Christian Hoard’s “Christian Rock” new music pick this week is Kate Nash’s My Best Friend Is You. The 22-year-old British singer’s 2008 album went platinum in the U.K. and showed off her cockney accent, witty piano pop and general English cheekiness. The new album is more expansive, confident and simply better. Nash is a tuneful hurricane of TMI, flipping between insecurity and chutzpah as she sings about stinky feet and threatens to do bad things to a boyfriend if he makes out with another woman. On one of Hoard’s favorite tracks, “I Just Love You More,” Nash tries out a heavy PJ Harvey vibe. Though she gets compared to Lily Allen, Nash doesn’t make political statements like Allen did on her most recent disc, and seems kookier in general. Hoard argues Best Friend may be the most tuneful album we get from the U.K. this year.

To read Nash’s take on making the record check out Kate Nash Talks My Best Friend Is You.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist Jeff Beck will release his new album Emotion & Commotion next Tuesday, April 13th, and as an extra incentive to purchase Beck’s first studio album in seven years on iTunes, the digital music service is offering up an exclusive 30-minute interview between Beck and Alice Cooper. The two rock icons talk about a wide range of topics from cars to guitars, but in this RS exclusive excerpt from the chat, they explore the influence of Beck’s other Rock Hall band, the Yardbirds.

“It was something American kids had never heard before. You guys were sending us back our own blues, but we didn’t even know it was ours,” Cooper says of first hearing the Yardbirds during the great wave of the British Invasion. “To this day, I don’t think there’s a record as unique as ‘Happenings Ten Years Time Ago.’ ”

For much more on the Yardbirds straight from the mouths of Beck and Eric Clapton, be sure to check out the stories below:

• Jeff Beck on His Legendary Unreleased 1970 Motown Album
• Jeff Beck on New LP “Emotion & Commotion” and Recording the Perfect Guitar Solo
• Eric Clapton On Jeff Beck’s Singing and Having An Old Man’s Voice
• Eric Clapton On Revisiting “Layla,” Sobriety and Reflecting on His Life

Last week, Jakob Dylan dropped by the RS offices to preview tunes from his new disc, Women & Country, a collection of country-roots ballads that address love and American life in times of economic and political uncertainty. He also came prepped with some A-list backup, bringing along singers Neko Case and Kelly Hogan to perform three tunes, including the gorgeous ballad “Nothing but the Whole Wide World” (watch it above).

For Women & Country, Dylan reunited up with producer T Bone Burnett, who produced the Wallflowers’ breakthrough record Bringing Down the Horse in the mid-Nineties. While the laid-back vibe of the disc suggests Dylan was casual about the recording process, the sessions actually took place over one marathon week. “I met up with T Bone while he was finishing up work on the Crazy Heart soundtrack,” says Dylan. “We were just passing around guitars and I played “Nothing” for him — it was the one [new] song I had written. He liked it enough that he said that we should go make another record. I took that as a challenge to get fifteen songs together in six weeks.”

Jakob also revealed that he did spin his new record for his famous father, Bob, and that the feedback was positive. “He likes it, yeah,” says Jakob. “I think everybody would like to sit here and say he thinks their record is great. But, yeah, he’s very supportive.” Keep reading to see two more songs — “Holy Roller for Love” and “They’ve Trapped Us Boys.”

“Holy Rollers For Love”

“They’ve Trapped Us Boys”

[Video: Eric Helton/Matthew Murphy; Editing: Matthew Murphy]

When Erykah Badu stripped down to nothing in the middle of Dallas for her “Window Seat” video, the neo-soul singer not only raised eyebrows of the Dallas PD but also entered the pantheon of great and provocative music videos that push television censors and NSFW to the max. Matt & Kim’s nude run through Times Square for “Lessons Learned,” the clip that inspired Badu, scored the relatively unknown duo the Breakthrough Video prize at the 2009 MTV Music Video Awards, proving that while the clip itself might have been too taboo for MTV, showing a little skin goes a long way.

Rolling Stone has collected our favorite boundary-pushing music videos, from Chris Isaak’s rollick on the beach with a topless Helena Christensen in “Wicked Game” above to Girls’ porn-pushing “Lust for Life.”
Below, watch “Window Seat,” “Lessons Learned” plus videos by Blink-182, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears and a video by Madonna that was deemed “Too Hot for TV” back in the day. And for more classic nude moments in music, be sure to visit our Crotch Rock gallery and Getting Naked: Big Names Show Some Skin on the Cover of Rolling Stone.

Chris Isaak – “Wicked Game”

Erykah Badu – “Window Seat”

Michael Jackson – “You Are Not Alone”

Matt & Kim – “Lessons Learned”

Madonna – “Justify My Love”

Sigur Ros – “Gobbledigook”

Britney Spears – “Everytime”

Alanis Morissette – “Thank U”

Blink-182 – “What’s My Age Again?”

Girls – “Lust for Life”

Related Stories:

• Infamous Crotch Rock Moments: From Adam Lambert’s AMAs Stunt to “Dick in a Box”
• Getting Naked: Big Names Show Some Skin on the Cover of Rolling Stone
• Police May Charge Erykah Badu for Nude “Window Seat” Video

When Erykah Badu stripped down to nothing in the middle of Dallas for her “Window Seat” video, the neo-soul singer not only raised eyebrows of the Dallas PD but also entered the pantheon of great and provocative music videos that push television censors and NSFW to the max. Matt & Kim’s nude run through Times Square for “Lessons Learned,” the clip that inspired Badu, scored the relatively unknown duo the Breakthrough Video prize at the 2009 MTV Music Video Awards, proving that while the clip itself might have been too taboo for MTV, showing a little skin goes a long way.

Rolling Stone has collected our favorite boundary-pushing music videos, from Chris Isaak’s rollick on the beach with a topless Helena Christensen in “Wicked Game” above to Girls’ porn-pushing “Lust for Life.”
Below, watch “Window Seat,” “Lessons Learned” plus videos by Blink-182, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears and a video by Madonna that was deemed “Too Hot for TV” back in the day. And for more classic nude moments in music, be sure to visit our Crotch Rock gallery and Getting Naked: Big Names Show Some Skin on the Cover of Rolling Stone.

