M.I.A., Haley Williams of Paramore and Rihanna
Photo: XL/ Gregg Delman/ Amy V. Cooper

Like most of the media world, we here at MTV News obsess and argue relentlessly over our year-end top 10s. This year, we thought we'd share them! Our staff top 10s will be rolling out all this week, along with several less conventional lists we've come up with, like couples, hot messes, arrests, hip-hop phrases and much more. Enjoy, and share your own top 10s in You Tell Us!

10. Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend"
She announced her new album via a MySpace bulletin riddled with more spelling and grammatical errors than a fourth-grade book report. She posed "topless" on the cover of Blender beneath the headline "Hell Yeah, I'm Hot!" She recorded her first single in seven different languages for maximum commercial impact. And there is roughly an 85 percent chance she ripped off this song from a bunch of guys who wrote the theme song to "Revenge of the Nerds."

9. The Killers' "Read My Mind"
They spent much of 2007 recoiling from everything frontman Brandon Flowers said in 2006, but still found time to film nonsensical music videos in Japan, cover Joy Division and duet with Lou Reed, all while continuing to dress like blackjack dealers on a riverboat casino. Truly an accomplished 12 months.

8. Paramore's "Misery Business"
They are bizarrely unwilling to talk about the label machinations that aided in their ascent from middling midday Warped Tour act to mall-punk's next great hope, yet more than happy to take full advantage of said machinations (see the just-released Music Video Interactive version of their Riot! album). Also, they all wear ties too often.

The Best Of 2007 The Top Albums: MTV News Staffers Pick Their Top 10 Albums The Biggest Arrests: Paris Hilton, T.I. And More Had An Arrest-Ing 2007 The Hottest Couples: 50 Cent And Ciara And More Smoking-Hot Couples For the rest of MTV News' year-end top 10s, check out our Best of 2007 page, where you'll find the hottest hip-hop, catchiest singles and more.

7. Rilo Kiley's "Silver Lining"
The band decided that the best way to capitalize on the breakup of frontwoman Jenny Lewis and guitarist Blake Sennett was to record a modern-day version of the ultimate breakup album: Fleetwood Mac's Rumours — only with a song featuring Lewis singing en Español. The group also released an unnecessarily long (and unnecessarily "gritty") video for first single "The Moneymaker," complete with confessional interviews with porn stars and the band playing in an adult-video shop.

6. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's "Goodbye to Mother and the Cove"
They joined forces with Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann for this year's Some Loud Thunder, an album that garnered so much praise for being self-released, most forgot to notice that it wasn't very good at all. Not only are they perhaps the most pretentious band of '07, they're also one of the most annoying too. (Seriously, listening to a song like "Satan Said Dance" on repeat is like audio waterboarding.)

5. M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes"
It's entirely possible that she is the most important artist of the late 2000s: the musical embodiment of the cross-cultural, ADD-inflicted, increasingly shrinking, incredibly unstable era in which we live. It's also entirely possible that she's been riding the coattails of her well-connected celebrity friends (like actor Jude Law, producer/DJ Diplo and former Elastica frontwoman Justine Frischmann) this whole time, and we just haven't figured it out yet.

4. Rihanna's "Umbrella"
Following in the long and storied tradition of post-2K pop tarts like Britney and Christina, she released her "Aren't I sexy?" album, Good Girl Gone Bad, on the heels of her 19th birthday. She spent much of the year bumping and grinding in leather corsets with all the conviction of a day-shift stripper in Wisconsin. She often appeared dazed and confused in public, only lending credence to the school of thought that she has no idea where she is at any given moment.

3. Kanye West's "Stronger"
He could have held 50 Cent to his promised retirement when Graduation outsold Curtis to take the #1 spot on the Billboard albums chart, but he didn't, dooming us to another decade of lunk-headed rhymes and "candy-as-reproductive-organs" metaphors. Plus, he spent six months walking around in clunky white shutter shades, and launched a blog that allowed him to pimp his favorite clothing designers and automobile manufacturers. And he threw a tantrum backstage at the VMAs in which he vowed never to return to MTV. Somehow, we're still standing.

2. Britney Spears' "Piece of Me"
What does a piece of Britney smell like? I sort of imagine something like Cheetos and Marlboro Lights. Or shattered dreams and unfulfilled promises. Or an overturned tanker truck on the interstate. She's totally back, y'all!

1. Black Kids' "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You"
Up until about a month ago, I was convinced that they weren't even a real band. Now I can't get this song out of my head. They win.

• Britney Spears
• Rihanna
• Avril Lavigne
• Kanye West
• The Killers

Gym Class Heroes accept the award for Woodie of the Year at the 2007 mtvU Woodie Awards
Photo: Bryan Bedder/ Getty Images

Gym Class Heroes, the Academy Is ... and Boys Like Girls all got Woodies on Thursday night.

Does that sound like the opening salvo in a frat-boy film? Actually, it's a rather cheeky summary of the winners at the mtvU Woodie Awards.

