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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Javelin
It's hard to say where pop music would be if it weren't for love songs -– love has been most songwriters' favorite subject for centuries, but beyond the fact that almost everyone wants to be in love and is sad when they're not, there are only so many things to be said about the subject. Sufjan Stevens' 2023 album, Javelin, is that rarity, a collection of songs about love that feels like something you haven't heard before, both in its depth and complexity, and in the way it explores love in both its human and divine forms. Spiritual themes have often popped up in Stevens' songwriting since he enjoyed his breakthrough with 2003's Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lake State. On Javelin, he sings about the need for succor from the Lord with a quiet but fierce desire that mirrors the urgency with which he sings, "Will anybody ever love me?/For good reasons/Without grievance, not for sport," which appears to be a cry for affection from another human being. Stevens isn't singing about simple heartache on Javelin, he's speaking about the need for love that's as necessary to our existence as food and water, and the strong stage-whisper of his delivery makes his musings all the more powerful, as do the beautifully arranged and executed harmonies that add depth to the tracks. As he often does on his projects, Stevens played all the instruments himself on these ten songs (except for some additional guitar on "Shit Talk," performed by Bryce Dessner of the National), and listening to this music back to back with Greetings from Michigan shows how much Stevens has grown within his trademark style in two decades: His mix of folkie melodies and serialist structures is as distinct today as it was then, but he's learned how to use these tools with an agility that's dynamic and filled with unpretentious, naturalistic drama. The music dovetails with the lyrics so each amplifies the other, while the production is unobtrusive in its effects but superb in how it reinforces the emotional energy in the music. Javelin closes with a cover of Neil Young's "There's a World" and Stevens has adapted the song so successfully that it's difficult at first to tell he didn't write it, even as Young's words and ideas continue to shine through. Javelin is an album about the need to be loved, agape and philia, and Stevens shows that he can write about both without trivializing or minimizing the importance of either. That's a commendable achievement in any creative medium, and the fact that he's done so while creating some of the best music of his life makes this essential listening. ~ Mark Deming (syndetics)
Format: Music CD
Availability: All copies in use
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Space Funk 2: Afro Futurist Electro Funk in Space 1976-84
(syndetics)
Format: Music CD
Availability: All copies in use
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Barbie: The Album
As over-the-top and stuffed with star power as its namesake film, Barbie: The Album is a pop extravaganza that matches the 2023 global cinema phenomenon. Produced and curated by pop maestro Mark Ronson, the set features the talents of all your favorite early-2020s pop stars. Dua Lipa (starring as Mermaid Barbie in the movie) contributes an appropriately dancefloor-friendly disco throwback bop, "Dance the Night," which topped charts across the planet, while Charli XCX injects her hyperpop energy into "Speed Drive," which interpolates Toni Basil's cheerleader chant from "Mickey." Ava Max and Sam Smith add cheekiness and drama to the set with tracks that sound very much like Ava Max and Sam Smith (in the best way possible). Fans who have seen the movie will recognize Lizzo's "Pink," Ryan Gosling's showcase ballad "I'm Just Ken," and Billie Eilish's heartbreaking, self-aware "What Was I Made For?" And although Aqua themselves are not present here, "Barbie World" samples that '90s classic with tough verses traded between Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice. There's a genre for everyone as Karol G, Tame Impala, Dominic Fike, HAIM, the Kid LAROI, Khalid, PinkPantheress, and many more join forces to represent Barbies and Kens of all types. Barbie: The Album is a celebration as colorful and uplifting as the movie itself, and both are highly recommended. [For fans in search of Gosling's beachside acoustic take on "Push" and Brandi Carlile's cover of Indigo Girls' "Closer to Fine," the deluxe "Best Weekend Ever Edition" is the place to go.] ~ Neil Z. Yeung (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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Killers Of The Flower Moon: Soundtrack From The Apple Original Film
One of his last projects, this sees the late Robbie Robertson collaborating with director Martin Scorsese for the eleventh time. This emotional score is partly inspired by Robertson's childhood on the Six Nations Reserve. (syndetics)
Format: Music CD
Availability: All copies in use
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Higher
Current ACM Entertainer of the Year Chris Stapleton releases his fifth studio album, which includes the single White Horse. (syndetics)
Format: Music CD
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Bauhaus Staircase
(syndetics)
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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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
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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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