Erykah Badu – “Window Seat”

Michael Jackson – “You Are Not Alone”

Matt & Kim – “Lessons Learned”

Madonna – “Justify My Love”

Sigur Ros – “Gobbledigook”

Britney Spears – “Everytime”

Alanis Morissette – “Thank U”

Blink-182 – “What’s My Age Again?”

Girls – “Lust for Life”

Related Stories:

• Infamous Crotch Rock Moments: From Adam Lambert’s AMAs Stunt to “Dick in a Box”
• Getting Naked: Big Names Show Some Skin on the Cover of Rolling Stone
• Police May Charge Erykah Badu for Nude “Window Seat” Video

Our cameras were rolling onstage and behind the scenes, capturing some of the most incredible footage of the fest — watch it all right here: Dixie Chicks side project Court Yard Hounds open up about the birth of the band, the Whigs tell the story behind their new album, David Fricke questions Jimmie Dale Gilmore about Austin’s enduring weirdness and talks to John Doe about happiness affecting his art, Jonathan Ringen gets Free Energy to chat about Tom Petty and Dawes to debate their influences. Plus, see Mayer Hawthorne hanging out on the set of our historical photo shoot and talks about Snoop and Smokey Robinson, and catch some of Band of Skulls’ searing live set.

Band of Skulls

Court Yard Hounds

Jimmie Dale Gilmore

Free Energy

The Whigs

Dawes

John Doe

Mayer Hawthorne

A new documentary on the Doors called When You’re Strange is hitting theaters April 9th after opening to acclaimed reviews at Sundance 2009. Since its debut last year, director Tom DiCillo has added a megastar to narrate the film — Johnny Depp — plus tightened up the film’s editing to better tell the story of the psych-rock legends. In Rolling Stone’s exclusive clip from When You’re Strange, check out footage of Jim Morrison and Co. taking the stage in 1968, flanked by police officers prepared for a crowd riot.

“Watching the hypnotic, hitherto unreleased footage of Jim, John, Ray and Robby, I felt like I experienced it all through their eyes,” Depp said in a statement. “As a rock & roll documentary, or any kind of documentary for that matter, it simply doesn’t get any better than this. What an honor to have been involved. I am as proud of this as anything I have ever done.”

Break on Through: a gallery of Doors artifacts.

In the new issue of Rolling Stone, Peter Travers gives When You’re Strange a three-star review, writing, “Clips from a film Morrison made himself in the desert are alone worth the price of admission… New fans and old will find the experience hypnotic.” The documentary was produced by Law & Order honcho Dick Wolf, a huge fan of the Doors who was eager to share their story again on the big screen.

“They say if you remember the ’60s you weren’t there. I can state definitively that one of the things I do remember is buying the Doors first album the day it came out and then listening to it about 10 or 12 times in a row. Both sides. Every song. I’ve been a fan ever since,” said Wolf in a statement. “This movie is the story of the band but it is also an insight into a moment in time that will never be repeated.”

The doc’s soundtrack, which includes live tracks and studio cuts, arrived in stores yesterday.

Who: Heavy Swedish pop outfit fronted by manic 34-year-old singer Josephine Olausson, a fierce frontlady who has a fan in Karen O. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer likes the band so much it inspired her song “All is Love” on the Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack.

Sounds Like: The band’s insanely catchy new disc Two Thousand and Ten Injuries combines the sound of early Nineties grrrl-punk acts bands like Huggy Bear and Bikini Kill with warm Sixties pop harmonies. “Kungen” borrows from the Turtles “Happy Together,” but drowns it in rich psychedelia. “Bigger Bolder” is buzzing garage-rock, boasting fuzzed out bass and Olausson’s Björk-like vocals. “I usually just tell people we play rock music, because it gets too complicated,” Olausson tells Rolling Stone.

Vital Stats:

• The band’s name derives from a late-night TV session. Olausson was flipping channels at home in the working-class city of Gothenburg when she saw classic Sixties spy program A Man From U.N.C.L.E. In the episode, she remembers secret agents infiltrated a Manson-like hippie sect when she spotted her future band’s name on the creepy entrance gate to the compound. “It looked perfect,” she says, but the band didn’t go for it at first — and Olausson seems to regret her choice. “People say ‘You’re in a Beatles cover band?’ ” she says. “I realize now it’s kind of a retarded name,” she says. “I think you only feel that way once a week.”

• The band has some tangled romantic relationships. Olausson used to date drummer Markus Görsch, but after they split she married to San Francisco indie artist Wyatt Cusick in 2006. Cusick co-produced their new disc, but Olausson swears things weren’t awkward with her former flame. “I think to outsiders it’s weird,” she says. “We never had a major falling out or anything. If anything, we’re more brutally honest with each other and criticize each other.”

• The band is full of klutzes, which inspired the album title Two Thousand and Ten Injuries. Olausson smashed her nose when she fell down a narrow staircase a year and a half ago in Switzerland, and she helped break Görsch’s nose while the two were playing their one and only game of catch. Bassist Johan Lindwall is just always sick. “It seems like things go wrong a lot. We’re a very fragile band.”

Get It Now: Watch the band’s clip for “Kungen” up top, and grab a free download of “Bigger, Bolder.”

Rolling Stone contributing editor Christian Hoard’s “Christian Rock” new music pick this week is Cornershop’s Judy Sucks a Lemon for Breakfast. The band — one of the great alt-rock bands of the ’90s — is led by Anglo-Indian frontman Tjinder Singh and mixes drones, Velvet Underground-style guitars, sitar, bits of electronica and dub. The new disc leans more toward classic rock, which here serves as an inspiration and a loose theme (there are Rolling Stones riffs, soul divas and lyrics about the Beatles). One of Hoard’s favorite tracks on the disc is “Free Love,” five and a half minutes of sweet, blissful psychedelia based on sitar, non-English lyrics and a very pretty melody. Overall, the album is expansive, tuneful and warm. It closes with the churchy, soulful 16-minute “The Truth Is Turned On,” which features a fabulous mix of congas and guitars — it’s a fitting way to end an album that’s an argument for multiculturalism and Singh’s own brand of spirituality.

