Free Music Friday: Bad Religion Tribute Mixtape

Buying a Halloween costume for a 5-year-old is possibly one of the most difficult tasks a parent will ever undertake.  Picking out birthday or Christmas presents pales in comparison.  With presents, worst case, you can just let your kid go on a feeding frenzy in a toy store and just buy whichever toys they amass.  They go home happy.  You go home happy.  Halloween costumes are another difficulty level altogether.  First is the month long argument to decide who your kid is going to dress up as…if it’s appropriate and if it’s feasibly possible.  How do you logically convince a 5-year-old not to dress up as “Miss California?”  Or explain to them the social implication it comes with?  I just resort to, “Go to your room until you decide to dress up as something else.”  It is effective.  After the argument comes the extensive Halloween costume scavenger hunt of traveling to twenty different stores to not only find a costume that your kid likes…but then to find it in their size.  She was originally going to be Dorothy from Wizard of Oz…but not one store had her size.  Not one.  I went to 20 stores.  And here’s the kicker…none of them were sold out…none of them ever ordered that size.  Finally, after hours of tears and disappointment, we settled on an angel.  Now I have to figure out what the 2-year-old is going to wear.

 Germs of Perfection: A Tribute to Bad Religion

 1.  William Elliott Whitmore – Don’t Pray On Me

2.  Frank Turner – My Poor Friend Me

3.  Weakerthans – Sanity

4.  Switchfoot – Sorrow

5.  Ted Leo – Against The Grain

6.  Cheap Girls – Kerosene

7.  New Politics – Generator

8.  Cobra Skulls – Give You Nothing

9.  Polar Baear Club – Better Off Dead

10.  Guttermouth – Pity

11.  Riverboat Gamblers – Heaven Is Falling

12.  Tegan & Sara – Suffer

 Free Bad Religion Mixtape Tribute via Spin Click HERE.

The 11 Best Albums of 2009: 12-22 (Part 4)

I’ve noticed that my excitement for new releases is much lower than it used to be. When a new Pearl Jam album came out…I lined up at midnight at Tower Records just to be the first to buy it. I still go buy albums the day they come out…but it’s usually a Tuesday ritual rather than a special treat. But this year…there were a few albums that got my juices going. The 4 unreleased Beck albums were quite nice since they were unavailable in a store. But these were given away for free. So, as cool as they were…anyone could get them. But there was another unreleased album that I got fanatic over. That would be the Sparklehorse/DangerMouse album…why? Because it was never available anywhere. Not to download. Not to buy. Getting a copy wasn’t just exciting…it was like a treasure hunt. For those few days while I tracked down each song, I was excited over a new release since…as I had been when waiting in line at midnight.

 
New month means new $5 albums. Check out the store for the new Lady Gaga, 50 Cent, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Alec Ounsworth, Major Lazer, new Green Day, Wale, Dodos, My Morning Jacket, and a buttload of Christmas albums.

 Here is the 11 Best Albums of 2009: 12-22 (Part 4):
12. Grizzly BearVeckatimest
13. Deer TickBorn On Flag Day (Straight Into A Storm)
14. The Black CrowesBefore The Frost…Until the Freeze
15. The Dead WeatherHorehound
16. White RabbitsIt’s Frightening
17. Tegan and SaraSainthood
18. Regina SpektorFAR
19. Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse – Dark Night of the Soul (Revenge)
20. Pearl Jam – Backspacer
21. Depeche ModeSounds of the Universe
22. Magnolia Electric Co.Josephine (Little Sad Eyes)
If you haven’t added your picks for 2009…do so now!  Just put them in the comment section of the blog!