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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Spirit Power: The Best of Johnny Marr
(syndetics)
Format: Music CD
Availability: All copies in use
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The Beatles 1967-1970
This landmark compilation has introduced generations of fans to the incredible history of the most storied band in music. For its 50th anniversary, the collection has been expanded with nine additional tracks, including "Blackbird," "Glass Onion" and the new song "Now and Then." The last Beatles song "Now and Then" completes John Lennon's 1970s vocal and piano demo recording with parts played by Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, as well as a new arrangement for strings. The two disc collection now features 37 tracks, six of which have new mixes for 2023. For current fans and future generations alike, the new 1966-1970 collection is a joyous celebration of The Beatles' timeless musical legacy. (syndetics)
Format: Music CD
Availability: On order
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The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe's theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.
Format: Audiobook CD
Availability: All copies in use
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Orquídeas
In 2020, Kali Uchis released Sin Miedo (Del Amor y Otros Demonios) ∞, her first Spanish-language album. Greeted by her label with trepidation, they strongly advised her not to release a foreign-language album saturated in cumbia, boleros, and jazz-pop romanticos. The label declined to promote it, and it didn't chart. Uchis was vindicated when the track "Telepatía" was used in a TikTok lip-sync challenge and garnered more than a billion streams. At 2022's Latin American Music Awards, the singer/songwriter told reporters she'd finished her third and fourth albums, one in English and one in Spanish. The soulful Red Moon in Venus was in English and debuted at number four on in the Top 200. Orquídeas, its simultaneously recorded companion, is a mirror-image opposite in many ways -- save for that voice and iconic vocal phrasing. All but one track is in Spanish, and it reflects her love of elegantly funky R&B, dembow, bolero, jazzy salsa, and reggaeton. While its production style is as dreamy as Red Moon's, it's also eerier, a nocturnal set for dreamers and dancers. The album's 14 tracks offer several collaborations reflecting her stylistic ambitions. Furthermore, she includes soft emotive vocal choruses in elegant, hooky midtempo songs to satisfy early fans during this creative evolution. Opener "¿Cómo Así?" touches on Red Moon's production style for gentle continuity. The jam offers double-timed beats, layered vocal choruses, and ambient electronics. "Igual Que un Ángel" with Peso Pluma offers bumping R&B with ethereal synths and tight beats, governed by a rubbery post-disco bassline framing swooning, romantic lyrics. "Diosa" melds club-floor electronica with jazzy soul and syncopated merengue. The single "Te Mata" is a steamy, sensual string-drenched bolero that contrasts with the edgy urbano beats on perreo jam "Muñekita," which features raps by dembow heavyweight El Alfa and JT from American hip-hip duo City Girls. (JT raps a Spanish nursery rhyme like she's delivering a criminal indictment.) The track samples from the chorus of 2003's "Papi Chulo" by Lorna. The English-language "Young Rich & In Love" is pillowy with a warm, edgy bassline that underscores the resonant eroticism in its lyrics. The hit single "Labios Mordidos" with Karol G weds reggaeton, hip-hop, and electro-cumbia under a sharp, vampy synth line. "Tu Corazón Es Mío" is a soul-tiged romantico with slippery backbeats, layered strings, and vocal production that recalls the golden years of Philadelphia International. Rauw Alejandro and Uchis render "No Hay Ley Parte 2" as a sterling progressive reggaeton, layering son and EDM atop its sharp-edged perreo strut. Closer "Dame Beso // Muévete" offers orchestral accompaniment as it walks a tightrope between Mexican bolero, Cuban salsa, and Colombian funk, framed with futurist horns. On Orquídeas, Uchis remains true to herself by restlessly expanding her music's stylistic reach, embracing the past as instructor to the present. It is as aesthetically appealing as it is musically adventurous. ~ Thom Jurek (syndetics)
Format: Music CD
Availability: On order
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POLAROID LOVERS (CD)
Polaroid Lovers is the 7th studio album from four-time GRAMMY winner Sarah Jarosz. Produced by Daniel Tashian, Polaroid Lovers is a bold, creative statement that sees Jarosz exploring new sonic territory. The 11 songs on the album, all co-written by Jarosz with songwriters including Tashian, Jon Randall, Ruston Kelly, and Natalie Hemby, touch on themes both personal and universal: love, longing, and finding one's place in the world.
