Justin Timberlake in "My Love"
Photo: Jive

Valentine's Day — you either love it or hate it. It makes sweethearts swoon and others want to stab fat cherubs with a bow and arrow. Between the chocolate hearts, the red roses and the teddy bears shoved in our faces, the holiday stirs up a cocktail of emotions: happiness, despair, jealousy, grief, sadness, desire ...

MTV News has all your mood swings covered. In honor of this beloved and dreaded holiday, we're rolling out the Best Love Songs, Best Breakup Songs, Best Makeout Songs and Worst Love Songs in recent memory. It's our Valentine's Day gift to you, minus the dinner-and-a-movie part. So slip into something comfortable, and stay for a while.

Love songs tend to get dusted off and put on display at weddings. And it's hard to take any song seriously right after doing the chicken dance. Our favorite artists know what's up: They express those deepest, darkest emotions without the help of cheesy lyrics or a soprano-saxophone player. Give it up to Justin, the Jonas Brothers and these other winged matchmakers for making us all a little weak in the knees.

10. Jonas Brothers - "Lovebug"
This is about the only "lovebug" we ever want to catch. Let's leave it at that ...

9. Alicia Keys - "No One"
In this soulful song, Alicia belts out her emotions so we don't have to.

8. The Postal Service - "Such Great Heights"
Despite never uttering those three magic words, this 2003 hit puts us on cloud nine.

7. Jason Mraz (featuring Colbie Caillat) - "Lucky"
This duet is bound to make the wedding-day rounds. Still, the old-timey lyrics are cute.

6. Miley Cyrus - "7 Things"
This isn't a typo. This certainly isn't a typical love song, considering that Miley sings about hating someone. But listen a little closer, and you'll see the teen queen taps into the heart of a relationship — the bad that also comes with the good.

5. Beyoncé - "Crazy in Love"
Ms. Sasha Fierce escorts us over the edge of love and back again in her 2003 smash single. Uh-oh!

4. Taylor Swift - "Love Story"
With the sweet melody and fairy-tale references, this teen songstress gives us hope there will be a castle and a lover in a low-cut top in all our futures. Give in and "say yes" to Taylor's catchy chorus.

3. Gym Class Heroes - "Cupid's Chokehold"
Travis McCoy joins forces with Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump to talk pancakes, secret handshakes and other shared moments with a string of girls. You gotta love a guy (and a song) with a sense of humor.

2. U2 - "With or Without You"
After all these years, Bono still melts our hearts. This 1987 classic addresses the question: What the hell would I do without you? That never gets old.

1. Justin Timberlake - "My Love"
With the help of Timbaland and T.I., Justin Timberlake nabs the top spot with his 2006 hit. JT redefines the concept of the love song, proving it can belong in both the club and next to a roaring fireplace.

Do you love it or are you just not that into our picks? Tell us why in the comment section below.

Now that you have the tracks to set the mood, you should gauge your plans with what the celebs are doing. No date? Don't forget that there are single, hot guys that you might have a chance with. Happy Valentine's Day!

• Valentine's Day: Best Love Songs

• Justin Timberlake
• The Postal Service
• Alicia Keys
• Jason Mraz
• Miley Cyrus

Sub Pop Executive Vice President Megan Jasper gives MTV News a tour of the label's Seattle offices
Photo: MTV News

On The Record: 20 Years In 20 Records. Or 21. Whatever.

Back in April, Sub Pop Records celebrated either its 20th or 25th anniversary (or maybe its 27th?), depending on who's counting. It was cause for much celebration and even a bit of confusion, and not just because no one seems to be able to agree on just how old the label really is. This is typically Sub Poppian.

Started first as a 'zine in the early '80s, then inching closer to label-tude with the release of a compilation back in 1986, and finally becoming an actual record label (with an office and everything!) in '88, Sub Pop has grown against pretty much all odds, surviving and thriving thanks to a little bit of luck (or a lot), a complete lack of a business plan, and a stated — if jokingly so — goal of "world domination."

There have been boom times and bust times, and just about every single kind of time in between. Sub Pop went from being the "grunge" label — the hottest name in the game — to being the label no one wanted to be associated with in less than six years, and then it nearly went out of business. Then it didn't, and since the dawn of the new millennium (how dramatic!) it's flourished once again, posting gains in a time when most labels are complaining that the sky is falling and the seas are boiling. Times are good in Sub Pop Nation.

And if anyone can appreciate this, it's Megan Jasper. After all, she started as the receptionist at Sub Pop back in 1989. She was there for the good, the bad and the ugly. She's the one responsible for creating the great "grunge speak" hoax that fooled The New York Times back in 1992. She remembers Kurt Cobain and Chris Cornell bumming around the SP offices. She also remembers paychecks from the label bouncing during the lean years. She was fired because there was no money to pay her. And she was rehired. Now she's Sub Pop's executive vice president. This, too, is typically Sub Poppian.

This weekend, Jasper and her co-workers will celebrate the label's 20th (that's the official tally) anniversary, with a typically understated affair. They will throw concerts at Seattle's Marymoore Park (and in most of the city, for that matter), where bands old and new will play. The city is posting SP's iconic black-and-white flag atop the Space Needle. Label owner Jonathan Poneman just threw out the first pitch at a Mariners game. World domination does not seem all that inconceivable at this point.

So, to mark this occasion, I flew out to Sub Pop's offices in Seattle to do a news piece and talk to the people who made the label what it is today. While I was there, I marveled not just at the photo booth and the beer machine in the kitchen (cans of Rainier, 75 cents!), but at the warehouse, which was stuffed full of iconic and amazing records that shaped not just my youth, but the fortunes of the label as well.

And Jasper was nice enough to guide me through it all ... stopping in the warehouse to pick out her 20 favorite (and most important) Sub Pop records. (Check out some MTV News staffers' favorites in the Newsroom blog.) We figured it was a good way to showcase the label's impressive back catalog and pay tribute to the acts that have gotten Sub Pop through the past two decades. It was also a good way for me to fatten up my record collection.

Jasper's picks are below, along with my impressions from listening (or, in most cases, relistening) to them all. Also, even though she was supposed to pick 20 albums, Jasper went ahead and picked 21. How typically Sub Poppian of her.

Soundgarden's Screaming Life EP (1987, Sub Pop # 12)

A landmark not just because it's the debut EP from one of grunge's "big four," but also because without Soundgarden, there'd probably be no Sub Pop. Back in '86, Poneman, who was working as a radio DJ, caught a SG show, had some cash and wanted to put out their album. So at the insistence of guitarist Kim Thayil, he approached Bruce Pavitt, who had been releasing cassette tapes and comps as part of his "Subterranean Pop" 'zine. The two joined forces, and with Poneman's $20,000 investment, they started the label. And the rest, as they say, is history. As for the EP itself, well, there's plenty of yowling from frontman Chris Cornell, plus the debut of Thayil's famed "Drop-D" tuning and a recorded sermon from a 1950s preacher that producer Jack Endino found at a Seattle garage sale. Also, according to legend, opening track "Hunted Down" was the song you'd hear when you called the SP offices and were put on hold — meaning hundreds of creditors were kept at bay by the tune's heavy riffage while Pavitt and/or Poneman scrambled to find some cash. The power of proto-grunge at its most practical.

