amazon's $5 downloads for july: the highlights

so another month (though we're now five days in) and another 100 albums offered by Amazon for a mere $5 each.
here are the highlights:

if you only have $5 to spend:
assuming you purchased Arcade Fire's Neon Bible last month like you were supposed to, here's your chance to finish your AF collection (until the new Suburbs album comes out in August - by the way, if you think Suburbs isn't a big deal, know that's currently the #67 best-selling album on Amazon, and the album doesn't come out for another month).
Funeral, currently the latest and greatest release (again, until August) from, again, quite possibly the most important band in the world.
(and if that's not enough, here's your "oh yeah" or "a-ha" moment: "Wake Up" is that majestic tune that accompanied the Where The Wild Things Are trailer for so many months)

other "indie" releases on independent labels:
Camera Obscura's Let's Get Out of This Country,
Passion Pit's Manners and the Drive-By Truckers' The Big To-Do.

slightly less "indie" bands on significantly less indie labels:
the James Mercer/Danger Mouse collaboration Broken Bells, Plastic Beach by Gorillaz and MGMT's Oracular Spectacular debut (yep, the one with "Time to Pretend").

classic alt-rock:
Pearl Jam's Ten (definitely their best) and Smashing Pumpkins' Gish (though not Siamese Dream(which is just $5.99), still pretty early enough that's pretty damn good).

and long-ago classic Bowie, long-ago classic Aerosmith and pretty damn recent near-classic Haggard:
Hunky Dory, Toys in the Attic and I Am What I Am.

keep in mind that Amazon's offering another 38 or so downloadable albums for $5 each that I haven't mentioned, including offerings by R.E.M., Radiohead, Modest Mouse, Crowded House, Daft Punk, Joan Jett, M. Ward, Jakob Dylan, Greg Laswell, Lenny Kravitz, Indigo Girls, Silversun Pickups, Sade, Blondie, Adele, Cake, Spoon, Superchunk, The Whigs, The Band, The Shins, The Strokes, The National, Norah Jones as well as things far, far removed from my playlist (but maybe not far from yours if you watch American Idol or the Disney Channel for anything other than The Incredibles) like Justin Timberlake, Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Miley Cyrus, Jordin Sparks and David Cook.

enjoy!