obstacle in that aspect of the equation.
It’s a pet peeve not only because people can’t stream Soundcloud songs with the rest of the playlist, but also because it has no benefit to labels. If any record executives are reading this – trust us. If you’ve seen numbers go down for your artists since employing Soundcloud and other non .mp3 song link, that’s the reason. We are forced to put Soundcloud (except in rare cases such as with The Walkmen above because there was nothing but SoundCloud available) at the end of our posts because they don’t play automatically as the others do.
“Goldilocks Zone” – Grass Widow from Internal Logic on HLR Records
“One Drop” – Public Image Ltd. from This is PiL on PIL Official Limited
“Shake Them Shackles” – Tassels from Pressure Mounts on Pour Le Corps Records