Yes, the emo boys were among those taking home hardware at the fourth annual Woodies, an awards show and genuinely cool concert held once again at New York's Roseland Ballroom. GCH won the night's biggest honor, the Woodie of the Year, which is given to "the artists who made the biggest splash on mtvU and the college music scene"; TAI won the Viral Woodie, for "acts that crashed servers and blew up the World Wide Interwebs"; and BLG grabbed the Breaking Woodie, given to the year's best emerging artist.

Other (non-acronymic) winners included Madvillian — the mind-melting hip-hop project from MF Doom and Madlib — who took home the Left Field Woodie for the year's most original artist; Say Anything, whose "Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too" won the Best Video Woodie; and Muse, who were given the Best Performing Woodie for the year's strongest tour.

But the awards were only half the show: The Woodies boasted an impressive, genre-bending list of performers, too. Lupe Fiasco kicked things off with a fiery version of "Superstar," joined onstage by Fall Out Boy frontman Patrick Stump. Baltimore raunch-masters Spank Rock teamed up with Philly MC Santogold on bumping renditions of "Loose" and "Rick Rubin." The Academy Is ... were backed by a string section from the Julliard School of Music. And Rilo Kiley closed the show with a pair of tunes from their Under the Blacklight album, the slinky "Moneymaker" and the bittersweet "Breakin' Up."

Presenters at the Woodies included Fall Out Boy, Q-Tip, Annie Lennox, Talib Kweli and Tom DeLonge and Dave Kennedy of Angels & Airwaves. Winners were determined entirely by student voting on mtvU.com. More than 4.6 million votes were cast this year.

If you're bummed that you couldn't be in NYC for the show, don't fret. It'll be broadcast in its entirety on mtvU and mtvU.com on Thursday at 8 p.m. ET, with a half-hour "Best Of" show to follow on MTV on November 17 at 10 p.m. ET/PT and on MTV2 November 18 at 12:30 a.m. ET.

The complete list of winners for the fourth annual mtvU Woodie Awards:

» Woodie of the Year: Gym Class Heroes

» The Breaking Woodie: Boys Like Girls

» The Left Field Woodie: Madvillain

» Best Video Woodie: Say Anything, "Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too"

» The Good Woodie (Greatest Social Impact): Guster

» Best Performing Woodie: Muse

» The Alumni Woodie (aka The You're Still OK in Our Book Award): Spoon

» Viral Woodie: The Academy Is ...

» Best Music on Campus Woodie (given to the artist with the most votes, streams and/or buzz on mtvU's BestMusiconCampus.com): Stella by Starlight, Duke University.

• Fall Out Boy, Lupe Fiasco, Boys Like Girls, More At 2007 mtvU Woodie Awards

• Gym Class Heroes
• The Academy Is...
• Boys Like Girls
• Lupe Fiasco
• Fall Out Boy

Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst
Photo: Jeff Gentner/ Getty Images

After all the work entailed by the simultaneous release of the analog-sounding I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning and the electronica-tinged Digital Ash in a Digital Urn a little more than two years ago, Bright Eyes mastermind Conor Oberst says he wised up.

"I think we had enough of the double record last time," he laughed. "It was pretty hectic, and the tour that followed, to promote both albums, ended up being a lot on us. We're trying to be a little smarter this time around. The idea was definitely to make one strong album that made sense."

That album, Cassadaga, will land in stores on April 10 (see "Bright Eyes Completing Politics-Free Album At Nebraska Compound"); it will be preceded by an EP featuring the LP's lead single, "Four Winds," on March 6. Oberst — who worked with his Bright Eyes cohorts Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott, along with a ton of guest collaborators — says he began writing material for the record two years ago and headed into the studio last winter with more than 25 songs at his disposal. The 13-track LP was recorded off and on during 2006 and will include the cuts "No One Would Riot for Less," "Lime Tree" and "Soul Singer in a Session Band."

"The record is kind of about finding your own peace of mind, and it's somewhat about transitions and rebirth," Oberst explained. "It's into a lot of ideas about geographical location that have a sort of energy about them — where people concentrate their thoughts, whether it's meditation or prayer or something more like psychic energy.

"I tend to write about whatever's on my mind," he continued. "It's not really premeditated. Since we started with such a large pool of songs, we ended up with a pretty eclectic album, both sonically and thematically. I think it's less homogenous than certainly the last two records were."

All of the songs Oberst wrote for the disc were put to tape, he says. In time, those tracks that were left off the record will be released, perhaps as part of Bright Eyes' next LP. The songs on Cassadaga feature contributions from Tortoise drummer John McEntire, Rilo Kiley's Jason Boesel, Neva Dinova's Jake Bellows, Rachael Yamagata, M. Ward, Gillian Welch, Sleater-Kinney's Janet Weiss, the Like's Elizabeth "Z" Berg and several members of Eisley.

"These songs just came right out," Oberst said. "It's important to never rush it. You can't manufacture inspiration, so a lot of it is still a waiting game for me. There's still a lot of mystery to songwriting. I don't have a method that I can go back to — they either come or they don't.