Mudhoney's Superfuzz Bigmuff EP (1988, SP #21)

'Honey frontman/maniac Mark Arm basically invented the so-called "Seattle Sound" with his previous band, Green River, but looking for something more (in his words, "a band that actually liked to practice"), he formed Mudhoney and blew everything up once again. Their debut single, "Touch Me I'm Sick," is probably the single greatest grunge anthem of all time (seriously), all fuzzed-out guitars and tape hiss and Arm's way-out wails. And on Superfuzz, they only honed their, ahem, craft. So we get big, lurching numbers like "Mudride" and "No One Has" (the guitars on the latter actually sound like they're drunk on Schmidt Beer, a local favorite based on its potency and, well, its cheapness); the heavy fretting of "In 'N Out of Grace"; and "If I Think," a tune that basically spawned every "let's slow it down for a minute" song for the next decade.

Nirvana's Bleach (1989, SP #34)

Perhaps you've heard of these guys. Taking the murky bludgeon of Mudhoney, stripping away some of Arm's machismo and adding some rather subtle pop flourishes, Nirvana's debut is as self-assured as anything they'd accomplish later, if not a little bit snottier. As the back of the album brags, er, states, Bleach was "recorded in Seattle ... for $600," though you'd never know it from the genuinely pretty "About a Girl" or the gnarly "Negative Creep." Sure, there are moments when Cobain (or, sorry, per the liners he's "Kobain" here) sounds like a bantamweight trying to flex his way out of a fight — like on "Love Buzz" — but there's no denying that there's something in his voice (of course, that could just be hindsight hearing it for me). I'm probably not alone in thinking that, either. With sales of more than 1 million copies, Bleach is not only Sub Pop's biggest seller to date, but also its only release to be certified as platinum.

Thee Headcoats' Heavens to Murgatroyd, Even! It's Thee Headcoats! (Already) (1990, SP #82)

Brit Billy Childish was Jack White back when White was still upholstering chairs and calling himself John Gillis, and this is him at his garage-y finest. With the help of his Headcoats (and his all-girl Headcoatees), he serves up a lightning-quick retroist romp, complete with hissy, temperamental production and pipelined guitars for days (album closer "Rusty Hook" is quite possibly the greatest White Stripes song not written by the White Stripes). The entire album never gets much deeper than lines like "Treat yourself with respect/ Be a Headcoat man," but, hey, that's still plenty sage for me.

Tad's 8 Way Santa (1991, SP #89)

Brutal, bludgeoning stuff from mountain man (and man-mountain) Tad Doyle, a former butcher who tipped scales and dropped jaws back in the early '90s as the frontman/mastermind behind Sub Pop's heaviest act. And Santa is Doyle at the height of his powers, in more ways than one. Taking its name from a type of acid blotter and featuring buzzing odes to meth-stained truckers and drunk driving, it's a big, dumb and dirty album, one made only bigger (and, quite possibly, dumber) thanks to the lawsuit that resulted when the subjects of its original cover — a tube-topped woman and a heavily mustachioed man who had recently become born-again Christians — sued Sub Pop for using their images without their consent. (Doyle claimed he found the photo of the couple at a thrift store.) All copies of the album were forced to be destroyed, and a new cover image — featuring the band standing next to some livestock at a county fair — was used instead. Re-reading this paragraph again, it's obvious to me that Tad was way more awesome than I remember.

Mark Lanegan's Whiskey for the Holy Ghost (1993, SP #132)

His first solo record (1990's The Winding Sheet) featured Cobain on backing vocals, and his full-time band (Screaming Trees) was one of Seattle's finest, but it's this, his second solo effort, that showcases Lanegan at his best. Recorded over a three-year period (sessions were so grinding that at one point, Lanegan nearly tossed the masters into a nearby lake), Whiskey is an intense listen, filled with beautifully sinister, nocturnal music. Songs like "Kingdoms of Rain" and "Beggar's Blues" echo with churchly organs and somber cellos, while Lanegan's voice pours over it all like Dewar's over ice. Genuinely beautiful stuff and an album that foreshadows the latter part of Lanegan's career, working alongside the likes of Josh Homme and Isobel Campbell.

The Vaselines' The Way of the Vaselines: A Complete History (1992, SP #145)

Seriously screwy, supremely screwed-up indie pop from a pair of clever Scots. Formed on a whim, the Vaselines — Eugene Kelley and Frances McKee — released a pair of EPs and one full-length in the late '80s (all of which is collected here) then split up for no apparent reason to do nothing in particular. Cobain was a huge fan of their skewered work, covering a pair of songs ("Molly's Lips" and "Son of a Gun") on Nirvana's odds-n-sods collection Incesticide, and then — more famously, perhaps — during the band's "Unplugged" performance (doing "Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam"). A gleefully warped record, one that only seems to be about three things: sex, bicycles and Jesus. Oh, and drugs too.

Sebadoh's Bakesale (1994, SP #260)

An honest-to-goodness indie-rock classic, Bakesale is full of heart-stopping (or, alternately, heart-breaking) songs of doubt, fear and loathing — both of yourself and your fellow man. Masterminds Lou Barlow and Jason Lowenstein are in top form throughout, from the beautiful "Dreams" and the Slint-y "Sh-- Soup" to the jangly "Give Up" and the classic "Rebound." And it's not as wussy as you might expect — OK, it sort of is, but at least the guitars sound plenty heavy.

Sunny Day Real Estate's LP2 (1995, SP #316)

By now, you probably know the drama surrounding this one — mercurial frontman discovers religion, breaks up the band before album is released, leaving other members high and dry (or in the Foo Fighters) — and all that you've heard about LP2 is correct. But also consider that it's a colossal achievement, one that positively redefined stop/start (and loud/quiet) rock and paved the way for a new musical movement a decade later. Over the course of nine songs, guitarist Dan Hoerner arpeggiates and creates walls of crisp, clean sound, while the rhythm section of Nate Mendel and William Goldsmith chug and prod each other along. And frontman Jeremy Enigk's eerie voice weaves through the din like a serpent ducking into holes. Songs like "8" and "Iscarabaid" are both epic and minute, macro-detailed and wide-angle huge. "8" gets positively stratospheric thanks to Hoerner and Enigk's interplay, and "5/4" rocks harder than any song about Jesus should be allowed to.

The Spinanes' Arches + Aisles (1998, SP #417)

For all the electronic bleep-bloop, spy-movie guitars and bossa-nova beats contained therein (truly, producer John McEntire's tech-y touch is all over this one), Arches is, at its core, a singer/songwriter album, one featuring the razor-sharp lyrics of frontwoman Rebecca Gates (OK, so it also sounds like a Stereolab side project). Witness her deft observations on tunes like "72-74," where she plots revenge with a Mont Blanc pen on "your mustachioed mad man," or "Love, the Laizee," which laments the "seersucker pressure" of a former lover.

The Murder City Devils' In Name and Blood (2000, SP #497)

Ah, the lean years ... when records like this were tossed out by the floundering label with the hope of latching on to something — anything. The Devils' third album is like a pulp crime novel brought to screaming life — booze, sex, ashtrays overflowing with butts galore. And then there are the liner notes, which feature gory and detailed crime-scene photos of the bandmembers' rather unique demises (hanging, blunt trauma, "abdominal goring with a broken bottle"). Plus, a cover of Neil Diamond's "I'll Come Running." If this record were released today, there is at least a 50 percent chance these guys would be Hot Topic godheads.

The Shins' Oh, Inverted World (2001, SP #550)

Oh, enhanced cash flow. James Mercer and his band of merry retroists ambled in from the desert surrounding Albuquerque, New Mexico, with an armload of sunny, amiable jangle-pop (the kind of stuff brooding 25-year-old sitcom-stars-turned-writer/directors just love) and Sub Pop found new — not to mention profitable — life. Of course, you know "New Slang," but there's plenty of gold here ("Weird Divide," "Know Your Onion!") and songs like "Your Algebra" and "The Past and Pending" (you know, the ones after "Slang" that you never listen to) only hint at the more nocturnal territory the band covered on last year's Wincing the Night Away.

