Modest Mouse’s upcoming record We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank is one of my most impatiently anticipated CDs of 2007, so I’m feeling all giddy about certain MP3 blogs’ offering up the band’s perfect new single, “Dashboard.” ThaBombShelter is into the uncharacteristically upbeat mood of the track, noting that “it’s like the band actually realized the sun does shine and that the creaky, damp darkness that pervaded their earlier releases isn’t how the world has to be.” The band now features ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, “who shows his new touch with Washington’s finest,” says Obscure Sounds. And Blogs Are For Dogs has even included We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank on its future-predicting “Best Albums of 2007” list, since “Johnny Marr’s debut with the band only figures to expand on the success” of their last record, the fantastic Good News For People Who Love Bad News.

Like St. Elsewhere by Gnarls Barkley, TV On The Radio’s latest record Return to Cookie Mountain is destined to land at the top of so many music bloggers’ “Best of 2006” lists over the course of the coming month. The Brooklyn band’s scored some ThisNext love from dancingfordimes, who calls the new album “one of the truly great and original records to come out of the current indie music scene” and promises that Return to Cookie Mountain “sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard before.” Fellow shopcaster Fred Wilson agrees that “it’s hard to describe TV On The Radio’s music. The best I can come up with is a harder darker Arcade Fire.” Fred was sold on TV On The Radio after hearing Return to Cookie Mountain’s “Wolf Like Me” and feeling “immediately struck by the pounding drum beats and the distorted guitar that weaves throughout the song.” That track’s available for download at Both Sides of the Mouth, where blogger Alina giddily schools us on the band’s sound:

“Based in New York City, TV on the Radio has been around since 2001, blessing the indie scene with their falsetto vocals and avant-garde sound. Seriously, the vocals are trippy. All of the members join in on the songs, singing higher than Michael Jackson, creating this mad chorus of crazy voices. It’s perty awesome…They can seem pretty jazzy in one song, electro in another, doo-wop in one, and just straight indie rock in others. There are loops and synths and guitars and drums and saxes and flutes and more!”

My number-one musical obsession of the moment is probably Johnny Cash’s version of the traditional folk song “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” - hit up Blogs are for Dogs for the MP3 and video, featuring “some 30 odd cameos from famous folk, ranging from the baffling (Corrine Bailey Rae and Travis Barker) to the sublime (Billy Gibbons, Iggy Pop, and even Brian Wilson).” Which makes me want to listen to Moby’s interpretation of the same song, reimagined as “Run On” on 1999’s classic Play. That track’s one of esh’s favorites from the record, which he lauds as “[s]till fresh after a half dozen years. Lots of spirituals and blues influence, some electronic, lots not.” Rumford agrees that “this is just a great all around album and not a bad song on the cd,” a notion that I’d second despite the fact that I can’t hear Play without instantly recalling all the TV ads that Moby lent those non-bad songs too. (In fact, upon listening to the record many years ago with my then-nine-year-old sister, she asked me, “How come this CD has all songs from commercials on it?”)

Anyway. The bald one’s Hotel is also worth a listen, according to esh, even though “it didn’t grab me like Moby’s Play album did. Still glad I own it and plan to add it into my regular rotation.”

So you’re a little tired of songsters selling out more than just their concerts, all these molded pop stars are making you yawn.

Though Nelly Fergie Furtado’s abs in her new single are a work of art, it can be refreshing to hear that rare bird, a Real Rock Band, sing its little heart out.

...continued: Ooh La Love: Le Rock et Roll

With my love for fur, diamond K’s, and word play, were I not building an empire of soy lattes, vintage mink, and five-inch heels as a fashion writer, I’d build an empire of cash, money, and hoes as a rapper.

So obviously.

I spend most my waking, working hours rocking to Jay-Z, and while other ThisNext’ers music choices may be less linked to a completely credible alternative career, there’s plenty of music picked in our shopcast community according to lifestyle the tunes pimp.

...continued: Music: Sounds for Lifestyles

We love bloggers for their straight opinions - check bigstereo’s post on Brazilian Girls

Ok to be straight up, I wasn’t much of a fan of the first Brazilian Girls’ album. I probably should have been. I know a lot of you were. But for whatever reason it never clicked with me.

But their new single “Jique” has me excited. Prefect combination of some dirty synth mixed with dream pop oohs and aahs. “Jique” could easily be like five different songs going in five different directions, but Brazilian Girls effortlessly wrap it up into one. Here is some crazy square angles and perfect dance rock.

Dig it? No marketing hype, or even being distracted by that short shorts suit the lead singer is wearing.

Impressive.

Listen to “Jique” here.

Even the people pimping MP3s realize they’re more than just digital product.

Posts Pop-Ed, Rhapsody’s music blog:

While your faithful Rhapsodizers mostly remain glued to their monitors and slaving over their keyboards to produce all the wonderful content you know and love, they occassionally find time to discourse about stuff like, say, music. Actually, that’s usually done via monitors and keyboards as well, as with this email flurry that transpired yesterday afternoon. It began with a valid question and quickly unraveled into… well, I’ll just lay it out there and let you decide.