"We worked a lot longer on this record than on our previous records, and we re-recorded a lot of the songs several times," he continued. "We'd record the song, listen to it and then say, 'Well, this can be better' or 'This song is better than this recording.' So we'd do it again, and that kind of freedom I think made for a better result. I'd like to think this album's a little more focused, a little more nuanced and more refined."

Bright Eyes will be touring soon to promote the Four Winds EP; that trek launches February 25 in Chicago and concludes March 10 in San Francisco. In late April the band will head out again for a full U.S. tour with openers Gillian Welch, Oakley Hall and McCarthy Trenching. But first Bright Eyes will film a video for "Four Winds," a performance-based clip to be directed by Patrick Daughters (Blood Brothers, Muse).

And there may be some exciting news for fans of Oberst's pre-Bright Eyes work this summer, the singer said.

The people at Saddle Creek — Bright Eyes' label, which was co-founded by Oberst — "are building this new venue and bar and office-space complex in downtown Omaha, Nebraska, right now, and it will be open for the summer," he explained. "We're trying to get something special for the grand opening."

The opening could feature a performance by erstwhile indie rockers Slowdown Virginia. And Oberst said that while nothing's been discussed yet, he thinks reuniting his former band, Commander Venus — which disbanded in 1997 after just two years — would make the night even more interesting.

"It would be very funny if that happened," he said. "I wouldn't imagine there's much of a demand for that reunion, but it's possible. We're all still around, but I doubt [guitarist] Robb [Nansel] would ever get onstage again." But Oberst says that reuniting with his other former outfit, Desaparecidos, is "certainly a possibility. I could see that happening at some point down the line."

• Bright Eyes
• Sleater-Kinney
• Rilo Kiley

Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis
Photo: Tim Mosenfelder/ Getty Images

Jenny Lewis decided that since she was turning 30 in January, she should give herself a special birthday present: her first solo record.

"I thought it was a nice thing to do on my 30th birthday, to do something on my own and to be independent," the Rilo Kiley frontwoman laughed. "And I think 30 can either send you into some sort of depressing tailspin, or the opposite. So with this, it's like a little present to me, like, 'Oh wow, you've made it this long!' "

So on January 24 she'll release the delightfully countrified Rabbit Fur Coat, a soulful, self-assured disc that draws heavily from the winsome sexiness of Dusty Springfield's masterpiece Dusty in Memphis and the unbridled moxie of Loretta Lynn's Coal Miner's Daughter.

There's plenty of mentions of God and the devil, tons of three-part vocal harmonies and "Ooh-ooh" choruses (courtesy of Louisville, Kentucky's the Watson Twins) and of lots of twangy guitar and church organ. There's even an out-of-left-field cover of "Handle With Care," the 1989 radio hit from AARP all-stars the Traveling Wilburys, featuring Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard and Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst trading verses instead of original Wilburys Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan (see "Rilo Kiley: A Band With An Open Marriage").

"This album is basically me paying homage to all my inspirations. I used to have a 'no covers' policy in Rilo Kiley, which I guess was me being stubborn," Lewis said. "I've always loved the Traveling Wilburys, and I thought about who could sing the different parts. And I thought, well, Ben could play Roy, because his voice is so pure and beautiful, and of course I thought of Conor doing the Dylan part, which I think is pretty awesome and humorous in its own right."

But it's not all funny. On the album's title track, Lewis gets downright personal, singing about an unhappy childhood spent as a "hundred-thousand-dollar kid" (she was a child actress, logging time in flicks like "Troop Beverly Hills" and "The Wizard") and her mother's struggles, first with poverty and then with drug addiction. By song's end, Lewis is an unhappy and detached musician while her mother is homeless and snorting cocaine.

Easy listening it's not, and while Lewis insists the song is "partly fiction," it's certainly the most open she's ever been about her past (and it shows her growing skills as a songwriter, as the tune manages to infuse the titular coat with almost magical powers). And when talking about it, she's understandably hesitant to discuss the particulars of her childhood.

"It's difficult for me to remember, truthfully, certain details of my life. My memory is kind of like Swiss cheese — it's got giant holes in it — but a lot of the song certainly feels true," she said. "But people can analyze the song all they want, and they can analyze the metaphor of the rabbit fur coat all they want, but I'd prefer just to have people interpret it their own way."

Rabbit Fur Coat is coming out on tiny Team Love Records (Oberst's boutique label), so Lewis is fairly certain there won't be a single or video to accompany the album ("It's be kind of hard to go, 'Hey, Conor, gimme $50,000' " she jokes), and she's not exactly making the rounds on the talk-show circuit to promote it.

So why, exactly, would she release the album hot on the heels of Rilo Kiley's opening stint on Coldplay's massive tour (see "Rilo Kiley Freaked Out By Stuffed Animals, Coldplay's Food"), when her band is poised to finally force its way into the spotlight?

Well, why not?

"I had a lot of these songs lying around, and Conor came to me and told me he wanted to put out my record, so I figured it was time," Lewis said. "Plus, I'm a little tired of playing the songs from [Rilo Kiley's] More Adventurous by now. We toured the sh-- out of that record."

