I'm a Believer

So, just got a copy of the newest issue of The Believer in the mail. It's excellent. For those of you who don't know about Timothy McSweeny's Internet Concern, you should look around. But don't look around too much, because if you don't I can justify linking to tons of that stuff later.

Anyway, believer is a McSweeney's magazine, and while I'm sure it's excellent every month, I splurged on it this month and bought a physical copy of it. It's eight dollars, and currently that's too much money for me to spend on a magazine, really. I got my whole year-long No Depression subscription for that price. What makes this month's believer so awesome is the accompanying CD which contains brand-freakin'-new songs by bands like Spoon, the Mountain Goats (aka Me, maybe) and others. It's great. The theme behind the CD is "everybody just covers what they've been listening to" which is awesome. I don't even care if most of the covers end up sucking, it's just a great idea with a lot of good musicians involved, both on the tracklist and in the song selection. Even if the people behind it seem a little "freak folk" heavy. God forgive me for saying that, but it seemed less esoteric than calling it "golden apples of the sun" heavy. It's certainly that.

Can you imagine I'm writing about another record I'm not even attempting to review? I can. PS, I "legally" got a copy of that Pernice Brothers record, and I was right to assume that it wouldn't suck. So, there you go.