Pink Moon (Remastered)

A young, obscure British singer-songwriter followed up two critically well-received but commercially disappointing albums of orchestral folk-pop with this stripped-down, bare and beautiful album from 1972. There's a lot of romantic hoo-hah surrounding tortured poet Drake, who died of an apparent overdose of antidepressant medication two years after the album's release, while still in his mid twenties. While the lyrics are not exactly upbeat ("You can say the sun is shining if you really want to," "I am the parasite of this town") this isn't really a downer album per se. It certainly is unrelentingly beautiful, pulling repeatedly at your heartstrings without ever resorting to cheap sentiment. With Drake's rich melodic voice and acoustic guitar abetted occasionally by a spare piano, Pink Moon is perfect music for a rainy day-whether you buy into its romantic myth or not.