Track list for Jenny Lewis' Rabbit Fur Coat, according to Team Love:

• "Run Devil Run"
• "Big Guns"
• "Raise Up With Fists!"
• "Happy"
• "The Charging Sky"
• "Melt Your Heart"
• "You Are What You Love"
• "Rabbit Fur Coat"
• "Handle With Care"
• "Born Secular"
• "It Wasn't Me"
• "Happy (Reprise)"

• Rilo Kiley
• Death Cab For Cutie
• Bright Eyes

Coldplay's Chris Martin at the 2005 Austin City Limits festival
Photo: Getty Images

AUSTIN, Texas — Three days of inspired music from an eclectic lineup notwithstanding, two things are guaranteed at the annual Austin City Limits Music Festival: crowds and heat. And while organizers heard the pleas from the cramped attendees of years past and sold 10,000 fewer tickets this time, Mother Nature didn't entirely comply.

(Click here for photos of Coldplay, Franz Ferdinand, Arcade Fire and more at the festival.)

Luckily, the Texas capital dodged the bullet of Hurricane Rita, which threatened to postpone the festival. But in place of torrential rains and high winds, Zilker Park baked under temperatures that soared well into the hundreds. (Ironic that a weekend marked by such unbearable heat would be highlighted by a band called Coldplay.)

Singer Chris Martin, complete with taped fingers, a "=" on the back of his hand and wife Gwyneth Paltrow in the front row, traveled deep into the heart of Texas with his bandmates to headline this year's festival. And despite the earsplitting screams from female fans every time the lithe and dapper frontman did so much as breathe, it was hard to tell who was happier to be here.

Throughout Coldplay's 90-minute nighttime set, Martin repeatedly thanked the crowd for enduring Sunday's record-breaking 108-degree temperature and extolled the virtues of Austin, its annual South by Southwest music conference and the terrific ACL lineup — the Arcade Fire in particular. The multi-instrumental Montreal collective, who played an energized round earlier Sunday afternoon, garnered no less than five shout-outs from Martin, who even credited them for inspiring him to push the boundaries on Coldplay's latest album, X&Y.

"When we heard [the Arcade Fire's Funeral], we were all prepared to get day jobs. But instead of giving up, we just tried harder," Martin admitted before launching into "Everything's Not Lost" from Coldplay's 2000 debut Parachutes.

If Coldplay had set equally lofty goals for their live show, they certainly met them Sunday night. With the other seven stages left vacant for the headliners, the sold-out crowd of 65,000 watched the band tear through its catalog of hits. The giant video screen, which for most bands only amplified the stage scene for the folks way in the back, bolstered Coldplay's on-point performance with dizzyingly fast camera changes, odd angles and an array of special effects.

But Coldplay didn't need all that flashy technology to impress: Near the end of the set, Martin vacated the stage and ventured into the crowd to scale the scaffolding on the soundboard. There, perched 40 feet high, with just a microphone and thousands of voices singing along to support him, he delivered a poignant "In My Place" laden with the symbolism of him being among his fans.

As if he needed it, Martin further endeared himself to the Texas crowd with a cover of Johnny Cash's classic "Ring of Fire" — rather strange when sung with a British accent — and even threw in verse from Cash's "Five Feet High and Rising" for good measure. "Yellow," delivered surprisingly early in the set, came to summarize the evening: With the sun gone and a cool breeze finally refreshing the weary crowd, Martin directed the crowd to gaze upward as he appreciatively sang, "Look at the stars, see how they shine for you." And just then, a flurry of yellow balloons seemingly descended from the heavens. Sure, it may have been slightly sappy and a bit cheesy, but Coldplay have a knack for making that work.

While Coldplay and another British band, Oasis, capped off Sunday and Saturday night (respectively), the ACL Festival was by no means an anglophile affair. Mirroring the eclectic tastes of the long-running public television show that inspired the four-year-old festival, this year's lineup also included Widespread Panic, Franz Ferdinand, Death Cab for Cutie, the Black Crowes, Jet, Bloc Party, Spoon, Jason Mraz, the Allman Brothers and Lyle Lovett. And nearly all artists made mention of their love for Austin and its diverse musical community, though the subject of the insufferable heat was nearly requisite stage banter.

Like their fans Coldplay, the Arcade Fire must have regretted donning black suits for their afternoon set. Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley, in a wide-brimmed straw sun hat and oversized Jackie-O shades that offset her tarty cheerleader get-up, seemed well-suited for the relentless sunshine — though guitarist Blake Sennet explained that he now knows not to use that peppermint conditioner in his hair if he's going to be sweating like a pig. The torch song "Does He Love You?" offered a temporary reprieve from the heat as the band forwent its low-fi honky-tonk sound for a chillier tone, and Lewis stalked the stage forlornly.

"Oh my God, I can't believe it / I've never been this far away from home," sang Kaiser Chiefs mainman Ricky Wilson while delivering "Oh My God," from atop the lighting rig on the side of the stage. Given that the band is from the U.K., where, as Chris Martin put it, "It never gets hotter than ... Maine," it's a wonder that Wilson or the rest of his mates didn't faint when serving up rave-ups like "I Predict a Riot" and "Modern Way," from Employment.

