March 22, 2012 – Cornershop's 1997 breakthrough When I Was Born for the Seventh Time is a quintessential example of a record that awoke listeners with a forward-thinking sound in the moment. The Anglo-Indian outfit led by Tjinder Singh are having a different kind of moment now: As online connectivity has made the pop world so small that Switch, Q-Tip, Nick Zinner, and Buraka Som Sistema all have production credits on Santigold's hotly anticipated new album, here's Cornershop merging elements of dub, hip-hop, and Singh's own Punjabi folk roots on "Milkin' It," the groove-driven advance track from May 15 album Urban Turban (itself the follow-up to last year's sadly slept-on Cornershop & the Double O Groove Of). Directed by Astrid Edwards, the video spotlights the Oakland, California, dance style known as turf dancing.

March 22, 2012 – "Now everybody seen that shit," Kendrick Lamar boasts coolly at the end of "The City," from Game's tepidly received summer 2011 release The R.E.D. Album. And everybody really has: The younger of the two West Coast rappers demonstrated his criminally high-wattage star power at SXSW, made the jump to Interscope for his next album, and demonstrated not only impressive technique but also, more importantly, a distinctive conscious-yet-totally-fucked-up perspective to one of last year's best rap albums, debut Section.80. He also shared the mic with hip-hop up-and-comers from Tech N9ne to Drake (and, more recently, Gunplay). Lamar's guest spot on "The City," for its part, is a passing-of-the-torch moment on an album with only flickers of Game's old fire.

March 22, 2012 – "Semper fidelis," the U.S. Marine Corps' slogan, takes on an an ironic shade of meaning in the military-themed new video for Katy Perry's latest single, "Part of Me" (from aptly titled March 26 deluxe reissue Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection). The Latin means "always faithful," and Perry's lover in the clip — who, as it happens, looks more like Chris Martin than real-life ex Russell Brand — decidedly isn't. As singles from Perry's chart-dominating 2010 album Teenage Dream go, her latest uptempo electro-popper isn't as frothily exuberant as, say, "California Gurls," but in the weeks since its debut the recent pop No.

March 16, 2012 – The second track to leak from Killer Mike's upcoming album, R.A.P. Music, produced entirely by El-P, is a different animal, but no less ferocious. The Atlanta rap firebrand and the New York indie-rap luminary previously brought together their respective brands of non-self-righteous righteousness on "Big Beast," a clanging, exuberant burst of fury featuring Southern aplomb courtesy of T.I. and Bun B. A second cut, this one titled "Untitled," premiered earlier today on satellite-radio channel Shade 45's Sway on the Morning. While it's a more contemplative, solitary affair, it's similarly compelling. This morning, Killer Mike introduced the track, saying it was inspired by the thoughts of mortality that truth-speaking civil rights leaders must have shortly before they're killed, and he said his grandmother recently died in his arms, which, wow.

March 16, 2012 – Hot Chip's new album In Our Heads won't be here until June 12, but the British dance-poppers are already looking ahead to the summer. "Flutes," the first track from the group's upcoming debut for Domino (and follow-up to 2010's One Life Stand), is euphoric 21st-century disco that stretches out for nearly eight sun-baked minutes, with deceptively bittersweet lyrics. Pitchfork brings us the track's low-key in-studio video, which basically involves the camera going around in circles to such an extent you might be better off looking away while you listen. Unless giddy disorientation is the point? "One day you might realize / That you might need to open your eyes," goes the song's serenely cooed mantra. It's not so different from the indie electro-pop of its predecessors, albeit with a broader, more club-oriented palette. Earlier today, Hot Chip also announced their summer tour.

March 16, 2012 – For those keeping score at home, Nas has notched two great songs in a row — hard-edged, hurtling New York Hip-Hop Master Classes that have mostly eluded him over the past decade-plus. Nine months ago, "Nasty" showed the '90s hip-hop legend could still do a virtuosic, no-hooks verbal tour de force over take-no-prisoners production. On his latest, "The Don," Nasir Jones stays in the NYC rap lane where he can still out-race just about everyone. It's a cause for celebration. In recent years, Nas has frustrated his longtime followers with media-baiting album titles and empty political slogans, to the point where it's hard to know when it's safe to get excited.

March 16, 2012 – The tracks to surface from Odd Future's long-awaited OF Tape Vol. 2 so far, "Rella" and "NY (Ned Flander)," have mostly been in keeping with the L.A. hip-hop crew's familiar shock-rap template, accompanied with harsh beats, child-abuse jokes and woman-smacking videos. Enter Frank Ocean. "White," the mixtape's only solo joint, is different, and grandly so. "Could this be Earth? / Could this be light? / Does this mean everything's going to be all right?" begins the supple-voiced singer-songwriter, atop sustained keyboard chords, his spacey vocal echo and slightly spacier lyrics all that separate this gentle koan from, say, vintage Stevie Wonder. After continuing his wonderfully emotive meditation on love, maturity, and, you know, the stars and the planets and such, all the way through to a TV analogy, he's done by the minute-and-a-half mark.

March 15, 2012 – It's taken Garbage so long to return that Shirley Manson and Co. actually sound of-the-moment again. As the alt-rockers get ready to release their first album in seven years, Not Your Kind of People, on May 15, you can already hear their clinically precise grunge-glam smart bombs reverberating across new albums by artists as varied as School of Seven Bells and (as our own Rob Harvilla points out) even Lana Del Rey. "Blood for Poppy," the first full song from the LP, is a sharply hook-packed modern rocker, anachronistic only because of its "radio"-referencing chorus... Don't you guys have Spotify? Anyway, like Garbage's black-eyelinered U2 cover late last year, it's ill-served by YouTube-leak audio quality. Unlike the idea of a Garbage Pail Kids movie, it's promising for more reasons than nostalgia.

March 15, 2012 – The Roots have announced the lineup for their fifth annual Philly music throwdown, the Roots Picnic, Okayplayer reports. The Roots will once again headline and also play backing band for the mighty De La Soul at this year's fest, set for June 2 and 3 at Festival Pier at Penn's Landing. The bill also boasts Kid Cudi, a DJ set by LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy, both Major Lazer and Diplo solo, Wale, St. Vincent, Danny Brown, tUnE-yArDs, Shabazz Palaces, Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire, and more. Two-day passes go on sale to the general public tomorrow and are available through a Live Nation presale today, both via Ticketmaster. The price is $80 per pass plus $16.60 in fees. Below is a video recap of last year's Roots Picnic by BlowHipHopTV, featuring Nas, the Roots, Yelawolf, Wiz Khalifa, and Mac Miller.

March 15, 2012 – The Flaming Lips' long-in-the-works musical is finally almost here. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots will premiere in November or December at the esteemed La Jolla Playhouse, the Los Angeles Times reports. As if San Diego didn't sound appealing enough already at that time of year. As previously reported, the musical will include songs from The Soft Bulletin and At War With the Mystics as well as 2002's Yoshimi. The production is written and directed by Jersey Boys director Des McAnuff. The theater company's website promises a "dazzling, multi-media experience," and yes, the plot focuses on a young Japanese artist named Yoshimi who must do battle in an evil robot world. The wide-eyed Oklahoma psych-rockers have been working on a theatrical treatment for Yoshimi at least since 2007, when The Social Network/West Wing writer Aaron Sorkin was reportedly involved.