From: Michele Flannery
Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2006 1:59 PM
To: music@real.com
Subject: EMO advice


hey editorial folks,

Remember when Emo was —



and not this?



As a result, we are mulling on making an update to the Rhapsody style tree — moving EMO from under the “Indie Rock” realm over to “Punk” land to be associated with related “Punk-Pop” and “Skate Punk” sub-genres. The question is - do we completely move it over or duplicate it so that it lives in both genres. I think that EMO has taken on a whole new meaning in the last 2/3 years and is now of the commercially successful WARPED tour Modern Rock variety. Bye bye indie. Please screamo back if you disagree! == Michele K-tel

From: Jonathan Zwickel
Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2006 2:14 PM
To: ‘Eric Shea’; michelle Flannery; music@real.com
Subject: RE: EMO advice

screamo is different than emo or emo punk.

im with eric. extremo is good, but it sorta sounds like guys w guitars on motorcross bikes. im into betweeno or halloweeno (these guys wear a lot of makeup).

other options: seemo (cause it just seems like emo)
cold creamo (see above halloween definition)
regimo (if its politically focused)
low self-esteemo (obvious)


thoughts?

Because sometimes you get tired of getting your sexyback or being a promiscuous girl, there’s Seattle’s The Stranger’s music blog.

Blogging about the Snow Patrol, Devo, and…

“Still waiting for my advance of Paris Hilton’s self-titled album…”

Read more.

If shopcasting didn’t exist, would you find a great MP3 player besides an iPod? If music bloggers didn’t blog, would you find a catalogue of $0.99 MP3s of all Zimbabwean music?

Let’s ponder.

Zim Audio discovered via SoundRoots

We’ve got pretty solid standards for quality, but we’d say great aesthetics are in the eye of the shopcaster.

And priorities in the eye of the hip hop blogger.

Writes Byron Crawford for XXL:

“In case you haven’t heard, Jay-Z is teaming up with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan (like the president of the world, except he lacks the power to do much other than condemn the US and Israel) and once-important cable network MTV to bring water to the kinds of countries that don’t have water…

I think we can agree the US needs rap music more than Africa needs water.”

We’re all about the long tail, we dig invidiuality and quality over flash-in-the-pan mass success.

So this post from music blog Byron Crawford makes us smile:

“Rhymefest on his disappointing sales figures (from his MySpace blog):

As we all know by now, my highly-anticipated and critically-acclaimed debut album BLUE COLLAR sold about 15,000 copies during the first week. As it stands now in the mass-marketing, single-driven genre of Hip-Hop music, this is considered a flop or a failure. Or is it?

-Akon, the well-known R&B star, sold about 5,000 copies his first week. And now, he holds a platinum plaque for his debut album TROUBLE.
-Lyfe Jennings: 6,000 copies his first week; also platinum.
-Maroon 5: 3,000 copies their first week; now multi-platinum.


While none of these artists that I named are rappers, they all understood the ingredients for success:
1)good music,
2)touring & great stage shows,
3)humble attitudes (checking their ego at the door), and finally
4)never giving up.”

5) Shopcasting your MP3s?

Off “Come Back to Bed,” John Mayer croons “All of your things / tell the sweetest story line,” and the singer/songwriter darling has a blog.

So we’re convinced he’s sitting at his laptop, checking his email every five minutes, waiting for an invite to our shopcast network’s private beta.

It’s coming, John.

We love shopcasting priceless things… that have a price tag.

Like music blog Pondracket’s list of hot Rolling Stone covers.

Totally crying to be a shopcast.

Funny, music blog SCISSOR KICK’s disclaimer reads a little bit like our mission:

“This blog (shopcasting network) is used for the purposes of cultivating interests in musicians, designers and Web sites (and well designed products). We share media (discoveries) mainly with writers, editors, DJs, tastemakers, and more importantly consumers.”

ThisNext is all about the long tail, catering to the long tail of individuals instead of just the big blob of most popular.

So it’s fun to read music blog Coolfer’s Long Tail talk in terms of the music industry.

Working Knowledge has a post about The Long Tail by Harvard Business School professor James Heskett that poses some questions and asks readers for feedback.

“In the Long Tail, money is made by such things as avoiding inventory, producing to order, letting customers do the work, pricing creatively and flexibly to various customers, utilizing a variety of distribution methods, sharing information, trusting the market to do your job, and understanding the ‘power of free’ combined with money-making services or products. Does the Long Tail represent what some would call a ‘paradigm shift’? Who will the Long Tail benefit most: consumers, producers, or intermediaries?”

Coolfer answered that particular question just the other day. (Intermediaries.)

And you thought the Flaming Lips were just alt rock darlings.

As fondly remembers Pop Candy when posting about The OC’s hot mom, Beverly Hills 90210’s DVD release, “Thanks to the reader who pointed out the Flaming Lips were once on 90210. Go here to watch it.”

Gladly.

But more so for Dillan’s pompadour than anything else.

Though Talking Heads genius David Byrnes doesn’t look as good as Beyonce in booty shorts, he’s still got his finger on pop’s pulse.

Evidence?

David has a blog, and covers everything from “Art, Money, Industry and Landscape” to “American Madrassas” to -

Yep, music, like his latest review of Brazilian band Lenine.