The Postal Service's Give Up (2003, SP #595)

By everyone at Sub Pop's admission, this one just sort of fell into their laps, and some 900,000 copies later, it's the second biggest-selling album in the label's history. And no one seems to be able to figure out why.Intended as nothing more than a one-off collaboration between Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard and producer Jimmy Tamborello, Give Up has instead taken on a life of its own, and while it's difficult to listen to a song like "Such Great Heights" these days and not think of an ad for UPS, that doesn't mean there aren't some genuinely great moments on the album. Like when "Such Great Heights" bursts open with flourishes of mini-orchestras, or the split-second break in "We Will Become Silhouettes" or even closer "Natural Anthem," where everything comes unraveled in five short minutes. If anything, the album is really a testament to the skill of Tamborello, because if there's a vocal effect, drum pattern, synth flutter or low-end frequency he doesn't use on Give Up, I haven't heard it.

Iron + Wine's The Creek Drank the Cradle (2002, SP #600)

Sleepy lo-fi folk made by a bearded dude from Miami. If there's any indication of just how much Sub Pop has changed over the course of 20 years, this is it. The debut disc from the majestically hirsute Sam Beard, Creek came out of nowhere to earn near-universal acclaim. And it's not difficult to see why. Full of twinkly banjo ("Promising Light") and rusty slide guitar ("Faded From the Winter"), it's a remarkably accomplished introduction to the world. Full of scratches and pops, the screeches of fingers on frets and hushed lyrics, Creek is just as warm as I can presume Beam's beard gets during those balmy South Beach summers.

Wolf Parade's Apologies to the Queen Mary (2005, SP #655)

From the opening claptrap of "You Are a Runner, I Am My Father's Son" (herky-jerky piano, crashing cymbals, Spencer Krug's bizarro falsetto), it's clear Wolf Parade are zooming toward something — you're just not quite sure what. And while the voyage is nice — "Modern World," "Grounds for Divorce" and "Shine a Light" are all pleasant diversions — you know when you've arrived: with the blaring synth notes and pounding drums of "I'll Believe in Anything," a song that builds and crashes over and over again, creating great peaks of cymbal crashes and huge waterfalls of guitars. It's glorious, like 10 vistas or a dozen mountain ranges. And then, it's over, and the rest of the trip is kind of a bummer. But still, dude, that view from the top!

Love as Laughter's Laughter's Fifth (2005, SP #659)

LAL mastermind Sam Jayne has made a rather amazing anti-career out of not really trying all that hard, first as a guest on Beck's One Foot in the Grave album, then on a pair of K Records releases of his own. And that, uh, talent is on ample display here. There's an awful lot of wide-eyed, delightfully scruffy stuff here, from the opening track "In Amber," which sounds like a Heartbreakers' B-side and features a line about the Pauly Shore flick "Encino Man," and the truly excellent "Corona Extra," a lover's lament that boasts gently plucked acoustic guitar and a cheesy "crashing tide" sound effect. Effort is overrated anyway.

Sleater-Kinney's The Woods (2005, SP #670)

The final chapter in the career of one of America's finest bands, The Woods represents Sleater-Kinney at the brink. Recorded in the dead of winter at Dave Fridmann's Upstate New York studio, it's an album of quiet claustrophobia and less-than-quiet rage. They sound crazy and pissed off at their surroundings and each other, which is why we get feedback heavy freak-outs like "Wilderness" and the raging, 11-minute "Let's Call It Love." That S-K decided to call it quits after the album's release was probably pure coincidence, but it certainly casts a deathly pallor over the record now — like hearing a star collapse into itself, only with more distortion.

Band of Horses' Everything All the Time (2006, SP #690)

Strummy, spacey, sepia-tinged indie rock to purchase SUVs to (or "crossovers" or whatever they're called). South Carolina-bred Ben Bridwell does his roots proud, and there's a homespun warmth to everything on the record. "The Funeral" put them on the map, but it's far from the only great tune here — "Wicked Gil" is a stomper, "The Great Salt Lake" is a My Morning Jacket castoff and "Weed Party" is awesome because it sounds like the kind of song you'd make after attending a weed party.

Pissed Jeans' Hope for Men (2007, SP #730)

Squealing, abrasive, unapologetic noise punk from the pride of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Frontman Matt Korvette yowls his throat out on tracks like the sludgy "People Person" and the thrashing "Secret Admirer," plus there's odes to scrapbooking (that sound like they're being sung by the devil), ice cream and yuppies who play fantasy football. These guys are the future — or just the unruly bastard children of Mark Arm.

Flight of the Conchords' Flight of the Conchords (2008, SP #715)

Faux French new-wave ballads, goofy synth-pop songs, tired "lover-man" tunes aplenty — ladies and gentlemen, the full-length debut from the Grammy-winning comedy duo Flight of the Conchords! I am not the best person to write about this one, as I detest "funny" music (my favorite track here is probably "Au Revoir," since it's only 21 seconds long), so let's just move on, shall we?

The Gutter Twins' Saturnalia (2008, SP #761)

An album more than three years in the making, full of morose and melodramatic ruminations on life, death and the afterlife, by Lanegan and former Afghan Whigs lothario Greg Dulli. If you like the dark and desperate places the Whigs (who, I'm just now noticing, are strangely missing from this list) went, or the windswept desolation of Lanegan's stuff, well, then you probably already own this one. Songs like "Idle Hands" and "Circle the Fringes" are somber, eerie affairs, while album-closer "Front Street" is gorgeous, desperate and swooning. Basically, there are about 1 million emotions going on here ... none of them rosy. But what else would you expect from the Twins?

Questions? Concerns? Platinum plaques? Send 'em to me at BTTS@MTVStaff.com.

• Welcome To Sub Pop!

• Nirvana
• Soundgarden
• The Postal Service
• Iron & Wine
• The Vaselines

Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard
Photo: MTV News

It's a story as old as rock and roll itself (or at least as old as Jawbreaker or Jawbox): beloved — yet idealistic — indie band signs deal with evil major label, gets lost in the shuffle, is chewed up and destroyed by the machine, subsequently breaks up.

Death Cab for Cutie knew all this when they signed to Atlantic in November 2004. Their fans did too, and they let the band know about it. History, they said, was not on their side. This could not end well.

Only, Death Cab didn't listen. Their first major-label record, Plans, was certified platinum, thanks in no small part to the fact that the band agreed to put in the work, touring relentlessly, playing the rock-radio-festival circuit and doing reams of interviews. They shouldered the load, played ball and, as a result, were given the time and space they needed to make their new album, Narrow Stairs (due May 13), a sonorous and sanguine effort that's very much the sound of a band pushing the borders.

"When we signed to Atlantic, we told them and ourselves that we were going to do the work," DCFC frontman Ben Gibbard said. "We weren't going to be that indie band that signs to a major label and gets really precious about everything, or decides that we want to go about our lives the way we did when we were on Barsuk [Records], and then wonder why we didn't sell any records.

"That's usually the end of 'indie band signs to major label': things don't happen the way they wanted it to," he continued. "Because nine times out of 10, people don't want to do the work. We said to ourselves, 'We're going to do all the work, all the touring, all the press,' and that's what we did."