Format: Music CD
Availability: On order
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Buhloone Mind State
The group's third studio release released on September 21, 1993, saw the group evolve into a new sound as they continued to grow stylistically and musically. There were several moments on the album which proved the band had matured. I Be Blowin was a departure as the track was an instrumental featuring saxophone playing by Maceo Parker. (syndetics)
Format: Music CD
Availability: All copies in use
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THE PAST IS STILL ALIVE (CD)
The follow-up to their acclaimed album, Life on Earth-which landed on Best of 2022 lists from the New York Times, Rolling Stone, NPR Music, Mojo, Uncut, among others-The Past Is Still Alive sees Hurray for the Riff Raff reunite with Brad Cook, while further expanding their creative cast of collaborators.
Format: Music CD
Availability: On order
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Lahai
Sampha's U.K. Top Ten, Mercury Prize-winning Process capped several years of studio work primarily in service to other artists, underground and mainstream alike. The all-around collaborator -- most audibly the go-to singer for any musician wanting to make their song cry -- didn't so much respond to his debut's accolades as he continued to amass dozens of background and featured roles spanning Actress' "Walking Flames" to Kendrick Lamar's "Father Time." Parenthood and the passing of time, subjects of those two songs, happen to be two major themes of Sampha's second LP, released six years after the first. Where Process saw Sampha projecting nightmarish visions and grieving his mother's death, Lahai, named after his paternal grandfather (and also Sampha's middle name), comes from a different perspective, one informed by the birth of his daughter and a fascination with both Kodwo Eshun's genius More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction and physicist Brian Cox's theories on time travel. While this is far less downcast, the joy, wonderment, and fond reminiscences in the songs are complicated by worry, uncertainty, and longing. In "Suspended," "I've been lifted by her love" at first comes across as exultant, then Sampha's piano starts to take on an anxious quality intensified by Kwake Bass' fidgety drums, and there's a sense that the singer is being elevated to a perilous height, his voice fraught and distorted at the highest point. "Evidence," mostly lullaby-like piano, lapping bongos, and layers of Sampha's voice, is radiant with parental delight yet haunted by thoughts of self-doubt. Two of the brightest songs were inspired by Jonathan Livingston Seagull. The fable is name-checked in the jittering "Spirit 2.0," where Sampha pursues freedom and self-realization with Yussef Dayes' intricate rhythmic propulsion in support. And then there's "Jonathan L Seagull (JLS)," acceptance of a separation communicated with choral folk-soul containing a lively hip-hop section. The number of background singers on that song alone outnumbers the sum of collaborators on Process. It's emblematic of Lahai's collaborative makeup, involving a lineup of producers, singers, and players -- El Guincho, Ibeyi, Yaeji, Laura Groves, Léa Sen, Ben Reed, Mansur Brown, and on and on -- that is almost as impressive as the varied group that has enlisted Sampha. Lahai ends appropriately enough with a scene of communal unity, if on the occasion of a homecoming after a long absence: "Everybody speaking loud, everybody in one house." ~ Andy Kellman (syndetics)
Format: Music CD
Availability: All copies in use
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Black Rainbows
Corinne Bailey Rae's latest is a musical project inspired by the objects and artworks collected by Theaster Gates at the Stoney Island Arts Bank in Chicago. She attended The Black Artists Retreat there in 2017 and performed in the space. The wide ranging themes takes listeners from the rock hewn churches of Ethopia, to the journey of Black Pioneers Westward, from Miss New York Transit Queen 1957, to how the sunset appears from Harriet Jacobs' loophole. (syndetics)
Format: Music CD
Availability: All copies in use
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