Let’s get real. This week we feature multiple releases searching for and speaking truth, for themselves and their fans. The critically acclaimed Angel Olsen is back with her most direct album, Big Time. Horsegirl and 700 Bliss release their respective debuts updating and reimagining their influences. The Grateful Dead and Daft Punk are back in Bearbrick form, and Harry Styles and Kanye West prove to be the most popular. Find out which music and music-related releases are the most popular, which are the most expensive, and which are coming your way, plus listen to our curated Spotify playlist, in this latest installment of The Spin.
Best New Music Releases This Week
Angel Olsen Big Time 2XLP Vinyl Green
Angel Olsen’s latest album is filled with profound moments of loss, love, and truth. The context of Olsen’s new album is almost too much for one record to bear: losing both parents, finding love, and coming out as gay – grief and joy commingled in heavy doses. Olsen reached back to the tough-and-tender verities of classic country to navigate these big moments and feelings. In addition to the Green vinyl, you can also get the Pink vinyl, and the cassette. Sometimes we need the past to help us move forward.
Horsegirl Versions of Modern Performance LP Vinyl Pink
Horsegirl’s debut album, Versions of Modern Performance, is destined to be a modern indie masterpiece. Check the bona fides: released on legendary label Matador; helmed by veteran producer John Agnello; fifty percent of Sonic Youth appears on the record. But most importantly: the music delivers. You have to love a band that wants to make shoegaze great again.
DJ Haram and Moor Mother have released their first full-length LP, Nothing to Declare. If you like your hip-hop infused with jazz, punk, and house catharsis – and you should – 700 Bliss push their version of rap music into revelatory moments of pure noise and dance. This might be the revolutionary, quantum step forward hip-hop has been waiting for.
Best Music Releases
Namir Blade Metropolis Shonen Sunset Edition LP Vinyl Multi
Namir Blade’s most recent album, Metropolis, is a dystopian trip through time and space. The album was inspired by the 2001 anime, Metropolis, and Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent movie masterpiece of the same name. Blade’s album is a loose, nonlinear memoir looking for joy in our not-too-distant future of total oppression by tech plutocrats. If you can handle how real speculative hip-hop can get, this is the album for you. And for more on what makes Namir Blade tick, check out his That’s 5 interview from 2021.
Bearbrick x Grateful Dead (Dancing Bear) 1000%
The new Dancing Bear Bearbrick x Grateful Dead figure highlights what a long strange trip it continues to be for the Grateful Dead. Since 1965, the world’s favorite jam band has left an indelible mark on popular culture – especially the iconic marching bears. The bears were first introduced in 1973 and have been a favorite subject for Bearbrick since 2016. This latest 1000% figure features marching bears all over a base, white Bearbrick. And you know John Mayer definitely has at least one of these.
Sonos Move Smart Portable Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Speaker w/ Alexa and Google Assistant MOVE1US1BLK Black
Play your favorite music anywhere with this weather-proof and drop-resistant Sonos Move portable speaker. For all your summer adventures, the Trueplay automatic tuning adapts and balances the sound based on where you are and what you’re listening to. This Sonos Move portable speaker incorporates built-in support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Airplay, and the Sonos app to let you stream audio from your smart device.
Most Expensive Music Product This Week
Bearbrick Daft Punk (2 Pack) 400% Black
Sold in a pack of two, the Daft Punk Bearbricks are the most expensive music product sold this week. These 400% Bearbricks represent the duo’s style circa their 2013 album, Random Access Memory. This album would go on to win four 2014 GRAMMY Awards. The pack recently sold for a little more than $1,000.
Most Popular Music Products This Week
Harry Styles Harry’s House Exclusive Vinyl Sea Glass Green
Harry Styles‘s third solo record, Harry’s House, has been the year’s best-selling album. On its way to being the number one record on the Billboard charts, Harry’s House sold 187,000 vinyl LPs, racking up the largest one-week sales of vinyl records since 1991. And the Sea Glass Green edition of Curly’s new album is also the most popular album on StockX over the last week. Don’t be a “Little Freak” and make sure you pick up this album on any of the numerous vinyl editions or cassette copies we carry.
Back in 2008, the release of Ye’s fourth album was met with consternation and confusion. How had the brash, charismatic, and organic producer and rapper that had erupted across three critically-acclaimed albums – The College Dropout, Late Registration, and Graduation – suddenly gone emo and robotic? Looking back, it’s easy to see that 808s & Heartbreak represented an epochal shift in Kanye’s work and pop music. This album cleared the way for further introspection and experimentation – both positive and negative. All I can say is: I miss the old Kanye.