At around 3:30 p.m. each day, misery set in: The mercury was at its peak and Zilker Park became a giant dust bowl from thousands of shuffling feet. Many in the crowd wore bandanas or surgical masks over their faces to avoid inhaling the dust, drawing images of Wild West bandits and what would happen if "The O.C." met "E.R." ("Get me to Death Cab, stat!").

The forces of nature (or strategic stage planning), however, blessed the more aged attendees as the sun was just beginning to set. While the young hipsters, who were infants at best when Hüsker Dü released their first album, were off fetching a burrito, the thirtysomethings gathered for the Bob Mould Band on Sunday were treated to the first signs of shade all day. Mould can still wield as heavy a guitar as artists half his age, bringing nostalgia at the cost of split eardrums with new material as well as songs from his Husker Du ("Between a Wall of Clouds," "I Apologize") and Sugar ("Hoover Dam") catalogs.

With their throwback dance rock, Franz Ferdinand invigorated the crowd and actually prompted the already sweat-soaked crowd to bounce around and sweat some more. Between energetic blasts of "Michael" and "Take Me Out," and guitar solos that bordered on wanky, Alex Kapranos turned over the reins to drummer Paul Johnson for "Walk Away," one of a few new tunes played from their forthcoming second album, You Could Have It So Much Better.

To ask Jeff Tweedy, Wilco fans could have used some of the energy that Franz fans across the field were exhibiting so freely. The singer/guitarist actually pleaded with the crowd to show some enthusiasm for his band's set. "I know you've been out in the sun all day, but you could help out more," Tweedy said.

All they needed, apparently, was a little encouragement, because the uplifting "A Shot in the Arm," off 1999's Summerteeth, resuscitated the crowd right quick. "I like this groveling thing," Tweedy explained afterward. "[Groveling] is the new cockiness."

Perhaps the crowd wasn't so much bored and tired as they were awestruck by the mighty psychedelic freakouts that marked nearly all Wilco's selections. "Handshake Drugs" sputtered on spastically for nearly an extra minute before careening to a screeching halt like an overturned tractor-trailer. The beginning of "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" was almost wholly blurred by excessive feedback dalliances, and "War on War" ended with what sounded like a tornado ripping through a symphony.

Wilco played like Jeff Tweedy looked: Unshaven and rough, and ready to rumble. Tweedy's vocals were strained — albeit beautifully — the piano clanked a bit too loudly, and the guitars sounded powerfully distorted and layered like a barbarian army. Perhaps he was a bit put off by the fact that Wilco had the misfortune to be playing at the same time as Franz Ferdinand, so the band kept banging it out 15 or 20 minutes past its scheduled stop time.

Anyone who mistakenly deems Wilco an alt-country band needs to update their database. By structuring hooky rock riffs around unconventional arrangements and playing like rock gods without the tight pants, Wilco has filled the void left when, three albums ago, Radiohead went more machine than man (and you thought that was going to be Coldplay?). Even though Coldplay earned the festival's biggest laurels with their mix of song and spectacle, Wilco did their damnedest to steal the spotlight from both the headliners and the heat.

For more sights and stories from concerts around the country, check out MTV News Tour Reports.

• 2005 Austin City Limits Festival

• Coldplay
• Franz Ferdinand
• Tenacious D
• Rilo Kiley
• Arcade Fire

Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennet
Photo: Chrissy L. Nguyen / MTV News

SANTA MONICA, California — While side projects have been known to cause friction in bands, the opposite is true for Rilo Kiley.

"We're kind of workaholics, on some level," guitarist Blake Sennet joked recently. "There's so much downtime in a band, and you only get to put out 10 songs every two years or whatever, so things trickle into other areas."

On their last two tours, Rilo Kiley traveled with a recording studio on their bus so multi-instrumentalists Sennet and Jason Boesel could record the second album from their side project, the Elected. Meanwhile, singer Jenny Lewis has been in and out of studios working on her solo debut for Team Love Records, an offshoot of Bright Eyes frontman Conor Oberst's Saddle Creek label.

"It's called Rabbit Fur Coat, and I'm going to [credit it to] Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins," the singer said. "We're friends with these twins from Louisville, Kentucky, and they sang with me on a lot of songs — a bunch of harmonizing, a bunch of classic-sounding songs."

Indie rocker M. Ward produced half of the album, while Oberst, Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard (who also worked with Lewis on the Postal Service's Give Up) and Maroon 5's James Valentine and Mickey Madden also make guest appearances.

"It's a giant melting pot of the people that I've met over the last couple years," Lewis said. "I think the production is a lot more pointedly stripped-down [than Rilo Kiley]. I kind of wanted to let the songs just exist and let the voices tell the story, rather than the guitar and production. I kind of wanted the songs to just kind of float around."

Rabbit Fur Coat is due in January, around the same time as the Elected's as-yet-untitled release.

