ACL 2012: The Happiest Music of the Year

Some may call this a guilty pleasure, but we all need happy music: joy without melancholy, cheer without irony.  These ten releases – some short, because happiness is hard to sustain – each offer listeners a brief burst of ebullience.

Drops ~ Believe You Me EP

What’s not to like about glockenspiels, handclaps and bells?  With the Believe You Me EP, Drops has created a perfect summer salad:  music that sounds lovely when played at an outdoor picnic and puts everyone into a good mood.  It’s a short one

d_rradio ~ Forecast

When d_rradio state that ‘the intention of their music is to bring comfort and light to the most dark and difficult hours, and to make you feel alive’ they build expectations, big ones, and the delivery of such promise is

Birds of Passage & I’ve Lost ~ I Was All You Are

The cover of I Was All You Are says it all: blinding sunshine, dried weeds, a woman walking alone.  Alicia Merz (Birds of Passage) seems to have been raised in haziness, forever existing just a bit out of focus.  When