Catch up on all of Rolling Stone’s album reviews.

>>Watch every episode of our weekly New Music Report video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Tuesday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]

Weezer unveiled the clip for “I’m Your Daddy,” the latest single from Raditude, on MySpace Music and Weezer.com today. While Rivers Cuomo and gang have relied on YouTube all-stars, doppelgangers and Muppets in the past, “I’m Your Daddy” finds just Weezer themselves rocking out onstage and hanging out backstage in handheld footage and fan animation.

“The video features a dense attack of classic Weezer moments from the last year of touring and other activity, culled from many sources including footage shot by yours truly while traveling with the band,” Weezer.com’s Karl Koch writes on their official site. “There are lots of surprises, as well as recognizable moments from everything that’s been happening lately, right up to This January’s epic show at FSU.” Look out for cameos by Paramore’s Hayley Williams, Kenny G and Sara Bareilles.

Also out today is MGMT’s “Flash Delirium,” the duo’s first “single” — the band previously vowed not to release any true singles — from Congratulations. View the clip over onWho Is MGMT?. The video, directed by Andreas Nilsson, finds the MGMT boys attending a “Welcome Home” party for Ben Goldwasser with a crew of old military folks at a mansion. It starts off weird, then gets even stranger when the ventriloquist dummies start singing and finally climaxes when a General rips a giant sea snake out of Goldwasser’s throat. It’s all very Naked Lunch, but to anyone who has seen Congratulations‘ zany album cover, it’s what we’ve come to expect from MGMT.

Finally, we have Kelis’ new video for the David Guetta-produced “Acapella.” Following the birth of her son with Nas, Kelis is light years away from the yard where she used to serve the boys milkshakes in “Acapella,” occupying the Gaga galaxy with a mix of futuristic fashion, body paint and wild headdresses. An ode to her son, the dance single is the first from Kelis’ upcoming album Flesh Tone, due out this summer. You can watch “Acapella,” co-directed by Chris Cottam, Rankin and Nicole Ehrlich, on Kelis’ official site — wait for the end to see a surprise appearance by Nas and Kelis’ son, Knight.

Iggy Pop’s already legendary closing set at the Tibet House benefit concert on February 26th will go down in the annals of rock history in another way: The recent Hall of Fame inductee has gone on the record saying that the infamous dive off the Carnegie Hall stage will be his last. “When I landed, it hurt, and I made a mental note that Carnegie Hall would be a good place for my last stage dive,” Pop told Rolling Stone’s Austin Scaggs in a Q&A in our current issue.

Five decades of Raw Power: Iggy Pop and the Stooges in photos.

Various news outlets have reported that the audience let him fall, but visual evidence of the event has been hard to come by. Now Rolling Stone has video of exactly what went down.

We were in the third row, enjoying the Tibet House annual gig’s typically eclectic mix of rockers and world artists (read our full report on the show). Patti Smith had just revved up the crowd with a classic extended take of “Gloria,” and then ceded the stage to “one of our sacred veterans” while her band played the opening chords to “The Passenger.”

Iggy stalked the Carnegie Hall stage, ripping his black shirt off barely 30 seconds into the song (”Aw, fuck this shirt!”) and doing his patented iguana dance. He owned the place. I turned to my friend Steve and asked facetiously, “Do you think he’s going to stage dive?” Steve smiled and continued to record video of the performance on his cell phone.

Before the set closer, Iggy demanded that the house lights be turned on. When the Patti Smith group launched into “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” the audience went nuts. With the crowd in the palm of his hand, Iggy hovered near the edge of the stage. A man with glasses, who had earlier entertained the crowd when he rushed the stage to bop along to Smith’s set, was right underneath him and beckoned to Iggy to jump. I thought this was it, get ready, because depending on the trajectory of his launch, Iggy could have landed right on us.

But he never made it. Although some people in the front put up their hands to catch Iggy, those in his direct path let him drop, including the gentleman who had been goading Iggy to dive. Once Iggy was airborne, the man, in a total George Costanza move, pulled his arms back and stepped to the side. Others in the first and second row parted like the Red Sea. I screamed, “Completely uncool!” at the people in front of us as Iggy crashed face-first into a seat.

As the band kept playing the riff to “Dog,” Iggy was stunned, if only for a couple of seconds. Then, digging the punk-rock momentousness of his actions, he smiled, stuck out his tongue and started singing the song while still draped over the seats. Iggy got up, climbed back on stage and finished the performance — and further cemented his legend as the ultimate rock & roll provocateur.

[Video courtesy of Steve Boyle]

Leave it to Erykah Badu to merge one of the most popular music videos in recent memory with one of the most infamous moments in American history: In “Window Seat,” the second video off her New Amerykah Part Two (Return Of The Ankh), Badu combines Matt & Kim’s stripping-in-Times Square clip for “Lessons Learned” with the Kennedy assassination, shooting her one-take video in the exact same Dallas intersection where President Kennedy was killed in 1963.

Badu removes articles of clothing throughout her walk down the grassy knoll, and as just as Matt & Kim’s “Lessons Learned” ends with Kim being killed by a bus, Badu’s death — like Kennedy’s — comes from a sniper’s bullet. The music video was even shot in a blurry style that mirrors all the home movie footage that now serves to document the Kennedy assassination. In the video, Badu is making a statement against “group think,” saying in a voiceover in the closing seconds, “They play it safe, and are quick to assassinate what they don’t understand.”

Badu has been on a Twitter spree since the video was unveiled yesterday, answering fan questions and relaying her experience walking naked down a crowded Dallas street in the middle of St. Patrick’s Day. “They were yelling , THIS IS A PUBLIC PLACE : YOU OUGHTA BE ASHAMED : PUT YOUR CLOTHES ON : DAMN GIRL!,” Badu tweeted. “Heard people yelling diff things @ me but i held my head up and kept moving.there were children there. i prayed they wouldn’t b traumatized…” Badu says no camera tricks were employed in the video and that she called Matt & Kim for advice and permission before shooting “Window Seat.” “Funny thing is, the physical nudity is nothing lol. i been naked all along in my words actions and deeds. thats the real vulnerable place,” Badu wrote on Twitter.

