First Listen: Interpol – Our Love To Admire

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Total number of animals pictured in the cover booklet’s photographs of nature dioramas: 21

Percentage of those which appear to be male Greater Kudu antelopes: 10%

Rank of Track 1, “Pioneer to the Falls,” a bottomlessly bleak track dominated by an epic and mournful guitar melody, on the List of Best Interpol Songs of All Time According to Me: #4 (behind “Untitled,” “PDA,” and “NYC” from Turn On the Bright Lights, 2002)

Number of days frontman Paul Banks claims he hasn’t slept on Track 8, “Rest My Chemistry,” in what is apparently a reference to a cocaine binge: 2

Amount of time into the 4 minute and 30 second Track 10, “Wrecking Ball,” a TV On the Radio-reminiscent lament, before the band are joined by what sounds like a full orchestra: 3:09

How heard-rendingly sad the Spanish-style guitars that accompany album closer “The Lighthouse” are on a scale where 1 equals Spongebob Squarepants and 100 equals the inevitable death of the universe in a entropy-driven whimper: 99

Average rating out of 100 for the album in reviews compiled so far by Metacritic: 90

Random sampling of adjectives used in the featured reviews: “ominous,” “doomy,” “funereal,” “reverberating,” “devastating,” “terrible,” “brooding,” “magnificent,” “cadaverous”

Number of offices and studios out of which one could hear Our Love to Admire playing after advance copies arrived at our radio station this afternoon: 4

Date on which the general public can purchase and enjoy this brutal, majestic album: Tuesday, July 10, 2007

MTV.com website where you can stream the entire album: right here

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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