Blog: Stereogum

UK duo Field Music are soon to release Plumb , their newest LP of jumbled, jagged indie-pop, and we've already posted the early tracks " (I Keep Thinking About A) New Thing " and " A New Town ." And right now, the whole 15-song, 36-minute album is streaming at NPR . Click here to hear it. Plumb is out 2/21 on Memphis Industries . Check out our Progress Report interview with the band.

Depending on how you look at it, Sunday's Super Bowl telecast was dominated either by the Giants or by M.I.A.'s middle finger. But how about the commercials? Well, given how expensive all of dem tings are, it is probably not a great sign that there are so few worth discussing this morning. There did seem to be a few trends: commercials that zipped through time, often depicting party scenes and/or sports (e.g. Budweiser's Prohibition mashups; the NFL's in-house spot), as were ziplines for some reason (e.g. that Seinfeld car commercial). No commercial brought the party and the zipline into one [...]

BTJunkie, one of the top torrent sites in the world, has voluntarily shut down, and you can't help but figure that the legal shutdown of Megaupload played a role in the site's founders' decision. The seven-year-old website has ended by posting a statement to its users: "We've been fighting for years for your right to communicate, but it's time to move on. It's been an experience of a lifetime, we wish you all the best!"

The celebration of Leonard Cohen's new album Old Ideas continues in the new issue of MOJO which comes with a disc of The Songs Of Leonard Cohen covers from the likes of Bill Callahan, Father John Misty , Cass McCombs, Field Music and others. Stream Callahan's contribution below, a rendition of Cohen's " So Long Marianne ." Read More...

In the build up to Bon Iver's SNL performance , Eau Claire's WEAU TV produced a segment about Justin Vernon's upbringing and rise to fame featuring his family and friends. And if that's not enough Bon Iver cultural saturation for you this morning, fitness specialist Jeff Rodgers has released another trailer for his workout video featuring Bon Iver working out on the road. Check out the Bon-anza below. Read More...

Her album and her Saturday Night Live performance both took critical poundings, but Lana Del Rey has already found one important celebrity pseudo-defender in Kristen Wiig . And now Liz Phair, a musician who knows a couple of things about launching controversy, has forcefully come to Del Rey's defense in a new opinion piece on the Wall Street Journal website. It makes sense that Phair feels some kinship with Del Rey; she's another attractive woman who got famous pretty quickly by singing songs about desire and sex, and [...]

The biggest story to come out of last night's Super Bowl was this: In a repeat of their historic 2008 victory, the New York Giants won a dramatic come-from-behind victory over the favored New England Patriots, with the Patriots botching their last-minute touchdown attempt. The second-most-important story was this: During her short appearance at Madonna's halftime show, M.I.A. slyly flipped off the camera in a way that wasn't immediately apparent to most of the people watching the show. Nice job, M.I.A. Read More...

With one week to go before the Grammys (at which Justin Vernon may win some big awards, but will not perform, thankyouverymuch ) Bon Iver hit Studio 8H as musical guests for SNL 's Channing Tatum-hosted episode. The band played "Holocene" and my favorite song of last year "Beth/Rest," plus Colin Stetson wore a Liturgy shirt. During Weekend Update, Kristen Wiig impersonated Lana Del Rey, cleverly "apologizing" for her maligned SNL performance last month. Watch Bon Iver and the Update segment below. Read More...

This week our old friends Jack White and M.I.A. returned, and despite unseasonably pleasant weather (at least in NYC) you stuck around your laptops to welcome them with accolades and constructive criticism. We appreciate it! We also appreciate your in-jokes! Let's take a look at the week's highest and lowest rated comments and see who we appreciated most! Read More...

In November, long-standing Irish folk legends the Chieftains announced that they were recording with Bon Iver, the Decemberists, Pistol Annies and more for their new LP, Voice Of Ages . Last month, we heard Bon Iver's collaboration with the group, " Down In The Willow Garden ," and now the Decemberists' contribution has surfaced at Rolling Stone , a cover of Bob Dylan's "When The Ship Comes In." Scope a video of the Chieftains discussing working with all these younger bands down below. Read More...