For much more on Badu, be sure to check out our profile on the New Amerykah singer in the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone, on stands this Wednesday. Until then, check out Matt & Kim’s “Lessons Learned”:

Butch Walker, “one of America’s best singer-songwriters,” according to Rolling Stone’s review of latest disc I Liked It Better When You Had No Heart, recently stopped by the RS offices to perform a stripped-down set of songs from the album with bandmate Fran Capitanelli.

Walker, whose producing credits include Pink, Katy Perry and Dashboard Confessional, says his next project will be sessions with Norwegian rocker Ida Maria, who broke out last year with a song whose title isn’t very different from his own lengthy album name — “I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked” — and played her own Live at Rolling Stone set. He admitted his gig working on Weezer’s Raditude was “surreal and a lifelong fantasy,” and says he doesn’t have any immediate plans to work with Taylor Swift again despite their team-up at the Grammys on “You Belong With Me.”

Butch Walker and the Black Widows are on tour with Train until the middle of April and kick off a headlining trek in May. Check out Walker and Capitanelli’s performances of “Trash Day” above, and “Pretty Melody” and “Temporary Title” right here:

“Pretty Melody”

“Temporary Title”

[Video: Eric Helton/Matthew Murphy; Editing: Matthew Murphy]

Beck’s Record Club — his running series of quickly made cover albums featuring a rotating cast of collaborators — has returned with a satisfyingly surprising choice: INXS’ 1987 hit album Kick. This time around, the Modern Guilt singer recruited Liars, St. Vincent and Os Mutantes’ Sergio Dias to join him in the studio.

Kick was suggested by Liars’ Angus Andrews, a native of Australia and the first one to step up to the microphone for the album’s opener, “Guns in the Sky.” (Keeping with tradition, Beck will post Kick songs once a week in the order of the album’s track list.) The Record Club’s “Guns in the Sky” features some pretty great guitar work from Dias, one of Beck’s musical heroes. “It was recorded in a little over 12 hours on March 3rd, 2010. It was an intense, hilarious, daunting and completely fun undertaking,” Beck writes on his official site. “Many classic moments, inspired performances and occasional anarchy.” Kick tracks on the way include the hits “New Sensation,” “Devil Inside,” “Need You Tonight” and the track we’re most looking forward to, “Never Tear Us Apart.”

As Rolling Stone previously reported, Beck has rerecorded The Velvet Underground & Nico with producer Nigel Godrich and singer Thorunn Magnusdottir, Songs of Leonard Cohen with MGMT, Devendra Banhart and Wolfmother’s Andrew Stockdale and most recently, Skip Spence’s Oar with help from Wilco and Feist. When Beck first launched the Club, he noted that he wanted to take on Ace of Base’s The Sign with his all-star cohorts — we’re still anxiously waiting for that one to arrive.

Related Stories:

• Beck Announces Plans to Redo Classic Albums for Record Club
• Beck Recruits MGMT, Wolfmother, Banhart For “Leonard Cohen” Redo
• Beck’s Record Club Tackles Skip Spence’s “Oar” with Wilco, Feist

RS‘ Kevin O’Donnell examines Volume Two, the new disc by She and Him in this week’s New Music Report. The unlikely pair — singer-songwriter M. Ward and actress Zooey Deschanel — broke out two years ago with their debut Volume One. At first, it seemed like She and Him would be a one-off project, but their follow-up proves they’ve got staying power. Volume 2 is one of the prettiest retro-pop records you’ll hear this year and Deschanel sounds more confident behind the mike than ever, singing songs about love and loss in a bright, keening croon — she may not be the most show-offy singer, but she definitely has charm. Musically, the disc veers towards sunny pop tunes that call to mind classic rock groups like Mamas and the Papas and Fleetwood Mac. The highlight is the lead single “In the Sun,” which features pretty Phil Spector-style production.

Catch up on all of Rolling Stone’s new album reviews.

>>Watch every episode of our weekly New Music Report video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Tuesday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don't have iTunes, download it here.]

If Hollywood asked us to write a biopic for “Weird Al” Yankovic, we’d likely pen an unofficial UHF sequel packed with parodies, fantastical interludes and a loose retelling of the story of everyone’s favorite accordionist. Thankfully, Funny or Die took a more amusing and unlikely approach with their faux-trailer for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, retelling the story of the musical satirist as a satire of serious biopics like Ray and Walk the Line. Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul plays “Weird Al,” who despite his parents’ protests and immeasurable odds rises to become the wearer of colorful shirts and parodist of Top 40 songs.

Along the way, “Yankovic” meets up Dr. Demento — a cameo by Patton Oswalt — who inspires Yankovic to follow his accordion dreams. Later, Yankovic encounters Madonna, played by Olivia Wilde, and the two embark on a torrid love affair after Weird Al’s “Like a Surgeon” mocks “Like a Virgin.” That last part seems fictional, but the real “Weird Al” seems down to parody his own life, appearing briefly as a record exec telling “Yankovic” that no one would want to hear a parody when they can hear the real thing.

And of course, like all rock biopics, the downward spiral of booze, drugs and fame catches up to our hero, even if our hero has a moustache and plays the accordion. It’s safe to say that, if this were a real biopic, it would easily make it to the upper echelon of our past weekend’s Best Music Biopic Rock List.

Related Stories:

• “Weird Al” Parodies The White Stripes, Charles Nelson Reilly
• Flashback: Celebrating 20 Years of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “UHF”
• Readers’ Rock List: Rock Biopics

The new mini-documentary NY-Z captures one of the biggest shows of 2009 — Jay-Z’s September 11th Answer the Call concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden — and the hours leading up to the big performance. Shot in black-and-white like iconic Big Apple odes Manhattan and The Naked City, director Danny Clinch’s short doubles as a behind-the-scenes look at Jay-Z’s life and the rapper’s love letter to the city that serves as his “muse,” from his earliest recollections of NYC to how it feels to sell out “the World’s Greatest Arena.”

