Popular Music CDs for Adults
Hundreds of CDs are added to the Library's collection each month. Here are the most popular Music CDs for adults.
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Bewitched
After breaking onto the charts of her native Iceland with the updated yet still anachronistic vocal-era stylings of her 2022 full-length debut, Everything I Know About Love, Laufey (Laufey Lín Jónsdóttir) doubles down on her WWII-age-evoking approach to elegant, only slightly left-of-center adult pop with the more ambitious Bewitched. It became Laufey's first album to chart internationally, including an appearance in the Top 25 of the Billboard 200. Highlighted by a graceful collaboration with London's Philharmonia Orchestra (“California and Me”) and the bubbly bossa tune "From the Start,” Bewitched offers up 13 tender, decade-defying originals in all, alongside a seductive, loyal version of the Erroll Garner standard "Misty." ~ Marcy Donelson (syndetics)
Format: Music CD
Availability: All copies in use
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The Journey: Part 2
The Kinks continue their series of plus-size overview anthologies with 2023's The Journey, Pt. 2, in which the great band takes a look back at its career and the themes and ideas behind its songs. While this album is sequenced thematically rather than chronologically, for the most part it's devoted to the period when their string of brilliant but commercially overlooked albums like 1967's Something Else by the Kinks and 1969's Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) was broken by the smash hit "Lola'' in 1970. After signing a new record deal with RCA, Ray Davies next occupied himself with overblown rock operas such as 1973's Preservation: Act 1, 1974's Preservation: Act 2, and 1974's The Kinks Present a Soap Opera, which derailed the momentum they'd gained. While there are plenty of great singles and superb album tracks included in The Journey, Pt. 2, most fans and critics regard the band's (or at least Ray Davies') fascination with unsubtle narrative pieces in the '70s as the nadir of their catalog, and it's hard not to feel like Ray wanted to use this compilation as an opportunity to prompt a re-examination of those albums. This set cherry-picks most of the best songs from the two Preservation albums and Soap Opera, and while "Scrapheap City," "Money Talks," and "Where Are They Now" are better than most folks remember, their inclusion makes it obvious that they were written as part of a larger narrative, and their insistence on establishing ongoing characters weighs them down. That said, any album that includes "David Watts," "See My Friends," "A Well Respected Man," and of course "Lola," is going to be worth hearing, and the remastering makes the tracks sound as good as they deserve. A few relevant Dave Davies solo sides are also included (including "Susannah's Still Alive" and "Lincoln County"), and three previously unheard tracks from a 1975 concert show that the Kinks still knew how to deliver on-stage even if their albums of the period were lackluster. (The set also includes song-by-song notes from Ray Davies, Dave Davies, and Mick Avory, though they usually seem to be going out of their way not to reveal anything interesting.) A large portion of The Journey, Pt. 2 is dedicated to exploring a fallow period in the story of a truly great band, but the Kinks were truly great, and even their lesser material was smarter, more interesting, and more ambitious than what nearly all their peers were doing, and that is made clear on this album. ~ Mark Deming (syndetics)
Format: Music CD
Availability: All copies in use
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NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC! 89 (CD)
The latest installment in the popular NOW includes a plethora of recent hits including Billie Eilish's What Was I Made For, *NSYNC's Better Place, Morgan Wallen's Thinkin' Bout Me, and Tate McRae's Greedy.
Format: Music CD
Availability: On order
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TIGERS BLOOD (CD)
One of the hardest working singer-songwriters in the game is named Katie Crutchfield. She was born in Alabama, grew up near Waxahatchee Creek. Skipped town and struck out on her own as Waxahatchee. That was over a decade ago. Crutchfield says she never knew the road would lead her here, but after six critically acclaimed albums, she's never felt more confident in herself as an artist. While her sound has evolved from lo-fi folk to lush alt-tinged country, her voice has always remained the same. Honest and close, poetic with Southern lilting. Much like Carson McCullers's Mick Kelly, determined in her desires and convictions, ready to tell whoever will listen.
Format: Music CD
Availability: On order
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PEOPLE WHO AREN'T THERE ANYMORE (CD)
Format: Music CD
Availability: On order
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Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-hop and Rap
This collection includes 129 tracks on 9 CDs and a book with original design by Cey Adams, artist and founding creative director of Def Jam Recordings, as well as essays by some of hip-hop's leading writers and critics and hundreds of photographs spanning decades of history. Through the music, writing, and extensive liner notes, the Anthology reveals the many trends within this multifaceted genre, its social and political implications, and its influence on popular culture.
Format: Music CD
Availability: All copies in use
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Jimi Hendrix Experience: Hollywood Bowl, August 18, 1967
In aftermath of their successful American debut at the Monterey Pop Festival on June 18, 1967, San Francisco promoter Bill Graham offered the Experience an extended, five show booking at the Fillmore Auditorium. The gigs were critical to the group, as they had come to Monterey with nothing booked in the U.S. apart from their festival appearance. Before a sold-out audience of 17,000 people, the Experience overwhelmed an unsuspecting audience with a superb show that encompassed his renditions of songs by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters as well as signature songs such as "Purple Haze" and "The Wind Cries Mary". Are You Experienced, the group's debut album, had not yet been released by Jimi's label Reprise. (syndetics)
Format: Music CD
Availability: In-library use only at this time
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Live from the Northwest, 1959
Recorded in April, 1959, on this recording you can hear the Quartet's mastery of spontaneous counterpoint improvisation. (syndetics)
Format: Music CD
Availability: All copies in use
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Bauhaus Staircase
(syndetics)
Format: Music CD
Availability: All copies in use
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FAITH CRISIS PART 1 (CD)
The lifelong arm wrestle between head and heart sits at the centre of Faith Crisis Pt 1, the third album from Sydney's emotive indie rockers Middle Kids. Written at a time of a faith crisis, when songwriter and vocalist Hannah Joy found the structures and systems she believed in were being tested, the record lays out the painful, frustrating, messy pieces of the logic puzzle that life requires us to complete every day.
Format: Music CD
Availability: On order
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