November 22, 2010 was the Day That Saved Music, the record labels' date to dump most the year's biggest releases in stores with the hopes that Black Friday would stir sleepy shoppers to spend money on music again. There is no good explanation as to why so many cool albums are coming out today, however -- they just are. Here are five of the best. But you don't have to take our word for it...
Das Racist's Relax
"We join Das Racist in the Hey, These Guys Are Actually Really Good phase of their inexplicable career." -- Spin's Rob Harvilla
Girls' Father, Son, Holy Ghost
"[Christopher Owens] has a preternatural gift for turning clichés into into deeply affecting songs, and as they jump from one style to the next, from delicate acoustic balladry to noisy rave-ups, Owens' voice and point of view ground the record and make it distinctive." -- Pitchfork's Mark Richardson
Katy B's On a Mission
"She's an ideal ambassador from her homeland's ever-expanding groove universe, with a diva-next-door voice that brings every body-moving subgenre her producers serve up -- from bleeding-edge dubstep and so-called U.K. funky to good old-fashioned house and jungle -- into the pop realm." -- Rolling Stone's Simon Vozick-Levinson
St. Vincent's Strange Mercy
"Strange Mercy does for the arc of Clark's career what Black Swan did for Natalie Portman's: Engaging the darkness (rather than just acknowledging it) adds some flesh-and-blood humanity to an artist whose excellent output has nonetheless been marked by cold distance. " -- The AV Club's Erik Adams
Wild Flag's Wild Flag
"Wild Flag move with a bravado that makes other bands sound like sniffly rookies ... and they're not shy about looting every corner of the rock & roll junkyard, from classic Sixties bands (loads of early Stones licks) to obscure indie-rock slop." -- Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield