Here's a list of a lot of things that came out in this past week, including many which are set to release on Friday. Of course, there's no way to be completely comprehensive with this and I avoided including things where information was too lacking, so feel free to mention anything that isn't on here that you think is worth mentioning. Beyond that, if you have any thoughts of any of these albums, it would be great to hear them :)

(oh and don't bully me for the genre tags, a lot of these things have very limited resources available and I couldn't individually listen to everything and determine what fits best, so I'm pulling from third parties and an artist's past work a lot of the time)

Thanks for the help this week, @Cleb!

88GLAM - 88GLAM2.5 (Trap Rap)

Aaron Lewis - State I’m In (Contemporary Country)

ALL TVVINS - Just To Exist (Alternative Dance, Indie Rock)

All Your Sisters - Trust Ruins (Industrial Rock, Post-Punk)

Anderson .Paak - Ventura (Neo-Soul, Contemporary R&B)

Andy Black - The Ghost of Ohio (Pop Rock)

Astrid - Fall, Stand, Dance (Indie Pop, Pop Rock)

Band of Skulls - Love Is All You Love (Garage Rock Revival, Alternative Rock)

Bars Of Gold - Shelters (New Wave, Indie Rock, Post-Hardcore)

Beat Music - Beat Music! Beat Music! Beat Music! (Jazz-Rock, Electronic)

Bibio - Ribbons (Folktronica, Hypnagogic Pop)

Big Business - The Beast You Are (Hard Rock, Heavy Metal)

Big Search - Slow Fascination (Indie Pop)

Black Flower - Future Flora (Afro-Jazz, Jazz-Funk)

Broken Social Scene - Let's Try the After - Vol. 2 (Indie Pop, Indie Rock)

Bruce Hornsby - Absolute Zero (Art Pop, Singer/Songwriter)

BTS - Map of the Soul: Persona (K-Pop)

The Budos Band - V (Jazz-Funk, Heavy Psych, Afrobeat)

Caskey - Black Sheep 4 (Trap Rap)

The Chemical Brothers - No Geography (Big Beat, Acid House)

The Cradle - The Glare of Success (Indie Folk)

Cris Jacobs - Color Where You Are (Singer/Songwriter, Acoustic Blues)

Damien Jurado - In the Shape of a Storm (Indie Folk, Singer/Songwriter)

Eli "Paperboy" Reed - 99 Cent Dreams (Soul, Rhythm & Blues)

Emily Reo - Only You Can See It (Indie Pop)

Emma Bunton - My Happy Place (Pop Soul)

Eric Reed - Everybody Gets The Blues (Jazz)

Fontaines D.C. - Dogrel (Post Punk Revival)

Glen Hansard - The Wild Willing (Singer/Songwriter, Electronic)

Gone Cosmic - Sideways In Time (Psychedelic Rock)

​iann dior - nothings ever good enough (Emo Rap)

Intellexual (Nico Segal & Nate Fox of The Social Experiment) - Intellexual (Indie Pop)

Inter Arma - Sulphur English (Post Metal)

Jesse Rutherford - GARAGEB& (Alternative R&B, Electropop)

Jess Ribeiro - Love Hate (Singer/Songwriter)

John Paul White - The Hurting Kind (Singer/Songwriter, Folk Rock)

Junodream - Terrible Things That Could Happen EP (Indie Rock)

Khalid - Free Spirit (Contemporary R&B, Neo-Soul)

KSI & Randolph - New Age (UK Hip Hop)

The Leisure Society - Arrivals & Departures (Chamber pop, Indie pop)

Lloyd - Black Haze (Pop Rock)

Lowly - Hifalutin (Indie Pop)

LSD - Labrinth, Sia & Diplo Present… LSD (Psychedelic Pop, Electronic)

Marshmello & SOB X RBE - Roll the Dice - EP (Pop Rap)

Melby - VCR (Psychedelic Pop, Indie Pop)

Melissa Etheridge - The Medicine Show (Pop Rock, Singer/Songwriter)

M Huncho - Utopia (Trap Rap)

MISSIO - The Darker the Weather // The Better the Man (Electropop)

MONKEY3 - Sphere (Stoner Rock, Space Rock)

Mystery Skulls - Back to Life (Electropop)

Native Harrow - Happier Now (Indie Folk, Folk Pop)

Norah Jones - Begin Again (Jazz Pop)

NUMENOREAN - Adore (Atmospheric black metal)

Odonis Odonis - Reaction EP (Electro-Industrial, Industrial Rock)

Pixel Grip - Heavy Handed (Synthpop)

Reese McHenry - No Dados (Garage Rock)

RiFF RAFF - PiNK PYTHōN (Trap Rap)

Rory Fresco - True Story (Pop Rap)

Sara Evans - The Barker Family Band (Country Pop)

Sebastián Yatra - FANTASÍA (Reggaeton)

Shovels & Rope - By Blood (Alt. Country)

Sophie Auster - Next Time (Singer/Songwriter)

Tellavision - Add Land (Electronic, Pop)

Theories - Vessel (Grindcore)

