Blog: Stereogum

Toronto punks Fucked Up are an ambitious bunch, and that's probably the most evident in their series of Chinese Zodiac singles. Every year, the band releases a single to mark the year on the Chinese calendar, and these songs are typically long, elaborately orchestrated affairs, sometimes with some prominent collaborators. Today, Fucked Up releases its fifth such single: "Year Of The Tiger." It features contributions from champion arthouse director Jim Jarmusch, electro-goths Austra, and Duchess Says leader Annie-Claude Deschênes. And below, you can stream that song as well as all the other Chinese Zodiac singles. I promise: It's a good [...]

Royal Baths' single " Faster, Harder " is an ode to a fucked up relationship: "I love my damaged girl / We share a wicked world," repeats the singer as the song churns along, following the female protagonist into darker and darker places. By the end, the singer has fully succumbed to this wicked world, giving up his body for the cause. Watch the video below. Read More...

Denver indie-pop crew Tennis are about to release their new album Young & Old out into the world. Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney produced the album. We've already posted a bunch of the songs: " Origins ," " Deep In The Woods ," and " My Better Self ," as well as a live set of new songs . And now the whole album is streaming online. Click below to hear it. Read More...

Last night, Jay-Z played a benefit for United Way of New York City and The Shawn Carter Scholarship Foundation at NYC's Carnegie Hall - he plays again tonight - and though most of the public was priced out by ticket prices in the hundreds and thousands, there were still enough Elliott Wilson s and Jon Caramanicas there to give the rest of us heavy FOMO. Amongst the highlights: Jay-Z and Nas doing Illmatic 's "N.Y. State Of Mind," Jay rapping a medley of Reasonable Doubt classics from the balcony during the encore [...]

El Camino 's "Gold On The Ceiling" is the next thrust in the Black Keys' sorta-surprising-but-then-agai n-not-really ascension to becoming one of America's largest rock bands. They brought it to Letterman in live form awhile ago, and this video is also lots of live footage, mixed with auxiliary shots from life on the road with Patrick and Dan and their interesting taste in jackets. This one will not get love from Ellen Degeneres , and that is just the price the Black Keys are going to have to pay for not featuring Derrick Tuggle in their every video [...]

Last night, South African freak rap combo Die Antwoord took their current single " I Fink U Freeky " to The Late Show With David Letterman . It was considerably tame, given what we've seen from the group previously , but Yolandi did wear her big, sinister black contacts, for what it's worth. Watch it below. Read More...

Portlandia is a show by, for, and about indie rock types, so it's no surprise that indie big dogs show up in sketches every so often. This past weekend's episode featured two. St. Vincent's Annie Clark, who first collaborated with Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein back when they were the online sketch duo ThunderAnt, played a model who showed off a proposed police-uniform redesign. Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock, meanwhile, played someone attempting to donate records to the local elementary school. Watch both of their sketches below. Also, we asked Fred Armisen to name his [...]

Portlandia is a show by, for, and about indie rock types, so it's no surprise that indie big dogs show up in sketches every so often. This past weekend's episode featured two. St. Vincent's Annie Clark, who first collaborated with Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein back when they were the online sketch duo ThunderAnt, played a model who showed off a proposed police-uniform redesign. Which, uh, yeah. Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock, meanwhile, played someone attempting to donate records to the local elementary school. Watch both of their sketches below. Read More...

Lotus Plaza, the solo side project from Deerhunter's Lockett Pundt, has a new split 103 single coming out with Nice Weekend, otherwise known as Pundt's fiancee Shayda Yavari. On the B-side, Pundt collaborates with Yavari on the song "Longest Days." And the A-side, "Come Back," is a dreamy, floaty nine-minute solo track called "Come Back." Stream it below. Read More...

