MJR's 2 Minute Guide to the Best 5 Albums of 2012 So Far and You're Welcome

My favorite 5 albums of 2012 so far.  In no particular order.  Order them your own damn selves.

1.  Bury Them All by Cheap Freaks: The kind of bluesy, dirt-covered, whiskey-tinged, pulsating, soulful rock album you so desperately need.  And the best-kept rock record secret of 2012.  Just ask my record club buddies.  They know.

Listen to Bury Them All on Spotify

2.  Celebration Rock by Japandroids: Because even if holding on to yesterday may be foolish, remembering how good it often felt isn't.  Joy and unabashed naive hope for all things ridiculously hopeful and liberating.  The soundtrack to that.

Listen to Celebration Rock on Spotify

3.  Kill For Love by Chromatics: Few albums and bands evoke a particular imagery like Chromatics do here.  Once you see 2011's Drive (for which Chromatics' music plays a key role on the soundtrack), try separating the the look, feel, and style onscreen from the neon audio wizardry found herein.  Simply the album that refuses to be removed from the rotation.

Listen to Kill For Love on SoundCloud

4.  Milk Famous by White Rabbits: From the "Based on their slightly above average previous work I did not see an album this great coming and neither did you" department.

Listen to Milk Famous on Spotify

5.  A Sleep & A Forgetting by Islands: A stripped-down straightforward album from a band that has been anything but stripped-down and straightforward for as long as they've existed.  This is a ceaselessly engaging record about the pain of divorce that never sounds like it feels sorry for itself.

Listen to A Sleep & A Forgetting on Spotify

Playlist of the Week: Heatwaver 2

You can run.  You can hide.  But he's gonna getcha.

The heat just won't stop beating us.

  

The sun currently feels like Sensei John Kreese of Cobra Kai yelling "Finish him!"

I feel less sexy in this weather.  I typed while sitting at a desk in glasses and cargo shorts.

The best part of working at Sonic in Texas when I was a teenager during the summer was smoking in the walk-in freezer.  Don't tell my mom.  Or the Texas Board of Health.

In nine days, I leave for a tropical island.  So I can cool off.  In your melted face.

It's hot.  Here's music.  Quick--listen before your face melts off. 

iPad, iPhone, and other smart phone users, click here to play the playlist. 

To listen in Spotify, click here.

Everyone else, press the play button in the box below the track listing.

 

Playlist of the Week: Airport Commuter 7

"It's only the second period and I'm up 12 to 2. Breakfasts come and go, Rene, but Hartford, "the Whale," they only beat Vancouver once, maybe twice in a lifetime."

This week's destination: Hartford and Storrs, Connecticut

Airport Code: BDL

Connecting City or Cities: Atlanta (ATL)

As a native Texan and Oklahoma citizen, you'd probably assume I have little to say about Connecticut.  Not altogether true.  This is my first actual visit there (not counting the time I once got SO lost after arriving in New York that I accidentally ended up in Connecticut), but here's what comes to mind when I think of the Constitution State:

1.  The quote from the photo caption above.  If you can name that movie, I love you more than I love others.
2.  The word "Connecticut" is very clearly cheating at Scrabble.
3.  Rebecca Lobo was a hot in her day.
4.  I feel like if I don't see something historical/colonial, I'm a patriotic failure or somesuch.
5.  After seeing that photo, I realize I'm overdue for a boat ride.
6.  I know it's June, but I still feel a little uneasy about not bringing a jacket with me.
7.  I think I'd feel like a big man if I publicly ridiculed whatever they think passes for "Mexican" food while I'm there.
8. Thinking of peppering strangers with Good Will Hunting references in my best "Southie" accent in a manner which makes people think that I think that this is a brand new movie and/or I have somehow mistaken Hartford for Boston.
9.  I don't have a ninth reason--this sentence is just filler.  But let's be honest (Lesbihonest), is Hartford really worthy of more than 8 reasons?

Music I will be listening to as I fly above your heads and sprint through America's airports that you should also consider filling your headspace with:

iPad, iPhone, and other smart phone users, click here to play the playlist. 

To listen in Spotify, click here.

Everyone else, press the play button in the box below the track listing.