Simply put, Death Cab earned the right to make Narrow Stairs, and you can hear them rejoicing in that fact throughout. The much-discussed first single, "I Will Possess Your Heart," is eight and a half minutes long, just because the band wanted it that way. "Pity and Fear" floats along on a layer of skittering Tabla drums. "You Can Do Better Than Me" kicks off with a massive timpani roll, explodes orchestrally, and then ends abruptly. It's very much a record that pushes the limits, and the band is clearly relishing in it.

"We could see the light at the end of the tunnel throughout everything we did for Plans, and we knew that we were going to get to that point," Gibbard said. "So, by the time we got to December 2006, we knew we were there. It wasn't as if we were like, 'If we're feeling it, we'll get back into the studio this summer.' It was, 'OK, on August 15, 2007, we'll get back into the studio and start working on a record.' And that's what we did."

And though there never was a conscious decision to blow people's minds (I mean, when is there ever?) Death Cab ripped through Stairs with a reckless abandon that's typically unheard of for a major-label act following up a platinum album. It's less from the brain and more from the gut — recorded in just 44 days in three studios — and there's an energy that crackles throughout. Part of that comes from being free of expectations, and part of it comes from knowing they've earned the right to be that way.

"I think that at this point, I feel — for better or worse — that a lot of people have made up their mind about whether or not they like our music. I mean, you never want to give people a loaded gun, but the gun's been loaded for a long time," Gibbard laughed. "So I feel like the same things a lot of people like about this record, a lot of people will take issue with — and that's totally fine. I'm really at peace with anybody's take on this album, because we had such a great time making it. I feel like there is an honesty and inspiration on the album that's undeniable. And even more undeniable is the fact that nobody can come at us and say that we didn't try to do something different."

• Death Cab For Cutie Stick To Indie Roots

• Death Cab For Cutie
• The Postal Service

Dntel
Photo: Brian Tamborello

In theory, Jimmy Tamborello is "promoting" Dumb Luck, his new album of sleepy glitch-tronica recorded under the nom de disc Dntel. But when said promotion results in comments like this, it's easy to tell that his heart's not really in it:

"I'm not gonna go out and play songs off this record ... I'll probably do some sort of release party or something like that, but that's about it. I mean, I always feel comfortable with lessened expectations," he sighed. "People can think what they want, but I just wanted to get this album out there, and now that I have, I'll just keep working on other stuff."

His attitude is odd, because it's not like Dumb Luck (due April 24 on Sub Pop) is anything to be ashamed of. Boasting cameos from a who's who of indie faves — including Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst, Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis and Grizzly Bear's Ed Droste — and powered with Tamborello's slick-yet-threadbare soundscapes, it's a somber, certifiably chilled affair that'd be right at home in both the offices of Magnet magazine and the Macworld Expo.

And, to top it off, it's something Tamborello — who has collaborated on projects by Rilo Kiley, Azure Ray and others — has been working on for nearly five years now.

"It's been a long time in the making, for a variety of reasons. There were a few people that I wrote for that didn't work out. For some people, I wrote like eight different tracks. You kind of don't know if it's going to work out until it's done ... especially if you're working with strangers," he said. "When I started this one, it was right after I finished the first one [2001's Life Is Full of Possibilities], because once you've finished one thing, it's on to the next thing."

Yet even Tamborello knows that most people are already looking forward to that "next thing," which in this case would be a new album from the Postal Service, the breakout electro-pop duo he formed with Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard.

In June, Gibbard told MTV News that he and Tamborello had begun work on the follow-up to the gold-certified Give Up album, but added that things were progressing "slowly" (see "Ben Gibbard's Postal Service Prepping Next Delivery: Second LP"). According to Tamborello, the pace of things has picked up in recent months, especially since he can finally put Dumb Luck behind him.

"We're working on Postal Service now, and we're just focused on that, because we're trying to do it a lot quicker. ... We wanted to try and have it finished by the summertime," he said. "It's hard to tell if we're going to make it, because sometimes it'll come real fast on my end and sometimes I'll just have these fits of writer's block, where I don't feel like doing anything. Plus it depends on what I send Ben and what he feels like writing to."

Tamborello said that the duo have roughly six new PS songs completed, and they hope to have a new album out by the end of the year. But he was quick to add that — at the moment — said album "isn't nearly even 50 percent done."

"If we don't make the deadline we set for ourselves, we can extend it. Sub Pop has never given us a deadline, and we're trying our best to make it in the same environment we made the first one: We have to keep reminding ourselves that we're doing it for fun and trying to keep things casual," he said. "And that's pretty difficult to do, to be honest. I have to keep reminding myself that it doesn't have to sound like a giant mainstream pop record just because the last one got to so many people. I have to remember how the last one sounded — lo-fi and in my comfort level of production — and I want to stay that way."

As for clues as to just what the new Postal Service album will sound like, Tamborello advises fans to check out the lengthy list of studio gear he's compiled on Dntel's MySpace page (it's under the blog headline "My Studio"). After all, most of the stuff on there was acquired thanks to the success of Give Up, and he's used the equipment to create everything — Dumb Luck included — he's done since.

"If anything, the new [Postal Service] songs are a little bit harder ... more raw. It's very analog-sounding, because I've bought a lot of equipment since the first [record,]" he said. "A lot of it is coming from the new instruments, and the kind of sounds you can get out of them. The first one was pretty much done on one sampler, and now I have more stuff I like to use. A lot more analog synths — the new Moog Voyager and a bunch of different drum machines."

At the moment, the record only features Tamborello and Gibbard songs. But that doesn't mean that there won't be guests, too. The duo have already sent tracks out to Jenny Lewis — who sang on Give Up — and they've even set their sights on landing another, rather, um, unusual voice for the album.

"A long time ago, I heard that Ghostface Killah liked 'Such Great Heights,' and when we started this one, we were talking about figuring out some way to get a hold of him," Tamborello laughed. "If there were some way to work him into the album, it would be excellent. But we'll see about that."

• Dntel
• The Postal Service
• Ghostface Killah

The Postal Service
Photo: Sub Pop Records

You've got to hand it to Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard and Dntel's Jimmy Tamborello: Even when they're not making music as the Postal Service, they're still kinda sorta making Postal Service music. Or at least inspiring credible facsimiles.

Confused? Well, now you know what it feels like to be a Postal Service fan, especially in the weeks following the Internet release of "The Importance of Being." The song was purported to be a demo from the new, hotly anticipated PS album, which still doesn't have a title or proper release date.

It all started earlier this month, when "Being" — a chiming slice of electro-pop in the spirit of the Postal Service's "We Will Become Silhouettes" — began to make its way around various music blogs. The song was accompanied by an unverified quote from Gibbard that seemed to indicate that work on the new album was well under way, with him, Tamborello and Rilo Kiley frontwoman (and Postal Service contributor) Jenny Lewis each writing sections of the record.

It was news that had Postal Service fans, who have been waiting years for a new LP, quivering with excitement. The song's similarity to the band's earlier material — coupled with the fact that Gibbard told MTV News in June that he and Tamborello had been sending each other songs via e-mail (see "Ben Gibbard's Postal Service Prepping Next Delivery: Second LP") — made even the most skeptical music blogger at least consider the fact that "Being" could be the real deal, an honest-to-goodness leaked demo.

There was only one problem: It wasn't.

That's according to Tamborello, who e-mailed MTV News last week to say the song had nothing to do with the Postal Service, nor was it a rough track from a new Dntel album he had supposedly been working on, which was also a rumor.

"Someone showed me that song yesterday ... it actually has nothing to do with me or Ben," he wrote. "I guess it's just someone playing a joke. I have no idea who it actually is."