"I think [the Elected LP] calls back to a lot more classic stuff, like the Band and early Grateful Dead — before they started selling hemp pants at their shows," Sennett said of the latter. "And there's a lot of lush harmonies and four-part saxophone sections. I'm excited about it."

In the meantime, Rilo Kiley are continuing to promote their breakthrough album, More Adventurous. Although now more than a year old, the record continues to pick up steam thanks to Rilo's opening slot on Coldplay's Twisted Logic Tour (see "Rilo Kiley Freaked Out By Stuffed Animals, Coldplay's Food").

"We're pretty thrown off by it in a way, but really excited," Lewis said. "We're used to playing in front of our fans only."

"[Coldplay] are really good at what they do, which is writing songs that don't really leave your brain after you hear them," Sennett added. "Maybe some of their genius will rub off on us."

Rilo Kiley are also set to release the next single from More Adventurous, the salty ballad "I Never."

"I was playing it for [my best friend] and I was like, 'I don't know if I should even bring it to Rilo Kiley, I don't know if it's necessarily appropriate,' " Lewis recalled. "But she convinced me to do so. It's just kind of a soulful, honest ballad."

The Kileys are known for their quirky videos, and are hoping to work with one of their filmmaker friends. (Lewis is also an actress with several movies on her resume, including "Pleasantville.") "We had this one idea, [but] logistically it might be a) humiliating and b) impossible to do, but hopefully we can pursue it on some level," Lewis said, refusing to elaborate so as not to "ruin the surprise."

And not too far off in the distance is a new Rilo Kiley album. The band is already playing some of the new material live, including a love song to Los Angeles called "Let Me Back In," an as-yet-untitled "Talking Headsy reggae ballad that is so sad" and a third called "Pull Me in Tighter."

"I originally recorded [the latter] for the solo record, and I wasn't really confident with the way it turned out and I thought that the Kiley — as we refer to our band — would service it a lot better," Lewis said.

"Now I think those other areas are trickling back into Rilo Kiley," Sennett added, referring to his earlier point about side projects. "Like, there are Elected demos that will probably turn into Rilo Kiley songs and Jenny Lewis solo songs that already have turned into Rilo Kiley songs. So perhaps it's just circular, and the titles help us organize them."

• Rilo Kiley

Rilo Kiley (file)
Photo: Warner Bros

There's one thing Rilo Kiley fear even more than the massive audiences they'll be playing in front of when they join Coldplay on the just-announced Twisted Logic Tour — and that's stuffed animals.

Not the cute, cuddly kind you had as a kid, but rather the de-gutted, stuffed, glass-eyed variety you find at taxidermy shops all throughout this nation's mostly rural areas. That proved to be a bit of a problem for the band — singer Jenny Lewis, guitarist Blake Sennett, bassist Pierre de Reeder and drummer Jason Boesel — on the set of its latest video, "Portions for Foxes," which takes place in the warehouse of an honest-to-goodness taxidermist.

"It was very creepy. Very creepy. And kind of sad, too," Sennett sighed. "It wasn't just like bears and animals like that, either. It was full of animals you wouldn't think people would have stuffed, like dogs and cats. I remember this one little stuffed pug was just sort of sitting there."

And it wasn't just deceased domestic animals getting in on the act. At the end of the clip — directed by Brian Lazzaro, with Samuel Bayer (Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit") serving as the director of photography — the band gets stuffed, which wasn't actually as bad as you might think.

"Basically they just threw a bunch of white makeup on our faces and told us to be extra still," Sennett laughed. "So that part was pretty easy."

The "Portions" video is just another peak in a pretty amazing year for Rilo, starting in August when they released their third album More Adventurous (see "Rilo Kiley's New LP Inspired By Heartbreak, Tennis-Camp Dudes"), and graduated from playing small clubs and touring in a van. Now they're making plans to finish their respective side projects, including the second record from Sennett and Boesel's the Elected and Lewis' solo debut, Rabbit Fur Coat. Oh, and one more small thing: On August 30, they'll start opening shows for Coldplay on their Twisted Logic Tour (see "Coldplay Kick Off 36-City Twisted Logic Tour In August").

It's undoubtedly the biggest opportunity of Rilo Kiley's career, being handpicked by one of rock's biggest acts to open a massive North American tour. It's a chance to win over thousands of fans and to take the stage at rock meccas like New York's Madison Square Garden.

But Sennett is trying to remain levelheaded about the whole thing. After all, he knows that probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 97 percent of fans in attendance won't give a crap about his band.

"Oh, we're definitely playing to Coldplay audiences. And I know there are going to be nights where it's weird and uncomfortable up onstage," he said, "but I'm just going to try and enjoy doing things like playing Madison Square Garden. Getting to do things that, honestly, seem surreal to us."

When asked what some of those things might be, Sennett replied: "I don't know. Well, for one, Coldplay definitely have a caterer. Every night they get their food catered, so that'll be kind of weird for us," he laughed. "Usually we just play a show and then run across the street to some random Thai restaurant."

