Before I say another word about the magazine, let me state simply that the free inside-cover-mount CD that comes with the July/August issue of
The Believer, the McSweeney's-published lit mag, is reason enough to purchase the thing. Leaving aside dance-mag CDs—which are usually DJ sets by big names—this is probably the best cover-mount CD I've ever heard. Its compiler,
Believer interviews editor Ross Simonini, announces his globe-hopping theme in its first piece, but it's immediately apparent that what he achieves is of a piece, sonically. Everything hangs together perfectly; the selections are excellent (I even liked an Animal Collective song!
Me!); there are times when you can't quite spot the exact intersection where what you're hearing came from, which works greatly in the music's favor. One-worldism should always be so hands-on.
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Idolator
One of the best pieces in The Believer's 2008 Music Issue is Douglas Wolk's short detailing of his repeated encounters with a phantom. Well, not a phantom—a CD track listing that he put onto iTunes a while back for a 30-song Huey "Piano" Smith and the Clowns compilation that he's never seen another copy of. Apparently, no one else has either: Wolk finds the track listing popping up over and over, always with the same typo (Wolk's) on one of the titles. Which makes us wonder: has this ever happened to you? Not so much the CD (though given the seemingly evanescent nature of titles produced early on for compact disc only to never be seen again, that certainly counts) as finding your own handiwork reappearing in front of you in a different guise. (No "that famous person stole my song I sent him a copy of seeking advice when I was a naive teenager" stories, please.) [The Believer]
