Never Expect To Be Sure Of Who You’re Working For

Metric “Police and the Private” – At her best, Emily Haines has an incredible gift for zeroing in on faults, and articulating her critique with pithy one-liners that set things in their place like the lyrical equivalent of a withering stare. But instead of going after easy targets like right wing hawks and boring emo boys as she did on the first Metric record, she’s now lamenting all the loneliness in the world, and it seems as though she’s taking it out mostly on herself. It takes some real talent (or maybe just a lot of empathy) to make angsty complaining sound more like a broad critique. (Click here to pre-order it from Amazon.)

Quintron & Miss Pussycat “Shoplifter” – Quintron and Miss Pussycat are among the more than one million people from New Orleans who have had their homes and worldly possessions destroyed by Katrina. I did not select this track for that reason – I didn’t discover this bit of information until after I picked the song and had to go looking for a store or an official site – but it’s certainly timely. The Tigerbeat6 site has some information on how you can help them out, which is great, and I hope that some people go ahead and do just that. If you have the means to help anyone directly effected by this catastrophe, you really ought to. I feel very guilty about having so little to give at the moment. (Click here for the official Quintron & Miss Pussycat site.)