In the video, recorded the day The Blueprint 3 was released, we see Jigga performing his hit “Empire State of Mind” during an empty sound check and later in front of thousands at a packed MSG. John Mayer cameos to explain how his team-up with Jay on “D.O.A.” came about — thanks Twitter! — as well as discuss what New York City means to him. The film is so engrossing, it’s actually possible to forget that it is a long-form ad for Absolut Vodka until Jigga is seen downing a shot in the closing minutes.

Related Stories:

• Jay-Z’s 9/11 Benefit Turns Into All-Star Marathon With Beyonce, Kanye, Rihanna, Mayer and More
• Jay-Z Burns Through “Blueprint 3,” Classics at Tiny New York Gig
• Cover Story: The Book of Jay

While it turned out that today was not the release date for the Dead Weather’s new single “Die By the Drop,” as an Amazon page suggested, the first track off Jack White and Co.’s second album Sea of Cowards did wind up surfacing on Metacafe, giving us our first taste of the group’s second LP. While White handled directorial duties for some of the group’s Horehound videos, “Die By the Drop” was filmed by Floria Sigismondi, who also helmed The Runaways biopic in theaters now.

Making use of the spooky artwork currently up at the Dead Weather site, Sigismondi gives the song a dark, gothic ambiance as a lone lurking piano note paces the track. After Alison Mosshart handles the intro verse, she and White trade off lines for the remainder of the track, only coming together to sing “I’m going to take you for worse or better” over one of White’s trademark guitar riffs. Fans of Horehound will not be disappointed, as the Dead Weather loudly picked up where they left off.

Sea of Cowards still doesn’t have a firm release date. According to Amazon, when the “Die By the Drop” single is released, it will be joined by “Old Mary,” which you can listen to over at Some Kind of Awesome.

Related Stories:

• Dead Weather’s “Cowards” Single “Die By the Drop” Out March 23rd?
• The Dead Weather Muse on the Future of Music, Supergroup Wars
• Jack White Says Expect a New Dead Weather Disc in Early 2010

Karen Elson is making the move from the runway to the recording studio with her debut album The Ghost Who Walks, which was produced by her husband (some guy named Jack White) at their Third Man Studios in Nashville. The album isn’t due out until this summer, but the LP’s title track was released as a single last week through the Third Man store. “The Ghost Who Walks” will be backed by “Stolen Roses,” and Rolling Stone is pleased to premiere a new clip of Elson performing an intimate acoustic take on the B Side here.

“This is a song from my album The Ghost Who Walks. I recorded this video version in Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles last month,” Elson tells RS. “It’s directed by Maximilla Lukacs and Sarah Sophie Flicker, two film makers who go by the name the Belles of the Black Diamond Field.” Elson performed a pair of sets at this year’s SXSW Festival and will take the stage tonight at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge.

Graham Nash is one of the few artists who has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: first, in 1997, with Crosby, Stills and Nash and again at this week’s ceremony in New York, with his first band the Hollies. But when Rolling Stone sat down with Nash to discuss the induction, he seemed more ecstatic for his Hollies bandmate, Allan Clarke. “I was thrilled for my partner for all those years,” Nash says. “He’s been a very underestimated lead singer.”

Nash, a photography fanatic, also filled us in on his new book, Taking Aim: Unforgettable Rock & Roll Photographs, which compiles his picks for some of rock’s greatest pictures by photographers like Annie Leibovitz, Jim Marshall and Anton Corbijn into a handsome, hard-cover book. “I have a good eye for photography and I have a good ear for music, so if we could combine both of them, I could come up with an interesting journey,” says Nash. (The songwriter also curated a photo exhibition featuring many of those photographs at Seattle’s Experience Music Project, which is on view through May 23rd).

Nash also took a moment to discuss some of the back stories behind those photos, including the Henry Diltz picture that would later be used as the cover for CSN’s 1969 self-titled debut. (Check out the band’s track-by-track breakdown of the album here.) When the record was released, fans confused Nash with Crosby, since Crosby’s name appears directly above Nash’s on the album sleeve. “We’re all sitting in the wrong order because we decided to call ourselves Crosby, Stills and Nash,” says Nash. “It flows off the tongue better than any other combination. That’s why people keep calling me Crosby. They think I wrote ‘Guinevere.’ ”

Related Stories:

•Graham Nash Performs “Right Between the Eyes”
•CSN Reflect on Their Epic 40-Year Career
•CSN Talk About CSN: Déjàa VuMovie

Hot Chip have established themselves as much for their quirky music videos as their catchy dance pop, so it comes as no surprise that their hilarious vid for One Night Stand’s “I Feel Better” is another must-see entry in their videography. The clip finds the nerdy Hot Chip recast as a boy band and muses whether the Brits’ music would be more popular sales-wise if the members were all male models. Before trotting down the boring path of cultural commentary, however, a glowing bald figure similar to Steve Coogan in Hamlet 2 emerges from the back of the theater to horrify the screaming teenage girl fans.

From there, the video descends into lunacy: The bald man destroys the four-man boy band by shooting lightning bolts out of his mouth, only they are resurrected as a quintet. Then, a floating head pops in and shoots laser beams from his eyes and mows down the actual Hot Chip, who cameo in the video. The clip comes straight from the warped mind of director and British comic Peter Serafinowicz, who Americans might recognize as the yuppie flatmate-turned-zombie in Shaun of the Dead and who will voice the role of Paul McCartney in Robert Zemeckis’ Yellow Submarine remake.

