February 13, 2009

New “Red Hot” Comp Gets Indie

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Dark Was the NightIn its many years of putting together albums to raise money for AIDS relief, the Red Hot organization has created some of the most memorable compilations of recent times. Their first effort, 1989’s Red Hot & Blue, featuring contemporary artists covering Cole Porter, connected pop music past and present in a way that seems like standard practice now, but was eye-opening then. Later, 1993’s No Alternative captured the exuberance and creative diversity of a moment, just before Kurt Cobain committed suicide, when it felt like some grungy kids with guitars might change the world. Since then, Red Hot CDs have celebrated samba, country, dance, and bossa nova (and raised a load of cash in the fight against AIDS), but their latest compilation may go down in history as capturing another moment. Dark Was the Night  features just about every indie band idolized by the Pitchfork generation: Arcade Fire, The National, Feist, Conor Oberst, Yo La Tengo, Cat Power, Blonde Redhead, Bon Iver and Sharon Jones all contributed exclusive tracks to the compilation, along with over 20 others, and it’s quite a collection. Thankfully, Red Hot has kept up with the times and made it easy to get a free internet taste. You can listen to a different song every day at their MySpace page, or you can go to their web site and make your own little blog widget with any three tracks. Check out mine after the jump.

Dark Was the Night is out Tuesday, February 17.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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