Thomas Henley - Epoque EP (Electronic)

Through The Noise - Dualism (Nu Metal, Post Hardcore)

Tom Speight - Collide (Singer Songwriter)

Walking On Cars - Colours (Pop Rock)

Yours Truly - Afterglow EP (Progressive Pop)

Zvi - Deer Pink (Drone Metal, Experimental Rock)

week three brings a deluge of essays and pieces long enough that i'm going to break this week down by the candidate. news today is sorted by candidate, while opinion will remain unsorted for now since there's not much going on there worth talking about. i've also, for clarity's sake, added a [LONGFORM] note to the longer pieces in this slate for those of you on a time crunch.

the usual note: common sense should be able to generally dictate what does and does not get posted in this thread. if it's big news or feels like big news, probably make it its own post instead of lobbing it in here. like the other weekly threads, this one is going to try to focus on things that are still discussion worthy, but wouldn't necessarily make good/unique/non-repetitive discussion starters as their own posts.

Week 1 thread • Week 2 thread

News

Bernie Sanders

• from the Huffington Post: Bernie Sanders Says Felons Should Be Able To Vote While In Prison. bernie sanders called for the end of felony disenfranchisement over the week, which is a thing that almost all states do currently in some form. iowa in particular has possibly the most severe such law, something that the republican governor kim reynolds has been (unsuccessfully) trying to change, making it a fairly large issue there. this currently is not a litmus test for the Democratic Party, but don't expect it to go away, because the ACLU is pushing for candidates to adopt it as a plank.

• from Jacobin: Votes For All. for a leftist take on the above, Jacobin has you covered. this article mostly focuses on the historical push by socialist and socialist-adjacent movements in america to do away with felony disenfranchisement and achieve universal suffrage, and sanders in that broader context.

• from Slate: The Favorite: Can Bernie Sanders finally start acting like the one thing he’s never been?. slate mostly focuses on sanders's curious status as a genuine goliath in this race here, in contrast to the underdog status which has characterized basically the entirety of his political career previously. in many respects, this is unprecedented territory for sanders, and it is a genuine question whether he'll be able to adapt to that fact (or if he'll need to at all).

• from TIME: Sen. Bernie Sanders Unveils New 'Medicare for All' Plan With Support From Some 2020 Rivals. policy wise, sanders unveiled his idea of what medicare for all looks like. this appears to have the support of gillibrand, warren, booker, and harris, who signed on to it (although they've also signed on to less things like a public option), so at least for now, you could probably say it's the leading healthcare reform option on the table.

Pete Buttigieg

• from CBS News and TIME: Buttigieg challenges Pence on LGBTQ rights: "Your quarrel is with my creator"; Pete Buttigieg Criticizes Vice President Pence in Speech About LGBTQ Rights: 'Your Quarrel, Sir, Is With My Creator'. buttigieg is the first person i'm aware of to take shots at either of trump or pence besides sanders, who has led with it the whole of his campaign so far. it's not surprising that the inflection point here is LGBT rights--buttigieg is gay, obviously--but for a presidential campaign, this is fairly unprecedented.

• from NBC News: Pence: Buttigieg is attacking my faith to stand out in 2020 crowd. pence responded to buttigieg's remarks this morning by the way and basically called it a political ploy. i suspect this is not the last we will hear of this particular issue between the two.

• from Slate: How Astonishing Is Mayor Pete’s Rise?. slate has an article on the meteoric rise of buttigieg--although it does note that it's not all roses for buttigieg, who is still only polling about as well as cory booker and amy klobuchar despite basically becoming a media golden boy in the past few weeks. still, buttigieg is doing an order of magnitude better than you'd expect of someone whose mayorship presided over a city of a little over 100,000 people. (compare this guardian article which i highlighted in the last thread).

• from Buzzfeed News: [LONGFORM] What Happened When Pete Buttigieg Tore Down Houses In Black And Latino South Bend. of course, pete also has skeletons which are bound to come out, and his redevelopment plans in south bend probably count as those. officially they were successful, but some people do (understandably) contend that came at the cost of people and essentially led to gentrification in parts of south bend. whether that's a knock on him or just the cost of doing business as mayor of a rust belt city, i leave to you.

Kamala Harris

• from The Atlantic: [LONGFORM] Kamala Harris Takes Her Shot. this is a pretty comprehensive piece on harris, who made a big splash early but is now mostly trying to tread water without losing further ground to bernie and biden or giving up position to warren, buttigieg, or o'rourke. it's humanizing, but it also covers a lot of the criticisms and contradictions of harris's political history, and some of the nagging questions surrounding her political positions as she bids for the white house. if you're curious about or unfamiliar of what some of those criticisms people often launch at her are, this piece is probably for you.

• from Buzzfeed News: Kamala Harris Wants Her Teacher Pay Raise Proposal To Bring Young Black Americans To The Profession — And To Her Campaign. as far as policy, harris has been staking her wagon to teachers in the form of pay raises. those of you who pay attention to the news might have heard her bring this up previously, as it's been an early feature of her campaign so far. it'll be interesting to see if other people take up the beat if she finds success with this issue--so far nobody really has, explicitly speaking, which might be because it's gotten relatively little attention.