To celebrate Leonard Cohen's new record Old Ideas , our Album Of The Week , Columbia is putting together a series of tribute videos featuring contemporary artists covering their favorite Cohen songs. First up is Bradford Cox doing Cohen's " Seems So Long Ago, Nancy " from 19692s Songs From A Room . Head over to Pitchfork to scope the performance.

On the 2009 season of American Idol , in which he finished second place, Adam Lambert proved himself to be really good at wailing high notes, whether or not the songs he was singing actually required those high notes. And now he tells the British press that he's about to stand in for one of rock's all-time great high-wailiers: Freddie Mercury. According to the Daily Star , Lambert claims that he'll be joining Queen's Brian May and Roger Taylor at Europe's touring Sonisphere festival: "The intention is to pay tribute to Freddie [...]

So far, we've heard a pair of really nice-sounding tracks from Frankie Rose's upcoming Interstellar - " Know Me " and " Night Swim " - and now she's made the starry title track available. It's probably the best thing we've heard from the release so far. Hit the stream below. Read More...

Air got famous in the late '90s by making sexed-up retro-futuristic bachelor-pad music that sounded like the most French thing ever created. But their new LP, Le Voyage Dans La Lune , is a bit of a departure. It started out as a new score for a restored version of the classic silent film of the same title, and it's more of an organ-laden psych-rock zone-out than anything they've done before. We've already heard the tracks " Sonic Armada ," " Parade ," and the Victoria Legrand collab " Seven Stars ." And now the [...]

England's the Big Pink are masters of the soaring electro-rock anthem and "Give It Up," a cut from their new LP Future This is no exception. 4AD recently made the track available for free download, which you can find below. Read More...

• The Big Pink - Give It Up

After last year's Grammys, when Arcade Fire performed dodging Mat Hoffman bike-tricks and then immediately won the Album Of The Year award, the award show has a high standard to live up to when it comes to ridiculous and implausible but kind of awesome indie-rock performances. But even though Bon Iver got nominated for a boatload of Grammys and s howed up in a Grammy ad , we won't get a chance to see Justin Vernon singing "Holocene" from the bottom of Tony Hawk's halfpipe. As it turns out, Bon Iver isn't performing at this year's ceremony. [...]

You know that voice on the other end of the line, in the drunk-dial-gone-wrong narrative of Drake's Take Care standout " Marvin's Room ?" Well, allegedly, that other voice is Drake's ex-girlfriend Ericka Lee, to whom Drake promised half the songs' proceeds (according to Lee). But that didn't happen, and now she's suing. According to Billboard : Lee reports that after the song was released, their relationship ended and got ugly fast. The two discussed meeting in Los Angeles, but it never happened. According to the complaint, Drake later sent a text message [...]

No clue. (To avoid confusion, "ROCKIN'" is basically code for "ROCKING.") (via @SubPop )

This was not the week to release a halfassed music video. This was the week when a whole lot of people, from microbudget indie nobodies to massive stars, worked hard on giving us something. Even the terrible videos, like the absurd and garish Madonna football-themed car-wreck " Give Me All Your Luvin' " were the product of a whole ton of obvious work. I had to leave some very good videos off this list, and everything below is well worth your eyeball-time. And that goes triple for this week's #1 pick, a badass iconic clip from an artist [...]

The sparkling Swedish electro-pop unit Miike Snow are about to drop their new album Happy To You , and we've already posted the new tracks " Paddling Out ," " Devil's Work ," and the Lykke Li collab " Black Tin Box ." And now "Paddling Out" has an expensive, borderline-incomprehensible video in which a slob discovers a pair of magical dancing shoes. Space-people then kidnap our hero and attempt to transform him into the perfect man, and things get weirder from there. Consider yourself warned: This thing doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Watch it below. [...]