Emily's Albums A to Z

Listened: Wednesday June 9

If ever an album could be said to be haunted, I think Dark Night of the Soul could. Since this album was made in 2009, two of the participants have committed suicide: Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse) and Vic Chestnutt, who appears on one of the tracks. Just listen to the track called “Dark Night of the Soul” and tell me it doesn’t give you the heebie jeebies!

This album was supposed to be released in conjunction with a book by David Lynch illustrating the songs. The book was released, but the CD holder in the book held a blank DVR, due to disputes with the record company. Then it was leaked to the Internet and was available to download if you could find it (like other famous albums in similar situations – The Grey Album, In Rainbows, Girl Talk – it was pretty easy to find if you looked, easier than the usual illegal copies of released or soon to be released albums).

Other participants on the songs include: The Flaming Lips, Julian Casablancas of the Strokes, Susanne Vega, and James Mercer (this is how he and Danger Mouse decided to collaborate on Broken Bells). It’s a pretty good album, and I love the “old movie” cover. Whatever dispute the record company was caught up with, they should have let it go. I think they’ve lost a lot of revenue in the last year due to the downloading; apparently it’s finally going to be officially released as a CD in July of this year so maybe someone got a clue.