Editor's Note

Generally, it’s hard to mistake the Crimson’s music page for the Billboard chart. In the past year we have spent more words on art-house one-time band-of-the-moment Lightning Bolt than on double platinum success Carrie Underwood. What explains this? The snobbery of music writers? The difficulty in getting promo copies of albums from piracy-paranoid major labels? The desire to inform our readership about new and artistically interesting music?

Whatever the case, we don’t write much on what’s on the radio. To reverse this elitist trend, and to keep with the theme of the issue, below are three belated reviews of albums currently in Billboard’s top 40.

-Eric L. Fritz