Ry Cooder’s new album, Election Special is out now in the US. "A guitar great takes a shot at political satire and hits the mark," exclaims Rolling Stone in a four-star review. "Election Special is protest music delivered with a patriot’s gifts—the American-roots beauty and expert fire in Ry Cooder’s playing—and long memory." The album earns four stars from MSN as well, where it is streaming in full this week. Cooder, says MSN, "has returned to early, deep roots in American folk to forge the most impassioned music of his 50-year career."

Ry Cooder’s new album, Election Special, is out this week. With its UK release today, having previously earned four stars from Mojo, Election Special has received four-star reviews from the Guardian, Independent, Independent on Sunday, Financial Times, and Scotland on Sunday, as well as the Irish Times. "After last year's magnificent Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down, Ry Cooder returns to the political arena with a vengeance," says the Guardian, which calls it "an entertaining, thoughtful and bravely original set." The Independent on Sunday says Cooder's latest albums "represent the most cogent work of his long career."

Ry Cooder recently spoke with the Guardian about a wide range of issues, including the Republican party and Mitt Romney; corporate influence on the political system and the world at large; and the power of music, including that of his new album, Election Special, to affect change. "[W]hat I'm trying to do with these little songs I write is say: let's look at this a different way. I don't write books and give speeches but with a four-minute song you can use allegory and other means to suggest a different point of view," says Cooder. "Music is the way that I know. It's the thing I have."

Ry Cooder will join a number of artists in celebrating the centenary of folk legend Woody Guthrie in This Land Is Your Land, a concert at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, on October 14. Cooder, whom Uncut has described as "a modern-day Woody Guthrie," has a new album, Election Special, out on August 21, and Uncut has named it Album of the Month. "In a recording career that stretches back more than four decades," says Uncut, "Cooder has never before made an album as immediate as Election Special." Mojo gives it four stars.

Ry Cooder’s new album, Election Special, due out on CD and vinyl on August 21, is a wake-up call as the US heads into the fall election season. The album is now available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store in a very special bundle. Show your Election Special pride with an exclusive campaign-style button and bumper sticker; pre-orders also include an instant download of the album's opening track, "Mutt Romney Blues."

Following the US Supreme Court's ruling in the case against Arizona immigration law SB 1070, the Los Angeles Times' Pop & Hiss blog put together a list of "five great songs about immigration that are worth revisiting," including Ry Cooder's "Quicksand" along with songs by Rage Against the Machine, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Woody Guthrie, and Led Zeppelin. "For decades, Cooder has written blues-rock at the junction of L.A.'s Anglo and Latino cultures," says the LA Times. "'Quicksand' is one of his most vivid character sketches about a harrowing border crossing." Cooder wrote the song in response to the passing of SB 1070 in 2010 and donated the proceeds from its sale to MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Ry Cooder joined TIME's Joe Klein on the columnist's road trip across the US. Klein is crossing the country, talking to Americans about the state of the nation as the fall election season approaches. It's something to which Cooder is particularly attuned, given the subject of his new album, Election Special, out August 21. "Ry Cooder has provided much of the sound track of my life," writes Klein. "He’s been writing political songs in recent years, and unlike most in that often-too-obvious genre, each is musically exquisite." Watch a video of the pair meeting up with fiddler Dan Gellert in Dayton, Ohio, here.

Ry Cooder’s Election Special, due out August 21, is a wake-up call as the US heads into the 2012 fall election season. "'Wasting Away in Margaritaville' was a good song in its day," says Cooder, "but we need a different kind of a song now if we’re going to make headway against the likes of Charlie and Dave." On Election Special, which he produced, Cooder plays mandolin, guitar, and bass and wrote all of the songs, co-writing one with Joachim Cooder, who plays drums on the record. Stay tuned for an exclusive Nonesuch Store pre-order offer to come.

As the Los Angeles Dodgers marked the 50th anniversary of Dodger Stadium this week, New York Times writer George Vecsey looks back at some of the team's more checkered moments and wonders whether there might be a curse tied to Chávez Ravine, the Mexican-American community that was destroyed in the '50s to build the stadium. It's a story Ry Cooder recounts in his 2005 album Chávez Ravine. Vecsey continues the conversation with a post on his blog in praise of that album. "It is about baseball and it is about business," Vecsey writes. "But mostly it is terrific music." Rolling Stone gives four stars to Cooder's book, Los Angeles Stories, calling it "superb."

Ry Cooder has been nominated as Best Artist in the Songlines Music Awards 2012 for his latest album, Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down. Fatoumata Diawara has been nominated as Newcomer of the Year for her debut album, Fatou, released in the UK on World Circuit; her debut EP, Kanou, was released on World Circuit/Nonesuch Records. Among the nominees for Cross-Cultural Collaboration are Kronos Quartet (Uniko) and Chris Thile, for his work with Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, and Edgar Meyer on The Goat Rodeo Sessions.

Ry Cooder, having just premiered one new song, “Going to Tampa,” has now lent another new song, “The Mutt Romney Blues,” to a short satirical video by the progressive activists Brave New Films. The song and video tell the now well-known tale of the unusual al fresco car ride of Mitt Romney’s dog, only this time from a decidedly different perspective: that of the trusty pooch himself. This dog’s tune is, of course, a blues. Watch the video here.

Ry Cooder has unveiled a new song: "Going to Tampa." The song, which premiered via The New Yorker's News Desk blog, follows in the spirit of his recent song "Wall Street Part of Town" and his album Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down, and looks ahead to the Republican National Convention, painting a picture of what could come as only Cooder can. Listen to the song here.