Arcade Fire will release their new full length CD via Merge on Tuesday. The Suburbs is a remarkable collection of songs that demand to be heard as a whole. In the New York Times, Jon Pareles says “the album doesn’t resolve its own questions; it expands their mystery.” Read more about the band in his article today.

Each day this week, Hype Machine has been posting 10 of the top 50 albums of 2009, calculated based on the top 10 lists of 550 music bloggers, to reveal an altogether different sort of an end-of-year rundown. For Triple A programmers and listeners, this list is worth a look for several reasons.

Because bloggers tend to be weary of artists that have found a comfortable innertube on which to float down the mainstream, this list highlights scads of records that you may not have had an opportunity to hear (or even hear of). What’s more, the posting is beautifully designed, clean and bold, with an image of each album cover set against a live performance shot of each artist, as well as a quote from a featured blogger. You can also click for screenshots of every blog that chose a particular record. (Find an album you love, and you might find a few great new blogs to follow.) And best of all? There’s a full album stream of all 50 choices for your listening pleasure.

Bravo, Hype Machine!

It took me a long time to jump on the Twitter bandwagon. I scratched my head at its usefulness until I bit the bullet and signed up to see what all the fuss was about. Quickly, you realize that it’s more about what you get than what you post. David Carr’s concise recent Times article does a terrific job of summing up Twitter’s value.

Oh, and you know how I found out about the article? By following Bruce Warren on Twitter.