Each week, Playlist’s 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 August 29th.
Neil Young’s “The Painter” single is available at iTunes as well as Rhapsody, MSN Music and others. The acoustic-driven song is a gorgeous, heartwarming tune that is the first song off Prairie Wind , his new album due out September 27th on Reprise.
Other pre-release singles: “The Hardest Part” by the prolific Ryan Adams, “Amber Awaits” by Blues Traveler, Ginuwine’s “When We Make Love” (from a new album that will be out in November), “Smoke It” by The Dandy Warhols, and Martina McBride’s revved-up cover of Lynn Anderson’s 1971 smash “(I Never Promised You) A Rose Garden.”
Ben Folds has an iTunes Exclusive new to iTunes. Folds recorded nine songs exclusively for iTunes along with interviews between songs.
The White Stripes’ have a new three-song single at iTunes for the punchy song “My Doorbell.” Also on the single are live versions of “Screwdriver” and “Same Boy You’ve Always Known.”
A slew of Run-DMC albums were just added to iTunes: King of Rock, Run-DMC, Raising Hell and Tougher Than Leather, plus the single “It’s Tricky” (Ruff Mix).
When Cody Chesnutt’s The Headphone Masterpiece was release three years ago, the neo-soul-R&B album made waves in the underground music scene. The talked-about album is finally available at iTunes. Thirty-six songs for $24.99 from the guy who helped The Roots cover his own song “The Seed” (track seven).
Also new to iTunes is Elliot Smith’s Roman Candle. The late singer-songwriter’s first solo album was released on Cavity Search records in 1994. It would be years until his song “Miss Misery” from the movie Good Will Hunting gained him widespread fame.
The iTunes free download of the week is “Get Stoned” by Hinder. The band if from Oklahoma City and sounds like an American version of Nickelback. Big chords, big choruses on top of emotional verses and a the kind of steady pace that rock radio loves. It’s got a good hook, too, one not unlike those found in Nickelback songs. It’s all about the hooks.
Some good new additions at Rhapsody are from the SpinART catalog (Vic Chestnutt, Clem Snide, Kaito). Especially notable is an album of Pixies frontman Frank Black on which bandmate Joey Santiago played (as well as producer/musician Eric Drew Feldman). Dog In The Sand was released in 2001 by SpinART and reissued in 2003 with four bonus acoustic tracks. Also added were 2002’s Devil’s Workshop, 2002’s Black Letter Days, Black will be remembered most for his work with his old (and recently reunited band) but the songs on these albums exemplify the far-reaching talents that make him an American treasure.
New at eMusic is an album that’s exactly the kind of thing you want when you’ve got a set number of songs to download each month. Faust’s 1971 self-titled album comes it at over 44 minutes of incredible krautrock — and it’s only three tracks. Also new is Guided By Voices’ Do The Collapse, which was produced by Ric Ocasek, and Sloan’s Smeared, its distortion-filled 1993 debut — originally release on DGC — that counted the band as part of that era’s shoegazer scene. It later went to straight up rock ‘n’ roll and more popularity, but this album shouldn’t be overlooked.
Participants in the TV series “Rock Star: INXS” have offered 15-song playlists to MSN Music. They’re called rockerlists, actually, not playlists. I went straight to Neal’s rockerlist. Neal is the singer for Bona Roba, a four-piece band from Queens, New York. Great band, one of the best unsigned bands in the city in my opinion. Looking at a band’s record collection gives hints at its pedigree. This is a good collection of songs: GNR’s “Rocket Queen,” Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak,” CCR’s “Lodi,” Black Sabbath’s “Snowblind” and even “Cunningham Park” by his own band.
MySpace.com is highlighting pages by three fairly buzzed-about artists: Rihanna (just try and tell me you haven’t heard “Pon de Replay” a thousand times this summer), KT Tunstall and Nada Surf (on Barsuk, Death Cab For Cutie’s former label). Also check out the page of DJ/producer/underground legend Peanut Butter Wolf.