The Llano Idea

It seems that most philanthropy done these days by the music community is either in the form of mega-benefit concerts or charity compilations. Since the former has been adequately exhausted due to Obama’s campaign trail, independent music listeners will have to settle for a handful of recently released albums featuring a jaw-dropping collection of musicians. The two such pieces that have caught my eye (and no doubt others’ as well) recently have been the Dark Was the Night two-disc set benefiting the Red Hot Organization in their fight against AIDS and the War Child Presents Heroes compilation helping children who live in war-torn regions.

Dark Was the Night is the brainchild of The National’s brother guitarists Aaron and Bryce Dessner whose aim is to use “music as a great vehicle to raise both money and awareness for AIDS.” With a who’s who list of popular “indie” artists that are sure to make any music hipster giddy with joy (Andrew Bird, Beirut, and Spoon to name a few) the album was destined to move a lot of copies with or without the added incentive of helping a good cause. As a much-heralded bonus, artists featured on Dark don’t contribute throwaway tracks and forgettable B-sides but rather songs which would fit nicely on any of their individual “proper” LPs.
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Column, Music, review Bob Dylan, Compilation, Dark Was the Night, Every Mainstream Indie Artist You Can Think Of, mp3, War Child Presents Heroes