Everybody else

• from TIME: California Rep. Eric Swalwell Announces Candidacy for the 2020 Presidential Race. just in case the race wasn't crowded enough for you, eric swalwell decided to become "significant" candidate number 19 in the clowncar of a race that this is. i have no idea what he's running on or what he's angling himself to be, i'm afraid, but i'm sure CBS has it over at the 2020 contenders page.

• from Dissent Magazine: [LONGFORM] Yang Gang Education: If Andrew Yang’s fans are this excited about UBI, imagine how they’ll feel when they learn what socialism can do for them.. this piece is a fairly straightforward critique from the left of andrew yang's UBI proposal and some of the problems that will likely inhibit it from doing what yang wants it to do; however, it's also a general discussion of yang's supporter base and how their support for him is perhaps indicative of receptiveness to more leftist ideas than just UBI.

• from NBC News: Warren targets big business with $1 trillion 'profits' tax. warren has remained mostly on the policy beat so far in her campaign, and this is just the latest of the big sweeping policies she's seeking to sell to the american public. in case you've missed out on her other big policies, see her WaPo op-ed on her proposed Corporate Executive Accountability Act, and her Medium post on her proposed farming policy.

• from Vox: Kirsten Gillibrand used to have moderate positions on immigration and guns. Voters want to know why she’s changed.. kirsten gillibrand is running a pretty sleepy campaign so far, of which this might be the biggest recent headline. she's repositioned herself a bit in the trump era, and she's currently the senator who votes with him least often according to 538, but previously she's been a more moderate voice in congress. people haven't let that slide, and it does suggest her efforts to sell herself as the "resistance" candidate probably aren't helping her campaign much. maybe things will change, but things aren't looking great for her so far.

• from the Huffington Post: Senator Cory Booker Announces He’ll Offer Bill To Study Potential Reparations. cory booker is pushing the reparations litmus test into some form of actual legislative action, signalling that we're probably going to have that become a wedge issue in this primary on top of some of the other stuff. that'll be a fun conversation.

• from the Huffington Post: Amy Klobuchar Says She’s Raised More Than $5.2 Million For Her Presidential Campaign. amy klobuchar's fundraising numbers are about where booker was, so behind beto, sanders, harris, and buttigieg. given where she's polling, that's probably about what you'd expect. there will definitely no shortage of money in this primary.

• finally, from The Atlantic: Mike Gravel’s Plan to Rock the Democratic Primary. those of you who read the first week of this may remember the Buzzfeed News piece on mike gravel's then newly-launched campaign to make the democratic primary stage. he might not make it, but so far it's not for lack of trying--his campaign has 8,000 donors, and the american left is putting a decent amount of weight behind him so far. i think most of us can at least agree it'd be pretty entertaining to see him on stage, so on some level i do hope he makes it.

Opinion/Ideology-driven

• from In These Times: The Case for Using Ranked Choice Voting in the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primaries. this article makes the case for the primaries using ranked choice voting which, to be honest, would probably really help when there are literally going to be like sixteen people in iowa next year (especially given the fact that the democratic party has a 15% popular vote threshold for attaining any delegates in a state). this will definitely not happen this year, but maybe we'll see movement in the future toward something like RCV being used.

• from The Week: The Democratic Party Is Not Going Nuts. It's Coming to Its Senses.. this piece by The Week puts foward the argument that the lurch to the left by the Democratic Party isn't some sort of weird mirroring of the lurch to the right in the GOP, but rather the Democratic Party realizing that centrism isn't really what people want. whether or not that's an accurate assessment, i'll leave to you.

• finally, from The Guardian: Barack Obama is stuck in the past. He represents the old Democratic party. this piece is by bhaskar sunkara, who you may know as one of the figureheads of Jacobin. his case here is mostly that obama's remarks last week about cautioning the party to not become a circular firing squad are motivated more by his desire to continue to hold power within the party than by genuine desire to see the party succeed. again, whether or not that's an accurate assessment, i'll leave to you.

anyways, feel free to as always contribute other interesting articles you stumble across, or comment on some of the ones up there.

edit: some minor grammar stuff

~sports has been a bit empty lately. With the end of the NBA regular season I thought we could open this up to discussion of how the season went for your team, notable moments, what you didn't expect etc...

I'll start off, as an Orlando Magic fan I'm so incredibly psyched we finally made the playoffs, it's been too damn long. Speaking of the playoffs, how wild is it that Lebron's streak of finals appearances ends with him completely missing the playoffs? Is there even any point in the playoffs this season because the Golden State Monstars could just steamroll everyone in their way.

I thought it might be cool to get a random slice of people's music libraries, musical knowledge, and how they relate to songs that aren't necessarily standouts or favorites. Don't worry about the five tracks being a representative sample of your tastes or anything--I just think it's a fun exercise!

Also, if you get a bad list of five, it's okay to re-roll.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.