This month's eMusic Downloads (January) (I love getting free songs from them)

I've been listening to a weird mix of Leonard Cohen's I'm Your Man album and punk. It makes me feel like I just wasn't made for these times. You ever hear "Another Girl, Another Planet" by The Only Ones (Or the Mats' cover version from their All For Nothing compilation)? That song is a footnote to the history of punk by most any reckoning, but goddammit is it awesome. Underground hip hop is probably the closest thing to anything that exciting right now, or at least, anything that I'm hip to, but even that feels like it peaked a few years ago. Or maybe I'm just too busy with my other obsessions and obligations to know, because most of my favorite hip hop albums from last year (with the exception of K'naan) were pretty mainstream (Eminem, Jay-Z, Mos Def). Or at least I think that's the case. I fully expect Keith to remind me of why I'm wrong. Anyway, eMusic gave me another 75 or so free downloads to rejoin for a month, something I'm almost hesitant to mention for fear that they will stop. Here's what I grabbed:

Neil Young: Sugar Mountain:Live at Canterbury Horse 1968

Neil Young: Neil Young

Neil Young: Weld (I can't be the only one who wishes for a live version of "Shots" from this era of Neil. It would have been almost too perfect)

Echo and the Bunnymen: Songs To Learn and Sing

The Dead Boys: Young, Loud and Snotty (I had the "Younger, Louder and Snottier" version, but I needed the real one)

The Dictators: Go Girl Crazy (How did I not own this already?)

Richard Hell and the Voldoids: Blank Generation (If Richard Hell didn't exist, Lester Bangs would have been forced to create him.)

Husker Du: Flip Your Wig (Bob Mould has officially passed Marley as my second favorite "Bob" in the pantheon)

Chris Bell: I Am The Cosmos (One day I will try and decide if car crashes deprived us of more geniuses than plane crashes in the music world)

Leonard Cohen: Live at the Isle of Wright 1970

Working with a rock star is still every bit as great as you might expect. Today he casually mentioned playing organ for Richard Hell while he rapped. How fucking great is that shit? It's like I'm getting to live in my own Nick Hornby novel. He was talking about the time Jim Derogatis wrote some shit about him in Rolling Stone. If you don't understand why that's cool, then I can't help you.

Here's hoping that next month eMusic offers me the same deal. There are a few more Neil live albums I need, and I could stand to fill out my Spoon and Husker Du collections.