Blog: Stereogum

A few days ago, we posted Bill Callahan's cover of Leonard Cohen's "So Long Marianne" from the forthcoming Leonard Cohen covers compilation UK music mag MOJO is putting together to celebrate Cohen's new album, Old Ideas . Today, we have two more tracks from that collection, a Cass McCombs cover of " Teachers " and Field Music's cover of " Suzanne ." Stream them below. Read More...

Over the past few years, Converse has been teaming up trios of unlikely artists to record songs for the show company; the last one had Matt & Kim, Andrew W.K., and Soulja Boy. The next entry in that series, however, looks to be its biggest-ever by far; it'll have Gorillaz hooking up with former LCD Soundsystem honcho James Murphy and OutKast's Andre 3000. According to The Sun , the track is called "DoYaThing," it'll be up on the Converse website 2/23, and it apparently features Damon Albarn rapping two verses, which should [...]

Veteran Athens freak rockers of Montreal took to Late Night With Jimmy Fallon last night to play Paralytic Stalks ' single " Dour Percentage ," replete with a pretty cool looking stage arrangement. Watch the performance below. Read More...

Right now, the Shins - at least in their James Mercer-plus-whoever incarnation - are preparing to return to the world with the new album Port Of Morrow . The new joints " Simple Song " and " September " are both perfectly lovely. And now Mercer has played a few solo-acoustic shows for radio stations. At one for San Diego's 91X, he recently debuted the new one "It's Only Life," which will show up on Port Of Morrow . It's at the four-minute mark of the video below, which also features a bunch of [...]

Man, you can't fool me twice. Who are Fleet Foxes , Alex. ( via )

Earl Sweatshirt is the youngest member of the California skate-rap collective Odd Future, and he's been missing in action ever since the crew came to prominence in mid-2010, even though his album EARL is probably the most compulsively listenable thing to come out of the crew. Some pretty reliable sources have supposedly discovered Earl at a youth camp in troubled Samoa, where, legend has it, his mother sent him after getting worried about the music he was making. Others have disputed that . But as far as we can tell, Earl appears to be back [...]

Cults now have a video for their oldies-radio weeper " You Know What I Mean ," and some serious stunt-work went into it. The group's two members play two of the sides of a carnival love triangle, and Brian Oblivion (or his stunt-double) gets to do some huge high-dives and fire-jumps. Also, warning: Oblivion's fire-scarred makeup job is no joke. Isaiah Seret directs. Watch the clip below. Read More...

Sleigh Bells' camp has confirmed that the duo will be the musical guest on the 2/18 episode of Saturday Night Live , where they'll play Reign Of Terror cuts "End Of The Line" and " Comeback Kid ." Former SNL castmember and Bridesmaids star Maya Rudolph hosts, which is also pretty awesome. More looks for Sleigh Bells forthcoming - they cover the issue of SPIN on stands 2/28. Reign Of Terror drops 2/21 on Mom + Pop .

As a part of the fundraising effort for music journalism venture AdHoc.fm, the founders have put together a compilation (and a box set, for a larger donation) featuring artists like Beach Fossils, Pure X, Grimes, Blondes, JEFF The Brotherhood and many more. Today, How To Dress Well's contribution, a cover of Xiu Xiu's " Clowne Towne ," was posted to Ad Hoc's Soundcloud page. Stream the track below. Read More...

The video for "Yella Diamonds," one of the many bangers on Rick Ross's monstrous Rich Forever mixtape, features some hall-of-fame terrible acting, a genuinely disturbing home-invasion sequence, and an oddly prominent Ms. Pac-Man today. It also has Rick Ross doing some truly great head-shaking while rapping. Watch it below. Read More...

Fresh out of the recently-profiled Huntsville rap scene, Jackie Chain has come through with some strong cuts in the last couple of months. Delivering on that promise, Chain's new new mixtape, After Hours , a collaboration between the Alabama rapper and Fool's Gold records co-founder Nick Catchdubs, is his most cohesive, most trunk-rattling release yet. Download it at Fool's Gold .

