Having trouble finding a good album in our collection? Then check out these great selections of alternative rock music! This list builds on my previous post featuring music in our catalog.
Note: Other great CD's by these bands are not listed because the library does not own them. Feel free to request them through the Inter-Library Loan department and pay a dollar for them to deliver it to your BCLS library.
Vampire Weekend:
This NY four-piece draw on their diverse backgrounds and interests, experimenting with African guitar music, the Western classical canon, hazy memories of Cape Cod summers, winters in upper Manhattan, and reggaeton. Equal parts shruggy New York indie strumming and groovy Afro-pop, Vampire Weekend's organ-and-drum runs highlight narratives about relationships, punctuation, and sometimes both.
Like the first album, Contra was produced by keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij and is the realization of a whole and unique musical vision that sees the band stretching out and adding new textures, instrumentation, and rhythms into their sound.Primarily recorded in New York with a springtime sojourn to Mexico, Contra feels altogether fresh, joyous, and like nothing else but is immediately recognizable as the sound of Vampire Weekend.
Modern Vampires of the City (2013)
Modern Vampires of the City is Vampire Weekend's third album, and it is a bustling world of voices and visions from the death of Henry Hudson to the Orthodox girl falling in love at an uptown falafel shop, from Hannah Hunt tearing up the New York Times on a distant beach to the lethal chandelier of "Everlasting Arms," from the ardent yearning of "Don't Lie" to the harmonized voice of hope in "Young Lion". Modern Vampires of the City has a grandeur and romanticism evocative of the city where it was conceived.
Lorde:
2013 debut album from New Zealand singer/songwriter Lorde. Lorde recorded these songs as a 16-year old Kiwi championed by the likes of Perez Hilton and Grimes. Lorde needs no collaborative hacks -- she writes and sings her own songs. Even when she sings in her higher vocal range about teenage politics, Lorde carries herself with the grace and poise of someone like Beth Orton.
St. Vincent:
St. Vincent, the nom-de-stage of "playful chanteuse [and] fearsome shredder" Annie Clark, releases her second album for 4AD, Strange Mercy. The record's 11 tracks showcase Clark's gift for fusing the cerebral and the visceral, her melodically elegant arrangements packing hefty emotional punches. Clark reunited with producer John Congleton and recorded the album in her hometown of Dallas, TX. Strange Mercy finds St. Vincent redefining the idea of the guitar hero, utilizing the instrument as a pointillist artist might wield a brush.
2014 release from the critically acclaimed singer/songwriter. St. Vincent is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Clark has opened shows for such acts as Television, Arcade Fire, Andrew Bird, Jolie Holland, John Vanderslice, Death Cab for Cutie and Grizzly Bear.
The Smashing Pumpkins:
Produced by The Smashing Pumkins frontman Billy Corgan, Oceania is an intense and dynamic offering that will appeal to new and existing fans of The Smashing Pumkins alike. Oceania, the band's 7th studio record, is an album within an album, part of their 44-song work-in-progress Teargarden By Kaleidyscope.
The National:
High Violet, the new full-length record by the National, is a nervy, melodic, explosive and beautiful set of songs that find the band at the height of their collaborative powers. The music is wide-ranging in its moods, by turns intimate and rough, expansive and spare, full of stark angles and atmosphere. Berninger's singing wild, half-broken, sly evokes a feeling of being haunted, by love, by paranoia, by something just out of reach.
Trouble Will Find Me is The National's highly anticipated sixth album. Formed in 1999, the Ohio-raised, Brooklyn- based band consists of vocalist Matt Berninger fronting two pairs of brothers: Aaron (guitar, bass, piano) and Bryce Dessner (guitar), and Scott (bass, guitar) and Bryan Devendorf (drums).
Lana Del Rey:
Highly anticipated debut album from the New York-based singer, songwriter and performer. She has described herself as a "gangsta Nancy Sinatra". Lana Del Rey's direct influences were visual as well as musical; David Lynch, soundtracks for `50s black and white movies, the whirring sound of the Ferris at Coney Island, fame itself.
Brand new album from platinum, Grammy nominated recording artist Lana Del Rey! The album features the hit songs West Coast and Shades of Cool.
Jack White:
Produced by Jack White and recorded at his own Third Man Studio in Nashville, Blunderbuss has been described by White as "an album I couldn't have released until now. I've put off making records under my own name for a long time but these songs feel like they could only be presented under my name. These songs were written from scratch, had nothing to do with anyone or anything else but my own expression, my own colors on my own canvas."
Jack White presents his new album Lazaretto, on Third Man Records/Columbia. Lazaretto inhabits an exciting place in White's expansive discography as the follow-up to 2012's Gold-certified international #1 Blunderbuss.
Bright Eyes/Conor Oberst:
The People's Key--Bright Eyes' seventh studio album--is the eagerly awaited follow-up to 2007's acclaimed Cassadaga. Fully realized and bursting with charisma, The People's Key is an assured and accomplished album, artfully arranged and filled with the engaging and mesmeric songwriting for which Oberst is renowned.
Singer-songwriter Conor Oberst's debut album for Nonesuch Records, Upside Down Mountain, is, as its title implies, a study in contrasts, a glance up to the heavens and a glimpse into the abyss. "There s a certain solitude to this record," Oberst admits, and themes of loneliness, dislocation, and regret repeatedly surface.
Chvrches:
The Bones of What You Believe (2013)
New Albums (from bands featured in previous post):
Morning Phase is true to its title: the beginning of yet another amazing chapter in Beck's peerless career and catalogue. Featuring musicians who have backed him on many of his most acclaimed albums, as well as the current live shows widely hailed as the best of his career , Morning Phase harkens back to the stunning harmonies, song craft and staggering emotional impact of Beck's most classic ballads, all the while surging forward with undeniable optimism.
Turn Blue (The Black Keys, 2014)
Turn Blue was recorded at Sunset Sound in Hollywood during the summer of 2013 with additional recording done at the Key Club in Benton Harbor, MI and Auerbach's Easy Eye Sound in Nashville in early 2014. Carney (the drummer) comments, "We are always trying to push ourselves when we make a record not repeat our previous work but not abandon it either. On this record, we let the songs breathe and explored moods, textures and sounds. We really excited for the world to hear Turn Blue." This is the eighth full-length album from the duo and follows 2011's critically and commercially acclaimed El Camino.
Ghost Stories (Coldplay, 2014)