And neither did anyone else. The prime suspects — at least according to comments left on several music blogs — was the Northern Two, an unsigned Los Angeles electro-pop duo that recently completed a new album and were looking to drum up some publicity by leaking "Being" under the Postal Service banner.

But here's where the matter gets even more confusing: While the song certainly sounds like the Northern Two, the group denied any involvement with the song through an e-mail sent to GoodWeatherForAirstrikes.com, one of the first blogs to post the track. (Attempts by MTV News to contact the group were unsuccessful.)

So it looks like the mystery of "The Importance of Being" will remain unsolved, at least for the time being. And that's not necessarily good news for the Postal Service's label, Sub Pop. Seems it would like to have a word with the Postal Impostors. At the very least.

"All this is completely out of the blue and, as far as we know, none of it is true," a label spokesperson, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told MTV News. "I have no clue who made that thing, but I would like to kill them."

• The Postal Service

Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard
Photo: Jeff Gentner/Getty Images

Here's great news for fans of indie-electro act the Postal Service: There's a brand-new album in the works.

That's according to Postal Service/ Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard, who filled MTV News in on all the details backstage at last weekend's Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee (see "Radiohead Marathon, Beck Puppet Show, Partial Phish Jam Mix It Up At Bonnaroo").

"We're slowly starting. We're crawling right now, and whether that crawl turns into a walk remains to be seen," Gibbard said. "But we'll know more towards the end of the year. I've just been touring so much and trying to find time to make it happen and make our schedules line up.

"The good thing about working with [producer/musician] Jimmy [Tamborello] is it takes him sending me something for me to write lyrics for it. It's not like I'm sitting around going, 'Oh, that would be good for a Postal Service song.' "

A spokesperson for the Postal Service's label, Sub Pop Records, confirmed that Gibbard and Tamborello have begun work on the follow-up to their breakout 2003 album Give Up. And keeping with tradition, the duo are doing that work while being separated by great distance (Tamborello is based in Los Angeles, and Gibbard has spent almost all of the past year on tour with Death Cab).

But unlike the sessions for Give Up, in which they'd mail each other finished tunes, hence their name (see "Death Cab Singer Goes Postal With Electronic Side Project"), this time the correspondence is being done via e-mail.

"It's sort of the way we've been forced to do things, because I've been so busy," Gibbard laughed. "But it's basically the same way we've always worked. When I was writing songs for [Death Cab's 2003 LP] Transatlanticism, I was writing songs for Give Up at the same time. Part of what makes the Postal Service so great is that it never means that Death Cab has to be put on the back burner."

So far, only a pair of songs have gotten the full Postal treatment. But as Gibbard's touring responsibilities begin to wind down — Death Cab will make one more trek across North America in the fall — he pledges he'll be getting down to the process of writing more lyrics. But he's not quite sure where they'll end up, because he's also in the very early stages of writing a new Death Cab record, too.

"We're going to do one more lap around the country and then go home and work on music. At the end of the year is when this is all going to wrap up, and we can all get back to work," Gibbard said.

"One thing that [Death Cab] realized when we signed with a major label is that we were going to be doing a lot more work than we ever did before, and we're definitely living up to that end of the bargain," Gibbard added. "Because between the Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie, I certainly am going to remain busy."

• Radiohead, Common, Matisyahu, More At The 2006 Bonnaroo Music And Arts Festival

• The Postal Service
• Death Cab For Cutie

Michael Jackson
Photo: Christina Barany/Getty Images

Michael Jackson had planned to release his forever-forthcoming Hurricane Katrina charity single on a fledgling label called Two Seas Records, which was set up by his benefactor, Bahraini Prince Abdulla Hamad Al Khalifa. But now the singer's signed to the label himself, promising to record a new album for release by next year, the label announced Tuesday (April 18). British music-industry exec Guy Holmes, who has been named CEO of the label, will also take on the role of Jackson's manager. "I am incredibly excited about my new venture," Jackson said in a statement, "and I am enjoying being back in the studio making music." ...

Jennifer Lopez is putting the finishing touches on her upcoming Spanish-language album, Como Ama Una Mujer (which translates to How a Woman Loves), but she's already brainstorming her next project, she revealed to Harper's Bazaar in the magazine's May cover story (Click to see Lopez's Harper's Bazaar photos.) The singer said her follow-up will be a ska-tinged pop album and spoke highly of former ska-pop queen Gwen Stefani. "Women who've started their own trends, who don't care what other people are thinking ... I admire Gwen Stefani's style and Madonna's. Those two have blazed their own trails." Meanwhile, Lopez has revised the dates for her upcoming international tour. She's nixed shows in Mumbai, India, and Istanbul, Turkey, and has added one in Sofia, Bulgaria, on May 2. ...

Ashley Parker Angel shows off his lack of cooking skills on Tuesday's episode of Diddy's weeklong series, "Celebrity Cooking Showdown." "I do not cook," Parker Angel said. "I'm the first one to say it. Coming into this thing, I knew how to make Eggo [waffles] and ice cubes, and that was like it." Competing with the likes of Tom Arnold, Patti LaBelle and Gabrielle Reese, the former O-Town singer said he had to overcome his fear of chopping off his fingers to please his partner chef, Wolfgang Puck. "Wolf was like, 'Faster, faster,' and I play guitar, I play piano, I need my fingers, you know?" If Parker Angel makes the cut, he'll compete again on Thursday for the final cook-off. The show airs at 8 p.m. ET on NBC, and the winner will be announced live on Friday. ...

Yellowcard will hit the road this summer for a string of festival and club dates. The tour kicks off in earnest May 7 at the Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis, Tennessee, and makes stops at radio festivals in Boston, Providence and Columbia, Maryland, before hitting its stride with the first club gig June 1 at the Marquee Theatre in Tempe, Arizona. The club tour is currently scheduled to run until the end of June, but more dates are expected to be announced shortly. Matchbook Romance and Hedley will join YC for the shows. ... After visiting an AIDS clinic in Masaka, Uganda, last week, Alicia Keys was in Durban, South Africa, Tuesday to visit more Keep a Child Alive-sponsored sites, including the AIDS Healthcare Foundation's Ithembalabantu ("people's hope" in Zulu) Healthcare Center. The clinic provides free medical care and antiretroviral treatment to thousands of children and families living with HIV/AIDS. Keys and the KCA group spent two hours visiting a few hundred patients, about 50 of whom were children. ...

Hoobastank and Korean R&B singer Se7en are scheduled to perform live at MTV Japan's Video Music Awards May 27. The event — which will take place at the National Yoyogi Stadium No. 1 Gymnasium — will also feature Japanese R&B singer AI, reggae duo Def Tech and Japanese pop icon Kumi Koda, as well as Rihanna for the red-carpet show. Andrew W.K. and Pamela Anderson join previously announced Asian celebrity presenters such as Anna Tsuchiya, Melody and Soul'd Out. ... "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" sure worked its magic on the box office — the fourth film in the franchise became the first digitally remastered 2D IMAX film to reach the milestone of grossing $20 million, Warner Bros. Pictures and IMAX announced Tuesday. "Harry Potter" also set records for IMAX with the biggest three-day opening weekend and highest per-screen average. ...