Related Stories:

• Hot Chip Keep Heart, Beats Pumping on New Disc “One Life Stand”
• New Music Report: Hot Chip
• Actors, Tribute Band Cast as Beatles in Zemeckis’ “Yellow Submarine” Remake

Who: A Los Angeles-based art-folk quintet who broke out big at last year’s South by Southwest and are poised to make an even bigger splash when they rock a marathon nine gigs in three days this week at the fest. After SXSW, the group heads out on their first major headlining tour, with stops at Coachella in April. “We were just on our first headlining tour in Europe and we were nervous that no one would come out to see us,” says bassist Andy Hamm. “But there were a lot of people at all the shows and they were totally great.”

Sound: Sprawling, gorgeous indie pop that mixes Fleet Foxes’ penchant for multi-part harmonies with jittery, post-punk guitars and grooves. “Wide Eyes” is a reverb-dunked anthem that almost sounds like Simon and Garfunkel fronting a Britpop band. And the bouncy, sprawling rocker “Airplanes” is singer Kelcey Ayer’s tribute to his grandfather, a former airplane pilot who passed away before Ayer was born. “Everyone thinks that track is about some girl that Kelcey misses a lot but it’s definitely not the case,” says Hamm. “It’s about an old man.”

Vital Stats:

• Local Natives’ debut is titled Gorilla Manor after the house where all the bandmates lived and recorded in L.A. — imagine an indie-rock version of Entourage. “We wanted to pay homage to living together and writing together every day,” says Hamm. “But then the other side is that it’s still five dudes living together, having house parties or getting into arguments about who has to take the trash out.” So which Local Native is the sloppiest? “[Singer-guitarist] Taylor [Rice] is the dirtiest,” says Hamm. “Most of the time we’re like, ‘Taylor, you didn’t clean up your shit again!’ ”

• After doing a performance for Daytrotter, which is based in Rock Island, Illinois, Local Natives have made made fans out of folks in the heartland. While visiting rural Illinois, the band performed a series of shows in farmers’ barns, which they dubbed “barnstormings.” Turns out, they’re the perfect place to put on an indie-rock gig. “We played this one eight-sided barn that was all reverb-y — it was such a great experience,” says Hamm. “And all these folks came out from I don’t know where — but they reacted well I thought.”

•On Gorilla Manor, Local Natives offer up a killer version of the Talking Heads’ classic “Warning Sign,” expanding David Byrne’s jagged art-rock into a breathtaking anthem worthy of a church choir. “We were trying to take it to a new level,” says Hamm. “We wanted it to be something that had a Local Natives style to it, but we still wanted to be respectful to the Talking Heads.”

Get It Now: Watch the band’s video for “Airplanes” at the top of the post.

Check out photos from Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball show.

Lady Gaga called in to Ryan Seacrest’s KIIS radio show this morning to discuss her upcoming North American tour and provide some behind-the-scenes info about the “Telephone” mini-movie. Admitting Beyoncé’s first reaction to the treatment was, ” ‘What’s in your head, girl!?’ ” Gaga explained her costar completely surrendered to the concept. “She was very courageous in this video,” Gaga said. “Can you imagine me saying to her, ‘OK, now Beyoncé, you have to call me a very bad girl and feed me a honey bun’? She trusted me because she liked my work and because she knew I loved her. It ended up being a masterpiece.”

But the “Telephone” video isn’t all about sex. Gaga offered details on the clip’s larger meaning, saying she intended the video to be a “commentary on being overfed communication and advertisements and food in this country.” She added, “It became about transsexual women at the beginning of the video and making fun of American hallmarks with soda cans and cigarettes and mayonnaise” and revealed she recalls her own mother using soda cans as hair rollers when she was a kid.

Get a look at Lady Gaga’s wildest outfits.

Telling Seacrest she appreciated how the video debut was a pop culture event — it premiered on E! Thursday night with much media fanfare — Gaga said, “I have a vow to myself to desperately serve show business until I die. I believe in it so much, and I’ll have to think of even more exciting ways to do it the next time around.”

Six months after releasing their latest disc Backspacer, Pearl Jam returned to Saturday Night Live this weekend as musical guest, performing two tracks from the record: the hushed ballad “Just Breathe,” which featured a string quartet, and the up-tempo rocker “Unthought Known” (watch them both after the jump). The band seemed to be in a good mood throughout — Eddie Vedder was all smiles after wrapping up their second performance — and the group took time to cameo in a send-up skit of The Twilight Zone’s “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” which drew big laughs.

But the show’s biggest highlight was the Strokes’ Julian Casablancas’ guest appearance in the Lonely Island clip for “Boombox.” In the digital short, Andy Samberg and Casablancas show up at a buttoned-up country club, the streets of New York and a retirement home, where they switch on their ghetto blaster and demonstrate music’s awesome power to get stuffy people dancing and old people horny. Casablancas delivered the hook, singing in a high, pinched voice about how a “boombox can change the world.” Before the show aired, he gave fans a heads up about his cameo on his Twitter and posted photos from the set.

Though he’s not yet Justin Timberlake — whose “Dick in a Box” and “Motherlover” both became viral sensations — Casablancas has been showing off his appreciation for SNL in the past few months. In November, the singer released a cover of “I Wish It Was Christmas Today,” which was originally performed by cast members Horatio Sans, Chris Kattan, Jimmy Fallon and Tracy Morgan.

The Strokes are currently at work on the follow-up to 2006’s First Impressions of Earth. Casablanacas has also revealed the band will be one of the headliners at this year’s Lollapalooza festival in Chicago.

Lady Gaga upped the ante for supersized music videos last night with her Tarantino homage “Telephone,” which co-stars Beyoncé in a homoerotic rampage of capitalistic ultra-violence. Gaga’s been down this road before — “Paparazzi” was an eight-minute cinematic epic — but Michael Jackson truly pioneered the long music video with “Thriller,” “Bad,” “Ghosts,” “Black or White” and “Smooth Criminal.” Rolling Stone’s readers and editors compiled a list of the 50 Best Songs Over Seven Minutes Long a few years ago, but haven’t tracked down the best lengthy music videos yet. The Grammys honor Best Long Form Music Video, but the category really is meant for filmed shorts. So let’s start the nominating right here — check out clips by Metallica, Guns n’ Roses, Aphex Twin, Snoop Dogg, MC Hammer (yes, really) and the Black Eyed Peas’ recent entry to the field after the jump.