Yuck frontman Daniel Blumberg sometimes records solo as Oupa; we recently posted his Smog cover . And now he's teamed up with one Tony Crow to record a gorgeous acoustic cover of " Backwords ," a piece of breezy, blissy synthpop from Porcelain Raft. Download Oupa's cover below. Read More...

• Oupa & Tony Crow - Backwords-Porcelain-Raft-cover.mp3

In December, we reported that elusive, damaged genius Brian Wilson was back together with the Beach Boys, the once-estranged group he'd helped to make great. This year, they plan to tour together and release a new album. And at this Sunday's Grammys, Billboard reports that they'll all perform together for the first time in decades. But here's the catch: They'll do it in a joint performance with Foster The People and Maroon 5. Grammys! You're fucking everything up! Again! The Grammy producers' thinking, I suppose, is that the Beach Boys, Maroon [...]

Yesterday, Lana Del Rey sang Born To Die songs at a jam-packed Amoeba Records as rumors swirled about her upcoming tour (the NY Post claimed that the tour had been cancelled because of the poorly-received SNL appearance before her camp squashed the rumor, though SXSW dates were cancelled and the Australian leg has been postponed ). Building on the momentum from a really nice performance on Letterman , the singer looked relaxed and happy as fans squealed around her. [...]

As a human being, Gucci Mane is a mess. Back when he was on his hot streak about three years ago, that was part of his charm. Like fellow Southern-rap face-tat aficionado Lil Wayne before him, Gucci rose to the top of the heap by methodically cranking out mixtape after mixtape in which he cleverly described his total inability/unwillingness to resist any sort of vice, delivering it all in a disarming mushmouthed singsong flow that predictably annoyed the hell out of many. People derided Gucci as mindless, even borderline-retarded, but his genius was there if you were willing to hear [...]

Every big-time touring musician has a slightly ridiculous tour rider, but most of those riders don't appear on the Smoking Gun. M.I.A., once again notorious thanks to her bird-flipping stunt at the Super Bowl, appears to be the exception. As the Smoking Gun reports , M.I.A.'s 2011 tour rider includes all the luxuries you'd expect: absinthe, hummus, Italian chocolate. And, in faintly ridiculous language, it also sheds some light on M.I.A.'s stagecraft. It requests three female extras with stage presence who are willing to stand onstage for the entire show, "groove to the music," and wear full [...]

Cali synthpop standout Nite Jewel has a new record coming out in March from which we've heard the title track " One Second Of Love " and " She's Always Watching You " (the rollout has also produced the B-side " Sister " and this pretty cover of Stevie Wonder's "Visions"). Today, Ramona Gonzalez posted another track from One Second Of Love , the soulful "In The Dark." Stream it below. Read More...

On last night's episode of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon , Irish alt-pop veterans the Cranberries made their big return to TV, playing their new single " Tomorrow " and sounding as sharply lush as ever. And as a web-only exclusive, they also did their 1993 hit "Dreams," the song that landed them on the map. Watch both below. Read More...

Last week we heard Beach Fossils' new single, " Shallow ," and sure enough, that release's B-side recently surfaced. Stream "Lessons," another needling, dreamy rock track, below. Read More...

Last month, we posted "What A Mess" and "The Room," two tracks from the scraping, discordant Brooklyn rock trio Mr. Dream . Both of those songs come from Fatherland , their forthcoming EP, and now we've also got the EP's title track. It's a harsh, off-kilter track, and it's impossible to focus on anything else when it's playing. Nick Sylvester, the band's drummer and my friend, produced the track, as well as the rest of the EP. To his credit, he did not murder me when I told him that this song vaguely reminded me of [...]

• Mr. Dream - Mr-Dream-Fatherland.mp3