November/December 2008 Issue

Music Review: Does You Inspire You

Caroline Polachek, Chairlift’s deadpan singer, elevates cool intensity to a fine art in this spellbinding debut.

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This Brooklyn trio adds its own creeping unease to familiar synth-pop sounds on its spellbinding debut. With subtle shifts of tone, deadpan singer Caroline Polachek elevates cool intensity to a fine art: In the ominous “Garbage” she oozes contempt, reciting a list of trash that begins, “Your condoms and your vcr“; on the bouncy “Evident Utensil” she chirps softly, “How hard must I try for you?,” hinting at deep resentment. And when she erupts in funky shouting on “Make Your Mind Up,” Polachek is riveting. More of that next time, please.

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We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

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