Metallica – “One” (length: 7:42)

Guns n’ Roses – “November Rain” (length: 9:08)

Guns n’ Roses – “Estranged” (length: 9:51)

Aphex Twin – “Window Licker” (length: 10:34)

Snoop Dogg – “Murder Was the Case” (length: 9:34)

MC Hammer – “Here Comes The Hammer” (length: 8:40)

Black Eyed Peas – “Imma Be Rocking That Body” (length: 10:21)

Michael Jackson – “Bad” (length: 8:55)

Michael Jackson – “Black or White” (length: 11)

Michael Jackson – “Smooth Criminal” (length: 9:35)

Michael Jackson – “Ghosts” (length: 9:53)

Michael Jackson – “Thriller” (length: 10:49)

]]> http://easymusicguides.com/2010/03/long-music-videos-how-does-lady-gaga%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%9ctelephone%e2%80%9d-rank-with-michael-jackson-metallica/feed/ 0 http://easymusicguides.com/2010/03/lady-gaga-and-beyonce-unleash-orgy-of-sex-violence-product-placement-in-%e2%80%9ctelephone%e2%80%9d-video/ http://easymusicguides.com/2010/03/lady-gaga-and-beyonce-unleash-orgy-of-sex-violence-product-placement-in-%e2%80%9ctelephone%e2%80%9d-video/#comments Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:43:30 +0000 Caryn Ganz http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/?p=28500 Continue reading →]]>

Lady Gaga and Beyoncé’s anxiously awaited video for their The Fame Monster collaboration “Telephone” has arrived as a nine-minute-and-thirty-second mash-up of lesbian prison porn, campy sexploitation flicks and insidery winks at the two divas’ public personas. If Quentin Tarantino and Russ Meyer remade Thelma & Louise as an orgy of product placement with fiercely choreographed interludes, this would be the result. The video was scheduled to premiere on E! at 11:30 p.m. tonight, but hit the Internet early via a leak. Jonas Åkerlund, who previously helmed Gaga’s “Paparazzi” video, directed the clip.

Check out Lady Gaga’s wildest looks.

The mini-movie opens in a women’s prison, where guards strip Gaga bare and mutter, “I told you she didn’t have a dick,” fanning the flames of one of the most persistent rumors about Stefani Germanotta’s gender identity. Almost immediately the self-referential nudges and brand names appear: the boom box in the exercise yard blasts Lady Gaga’s “Paper Gangsta,” a fellow inmate wears Monster Heartbeats earbuds, Gaga has a Virgin Mobile phone tucked in her pants and sports Chanel shades and Diet Coke cans in her hair as makeshift curlers (nice touch!).
Photo courtesy of LadyGaga.com

The song kicks in just before the three-minute mark as Gaga (in a spiked bikini and what appears to be Karen O’s jacket from the “Zero” video) takes a call in jail and launches into the most appealing afternoon imaginable behind bars — a tightly choreographed routine that has Gaga and four tattooed backup dancers stamping through the cell block.

When Beyoncé’s scheduled interlude arrives, the song breaks for another dramatic sequence. A guard perusing dating Website Plenty of Fish on a Beats by Dre laptop informs Gaga she’s been bailed out. Beyoncé (nicknamed Honey Bee, a nod to Honey Bunny from Pulp Fiction) rolls up in the Pussy Wagon from Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Volume One, informs Gaga, “You’ve been a very bad girl” and feeds her a 50 Cent Honey Bun. Simply being in Tarantino’s car inspires some Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield banter (”You know Gaga, trust is like a mirror. You can fix it if it’s broke…” “But you can still see the crack in that motherfucker’s reflection”).

Beyoncé launches into the song’s bridge as Lady Gaga snaps photos of her with a Polaroid camera, then the pair pull up to a vintage diner where Beyoncé entertains a gentleman pal (played by Tyrese Gibson) and Gaga mans the kitchen, slipping poison into the food along with Miracle Whip and Wonder Bread (cue another awesome dance sequence, this time with cooks prancing around the stove in a moment that could have been borrowed from Madonna’s “Hung Up” clip). Beyoncé takes a moment to toy with her squeaky-clean image — busting out the line, “I knew you’d take all my honey, you selfish motherfucker” as Gibson keels over at the table — and another dance sequence begins, this time with Gaga and B in patriotic garb.

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s Jai Rodriguez arrives as a news reporter broadcasting word of the mass homicide (dubbed “The Telephone Effect”) as Gaga and Beyoncé speed away in the Pussy Wagon dressed in white and black veils. “We did it, Honey Bee, now let’s go far, far away from here,” Gaga says as the two clasp hands and hit the accelerator.

The clip is certainly cinematic and oddly feminist, and gasps at a larger statement about consumer culture. As Gaga told E!, she was preoccupied with “the idea that America is full of young people that are inundated with information and technology and turn it into something that was more of a commentary on the kind of country that we are.”

Related Stories:

• Lady Gaga’s Sexy, Cinematic “Paparazzi” Video Hits the Web
• Lady Gaga Premieres “Bad Romance,” Her Craziest Video Yet
• Photos: Lady Gaga’s New Monster Ball Tour

]]> http://easymusicguides.com/2010/03/lady-gaga-and-beyonce-unleash-orgy-of-sex-violence-product-placement-in-%e2%80%9ctelephone%e2%80%9d-video/feed/ 0 http://easymusicguides.com/2010/03/video-roundup-big-boi-she-and-him-%e2%80%9cthe-runaways%e2%80%9d/ http://easymusicguides.com/2010/03/video-roundup-big-boi-she-and-him-%e2%80%9cthe-runaways%e2%80%9d/#comments Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:46:03 +0000 Daniel Kreps http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/?p=28406 Continue reading →]]>

Fo Yo Sorrows VIDEO Big Boi Ft. Too Short and George Clinton from SNORT THIS TV on Vimeo.

