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Read Music/Speak Spanish by Desaparecidos

2022 finds us releasing the 20th Anniversary Edition of Desaparecidos’ Read Music/Speak Spanish into a world in which the dread and disenfranchisement detailed throughout the album feel as pertinent today as they did then. The characters and settings may have changed, but the startling narrative has not.

In late 2001, Conor Oberst (vocals, guitar), Denver Dalley (guitar), Landon Hedges (bass guitar, vocals), Ian McElroy (keyboards), and Matt Baum … spent a week at Presto! Recording Studio in Lincoln, NE recording a punk album. That debut album, released in the post-9/11 fog of early 2002, screamed out observational commentary on urban development, the sacrifice of human value for the dollar bill, and the new American Dream in a way that felt distinctly out of sync with the hyper-patriotic atmosphere of peak G.W. Bush-era America.

  • Date of selection

    4 May 2024

  • Type of selection

    Album of the week

  • Date of release

    12 February 2002

  • Number of tracks

    10

  • Length

    35:11

  • Genre(s)

    punk, punk-rock, emo