• Rilo Kiley

Rilo Kiley (file)
Photo: Wendy Lynch/Brute Beaute

For someone who's dated Jake Gyllenhaal, appeared in several Hollywood films and fronts a band with a new record out on a Warner Bros. imprint, Rilo Kiley singer Jenny Lewis is pretty grounded. In fact, she's so grounded she's practically subterranean.

But when you realize that her relationship with Gyllenhaal is over, her cinematic résumé includes clunkers like "Troop Beverly Hills" and "The Wizard," and Rilo Kiley's new home at Warner Bros. has caused diehard fans to brand them sellouts, maybe you can understand her outlook on things.

"I'm always skeptical about everything. I guess it's just part of my personality," she said. "I honestly don't know how well our album will do. My expectations are very low, personally."

Rilo Kiley's new album, More Adventurous, is a lot like their two previous releases, 2001's Take Offs and Landings and 2002's The Execution of All Things: There's plenty of countrified guitars, poppy horns and sad, sappy love songs. But it's also the biggest, brightest, shiniest offering of their career. And not coincidentally, it's also the first Rilo record to push Lewis' sonorous voice to the forefront.

"In the independent world, a strong voice isn't necessarily praised. The focus is on the lyrics," Lewis said. "The fact is, I can sing, and this is what I'm capable of. This record represents how comfortable I am with my voice. I feel proud that I've gotten to a point where I'm no longer inhibited."

That Lewis' voice is the main attraction on More Adventurous has become a point of division among Rilo Kiley fans. On previous albums, vocal duties were split between Lewis and guitarist Blake Sennett. On the new record, Sennett sings on just one track. And this overload of Lewis — combined with the album's big, glossy sound — is seen by some fans as a definite sign of major-label money and major-label meddling.

"We made this record with Saddle Creek [the label that released The Execution of All Things] in mind. We were going along as we always had," Lewis sighed. "We just decided we wanted to have the choice to go to a major label. And I think I was least comfortable with the transition. Within the band, I was the most resistant."

Lewis is obviously skeptical about the major-label deal — it's in her nature — but she's also somewhat excited by the opportunities it provides for the band. And it's one of the reasons she chose to name the new album More Adventurous.

"It's about allowing ourselves to be a little bit less precious about our music," she said. "It's great playing for hipsters, but it's also nice to be able to reach people beyond that. Maybe someone's mom, or someone's sister away at college, or dudes at tennis camp, or some kid in Germany. I want them to have access to our music."

The other reason for the album's title has to do with the aforementioned Gyllenhaal. There are no less than four songs on the record detailing deteriorating relationships and heartbreak. On the title track, Lewis sings, "I read with every broken heart, we should become more adventurous." And other songs are littered with mentions of infidelity, mistrust and self-loathing. It's clear that Lewis had her fair share of bad breakups over the years.

"A lot of the album is my outlook on matters of the heart. After getting brutalized, it's possible to go inward and be a little destructive. But at the same time it's going to become possible to be a little bit more adventurous with love," she said. "You allow yourself to open up a bit. We should do that, but do we? Maybe if you say it a couple times on tour, you'll end up believing it. But I don't. Not yet, anyway."

So considering the things that weigh on Jenny Lewis every day, it's easy to see why she's a bit self-effacing. But she can't do anything about the heartbreak — only time cures that. And the same is true about Rilo Kiley's disenfranchised fans. There's nothing Lewis can say or do that will appease them all, and hopefully time will heal all wounds. But that doesn't mean their attitudes still don't annoy her from time to time.

"Someone said to me, 'I'm really disappointed because you're not cursing on the new record, and you're not really screaming either.' And what am I going to say to that?" Lewis laughed. "I don't consider myself a screamer. Who is a true female screamer? Maybe those girls in Kittie. So I guess our next record will have to sound just like Kittie, and every song will have the word 'f---' in it."

• Rilo Kiley

213 (file)
Photo: Anthony Mandler

Hitting stores this week are albums by two rap trios, a pop star's ex-boy-toy, angry hard rockers and one of the preeminent original pop-punk bands.

Hip-hop heavyweights Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg and Warren G have put their solo careers on hold in order to drop a supergroup superproject. 213, the group named after the former Long Beach, California, area code, release The Hard Way this week.

Ryan Cabrera, ex-boyfriend of Ashlee Simpson and up-and-coming singer/songwriter with a pop penchant, releases his major-label debut, Take It All Away. The album, co-produced by Goo Goo Dolls frontman Johnny Rzeznik, was penned almost two years ago, before Cabrera and Simpson were an item, so don't look for any love songs or angry breakup tunes about the starlet.

Saliva represent for hard rock with their most recent effort, Survival of the Sickest, the Memphis band's follow-up to 2002's Back Into Your System.

Northern State, the rap trio some have labeled the female Beastie Boys, will release their major-label debut, All City. The Long Island-bred ladies — Hesta Prynn, Guinea Love and DJ Sprout — released their first full-length album, Dying in Stereo, in 2003.

