This Week’s Featured Tracks – 7.18.05

Each week, Playlists Glenn Peoples looks at special tracks offered by the iTunes Music Store and other select online music merchants. Here are the selections for the week of July 18th.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club has a new label (RCA) and a new album on the way. iTunes has an exclusive by the trio that was featured, oh so briefly, in the movie “Dig!” “ Shuffle Your Feet ” has the rollicking, acoustic sound that reminds of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, one of the main focal points of “Dig!” The full length, Howl , will be released on August 22nd.

Kanye West’s “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” remix has Jay-Z on a verse and iTunes has it. It’s from West’s second and upcoming album, Late Registration .

Does Jack White (of the White Stripes) have the Midas touch? If so his good friend and fellow Motor City resident Brendan Benson is going to find a whole new audience for his spunky power pop. iTunes has an exclusive on Benson’s “Cold Hands, Warm Heart” EP. It includes three versions of the song: The original, a live acoustic version and the previously unreleased Chris Shaw mix.

Rhino Hi-Fi: INXS EP comes just as the band was seen by millions of Americans in the Rock Star: INXS television program. The EP has arguably the band’s best and best known songs. “Need You Tonight” and “Don’t Change” are there, as is “Devil Inside.”

iTunes has a collection of 16 out-of-print Verve titles such as Tito Puente’s Tito’s Idea and Eddie Palmieri’s El Rumbero del Piano.

Interesting iTunes find of the week: a various artist collection titled NYC Subway – Songs From The Underground on Headset Productions. The album has—you guessed it—songs by New York subway performers.

Los Angeles band Marjorie Fair has gotten so much attention in the British press and sounds so British that listeners would be forgiven for thinking they came from somewhere other than California. But Californian they are, and now signed to Capitol Records and the proud owners of a new album, Self Help Serenade. “Empty Room” is the first single and is currently the iTunes free download of the week.

Just added to the Rhapsody catalog is Eric Matthews’ Six Kinds of Passion Looking For An Exit on Empyrean Records. In the ’90s Matthews released two seminal albums on SubPop that set a standard for chamber pop, that orchestrated and melodic strain of indie rock that is most often associated with Belle and Sebastian. Six Kinds isn’t as strong as his earlier albums (and it has only seven songs) but is nevertheless a good, polished album colored by Matthews’ velvety voice and haunting presence. Rhapsody also added the self-titled album by Cardinal, a duo of Matthews and Richard Davies that preceded Matthews’ solo albums. It was recently re-released by Empyrean and is highly recommended.

Going back even further, Alex Chilton made his mark with The Box Tops and Big Star. Chilton has become semi-famous via the Replacements’ homage, “Alex Chilton,” and covers by all bands of all colors. He’s best known for Big Star but his solo work is excellent in its own right. His Rykodisc album Live In Anvers, now available at Rhapsody as well as eMusic, documents a night in Belgium in January of 2004. The description at eMusic says the band rehearsed only once before the show. You’d never know it. The show went off well and created a fine live album.

The Weird Al Yankovic catalog was added to Rhapsody last week. Running With Scissors, Polka Party, Permanent Record: Al in the Box, Off the Deep End, UHF, Even Worse, and Alapalooza.

Sony Connect has the All-American Rejects’ Dirty Little Secret EP with two exclusive tracks.

New to eMusic is The Tain, the new EP by the Decemberists. Also new are three albums by Wishbone Ash, Tracks, Tracks 2 and Bona Fide. Both discs of Carole King’s new album, The Living Room Tour, are available at eMusic—21 tracks in all.

Death Cab For Cutie is showing off their new single, “Soul Meets Body,” at its MySpace.com. The melodeous and textured song is from the band’s upcoming Atlantic Records debut, Plans .