New Release Tuesday

How did we miss this last week? Mixing two offenses recently made popular by Minnie Driver (actors playing the role of "earnest singer-songwriter") and Shawn Colvin (artists appearing on "Oprah" to divulge details about personal struggles in the same week their new CD comes out), Robert Downey Jr. came out with his debut album The Futurist last Tuesday. That was the same day of his "Oprah" appearance, for anyone who's counting.

Music is all about marketing, isn't it? This week we watch a star spawned from a television show release her second album, as "American Idol"'s Kelly Clarkson releases Breakaway. Despite her looking a little desperate and trapped on the cover, we don't see her breaking away from the machine that manufactured her stardom anytime soon. At least the girl can sing. Music-from-TV-shows fans will also delight in the the release of Jay Z and Linkin Park's CD collaboration Collision Course, the result of an appearance on MTV's "Ultimate Mash-Ups" (DVD included). Jay Z's millions of fans + Linkin Park's millions of fans = cha-ching!

Switching gears to a way smaller audience, the vinyl version of Rilo Kiley's "More Adventurous" album is now available through Barsuk Records, featuring an alternate version of the song "a man/me/then jim". In honor of that, we just had to tell you about some indie-cheap bargains you can get at the Barsuk online store. Our favorite is the "2004 Holiday Package" which includes this year's releases from Aveo, They Might Be Giants, Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter, Travis Morrison, homeboy John Vanderslice and a copy of the Future Soundtrack for America plus a Barsuk t-shirt for $70.

Since the Ipecac Records mailing address is in Orinda CA, we're counting Patton & Kaada's Romances CD as our featured local release for this week. The Patton would be the genius Mike, of Faith No More fame, and Kaada is an acclaimed Norweigan artist. Listen here, and tell us what you think about the record when we see you at our party next week.