ATO has shared another song from their John Denver tribute, The Music Is You. Available to stream over at Pitchfork, "Prisoners" pairs J Mascis up with Sharon Van Etten for an effort that shakes, rattles and wails. Check out the original below — as performed on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson — as well as a previously shared cover from My Morning Jacket... more »
[Until the end of the year, we'll be featuring Daily Downloads from albums that made our list of the Best Albums of 2012]
Tramp, the emotionally candid third album from Brooklyn-based songwriter Sharon Van Etten, is a slow burn: most of the songs capture the intensity of the moments before a quietly smoldering tree becomes a raging wildfire. Take the lead-off single, “Serpents,” which begins with calmly strummed yet unmistakably ominous chords. Then it explodes into something blazing and defiant: “You enjoy sucking on dreams,” Van Etten seethes, “So I will fall asleep with someone other than you.”
Since her 2009 debut Because I Was In Love – which featured largely acoustic guitar work and her beguiling, cigarette wisp of a voice – Van Etten’s sound has become more expansive with each release. Tramp isn’t just her best yet, it’s also her most densely populated, boasting an impressive roster of indie guest stars like Beirut’s Zach Condon, Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner (who contributes vocals on “Serpents”), avant-chanteuse Julianna Barwick, Walkmen drummer Matt Barick, and most prominently guitarist Aaron Dessner of the National, who also recorded Tramp in his Brooklyn garage-turned-studio. more »
By eMusic Editorial Staff, eMusic ContributorEvery year, when eMusic's editorial staff compiles our annual best-of list, the goal is never to come to some kind of academic determination of the year's best records via a series of complicated formulas and… more »
By eMusic Members, eMusic ContributorWe asked, you answered. And the results were as varied and eclectic as we've come to expect from eMusic members. Here are the results of our Member Poll for the Best Albums of 2012, along… more »
By eMusic Artists, eMusic ContributorYou remember Mad Libs, right? The game where you'd ask a friend for a list of parts of speech — nouns, verbs, adverbs — and then you'd plug them into the blank spots in a… more »
By Christina Lee, eMusic Contributor[Rock history is full of albums that document breakups, but few of them are as ruthlessly recounted as the one that inspired Sharon Van Etten's devastating third album, Tramp. Beating her fretboard into a spear,… more »
By Andrew Parks, eMusic ContributorNick Cave & The Bad Seeds have revealed the first single from their fifteenth album, Push the Sky Away. Due out December 3rd digitally, "We No Who U R" sets a serene yet unsettling scene,… more »
By Andrew Parks, eMusic ContributorMr. "Rocky Mountain High" himself, John Denver, will soon be the subject of a tribute album called The Music Is You. Due out in February of next year through ATO, it features such fitting selections… more »
By Andrew Parks, eMusic ContributorAs more and more artists continue to produce high concept videos outside of the whole MTV/Fuse/VH1 circuit, we seem to be entering a golden era of envelope-pushing music videos, whether that amounts to album-teasing 'short… more »
By eMusic Editorial Staff, eMusic ContributorWe're about halfway through the year, which means even if you're behind on new releases, there's still plenty of time to catch up on what you might've missed. Here are some of our editors' favorites… more »
By Maris Kreizman, Audiobooks EditorLast week in my Twitter feed, there was some discussion on the distinction between Kelly Clarkson-sad and Adele-sad -- Adele-sad is way more dire, apparently. On my iPod, I have a few other benchmarks for angst. There’s Fiona-sad (intense and confrontational, beautiful), Robyn-sad (spunky and dancey, beautiful). And then there’s Sharon-sad, which is a mellower and more woozy kind of sad a la Cat Power (also beautiful). Sharon Van Etten-sad is for when you wanna just pour whisky in your coffee and weep quietly on your couch -- or at least that’s what I wanted to do with her last album, Epic. What makes Tramp such a lovely leap forward is that although a sense of melancholy still pervades -- doomed relationships and heartsick confessions abound -- this time around we see Sharon transition from coffee house to rock club. She’s a little louder (still not loud), a little bit bigger.… more »
By Laura Leebove, Deputy EditorIt's not even noon and I've already watched this about five times. The great folks at A.V. Club are heading up yet another round of A.V. Undercover, and, no offense, A.V. Club, but, you probably… more »
By J. Edward Keyes, Editor-in-ChiefOK! Are you guys ready to get bummed out? Because it's the week before Valentine's Day and, man, do we have some sad records for you. I mean, sad even for indie rock, which has… more »
By J. Edward Keyes, Editor-in-Chief OK! Are you guys ready to get bummed out? Because it's the week before Valentine's Day and, man, do we have some sad records for you. I mean, sad even for indie rock, which has… more »
By Lindsay Zoladz, eMusic ContributorTramp, the emotionally candid third album from Brooklyn-based songwriter Sharon Van Etten, is a slow burn: most of the songs capture the intensity of the moments before a quietly smoldering tree becomes a raging wildfire.… more »
By Lindsay Zoladz, eMusic ContributorTramp, the emotionally candid third album from Brooklyn-based songwriter Sharon Van Etten, is a slow burn: most of the songs capture the intensity of the moments before a quietly smoldering tree becomes a raging wildfire.… more »
By J. Edward Keyes, Editor-in-Chief Hello! As some of you may have noticed, there was no New Arrivals roundup last week -- largely because there were only a handful of records that came out on Tuesday, and short weeks have… more »
By Maris Kreizman, Audiobooks Editor"Never let myself love like that again," Sharon Van Etten vows over and over on the opening track of her sophomore album. The line feels like both a warning and a promise, but there's too… more »
