In anticipation of the leak, they released the sheet music for the first single months ago, and encouraged fans to cover it. You can see the results at a site dedicated to the project here.

Here's a video about the project:

And their finest video:

See the video for the new single here.

From the gift-giving, perfectly timed last.fm page that blessed me with this amazing band:

Originating from Gothenburg, Sweden, Air France are the most obscure of the obscure. Their myspace page looks like it was put together by their grandmother. A google search reveals a disjointed, almost un-navigable website that sells strange clothes and, for no apparent reason, the "On Trade Winds" EP. Other than that, your guess is as good as mine. No interviews, no press, no iTunes or Amazon.

Shake your shit, bitches. And come and visit me in Brazil.

And, flexing my crowd sourcing muscles, I edited the Wikipedia page for Jorge Ben Jor. The old page (at the bottom, trivia):

American blues singer Taj Mahal, with the International Rhythm Band, recorded a song called "Jorge Ben" on his 1991 CD "Live & Direct." The songwriting credit is Ben/Mahal, and it's really a simplified version of Ben Jor's song "Taj Mahal" with the words 'Jorge Ben' sung over and over in place of the words 'Taj Mahal.' There are no other lyrics. During the chorus, the band plays the "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" disco riff.

The new page:

American blues singer Taj Mahal, with the International Rhythm Band, recorded a song called "Jorge Ben" on his 1991 CD "Live & Direct." The songwriting credit is Ben/Mahal, and it's really a simplified version of Ben Jor's song "Taj Mahal" with the words 'Jorge Ben' sung over and over in place of the words 'Taj Mahal.' There are no other lyrics. It's often thought that during the chorus, the band plays the "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" disco riff, however a plagiarism lawsuit confirmed that the song had been derived from his composition "Taj Mahal". Stewart agreed to donate all his royalties from the song to United Nations Children's Fund.

So, according to Wikipedia, these guys were at Glastonbury and Coachella last year, thus illustrating why I have to suck it up and go to the big events. They're unbelievably amazing, incredible intelligent hip-hop lyrics out of the UK, with catchy beats and some really amazingly sensitive lyrics. Like, should put Usher to shame.

I've got the whole album Angles and while there are other big hits like this ("The beat that my heart skipped," "Thou shalt always Kill,") there are also slow almost love songs like "Tommy" and "Waiting for the beat to kick in" (wait for the final half).

Highly recommended, not just for the hits :)

And? I'm totally going to cop his style.

But I love them and I love their new record and I love this girl covering Ask Her for Some Adderall the most. From her youtube page (incase you're thinking of being a dick): "I know its not awesome.. this video is mostly for me to look back to and see if I have improved. If you have nothing nice to say.. don't say it at all. I don't need your negative comments."

ginginny77, it's awesome. Fuck the haters. I wish there was youtube when I was 21. I think.

Lyrics (yeah, they're amazing) and The Hold Steady version after the jump.

It makes me want to make my own "if she asks" list. I'm not going to share mine with you (I'm not 21, after all) but if you get me drunk I'll probably spill it.

If she asks, don't I'll tell her that I'm living hand-to-mouth.
Don't tell her I've been sleeping on your couch.
If she asks just tell her that we opened for the Stones,
It's her favourite band except for the Ramones.

If she happens to suggest
A love based on trust and respect,
Tell I've been wasted since last week.
If she wants to stop on by,
Tell her that I almost died.
Tell her I ain't seein' people yet.
But see if she'll send cigarettes.

If she asks don't tell her 'bout the bloodshed in the streets,
The less she knows, the less she can repeat.
If she happens to bring up
The pin pricks and the throwin' up,
Tell her it's just part of growin' up.
If she wants to get involved,
Tell her to stay in St. Paul.
Tell her I'm not up to takin' calls,
Ask her for some Adderall.

