Animal Collective (above) and Andrew Bird (right)
Are you a music fan? Do you like music you can sing along to, but also challenges you as a listener? Do you like music that doesn't really sound like anything else you're currently listening to? Well do I have two albums for you!
Today features not one, but two great releases, with Andrew Bird releasing his follow up to my personal 2007 album of the year Armchair Apocrypha, titled Noble Beast (streaming here) and Animal Collective releasing their own, blog anointed "album of the year" in Merriweather Post Pavilion (streaming here), an album more steeped in pre-release hype than anything since last years debut by Vampire Weekend. It deserves a lot of it too, and Andrew Bird always deserves a shot from a pure talent standpoint.
Do yourself and pick up these albums. If you're a music fan, you owe it to yourself.