It’s another day, and yet another Now That’s What I Call Music! compilation album is available for consumption. Not to make anyone feel old or anything, but we’re at volume #41! (In the UK, where the series began in 1983, they’re at #80). Artists featured this time around include LMFAO, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and, for those who prefer to rock, Nickelback.

If the past is any indicator of the future, this album is bound to be a hit. In a recent press release, the Now! team states that “every album in the numeric US series has reached Billboard’s Top 10, and 15 Now! releases have reached #1, second only to The Beatles in chart history.” Indeed, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, every Now! album has achieved either Gold or Platinum status, with only a few exceptions. In 2006, Slate music critic, Jody Rosen, wondered if Now! could save the music business, calling the franchise “one of the great success stories in the record business over the last decade.”

So, in our age of digital downloading and cloud computing, of Pandora and Sirius and Spotify and even YouTube, how are these records comprised of jams found everywhere still so successful?

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Those who are familiar with the Foo Fighters’ music video oeuvre (“Everlong”! “Low”!) realize that Dave Grohl is a very funny guy, so perhaps it was only a matter of time before he made his way into the comedy world. Deadline is reporting that the rocker is executive producing a half-hour sitcom for FX that will star creator Dana Gould as a member of “a rock band on the verge of mega-stardom who finds itself [sic] on the verge of breaking up and is forced to seek professional help in a last-ditch effort to stay together. Unfortunately, they end up with a misanthropic couple’s therapist from Agoura on the brink of divorce.” Is it just us, or does this sound a lot like the plot of instant-classic Metallica documentary Some Kind of Monster? If it’s half as entertaining, we’re in.

Portlandia is a show that works almost as a series of inside jokes. The sketches are all knowing winks to the audience about the culture they presumably know all about, in which your friend has begun pickling everything and people can “put a bird on anything and call it art.” But it also works because Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein are the kind of people who you’d like to share an inside joke with. Both are unquestionably cool in their own right, but it’s their friendship, both on and off television, that’s an equally compelling force behind their television success. In interviews and on the show, they seem like two BFFs having fun as much as professionals with a television show, riffing off each other and cracking wise. But not all twosomes translate as well off the HDTV screen, so it’s a relief that the Portlandia live show, which wrapped up its first leg in New York this weekend, shows the friends to be every bit as fun as they seem. After the jump, the best moments from the show at The Bowery Ballroom, plus what Armisen and Brownstein had to say about spirit animals, overanalyzing text messages, and a possible Portlandia movie.

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Maybe you didn’t realize Leonard Cohen had written a musical for Canadian TV. But now that you know he did, back in 1983, don’t you want to drop everything and watch it? Well, thanks to Dangerous Minds, which spotted the film on YouTube, you can. The 25-minute production I Am a Hotel is comprised of five bittersweet love vignettes set at Toronto’s King Edward Hotel, each soundtracked and inspired by one of Cohen’s songs (“Suzanne” and “Chelsea Hotel #2″ are both featured). The stories are interspersed with shots of Cohen — billed as “The Resident” — performing live or singing directly into the camera, making I Am a Hotel more like a series of high-concept music videos than a traditional musical. The film’s dreamy mysticism and lyrical power fortunately overshadows is ’80s-tastic visual aesthetic and effects, making it well worth a half-hour of your time. In fact, why not watch it right now? It’s Friday! Close your office door. No one’s looking. Your boss already went home.

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As soon as LCD Soundsystem’s break-up and final shows were announced, people started freaking out. Friends we didn’t even realize were into James Murphy and co. were lamenting the end of an era. Phrases like “the most important band of the 21st century” were thrown around. And the rush to buy tickets for that last Madison Square Garden performance was nothing short of Beatlemania, ca. 1964.

So it’s sort of inevitable that the most bittersweet night in hipster history would be immortalized on film. Shut Up and Play the Hits, directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace (who you might remember as the team behind Blur’s No Distance Left to Run), chronicles the MSG show and the potentially generation-defining band’s demise. Judging by the trailer, the documentary will feature ample footage from the concert, some wistful interviews, critical input from Chuck Klosterman, lots of white people hugging, and more than one adorable shot of Murphy’s French bulldog.

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The Sailor Jerry Presents concert series sails on, and the most recent addition to its roster has been most excellent Detroit garage stalwarts the Dirtbombs. We nominated the band’s latest album, Party Store, as one of the most underrated of 2011 during a mid-year wrap-up, and our opinion hasn’t changed — if you haven’t heard it, it’s a collection of covers of old Detroit techno tracks reinvented as garage-rock tunes. It’s also a fantastic and original piece of work, and still gets a regular workout on the Flavorpill stereo. Plus, it catalyzed various discussions about other great covers records from over the years, inspiring us to round up ten of our all-time favorites, starting with Party Store itself.

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The always interesting David Byrne has created an interactive music-based installation created from a grid of 96 guitar effects pedals. The uber colorful creation rests simply on the floor and  invites people to literally walk all over it. The pedals are wired together, along with a guitar and amplifier, creating various layered sound effects that build the more it’s experimented with. The piece is playful and quirky and everything you’d expect from the Talking Heads frontman. Step on it (in video form) past the break. Read More »

One of the welcome artistic developments of the 21st century has been the resurgence of psychedelic music. We don’t mean the kind of wet, holding-hands-and-gently-humming-at-the-flowers variety — we’re talking about bands whose music immerses you completely, whether it’s because they’re given to pile-driving drum patterns and guitar freakouts, or because they make the sort of blissed-out drone sounds to which you can turn on, tune in, and drop out to your heart’s content. With neo-psych doyenne Jesse Sykes on the bill for a recent installment of the Sailor Jerry’s Presents concert series, we realized that she most definitely features on the roster of awesome neo-psych acts everyone should know. Click through for a bunch of similarly worthy suggestions, then be sure to check out more can’t-miss upcoming shows from Sailor Jerry’s Presents. Read More »

On our list of things we wished existed and the Internet made come true is this video of a group of Bulgarian accordion players performing the Super Mario Bros. theme song. Vintage Nintendo meets Slavic charm in this boy band’s rousing rendition of the instantly recognizable tune. Our only hope is that they wear these outfits while playing their NES. Click past the break if you want to dance. Read More »

The recent Dallas installment of the Sailor Jerry’s Presents concert series saw one of our favorite bands taking to the road: San Francisco garage combo Thee Oh Sees, who are touring the US in support of their new album, Carrion Crawler. Apart from being a pretty great rock band in their own right, Thee Oh Sees are also the de facto standard bearers for a new generation of garage-rock bands. As such, they’re heirs to a sound with a rich history, and one that’s definitely worth investigating — so step into the garage with us and crowd around the turntable as we spin ten discs that are key touchstones in the long story of the genre, then check out more upcoming events from Sailor Jerry’s Presents. Read More »