The reunited Alice in Chains will perform at the 2006 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally August 11 in Sturgis, South Dakota, according to the event's Web site. Other artists lined up to perform include Kid Rock, Alice Cooper, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Blue Öyster Cult. Alice in Chains will launch a brief U.S. club tour on May 18 in Los Angeles, with Comes With the Fall frontman William DuVall and other guest vocalists filling in for the late Layne Staley. No other dates have been revealed. ... Due to an undisclosed illness, Head Automatica have been forced to pull out of three of the dates on the band's current tour with Coheed and Cambria and Avenged Sevenfold. Head Automatica, whose frontman Daryl Palumbo battles Crohn's disease, missed a performance scheduled in Houston on Monday and will not appear at shows set for San Antonio, Texas, on Tuesday and Grand Prairie, Texas, on Wednesday. Head Automatica's new album, Popaganda, hits stores June 6. ...

Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee has been suffering from tendonitis in recent weeks, impeding his ability to pound the kit. But it appears the injury hasn't impacted Tommy's skills behind the ones and twos, as he's lined up a number of DJ gigs. Lee will be manning the turntables at Boston's Avalon (April 29); Louisville, Kentucky's Atlas (May 6); Las Vegas' Ice (May 27); Atlantic City, New Jersey's Mixx (June 9); and Las Vegas' Hard Rock Hotel (July 17). ... Panic Channel, featuring former Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro and drummer Stephen Perkins, will head out on a 17-date club tour that kicks off May 16 in San Diego. Dates run through June 7 in Los Angeles. Navarro will also co-host the upcoming Erotica LA convention, set for June 23-25, with adult-film star Jenna Jameson. ... Melissa Etheridge announced on her Web site Tuesday that her partner, Tammy Lynn Michaels, is pregnant with twins. "We are thrilled to announce that Tammy is pregnant, and expecting our twins sometime around this fall," read the statement. "To answer the obvious question: We used an anonymous donor from a [sperm] bank." ...

Jimmy Tamborello, the electronic whiz kid behind the Postal Service, will release a solo album titled Mistake Mistake Mistake Mistake under the moniker James Figurine. Due July 11, the 10-track disc will include vocal collaborations with Rilo Kiley and Postal Service associate Jenny Lewis, Kings of Convenience's Erlend Øye as well as designer/animator/poet Geoff McFetridge. ... Having toured the country — twice — and sung out loud and proud against President Bush on "The Tonight Show," Conor Oberst is now hard at work on a follow-up to the two Bright Eyes albums he released last year, Digital Ash in a Digital Urn and I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning. According to the band's label, Saddle Creek, Bright Eyes — now consisting of Oberst, Saddle Creek utilityman Mike Mogis and trumpet player Nate Walcott — are writing and recording a new album right now, and they've gotten help from singer/songwriter M. Ward and Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss. The still-untitled LP is tentatively due in spring 2007. Bright Eyes will take a break from recording beginning in June to play a handful of shows in Canada, plus an appearance at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee. ...

Vanessa Carlton performs on an upcoming episode of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," in which two grandparents raising three orphaned grandchildren in Philadelphia get a renovated home. The renovation takes place over the course of two back-to-back episodes airing April 30 beginning at 7 p.m. on ABC. Since the children's late mother suffered from breast cancer, Carlton's performance takes place at a breast cancer awareness fundraising concert. ... Patti LaBelle isn't someone you'd immediately associate with country music — nevertheless, the R&B singer is going to serve as a guest judge on "Nashville Star." "So much of country music's heritage comes from rhythm and blues," the show's executive producer Jeff Boggs said. "Her advice for our contestants will be invaluable." LaBelle will give the five remaining hopefuls helpful hints during episode six, which airs live Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET on the USA network.

04.17.06

Mario Etheridge, the bouncer at Detroit's CCC Club suspected in the shooting death of D12's Proof, was arraigned on weapons charges Saturday morning in Detroit's 36th District Court. Etheridge's attorney, Randall Upshaw, entered not guilty pleas on his client's behalf during the hearing. According to the Detroit Free Press, Magistrate Steve Lockhart set Etheridge's bond at $70,000 — an amount he has yet to post. He's due in court for a preliminary hearing April 26. ...

According to Jimmy Rosemond, who manages the Game, the Compton, California, MC wasn't in court in Greensboro, North Carolina, on March 28 because an appearance summons never showed up in his mailbox. In a statement issued Monday afternoon (April 17), Rosemond said "there was a change of address in which Game did not receive his court summons." (Last week a judge issued a bench warrant for the Game's arrest after he missed his court date.) The Game still faces charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in Greensboro, stemming from an October incident at a local mall. "It was a simple mistake and yes, a paper warrant was issued," Rosemond said. "However, his attorneys are working to clear this matter immediately." ...

Pink's not "Stupid" — she knows it's time to move on from her controversial clip and demonstrate that the rest of her new album, I'm Not Dead, isn't all gimmick. The singer shot a video for the wistful "Who Knew" over the weekend in Los Angeles, following a couple at a carnival with directors Samuel Bayer (Green Day, Good Charlotte), Robert Hales (Fort Minor, Jet) and Brian Lazzaro (Rilo Kiley, Mest). "It's about the death of friendship," Pink said. "You're best friends forever, and then three years later, you haven't seen each other in two years. What happened? You grow apart and people come in and out of your life for different reasons, seasons." Pink also has a video for "U and Ur Hand" already in the can, directed by "Stupid Girls" auteur Dave Meyers. ... Ashanti pulled out of a planned concert in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Saturday after her cousin was killed by a drunk driver while running an errand for the singer before the show. According to the Cape Times Web site, 20-year-old Quinshae Snead was thrown into oncoming traffic from a car in which she was a passenger after it was struck by an unlicensed 17-year-old drunk driver who had stolen his mother's car. The teen was arrested for drunk driving. Ashanti was on the bill for the Redd's Divas Concert at the Coca-Cola Dome, which also featured Lauryn Hill, Regina Belle and a host of popular African singers. ...

The White Stripes are being sued by a Detroit producer who claims he helped produce the band's signature lo-fi sound. Jim Diamond — the Dirtbombs bassist who is credited as a co-producer on the Stripes' 1999 self-titled debut and sound mixer on 2000's De Stijl — is now seeking royalties from them. A spokesperson for the Stripes acknowledged the suit but had no further comment on it. Bert Deixler, the Los Angeles attorney representing the band in the case, told The Associated Press that the suit "is meritless [and] will be defended with vigor." A June 12 trial date has been set for the case. ... If you're just about to pay your taxes, Moby wants you to think about where the money you're giving the government is going. "A lot of times, when you think of government policies, it seems very abstract and sort of arbitrary, until all of a sudden it's tax time, and you realize that your tax dollars are actually funding what the government does," he said. And that means partly bankrolling the Iraq war, which he claims is costing $244.2 million per day, or $170,000 per minute, or $2,379 per person. "Apart from that it's the biggest foreign policy disaster in the United States and that thousands of American soldiers are being killed and maimed, the fact that it's coming out of everyone's pocket really just adds insult to injury," Moby said, suggesting people feel free to write "not for Iraq" on the envelope. ...

Former Great White manager Daniel Biechele has written letters of apology to the families of 100 people who died in a nightclub fire at a Great White show in February 2003, the AP reports. Biechele was the one who lit the pyrotechnics display that sparked the blaze. He pleaded guilty to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter and will serve up to 10 years in prison under a plea bargain that did not require him to write the letters. "Mr. Biechele feels genuine sorrow at what happened in this case, and he's been wanting to say something to the victims for a long time," his lawyer, Tom Briody, told the AP. Biechele's sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 8. ... A judge in New Orleans has thrown out a lawsuit by a man who claims to have been sexually and physically assaulted by Michael Jackson in 1984, the AP reports. Joseph Bartucci Jr., who was 18 at the time of the alleged incident, claimed Jackson lured him into a limo at the world's fair and held him for nine days, and that he repressed the memory until 2003. U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon's reason for the dismissal was not released along with the judge's order. ...

