Downloaded a couple of new albums this weekend. (Can you still call them albums, especially if it’s all electronic now?)

First was Raising Sand by an unexpected duo - Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. I wouldn’t have thought of these two together at all, but the result is a great album. After a few listens, it will almost certainly be somewhere on my year-end list of favorite music. There were only a couple of songs on youTube right now, but here’s the Mel Tillis-penned “Stick With Me, Baby.”

Also, check out this interview with Plant, Krauss, and producer T Bone Burnett.

The other was the newest disc from The New Pornographers. My downloads at eMusic refreshed and the first thing I pulled was Challengers. I liked their last album, Twin Cinema, quite a bit, but so far I am enjoying this one even more (despite that fact that most of the reviewers I read seemed to favor Cinema.) If you’re into well-done pop, check it out. Here’s the title track.

I also downloaded a couple of Christmas selections from eMusic as well: Wishing For This by former Sixpence singer Leigh Nash, and an earlier Christmas album by Over The Rhine, titled The Darkest Night Of The Year. I haven’t really listened to them yet (no Christmas music until after Thanksgiving), but I was pleased enough by the clips to download them and expect them to be worth it. (I also might try to get a copy of OTR’s newer Christmas disc, Snow Angels, which sounds even better, but unfortunately is not available on eMusic.)

I still have 45 downloads left. Any suggestions?