Alley-SHOOP!

SHOOPS is a name any fan of Kid Cudi, Kanye West, Crookers, or good music in general should commit to memory. Self-described as "Your only source for sex-pop," Dave and Yury make music that's dance/trance/popgenius/auto-tunemadness/deepbass/puresex. Their album should be dropping later this spring and will no doubt be heard on every dancefloor from LA to London. Hipsters and club fiends alike will be able to get down to these amazing tracks. "Do me, Work it" is a remix of Thunderheist's Jerk It, and my favorite of theirs. "King of Bongo" is an incredible cover/remix of Manu Chao that is sure to carry any and all through the Rastifarian xmas that is 4/2o. "Control (Me)" is a slower track that showcases the 808 side of Montreal geniuses Dave and Yury. The haze induced by the sudden rush of dopamine to the face may impair judgment. Be sure to hit the little paper clip looking button on the right side of the play bar to download any track that strikes your fancy!

Do Me, Work It (Dear Isis "jerk it" Remix) - SHOOPS

Coming to Town (Remix) - SHOOPS

Dance For Me (Remix) - SHOOPS

Control (Me) - SHOOPS

King of Bongo (Manu Chao cover) - SHOOPS

Club Bangerzz...

I've been on Uffie's music for the past year or so, and I'm waiting on the edge of my seat for Ed Banger to give this girl the full length she deserves. Many will recognize her vocal from Justice's "Tthhee Ppaarrttyy," but I can promise she has bigger things up her sleeve. One of the most exciting rappers to hit the scene (read: my earspace) since Mickey Av, she's got the white girl slow spit of Lady Sovereign with the swagger of Peaches. Crunchy beats, 3 parts filth, 1 part glitter. Check out "Pop the Glock" to whet your palate - Choose Your Own Adventure: Little Boots fans head two spaces forward to "Steroids," Househeads go straight to "Robot Oeuf."

Pop the Glock - Uffie

Steroids - Uffie

Robot Oeuf - Uffie

What's Your Fantasy?

Metric has never been the band to churn out album after album. 2003's Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? brand of in your face rock -with-a-message-and-a-backbeat reflected the title perfectly and gained a cult following, but not mass appeal. While 2005's Live It Out delivered more consistent rock, the hiatus didn't show the band making strides. This time, Metric left a four year hiatus between records, which placed me in nervous anticipation of either a lackluster junior effort or an epiphany. From the very first listen it is apparent that Metric that has finally honed in on their sound. Fantasies commits fully to the synth-driven aesthetic hinted at on tracks like "Combat Baby," but is conscious to maintain the catchy guitar licks and snarky lyrics that won the affection of die-hard fans initially. The real draw of their new material is its absolutely infectuous hooks that could easily give tracks like "Help, I'm Alive" airplay on mainstream radio. Metric incorporates this melodic brilliance as they weave in rawer, more etherial tracks, too, like "Gimme Sympathy" that allow Emily Haines's piercing vocals to give her confident, thoughtful lyrics room to smack at your heartstrings. With a record this top notch, it should only be a matter of time before Metric becomes a household name. Standout tracks include "Help, I'm alive," "Gimme Sympathy," "Sick Muse," and my personal favorite, "Satellite Mind." One of the strongest records released this year, not checking Fantasies out would be a mistake.

Help, I'm Alive - Metric

Sick Muse - Metric

Gimme Sympathy - Metric

Satellite Mind - Metric

Help, I'm Alive (acoustic)

You know what small feet mean...

Little Boots is the blogosphere's newest darling, and a personal favorite of Dame Perez Hilton. She's been all over the lips of the oh-so-trendy and frankly, until yesterday, I was unimpressed. Despite this, it's impossible to deny that her brand of catchy electropop isnt a tad infectuous, as evidenced by the fact that it has earned second place in Brit's Critics' Choice award (behind another personal favorite of mine, Florence and the Machine). She's working with one of my favorite producers, Greg Kurstin (one half of the Bird and the Bee, as well as producer for Lily Allen, Ladyhawke, and Britney Spears among others), so you know her sound is going to be semi-legit, at worst. Her leadoff single, "Meddle," features her trademark dance sound with a vibe that's creepy in the foreign-gu-down-the-hall-whose-gaze-might-linger-a-few-seconds-too-long-but-is-generally-harmless kind of way. Don't get me wrong, "Meddle" is good, but after hearing it, I wasn't jumping up and down. Then I saw her stripped down cover/home video viral success of Kid Cudi's "Day N Nite," and she began to win me over. Then yesterday came, oh, glorious yesterday, and I heard her cover of Freddie Mercury's "Love Kills." The minute those glittering beats hit my ears I began shouting her name across the rooftops (read: dancing embarrassingly alone in my room). Is she pop's next darling? Debatable. Is she at the top of my pregame playlist cleverly entitled "rrrraaageeeee?" Absolutely. Homegirl goes down easier than a red-headed slut (1 part peach schnapps, 1 part cranberry juice, 1 part jager, 10 parts multiple mouthgasms). Git some.

