It’s Monday, and if like us you spent the last few days indulging the American penchant for celebrating a general unspecified spirit of thankfulness by inflicting righteous vengeance on your digestive tract, then you’re probably feeling about as enthusiastic about being back at work as we are. Well, anyway, let us ease your transition back into the real world with our regular start-of-the-week round-up of some noteworthy — and, ideally, listenable — records that are streaming for free over the internet this week. Get a piece of the action after the jump.
Adele — Live at the Royal Albert Hall
The unfeasibly successful UK singer Adele has spent most of the year selling truckloads of her second album 21, and the rest of it selling out shows around the world (including the entire US leg of her Adele Live tour). Sadly, her year of success was brought to an abrupt halt last month by a vocal cord hemorrhage — since then, she’s been laid up recuperating (and being chastised by Boy George for smoking). Fans wanting to hear more of her can rejoice, though — The Guardian is streaming her new live album Live at the Royal Albert Hall this week. Click here to listen. The album’s been taken down from the Guardian, as per the comment below, but you can hear it via Rolling Stone here.
Gorillaz — The Singles Collection: 2001-2011
It’s one of the music world’s abiding ironies that Damon Albarn’s throwaway cartoon band side project has gone on to sell about a bazillion more records than his “real” band. Of course, Gorillaz have evolved into a proper group in their own right, and have spent most of the 2000s making some fascinating and involving pop music. With four albums behind them, the time is ripe for a Best Of compilation, and it’s duly arrived in the form of The Singles Collection: 2001-2011, which is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin: a collection of all the Gorillaz singles released over the last decade, including the excellent Ed Case remix of “Clint Eastwood” and the jazzed-up Soulchild remix of “19-2000.” The album’s streaming on AOL’s Spinner site this week — listen here.
Mobb Deep — Black Cocaine EP
On AOL’s mainstream-y site, meanwhile, you can hear the new EP from veteran Queens hip-hop duo Mobb Deep. It’s called, um, Black Cocaine, which frankly doesn’t sound like the most enticing prospect (unless nasty-looking black-encrusted Kleenex are your thing, in which case knock yourself out), but despite the title, it’s not a bad piece of work for lovers of brooding hip-hop made by men who might hit you at any moment — and it also features a collaboration with Nas, which seems to indicate his feud with Mobb Deep is now officially dead and buried. Yay. Can’t we all just get along? Listen here, anyway.
The Duke Spirit — Bruiser
Remember The Duke Spirit? They’ve always been one of those bands who seem on the verge of breaking through into some sort of stardom, but never quite doing so. This doesn’t appear likely to change with the release of their third album Bruiser, which sold rather poorly in their native UK and is only now getting a belated release in the US. This is a shame, as it’s not a bad record by any stretch of the imagination — it just seems to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. So it goes. Anyway, Spin is streaming the album this week — listen here.
Cormorant — Dwellings
And finally, it seems to be a big week for metal streaming — our weekly Twitter search for streaming goodness turned up a bunch of metal bands, including the new album by Cormorant, which is available for listening via NPR. The good folk over at our national public broadcaster aren’t holding back in their praise for Dwellings, calling it “far and away, the best metal record of 2011.” See if you agree by clicking right here.