The News You Already Knew
(aka Copping Knowledge From Other People's Blogs)

- The Hold Steady's new album isn't out until July 15th, but the interweb (and its countless impatient ears) waits for no summer smash hit; it's downloadable now through the normal channels. In what I'd like to coin "the admission of defeat strategy", the band has offered the entire album up for your streaming pleasure. Click the cool ass logo to jet over to their myspace page and get your Hold Steady on.



- Speaking of bands streaming their whole albums, Coldplay are streaming their new album (the Brian Eno produced "Viva la Vida", here... unless you live in one of the six countries listed, which I shall proclaim "Coldplay's Six Nations of Shame" (US exclusion I can see, but what the fuck did Holland do?!). Assuming you pass the nationality screening profile, feel free to listen to "Viva la Vida" in its entirety... as long as you sign up or log in to your Myspace account. I'd say this arduous process was worth it, but I'm too lazy to sign in. Besides, it's Coldplay; how good could it be?

- Deepest apologies to My Morning Jacket. In the hubbub of all the past weekend's activities, I mistakenly awarded Album of the Week honours to Sloan. At the time of writing, I was unaware of the muscular majesty of "Evil Urges", an early contender for Album of the Year. If you can get past Jim James' helium falsetto (which only appears front and center on a couple of tracks; hardly the overpowering force of nature it was made out to be), and the band at their most adventurous and schizophrenic, there's plenty to enjoy on the disc. But, try as you might, one of those helium tunes (the blazing retro dance party/rockalicious space jam "Highly Suspicious") will be embedded into your head to the point of distraction. I refuse to compare this song to Prince, as every review ever does so. Suffice to say, no matter what you've read, it will surprise you the first time you hear it.

- Finally, AC/DC's new album is coming out this fall. And, in an act of gross betrayal to all rock music fans and/or an admittance of their core fan base, they've partnered with the Evil Empire. I've linked to the Rolling Stone article because there are a lot of great comments after the story, including one very long tirade by yours truly (that the staff at RS must have really liked, because they yanked it from the comments section, probably to use and attribute to another one of their writers). All I can say about this subject is this; the Pissing Vinegar is coming. It will be long. It will be angry. There will be an abundance of profanities. You will hate the world when you read it. Satan will stop buying AC/DC records when I am through with them. A PV the likes of this may destroy us all.

You've been warned.