Meddle - Little Boots

Day N Nite (Kid Cudi Cover) - Little Boots

Love Kills (Freddie Mercury Cover) - Little Boots

Get Stoned

Move over vegemite, cute fuzzy creatures, and belligerence, Angus & Julia Stone are officially the best thing Australia has to offer. This brother/sister duo's debut album A Book Like This holds the type of quiet, broken-in indie folk music that feels like summer in your ears and lives up to their last name. There's nothing particularly innovative about their sound, that is to say followers of Calexico and Vetiver are not going to be knocked sideways, but there's something about the combination of Angus's sweet, lulling voice and Julia's scratchy, Joplin-esque vocal that just goes perfectly with Great Lawn(s) and lazy days. "Paper Aeroplane," the standout track, features a gorgeous guitar line with a melody you won't be able to stop singing. "All the Colours" is a reggae-inspired track that embodies its tagline, "I'm so wasted on you." "Bella" is a triumphant whisper of a love song that would serve as a perfect complement to a note reading, "Do you like me? Check yes or no." With music this soothing, it's impossible to say no.

Paper Aeroplane - Angus & Julia Stone

All the Colours - Angus & Julia Stone

Bella - Angus & Julia Stone

HOrchestra?

That astoundingly clever bit of wordplay on his Orchestra, my obsession du jour, may or may not be irrelevant, but this music is good enough to stand out through the mess of my 8 am delirium. Straight out of Los Angeles, they're a little bit Ben Folds, a little bit Rufus Wainwright (sans annoying oversinging), a little bit The Magnetic Fields, and their debut album, Field Guide to the Wilds, is a feast for the senses...except mainly just the ears. The beautifully simple "Attached," features a smooth male vocal backed by a chirping chorus of ethereal female voices worthy of St. Vincent comparisons resting comfortably over a bouncy piano chord progression. The minor chords of "Black Coffin" recall Badly Drawn Boy as its cello and violin sections lend an eerie quality to the gorgeous, unassuming ballad that, in the right light, might give you a little shiver. "Hibernation," my personal favorite, sounds like the music that children's singer Raffi and Edward Scissorhands would make if Raffi had a smidgen of LSD and Edward Scissorhands didn't have scissors for hands. 100% organic 'aw, shucks' goodness.

IT'S BLITZ!

I'm going to go ahead and skip over the fact that Soulja Boy Tell 'Em (official name)'s new album iSouljaBoyTellEm (could not make this up) and absurd new single "Kiss Me Thru the Phone" (yes, it's every bit as stupid as the title suggests) are racing up the charts, and begin my frenzied, ecstatic rant about the fact that Yeah Yeah Yeahs' third album, It's Blitz, has leaked...and is glorious. On account of the leak, the savvy YYYs have pushed forward the release date until March 10th, but obviously I'm impatient, so here's the review a week before it officially drops. I love Lady Gaga (as I have reiterated one too many times) as much as the next closeted hipster music fanatic, but if you want to name one woman currently recording who has most successfully dialed in on the magic ratio of subversiveness to artistry to good fucking music, there is none other than Karen O. That being said, and although I'm a big proponent of anything Yeah Yeah Yeahs, I must admit that I, like most, have always been very aware that while their live performances are, as one of my friends described, "like seeing jesus and having sex on e at the same time," their EPs tend to make promises of a sound revolution that their full lengths have not yet cashed. I say this tentatively, as Fever to Tell was nothing short of miraculous, and Show Your Bones wasn't half bad, but they were certainly not the cohesive, life-changing albums that many had hoped and prayed for after hearing The John Peel Sessions, per se. It is this very reality that has garnered Yeah Yeah Yeahs the incredible cult following they enjoy, but have kept them a few shy of Radiohead status, if you will (longevity excluded, evolution excluded, in retrospect...a very sketchy analogy, but you get the point).