Christina Milian has lots to say these days about her ex Nick Cannon, and none of it's pretty. Milian told Blender magazine for its May cover story that she found out Cannon was cheating on her after hacking his Sidekick. (Click here to see photos of Milian in Blender.) While filming the Wes Craven thriller "Pulse" in Romania, Milian started getting calls from her friends back home, asking if the couple were still together. "All the time we were together, I heard nothing," the singer told the mag. "No rumors, no gossip, and then all of a sudden I'm in Romania and I start hearing stuff." Once she found the code to Cannon's phone and cracked it, Milian says her concerns were confirmed. "I did something no woman should do," she said. "But sometimes you're entitled to ... and I think a lot of women do it, but it's my first time doing it." She had more to say about the breakup for Rap-Up's latest cover story, revealing that when she broke up with Cannon, he admitted cheating on her "for the entire three years we were together. The whole time with different girls, not just one, but different girls. He said to me that these girls helped his ego and made him look good," she said. Milian added that any characterization by Cannon that they're still friends is completely false and that she's already called his mother to ask him to stop saying that. Milian finds space to vent on her upcoming album, So Amazin', too. She gets even on the song "Who's Gonna Ride," which features the opening line "I ain't one to cuss, but f--- you." The album, produced in part by Milian's new boyfriend, Andre Lyon, — Dre of Cool and Dre — is due May 16. ...

Incubus will perform during Amnesty International's Make Some Noise, an acoustic benefit concert set for April 29 in Portland, Oregon. Actress Mira Sorvino will host the event, which will also feature performances by Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello (as Nightwatchman), Collective Soul and Suzanne Vega. ... There have been several additions to this year's Coachella Music and Arts Festival, set for April 29 and April 30 in Indio, California. Head Automatica, the Rakes and Catherine Wheel frontman Rob Dickinson will all be performing as part of the first day's lineup. Others confirmed for the festival include Tool, Madonna, Depeche Mode, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Franz Ferdinand. ... The season six finale of "The Gilmore Girls" will pack an extra punch of indie love, featuring appearances from Yo La Tengo, Joe Pernice, Sparks, Sam Phillips, Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon (with daughter Coco) and, for good measure, Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe O'Brian from "24"). The episode will air May 9 on the WB. ...

On Saturday, Deron Miller, lead singer for Bam Margera's favorite act, CKY, posted an announcement on the forum of the band's Web site, proclaiming "CKY Has Dropped Island Records." In the post, Miller wrote that, "We had been asking to be let go since 2003, when it was clear that the label had no idea how to market a band that doesn't write songs about breaking up with their girlfriends. To this day I truly don't know why they signed us in the first place." Later in the post, Miller explained that CKY were actually quite stoked to be off Island. "They wanted to do our fourth album, but giving them a fourth chance to deliver disappointing, empty promises seemed ludicrous." A spokesperson for Island — who released CKY's 2002 album, Infiltrate Destroy Rebuild, and last year's An Answer Can Be Found — said the label had no comment on the matter. Miller promised that even without a label, the band would press on with their current Australian tour. ...

"Guitar Hero" — the 2005 video game sleeper hit that gave players the chance to strap on plastic guitars and rock out — is coming back to the PS2 this November. Publisher RedOctane and developer Harmonix announced that "Guitar Hero II" will feature 55 songs in a still-secret set list. The game will also allow players to team up with separate guitars playing the role of rhythm, lead and bass. More information is expected at the Electronics Entertainment Expo in May. ... Reports began to surface last week that Neil Young had entered a studio earlier this month to record Living With War, an entire album's worth of protest songs featuring the track "Impeach the President," bolstered by a 100-voice choir. His label, Warner Bros., said it had no information about the record, but Young himself confirmed the album Monday via a post on his Web site, NeilYoung.com. In the lengthy message, Young wrote that the album was, in fact, called Living With War, a "metal version of Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan ... a power trio with trumpet and 100 voices." The album is apparently 10 songs long, and though there is no release date set, Young did thank Warner and Reprise Records "for the support." He didn't mention "Impeach," but Young did conclude his post with lyrics to the title track, which features the hook "I'm living with war every day/ I'm living with war right now/ And when night falls I pray for peace."

• Jennifer Lopez In The May 2006 Issue Of "Bazaar"

• Michael Jackson
• Jennifer Lopez
• Yellowcard
• Ashley Parker Angel
• Diddy

Feist
Photo: Amy V. Cooper

Leslie Feist wears many hats. At one time or another, the Canadian songstress has been a rapper, a jester-like sideman and an indie rocker.

"The weirder the collaboration thrown across my field of vision, the more likely it is I will take it," she said.

She started out gigging up north with rockers By Divine Right. She was then rechristened Bitch Lap Lap by potty-mouthed electro rapper Peaches, with whom she was touring. Subsequently she became a vaudevillian partner in crime to absurdist "German" rapper Chilly Gonzales, a.k.a. Canadian songwriter Jason Beck.

Somewhere in between these costume changes and chaotic recording schedules, Feist — who records under her last name only — put out a self-financed solo album, Monarch (Lay Down Your Jeweled Head), that generally went overlooked. Then in 2002 she became an integral part of the Broken Social Scene collective and their breakthrough record, You Forgot It in People (see "Broken Social Scene Tire Of Sprawling Lineup; Look To Solo Projects, Soundtracks").

It wasn't until she moved to Paris and recorded 2004's Let It Die that her true musical identity begin to emerge: a torchy folk chanteuse with touches of silky bossa nova, luminescent jazz and velvety pop both bittersweet and romantic.

The solo endeavor has been a bit of a slog: The U.S. release of Let It Die was delayed a year, and she's been touring behind the disc for almost two years. But Conor Oberst took Feist under his wing, taking her on a Bright Eyes tour and recording a much-downloaded cover of her song "Mushaboom," helping to bring her to new audiences.

While the album was recorded in Paris, Feist says it's too simplistic to say that the disc's cabaret quality was inspired by the City of Lights. "No city can truly be the personification of its clichés," she said. "It's true: Paris is beautiful and has a romantic history, but the true romance of [France] for me was that it was an anonymous blank slate."

At the time, she was taking refuge from a painful breakup, and Feist said much of that heartache informed Let It Die's tone. "The song 'Let It Die' shows [a relationship] cycle: the beginning and the ending, the bittersweetness," she said. "Because the saddest part of a broken heart isn't so much the ending as the start. What's really tragic about the end of a relationship isn't all the little reasons why you're breaking up but remembering what had been."

Currently recording her follow-up in Paris, Feist is once again teaming up with Gonzales, in addition to soul-techno producer Jamie Lidell. A continuation of the theme and mood explored on Let It Die, Feist joked that the album should be called Let It Live, adding that many of her inchoate 2002 songs, collectively known by fans as the "Red Demos," will likely be up for inclusion on the disc.

"I haven't deviated far from what Let It Die is at the core — simplicity — and I'm not quite done with that idea yet," she said. "You know how certain smells can trigger memories and you're not quite sure where they come from? I get that same sensation from writing songs, and I feel like Let It Die was the beginning of something important [that I need to keep exploring]."

Feist has also been busy recording "Somewhere Down the Road," a track penned by Jesse Harris (Norah Jones' songwriting partner), for the Ethan Hawke-written film "The Hottest State." The soundtrack features different singers, including Tony Scherr, Willie Nelson and Norah Jones, covering songs by Harris.

