In music news, meanwhile, one of the most distinctive pop sounds in the air right now comes from Cornershop, an Anglo-Indian band from England whose latest album, "When I Was Born For The Seventh Time," has critics saying ridiculously nice things at every opportunity. Here's why.

BEN AYERS, Cornershop: It comes from England, in the 70's in particular people used the phrase "corner shop" in a derogatory way and towards Asians, because a lot of Asians were owning corner shops and stuff as well as entering lots of other professions. It's used as a derogatory racist term, basically.

MTV: Cornershop's career took off in the U.K. -- critically, at least -- with its second album, "Woman's Gotta Have It" released in this country on former Talking Head David Byrne's "Luaka Bop" label. And that album got the band a slot on the second stage of last year's Lollapalooza tour.

MTV: Now the Cornershop buzz continues with a single that's about singles, and about a renowned

Indian movie diva.

TJINDER SINGH, Cornershop: Asha Bhosle. She's a big screen, Indian movie screen songstress, and she sang loads of songs for Hindi movies and she got a big repertoire, so we used her as a sort of pretext in the song and then went on in the song ["Brimful of Asha" video clip, 576k QuickTime] to sing about the reasons why we like plastic 45's.

MTV: Uh, "brimful"?

AYERS: Like a cup of coffee, brimming with coffee. Overflowing.

SINGH: A lot people don't understand that. Strange.

MTV: Adding samples, scratching, and some rapping to its Punjabi folk funk amalgram, Cornershop is now drawing some starry-eyed praise with its new album, "When I Was Born For The Seventh Time.

SINGH: This album has been compared to a lot of different things. Whether it's "Odelay," "Ill Communication," or "Three Feet High and Rising," it's good to be compared to something that's pretty

classic.

DAVID, fan, 22: America: forget Beck as a genius. Tjinder man, Tjinder is the man, seriously!

DAVID BYRNE (after seeing a Cornershop show): I had a good time. There was a couple of Sikhs standing in the audience bopping. That was nice to see.

AMAR, fan, 26: A lot of people from our generation who have been brought up here, have been exposed to the West, but we also have our sort of home in the East ["WOG" video clip, 960k QuickTime] -- we have that culture, too. And he [Tjinder] pretty much represents a lot of young Asian youth who have been brought up in the U.K. and the United States . They sort of have both cultures to deal with and it's natural that they'd come together in music.

Cornershop will be back in the States in January to open up on a tour with Oasis.