Original A-list alternative band the Talking Heads have two releases this week. The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, the group's 1982 double live album, becomes available on CD for the first time, while The Best of the Talking Heads, the band's first single-disc greatest-hits album, includes hits "Psycho Killer," "Once in a Lifetime," "Burning Down the House" and 15 others.

Also out this week are albums by Rilo Kiley (More Adventurous), Presidents of the United States of America (Love Everybody) and Bruce Hornsby (Halcyon Days).

Out Tuesday, August 17:

• 213 - The Hard Way (TVT)
  Buy Now: The Hard Way (TVT)
  Read: "Snoop's 213 Get Wrong Number While Doing Things The Hard Way"
• John Brannen - The Good Thief (Sly Dog)
• Ryan Cabrera - Take It All Away (E.V.L.A./Atlantic)
  Buy Now: Take It All Away (E.V.L.A./Atlantic)
  Read: "Ryan Cabrera, Ashlee's Ex, Sets Sights On Album, Sorority Tour"
• The Court and Spark - Witch Season (Absolutely Kosher)
• Good for Cows - Bebop Fantasy (Asian Man)
• Bruce Hornsby - Halcyon Days (Sony)
• Kissing Tigers - Pleasure of Resistance (Slowdance)
• Little Wings - Magic Wand (K Records)
• Moments in Grace - Moonlight Survived (Salad Days/Atlantic)
• Nagisa Ni Te - The Same As a Flower (Jagjaguwar)
• Northern State - All City (Columbia)
• Presidents of the United States of America - Love Everybody (Pusa Inc.)
• Rilo Kiley - More Adventurous (Brute/Beaute)
• Saliva - Survival of the Sickest (Island)
  Buy Now: Survival of the Sickest (Island)
  Read: "Saliva: Foaming At the Mouth"
• Sasquatch - Sasquatch (Small Stone)
• Tracy Shedd - Louder Than You Can Hear (Devil in the Woods)
• Slang - More Talk About Tonight (Terminus)
• Steve Smith and Vital Information - Come on In (Tone Center)
• Spiderbait - Tonight Alright (Interscope)
• Mavis Staples - Have a Little Faith (Alligator)
• The Sunshine Fix - Green Imagination (spinART)
• Steve Swallow With Ohad Talmor - The Bum’s Tale (Palmetto)
• Talking Heads - The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads (Rhino)
• The Jacob Fred Odyssey - Walking With Giants (Hyena)
• Travis Tritt - My Honky Tonk History (Sony)
• Twelve Girls Band - Eastern Energy (Platia Entertainment)
• The Uncle Devil Show - A Terrible Beauty (Compass)
• Various artists - Bump This (Pyramid)
• Various artists - Future Soundtrack for America (Barsuk)
• DVD: Various artists - "Hip Hop Story 3: Coast to Coast" (Ventura)
• DVD: Various artists - "Mayor of the Sunset Strip" (First Look)
• DVD: Nick Lachey & Jessica Simpson - "The Nick & Jessica Variety Hour" (Image)

August 24:

• R. Kelly - Happy People/ U Saved Me (Jive)
• Tim McGraw - Live Like You Were Dying (Curb)
• Jason Mraz - Tonight, Not Again - At the Eagles Ballroom (Elektra)

August 31:

• Björk - Medulla (Elektra/ Asylum)
  Read: "Bjork Album Preview: Beautiful, Baffling and Bothersome Medúlla"
• Jill Scott - Beautifully Human: Words & Sounds 2 (Sony)
• Insane Clown Posse - Hell's Pit, Version 1 (Psychopathic)
• Insane Clown Posse - Hell's Pit, Version 2 (Psychopathic)
• Various artists - Passion of the Christ: Songs (Wind-Up)
  Read: "Scott Stapp, Lauryn Hill, P.O.D., MxPx Head Up 'Passion Of The Christ' LP"

September 7:

• Christine McVie - In The Meantime (Koch)
• Alan Jackson - What I Do (Arista)
• Anita Baker - My Everything (Blue Note)

• 213
• Ryan Cabrera
• Saliva
• Talking Heads
• Northern State

Woodie Awards 2007 Red Carpet

• Gym Class Heroes
• Fall Out Boy
• The Academy Is...
• Rilo Kiley
• Tokyo Police Club

Woodie Awards 2007 Performers

• Fall Out Boy
• Lupe Fiasco
• The Academy Is...
• Rilo Kiley
• Tokyo Police Club

Fall Out Boy, Lupe Fiasco, Boys Like Girls, More At 2007 mtvU Woodie Awards

• Fall Out Boy
• Lupe Fiasco
• Gym Class Heroes
• Angels & Airwaves
• Talib Kweli

Behind The Scenes: Rilo Kiley's TV Spots

• Rilo Kiley

2005 Austin City Limits Festival

• Coldplay
• Franz Ferdinand
• Kaiser Chiefs
• Arcade Fire
• Jason Mraz

Coldplay, Weezer, Nine Inch Nails And More At The 2005 Coachella Festival

• Razorlight
• Rilo Kiley
• Keane
• Weezer
• Coldplay