Another feather in her cap was reuniting the Postal Service for a remix of "Mushaboom." Because of Death Cab for Cutie's heavy schedule, the duo of Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello hadn't worked together — aside from an Amensty International charity single — since the release of their debut, 2003's Give Up, but they were so smitten with the song that they fit in some time to reimagine the track. Feist herself was so taken with it that she re-recorded her vocals to better fit the tweaked version.

"It was as if it had gotten a chance to go to the costume shop and rent the most crazy Zorro costume," Feist said of the song, available on iTunes. "It's such a different take. It isn't so much of a remix as it is a remake, and it was so much fun."

• Feist
• The Postal Service
• Bright Eyes

Apple Intel advertisement (left) and a video still from "Such Great Heights" by the Postal Service (right)
Photo: Apple/Sub Pop Records

Perhaps you've seen the new commercial touting Apple's highly publicized partnership with Intel. It's the one that features scientists in spacesuit-like clean-room gear, working in a sterile, futuristic laboratory while ambient electronica tinkles in the background.

It's been making the rounds on television and the Internet for about a week now, and to most people, it seems like just another (albeit slightly glossier) computer ad.

But not to Ben Gibbard.

That's because in 2003, he and electro beatsmith Jimmy Tamborello teamed up to release Give Up, the debut album by their electro-pop side project the Postal Service, whose first single was accompanied by a video that also featured space-suited scientists working in a sterile, futuristic laboratory (see "Death Cab Singer Goes Postal With Electronic Side Project").

In fact, the similarities between the commercial and their "Such Great Heights" video were so great that on Thursday Gibbard felt compelled to address the issue via a posting on PostalServiceMusic.net.

"It has recently come to our attention that Apple Computer's new television commercial for the Intel chip features a shot-for-shot re-creation of our video for 'Such Great Heights,' made by the same filmmakers responsible for the original," he wrote. "We did not approve this commercialization and are extremely disappointed with both parties that this was executed without our consultation or consent."

Both the Apple/Intel spot and the Postal Service video were the work of the directorial team of Josh Melnick and Xander Charity, who after shooting "Such Great Heights" secured representation through Tight Films, a Santa Monica, California, commercial production company. According to a spokesperson for Tight, the duo were approached by Apple, who asked them to re-create "Heights" for the company's ad touting Intel-enhanced computers (Melnick and Charity could not be reached for comment).

And while Melnick and Charity's Apple spot is not technically illegal (though it does raise some intellectual-property issues), it upset several people involved with the band. According to a spokesperson for the group's label, Sub Pop Records, Apple did not approach them about the commercial, but rather "just called the day before the whole thing aired to tell us about it. Sub Pop and the band had no idea about the whole thing until it aired."

Apple had no comment on the issue. Gibbard declined to comment further, saying only that the "comment on the Postal Service Web site [is my] statement."

This isn't the first flap Gibbard has found himself involved in thanks to the Postal Service. In September 2004 they were threatened with a lawsuit by the real Postal Service, but both sides were able to solve the issue amicably (see "Postal Service Album Keeps On Delivering").

And it looks like maybe the Apple issue might have a happy ending as well. Late last week the video for "Such Great Heights" appeared on the main page of the iTunes Music Store and has since become the most downloaded music video on the site (ahead of clips by Eminem, Jessica Simpson and the Black Eyed Peas). Apple's spot has also generated renewed talk about the Postal Service on the Music Store and blogs across the Internet, proving once again that there's no such thing as bad publicity.

• The Postal Service

3 Doors Down's Brad Arnold (file)
Photo: Getty Images/Martin H. Simon-Pool

Next week's Billboard albums chart is not ruled by a rapper from Compton or topped by a trio of East Bay punks. Nor can a bottle-blonde bad boy from Detroit, a clean-shaven country crooner or even Usher lay claim to #1. No, next week's chart champs are actually some everydudes from Escatawpa, Mississippi.

It's 3 Doors Down! Their third album, Seventeen Days, sold more than 231,000 copies in its first week of release to capture #1, according to SoundScan. It's the group's first-ever #1 debut, besting their last album, Away From the Sun, which opened at #8 back in 2002 before going on to sell more than 3 million copies in the U.S. Their first album, 2000's Better Life, bowed at #104, but has sold more than 6 million copies.

Seventeen Days also bumped the Game back down to #2. Compton's finest sold more than 158,000 copies of The Documentary, but for the second time in a month, he finds himself knocked down. It's been an up-and-down ride for the Game, who over the past four weeks has been #1, #2, #1 again and now back to #2.

Green Day follow at #3, selling more than 135,000 copies of American Idiot. The album managed to squeeze every last drop out of the pre-Grammy hype (this chart reflects albums sold for the week ending February 13, a.k.a. Grammy night), posting a 20-percent increase in sales from the previous week.

Up next at #4 is R&B crooner Brian McKnight, who scored the week's second-highest debut. His album Gemini sold more than 103,000 copies in its first week of release, and scored a higher chart position than his previous album, U-Turn, did when it debuted in March, 2003 (though U-Turn did sell more copies: over 108,000). Behind McKnight is the country collection Totally Country Vol. 4, which sold more than 98,000 copies in its first week.

John Legend's Get Lifted is next at #6, selling more than 95,000 copies and moving past the 500,000-sales mark. Smooth balladeer Michael Bublé sold more than 93,000 copies of his new album, It's Time, to debut at #7.

Former chart-topper Kenny Chesney falls to #8, selling more than 88,000 copies of his Be as You Are album. With this week's sales, the album moves past the 500,000-mark in total sales. Tina Turner's two-disc greatest-hits set, All The Best, slips to #9, but barely — the album sold just a few hundred copies less than Chesney's.

Green Day weren't the only ones to benefit from pre-Grammy buzz. Usher — nominated for eight awards — sold more than 86,000 copies of his Confessions album, a 27-percent increase from the previous week, to finish at #10.

A Golden Week
The next chart, which will reflect sales from the week following the Grammy awards (February 14-20), will serve as a good indicator of just how much an artist's sales can benefit from taking home a Grammy award. And even though ratings for Sunday night's telecast sunk to their lowest numbers in a decade (an estimated 18.8 million viewers tuned in, a 28-percent drop from last year's broadcast), expect a big jump in numbers for Ray Charles' posthumously released duets album, Genius Loves Company. The album, which sits at #15 on the charts, is already heating up, leaping 19 chart positions in the three weeks leading up to the Grammys, and posting a 73-percent boost in sales last week alone — and eight Grammy wins should vault the album well into the chart's upper reaches. Also look for big boosts for Alicia Keys (currently at #47) who scored four golden gramophones, and Kanye West (currently at #99) who won three awards and became the topic of many a water-cooler discussion after his fiery performance and subsequent acceptance speech at the awards show. Green Day, U2, Norah Jones and John Mayer can also look forward to big weeks.

Going Postal
Some albums take awhile to build sales ... a few weeks, maybe a month or two. Then there's the case of indielectro duo the Postal Service (a side project of Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard and beatmeister Jimmy Tamborello), whose first and only album, Give Up, didn't even crack the Billboard Top 200 when it debuted two years ago. Now, 104 weeks later, thanks to a slow build of critical and Internet hype, songs appearing in a few TV commercials, and a new single ("We Will Become Silhouettes"), the album sits at #191 on the charts, and sales have finally crept past the 500,000-mark, proving that the Postal Service really does deliver.

• 3 Doors Down
• Game
• Brian McKnight
• Green Day
• The Postal Service

Postal Service: You Hear It First Photo Gallery

• The Postal Service