Stephen Mejias

The music begins before he arrives. There are horns and hollers and hand claps. Then comes the MC: "Right now, ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to introduce the star of our show, the young man you've all been waiting for, Mister Soul! So, what d'you say? Let's all get together and welcome him to the stage with a great, big hand! How 'bout it?! How 'bout it?!"

Ceramic Dog's Party Intellectuals wins the award for Best Album of 2008 That I Never Wrote Anything About.

Willie Nelson's Phases and Stages was released one year prior to Wainwright's Unrequited and takes a somewhat similar artistic approach. It is clearly a concept album with two distinct, but closely related, sides.

Did you know that we recently remastered our Rhapsody? The album is a tribute to George Gershwin, conducted by pianist Hyperion Knight, and it's good, good fun on the hi-fi.

Yesterday's episode of Sunday Morning on CBS included a segment with Herbie Hancock, whose River:">http://blog.stereophile.com/fredkaplan/101507jazz/">River: The Joni Letters won two big prizes at the 50th annual Grammy">http://blog.stereophile.com/musicroom/robertbaird/021108/">Grammy Awards: Album of the Year and Best Contemporary Jazz Album.

It seems like forever ago that I became interested in Santogold's music. In fact, however, it's only been four months. What made that time so hard to stand was that I couldn't listen to her music as much as I wanted to, in the way that I wanted to. Sure, I could listen online. And I did. But that wasn't enough.

Vivian Girls's third full-length release, Share the Joy, will be available on April 12th, but you can pre-order it now. Get the LP with a free MP3 download for just $14; or get the LP on limited-edition teal vinyl with a free MP3 download for just $16; or get the LP, free download, and “I Heard You Say” seven-inch for $18; or get all of that, plus a cool American Apparel t-shirt and Vivian Girls button for $36.

Can you guess which offer I selected?