The Sounds of Summer

When was the last time your winter had a soundtrack? Why it is that your favorite tunes rarely invoke memories of snow drifts and head colds, we will not attempt to answer here. We’re too busy listening to records that will define the next season. And now that you’re ready for summer—now that the cover has come off the grill, and the cooler is crammed with cold ones—let us prepare you for the annual onslaught of new albums.

Over the next couple of months expect anticipated sophomore outings from indie darlings (Keane, Bloc Party), enticing new offerings from old timers (Sonic Youth, The Replacements ) and projects by outsized personalities (Dr. Octagon, Thom Yorke). Want to know what’s caught NEWSWEEK by the ear? Here are the albums that will comprise our summer soundtrack:

Beirut, ‘Gulag Orkestar’

Few popular musicians have been punished for their precocity. George Harrison was 19 when "Love Me Do" debuted on the British charts; Michael Jackson notched four No. 1 singles before reaching his teens. But those boys were preoccupied with ABCs and holding hands. Nineteen-year-old Albuquerque, N.M., native Zach Condon, who records as Beirut, has developed a somewhat less age-appropriate obsession: Balkan brass-band music. His songs have names like "Mount Wroclai," "Prenzlauerberg" and "Bratislava,” and they're adorned with ukuleles, mandolins, glockenspiels and accordions—everything, it seems, but guitars. The risk pays off. Sure, "Gulag Orkestar"'s mournful ballads and creaky marches aren't "authentic" per se—they’re as much Magnetic Fields as Boban Markovic. But here's to making the Old World new. (In stores now)

—Andrew Romano

Phoenix, ‘It's Never Been Like That’