Once upon a time, on the day of a big anticipated album release, you’d have to wake up early, fight your sister for possession of mom’s car keys, drive 35 minutes to the nearest mall, park near the south entrance close to where the Sam Goody was located, and then rush inside only to be told by an aloof college-aged clerk that they won’t start unboxing that album until after lunch. Today, all you have to do is open your cell phone and fire up Spotify. And if that’s too much work for you, just scroll down to the embed below and within seconds you’ll be listening to Bon Iver’s first new album in five years, 22, A Million, still warm from the streaming presses and accompanied by many listening events and some kind of weird newspaper.
The A.V. Club gave 22, A Million a B+, calling the band’s third studio album “deliberately, distractingly cluttered, nearly end to end.” But we mean that in a good way. Really, you need to listen to understand. And luckily, there’s no need to hit the mall to make that happen. Which is great, since your mom’s car is, like, three states away.