Name: Mark Lanegan Progress Report: The songwriter talks about Blues Funeral , his first solo album in nearly 8 years. It should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with his music that Mark Lanegan is a man of relatively few words. Whether it be with his work as the frontman of Screaming Trees, his work with the Twilight Singers and Queens of the Stone Age, his duet albums with Isobel Campbell , or his arresting solo work , Lanegan brings a certain intensity and creative gravitas [...]

Bear In Heaven will drop their new album I Love You, It's Cool in a couple of months, and we've already posted the awesomely synthy first track " The Reflection Of You ." Below, check out a reworking of the song from the prolific remixer Lovelock, who slows the track down and smooths it out, turning it into something of an alternate universe lounge jam. Read More...

Atlanta rap great Gucci Mane has been in and out of prison for the last few years, and his music has gradually grown as erratic as you'd expect when you take that into account. BAYTL , his late-2011 collaborative album with the widely dismissed V-Nasty, wasn't exactly an indicator of great things to come. But yesterday, Gucci released his Trap Back mixtape. And on first listen, it's the sharpest thing he's done in quite some time. Most of the people currently beasting in the guest-rapper roundtable show up (2 Chainz, Yo Gotti, Jadakiss, Rocko, Future, Waka Flocka [...]

Leonard Friend is the electronic pop project of Alex Feder (ex-XYZ Affair), who initially showed up on our radar thanks to their '90s-Nickolodeon-cameo-heavy clip for their song "All My Friends." He's got an EP out, and recently Fool's Gold 's Luke Top took time out to remix one of that release's standouts, "Everything For The Sake Of Everything." Download both versions below. Read More...

• Leonard Friend - Leonard Friend - Everything For The Sake Of Everything.mp3
• Leonard Friend - Everything for the Sake of Everything (Luke Top Remix)

The Brooklyn indie crew have a way with a clean power-pop melody that few can match, and their self-titled EP, still up for free download , is an absolute monster. The band has a new 73 single on the way, and below, we've got their charged-up new song "Sunsick." Read More...

• Fort Lean - Sunsick

Next week, the Shins will release the 73 single version of " Simple Song ," the huge, world-beating single from their forthcoming Port Of Morrow album. That single will feature a new song called "September" on the B-side. And below, we've got the lyric video for the song, which has a delicate bossa nova lilt and some classic-rock-informed close harmonies. James Mercer! He knows what he's doing! Read More...

James Blake has long been interested in keening R&B longing and warped, diffuse songwriting, so it's only natural that he'd be a D'Angelo fan. And during a guest DJ set on BBC Radio 1 this past weekend, he busted out a remix of " Left & Right ," the Method Man/Redman collab from D'Angelo's classic 2000 album Voodoo . Blake did the buzzing, off-balance reworking under his Harmonix alias, and you can listen to a radio rip of it below. Read More...

Shearwater's new album is out next week, and we've already heard three quite-nice takes from that affair, " You As You Were ," " Breaking The Yearlings " and " Animal Joy ." And now, as part of NPR's first listen, Animal Joy is streaming in full . It's out next week on Sub Pop .

Nicki recently delayed her sophomore album's release until April, but that didn't stop another new track from leaking, this time the more pop-forward "Marilyn Monroe," which catches Minaj back in the glossier, autotuned textures of Pink Friday . Sidenote: dap to Nicki for not feeling the need to make a "statement" at yesterday's Super Bowl Halftime Show . Stream "Marilyn Monroe" below. Read More...

Brooklyn quintet Here We Go Magic hooked up with perennial Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich on their new album A Different Ship , which comes out this spring. Below, check out the album's tracklist and the jumpy, jittery "Make Up Your Mind," the first track we've heard from the album. Read More...

Yesterday, the always-productive New Orleans stoner-rap cult-star Curren$y released a new five-song EP called Here with no warning whatsoever. It's just the latest in a long line of efforts that the ridiculously consistent rapper has released for free on the internet. The 16-minute EP includes appearances from his Jets Life crew, but it's mostly a solo affair. Download it for free here (via Nah Right ).