Now, onto It's Blitz. For the first time their full length feels like an album. From start to finish, it sounds like a coherent artistic piece, and a prolific one at that. Each track not only functions well on its own, but complements its preceeding and proceeding tracks perfectly, keeping in mind the vision of the album as a whole. Though It's Blitz has got less of a basement session feel than their earlier stuff (Nick Zinner replaces crunchy guitars with a plethora of synth sounds expansive enough to make even the Pet Shop Boys raise an eyebrow), it's not overly-polished. Luckily, this time around the acoustic sound that only half-worked on Show Your Bones exists solely as bonus material on this album.

"Zero," the leadoff single, has a backbone of 150 bpm (or something in that ballpark...) and the heart of a lion. Karen O's snide signature yelping vocal snaps, "You're a zero. What's your name? Noone's gonna ask it." And then she bitchslapped the wanker with her mic stand.

"Heads Will Roll" is a catchy, dance hall anthem gold-plated and covered in glitter. It's what Kanye wishes he could have come up with on 808s. Nick Zinner is a musical genius. It's catchy. It's ethereal. It's 3 am on the Lower East Side. It's indie rock electronica at its absolute finest.

"Soft Shock" is about as close to "sweet" as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are gonna let on. This haphazard tribute to the sadness and awkwardness of reuniting with an ex painted with their undeniable flair is as poignant as it is earnest. Over the lowlit synths, Karen O's vocals are like a suckerpunch to the heart.

"Skeletons" has a quality that I haven't heard in their music since "Maps." It's a stripped down, slow anthem. A snare drum marches in the background and crescendos slowly. Karen O's voice croons without any of its signature yelping strain, while Nick Zinners synth/guitar puts a quiet din upon which Karen O's vocals can soar. And soar they do. Haunting. Gorgeous.

"Dull and Life" and "Shame and Fortune" are a refreshing reminder that the early, hard-hitting,fuzz-guitar fiends are still alive and kicking. Though neither track presents an aspect of Yeah Yeah Yeahs we haven't seen before, they serve as a healthy reminder that these kids can conjure up their signature filthy rock sound on command just as well, if not better, than ever.

"Runaway" is the surprise track of the album, in a similar way that "Gold Lion" was. Though it's not as album-defining as "Gold Lion" was, it's the mark of yet another direction the Yeah Yeah Yeahs can veer into, and master. It's a haunting track that flirts with the border between alt. and pop . It begins with Karen O's voice accompanied simply by a piano and turns into a pleading ballad that is unmistakably Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but will take any die-hard fan a minute to adjust to - after which they, like anybody else, will have no choice but to, as Lennon might say, turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream. Oh no, it is not dying.

"Dragon Queen" deserves to be played in the sleaziest strip club in Chinatown among sordid people doing sordid things. It's creepy, it's weird, and makes you feel creepy and weird for liking it, which you will. You may even experience an aching desire to dance. With a pole. Surrounded only by the sleaziest of people. Do it. Karen O thinks that's cool.

"Hysteric" is another gorgeous slow track that whirls lazily until it stumbles upon it's stunning revelation of a chorus, which, though melodically indistinguishable, pierces like a light through the fog, "you suddenly complete me." Revel. Waver. Lull. It just feels right.

The album closes with "Little Shadow," which is a freak-show gem. It's like two midgets who fell in love at the carnival. It's bizarre. And adorable. And makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. And then the smell of stale candy apples sets in. And you realize you don't belong in this crazy world where everything is fun and weird all the time. And it's time to go. But you'll be back. You always come back.

To say this is the best album I've heard this year is not doing it justice. It is one of the best albums I have ever heard. Maybe it's the fact that it's 4 am, or the fact that I have just spent the past 2 hours listening to Indian Ragas, Kecak Vocal Gamelans and Tuvan Throat Singers (studying for a World Music exam i.e. 2 minutes more of world "music" away from legitimately ripping out my ear drums), but with the help of savior Karen O and her incredible Yeah Yeah Yeahs, I think I'm in love. Learn it. Live it. Love it, too. Hard.

Zero - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Heads Will Roll - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Soft Shock - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Skeletons - Yeah Yeah Yeah

Dull Life - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Shame and Fortune - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Runaway - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Dragon Queen - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Hysteric - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Little Shadow - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Acoustic versions of "Soft Shock," "Skeletons," Hysteric," and "Little Shadow" will be available on the 10th, along with the bonus track "Faces."