A whole battalion of new music videos has made their way onto the Web and for your viewing pleasure Rolling Stone has corralled them into this post. First up is Big Boi’s latest single off his much-anticipated Sir Lucious Leftfoot: The Son of Chico Dusty, “Fo Yo Sorrows.” The OutKast rapper had previously promised vids for every track off his solo disc, so like the video above and Boi’s previous “Shine Blockas,” they’ll likely be low-key affairs. That isn’t stopping Big Boi from calling in guests George Clinton and Too $hort to appear in the clip. Any time George Clinton shows up in a music video, we get nostalgic for P.C.U., so definitely check out “Fo Yo Sorrows” above.

For “In the Sun,” She & Him’s first video off their upcoming Volume 2, Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward go the High School Musical/Glee route as Deschanel and her clique of peers and teachers go dancing around hallways and classrooms in pursuit of the object of her desire, played here by a way-too-old-to-be-in-high-school Ward. It’s sort of like Feist’s “1, 2, 3, 4″ video combined with Britney Spears’ “…Baby One More Time” clip. Adding authenticity to the sing-along is director Peyton Reed, who previously mastered the art of high school and dancing with his cheerleading flick Bring It On.

Finally, we have the official music video for the Runaways’ “Cherry Bomb” that combines the band’s classic track with a ton of new footage from the film The Runaways. In the video, we see Dakota Fanning completely morphing into her role of Cherie Currie, plus brief clips of the cinematic Runaways from their rise to their eventual crash. As Rolling Stone previously reported, both Fanning and Kristen Stewart, who plays Joan Jett, sing on the soundtrack, which is available for pre-order now.

]]> http://easymusicguides.com/2010/03/video-roundup-big-boi-she-and-him-%e2%80%9cthe-runaways%e2%80%9d/feed/ 0 http://easymusicguides.com/2010/03/breaking-midlake/ http://easymusicguides.com/2010/03/breaking-midlake/#comments Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:51:51 +0000 Rolling Stone http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/?p=28392 Continue reading →]]>

Who: Pastoral rockers from Denton, Texas, who first broke through with their 2006 track “Roscoe,” on which the group’s classic-rock-loving frontman Tim Smith sang about life in the 1800s. “I don’t do too well in the present,” he says. “Not that old times were better, but I’m more romantic about the past.”

Sounds Like: The band’s latest disc, The Courage of Others, has a sound influenced by 1960s British acts like Fairport Convention and Pentangle, with Jethro Tull-style flutes and references to maidens and merchant ships.

Vital Stats:

• Smith was a John Coltrane devotee until he reluctantly picked up Radiohead’s OK Computer while at the North Texas College of Music. “I didn’t want to listen to it, because of the name,” he says. “I thought, ‘What’s this, some kind of radio-pop music?’ ”

• Before Midlake embraced chiming guitars and meticulous harmonies, the group was a jazz-funk act. Smith ditched his sax when he joined up with the Texas group, which featured current bandmembers Eric Pulido and Eric Nichelson (guitar), McKenzie Smith (drums) and Paul Alexander (bass).

• Like fellow bearded strummers Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver, Midlake recall CSNY and Fleetwood Mac. “You want your music to be ask great as those acts,” says Smith, “But I shouldn’t compare my work with everything that’s ever been done. I mean, you can only do so much before you die.”

Get It Now: Watch the band’s trailer for The Courage of Others up top.

]]> http://easymusicguides.com/2010/03/breaking-midlake/feed/ 0 http://easymusicguides.com/2010/03/new-music-report-gorillaz/ http://easymusicguides.com/2010/03/new-music-report-gorillaz/#comments Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:03:31 +0000 Rolling Stone http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/?p=28336 Continue reading →]]>

This week Rolling Stone’s Daniel Kreps breaks down the Gorillaz’s Plastic Beach in our New Music Report. Kreps admits he didn’t immediately hear anything as instantly grabby as Demon Days‘ “DARE” or Gorillaz’s “Clint Eastwood” on their new disc — the closest relation here is the single “Stylo,” a catchy electro number that features Mos Def and Bobby Womack. But Plastic Beach is a real grower, and now he’s convinced it’s Damon Albarn’s most impressive work since Blur’s 13. With each listen, new highlights emerge, like the Think Tank-ish “Empire Ants” and his personal favorite, “To Binge,” which features the Swedish group Little Dragon. Snoop Dogg, Lou Reed, and members of the Clash and De La Soul all cameo on the disc, but the smaller artists — Little Dragon and U.K. rappers Bashy and Kano — make the biggest impact.

Catch up on all of Rolling Stone’s album reviews.

>>Watch every episode of our weekly New Music Report video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Tuesday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don't have iTunes, download it here.]

]]> http://easymusicguides.com/2010/03/new-music-report-gorillaz/feed/ 0 http://easymusicguides.com/2010/03/exclusive-clip-the-runaways-rehearse-to-be-%e2%80%9cbigger-than-the-beatles%e2%80%9d/ http://easymusicguides.com/2010/03/exclusive-clip-the-runaways-rehearse-to-be-%e2%80%9cbigger-than-the-beatles%e2%80%9d/#comments Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:19:34 +0000 Rolling Stone http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/?p=28214 Continue reading →]]>

Early peeks at The Runaways, music video vet Floria Sigismondi’s biopic about the rise and fall of the iconic Seventies girl-punk band, have provided fast-and-dirty looks at the drama surrounding Joan Jett (played by Twilight star Kristen Stewart) and Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning). In Rolling Stone’s latest exclusive clip, Stella Maeve as Sandy West and Stewart bang out some raw rehearsal tunes as manager Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon) listens on the other end of the phone and offers a few words of encouragement when Stewart reports they’ve been busy practicing: “Well, get back to it, you bitches are going to be bigger than the Beatles!”

Watch the clip above and see another preview, plus click through all our photos from the set. And don’t forget to check out which songs Fanning and Stewart will be handling on the film’s official soundtrack. The movie hits theaters in limited cities March 19th and opens nationally April 9th.

]]> http://easymusicguides.com/2010/03/exclusive-clip-the-runaways-rehearse-to-be-%e2%80%9cbigger-than-the-beatles%e2%80%9d/feed/ 0