Now Holly won't say hi to me
'Cause I'm in love with my anxiety

If she asks just tell her that we're too far gone to deal.
She should know exactly how that feels.
If she wants a scene report,
Don't tell her 'bout the kicked in doors.
Tell her we ain't even keeping score no more.
If she wants to help the cause,
Tell her we need sterile gauze.
Tell her she should look through all her medicine
And see if she's got Klonopins

Now Charlemagne don't seem the same
He's skinny, scared, and off his game
He's been hiding from those gentlemen
With the same tattoos as Gideon

Dj Mujava - Township Funk introducing whiteys to kwaito.

This 21 year old guy is from South Africa, and is the pride of the Pretoria underground, best I can tell. I'm still trying to learn more, but there's a whole deal with the taxi drivers being the tastemakers cum record distributors.

It's catchy as hell. It's awesome looking kids dancing in the street. Its repetitive. Without the video I might think some lame ass guy in Brooklyn made it, but with the context of the video it totally rocks my world, and I've replayed it over and over again, and the genre is kicking my ass.

Plus, the guy's real name is Elvis Maswanganyi. Come on! Awesomeness!

I'm totally ready for a Capetown to Johannesburg trip. Who's with me?

YouTube user BunnyGreenhouse has created videos for four of the fourteen tracks from Feed the Animals so far.

Girl Talk's response:

I bought the new Hot Chip record a few weeks back, but hadn't even broken the seal yet. I put it on this morning to cheer me up enough to get out of the house for an eleventh day of work in a row, and it was good and poppy. Just the sort of thing we'd play here :) But one song really caught me. It's slow and sweet. You might find it cloying, but I hope not. It made me happy and gentle.

There's an awesome New York Magazine conversation (neck and neck with VF for my fave trash entertainment) with Liz Phair about her past, present and otherwise, but the story about Exile's cover is the standout for me. Clearly I have problems because my strongest memory of that time in my life is of the pills that I hid in the jewel box, not about her nipple.

One amusing instance of which was the shooting of Exile's cover photo
That was so funny. I turned in a still from a friend of mine's student film for the cover of the CD -- it was an orgy of Barbies floating in a pool. Matador was like, "What the FUCK is this?!" They called up Nash [Kato, of Urge Overkill] and asked him to help. So he comes to me and goes, "Lizzy, listen, the record's great, but they're not digging this. Why don't you go into the photo booth, take off your shirt, leave on your necklaces." And before I went into the bathroom, he was like, "Oh, and remember to put lipstick on your nipples," because I have very light-pink nipples, and I figured it was some weird porno thing he knew about. Like, "Wow that's why the nipples always look so good!" So I went in the photo booth, and for the first couple of shots, I was sort of shy. He really wanted me to just be like sex.

Much as this is a story about Exile and I want to post "Fuck and Run" or "Flower", I really can't put anything here but California. All because of the most amazing night of sitting in my Dolores Street apartment with wonderful people, singing along after I'd cooked us a lackluster, but homecooked, damnit! meal :) Thanks for everything, J.

Of particular note to one I Play The Hits author, J Beaman is that the original name and formation of The Faint was a Norman Mailer reference! They were to be called Norman Bailer, and to have had Mr Bright Eyes himself, Conor Oberst in the band. But luckily for us, they did it on their own! Credit the omnipresent Wikipedia for said factoid

Weirdly, they seem to have played some variant of this single as early as 2006 (see video on YouTube here), but the below version is waaayy better now :)

They left original label Saddle Creek seems and are on their own as blank.wav, surely a reference to their earlier album "Blank Wave Arcade." (duh).

Can you imagine a song more perfect for Sesame Street? In case you haven't seen it, the original:

To hang out with these guys.

Dominico+2 (also know as The +2's because the three members have put out three different records as Moreno+2 and Kassin+2) Alegria, vai lá. Joy, goes there. Or something like that. My Portuguese sucks ass.

Update: A friend in BH (Belo Horizonte, Brasil) says this about Alegria, vai lá - "I think this is a slang from Rio, sometimes you can call someone alegria, if this person is a happy person... maybe that, did not understand so well either, just means be up, be joyful I think..."

Update: There are some problems with the text rendering of the infinity symbol and the Portuguese special letters. The sysadmin is on that shit.

And it was awesome and you were special.