December 14, 2009 – As the leader of the Shins, James Mercer kept his cryptic leanings relegated to his lyrics. But for Broken Bells, Mercer's collaboration with Danger Mouse, the mystery's being laid on thick. A visit to the site Berobrknells.com (it's brokenbells with the letters rearranged) brings you to a silhouette of two men, one slight and slender, the other afro'd, could be anyone, really. And playing in the background is one of three instrumental loops, which switches over every time you hit refresh. Excerpts from the forthcoming debut album, hinting at a more production-heavy sound than the Shins' nuanced pop? Seems a fair guess. But thanks to the new air of careful inscrutability, a guess is all we've got.

December 7, 2009 – It was over a year ago that we first heard about Lil Wayne's in-the-works rock album, and after countless delays and one pesky gun-charge conviction, the album -- due, finally, supposedly, December 21 -- is showing signs of actually existing. Mere days after the appearance of the Scarface score-biting "On Fire," "Da Da Da" has reared its heavily Auto-Tuned head, and it's pretty much what you had in mind when you heard Weezy was learning guitar and working on a "rock" record. Which is to say, it kinda sounds like Cash Money's own Kevin Rudolph. The single also restores Auto-Tune to its original pre-ubiquitous-gimmick purpose, which is to mask a singer's flaws. Somewhere there's a tape of Lil Wayne's vocal stylings on the verses sans digital manipulation.

November 10, 2009 – REALITY: Sorta. But Chris Carrabba still has secrets. The Dashboard Confessional leader answers the charges: As much as anyone, you capitalized on the technology of the past decade to cultivate a direct relationship with your fans. But doesn't that sort of availability kill the mystique?As the guy in the band, I don't have any interest in there being a big wall between me and the fans. But on the flip side, I don't want to know everything about the bands I'm a fan of -- I really go for the mythic nature of rock. It's still there with some people. There will be a niche of artists who refuse to partake in the technology. Who do you think has been able to maintain a contemporary career without us knowing everything about them?John Mayer -- I wonder how much of his life we're actually seeing and how much is just him entertaining us.

November 5, 2009 – If you found yourself driven to New York's Bowery Ballroom on Friday night solely by the vaguely Messianic reaction to San Francisco duo Girls' debut, Album, then you could be forgiven if, for much of the evening, you wondered whether you were even in the right building. Certainly the songs were there and performed more or less the way they sound on record, infused with '50s proto-rock and '60s acid-casualty decay.

November 5, 2009 – Music supervisor for hit TV shows including Gossip Girl, Grey's Anatomy, and Mad Men -- along with the Twilight movie series -- Alexandra Patsavas has quietly made herself one of the most influential figures in the industry, helping to break new bands and shape the aesthetics of popular drama. With the indie-all-star New Moon soundtrack currently the No. 1 album in the country, Patsavas talked to SPIN.com about how the project came together, what makes for a good soundtrack moment, and which new bands you should watch out for. How you go about something like New Moon, which features original songs from so many artists who don't often appear in projects this high-profile?The work starts as soon as the script is finished and distributed. Chris Weitz, the director, had a very specific point of view about how he wanted the music to feel.

October 30, 2009 – Britney Spears isn't meant to be taken so literally. Like, when she coos "Hit Me Baby...One More Time," she doesn't really want you to reel off and clock her. And when she says she's "Toxic," she isn't inferring that an encounter with her will require a call to poison control, although, better safe than sorry. So then, it makes a certain sense that her new single,"3," a paean to the simple joys of having sex with two other people at the same time, would spawn a video in which she cavorts not-all-that-sexily with six male dancers and four female dancers.

October 28, 2009 – On paper, flame-haired 23-year-old Brit Florence Welch seems justone of a dozen would-be divas to wash up on our shores this year.Fortunately for her, and for all of us, Welch's charms are not bestexperienced on paper. Rather, they are best experienced in the cozyish 550-capacity Bowery Ballroom on Manhattan's Lower East Side on agrimly rainy Tuesday in October. It's hard to remember a new artist arriving so fully formed andpoised and boasting such a combination of charisma and raw talent, whose nascent stardom and potential for broad appeal seemed so assured. (Amy Winehouse, maybe, briefly, once upon a time, when the recklessness seemed libertine and not so, you know, reckless.) Welch's pipes are the natural envy of any melisma-abusing American Idol hopeful, but never garishly exploited or theatrical for theater's sake.

October 23, 2009 – Just over a year ago, we predicted New York's Lissy Trullie would be one of 2009's breakout stars. It's nice to be right sometimes.To help fill the downtime while Trullie continues work on her debut full-length with producer Bernard Butler, due early 2010, Downtown Records is re-releasing this year's Self-Taught Learner EP with four new tracks.And lucky us, we get to exclusively host the new video for the EP's title track, directed by Gian Mazcour and John Pina, and starring Lissy Trullie's awesome haircut. Tell us what you think in thecomments section below.Watch: Lissy Trullie, "Self-Taught Learner"

October 19, 2009 – Some sequels are openly clamored for by the public. New Moon, perhaps. Others are totally mystifying -- Wrong Turn 3, anyone? Falling somewhere in between is the upcoming Shock Value 2, Timbaland's star-studded follow-up to his equally star-studded 2007 solo album. Tim's own value may have dipped a bit of late, thanks in no small part to big-league bombs like the Chris Cornell solo album he produced, but he can still bring in the A-list talent: Justin Timberlake (of course), Miley Cyrus, Chris Brown, and Katy Perry are among the visiting luminaries on the disc, due November 24. Ooh, and hey, look! Jet! However, the first single, "Morning After Dark" eschews boldfaced names for a new one. Tat-covered French songstress (and signee to Timbaland's Mosely Music) SoShy trades verses with an Auto-Tuned Timbaland and sings the hook.

October 16, 2009 – Stop Making Sense, Jonathan Demme's concert film chronicling the Talking Heads' shows at L.A.'s Pantages Theater, was hailed as groundbreaking when it was released in 1984. Rarely had a band been depicted so vividly at the peak of its powers, managing to capture the intimacy of being in the room with the performers and adding a visual flair that could only be evoked by a proper filmmaker. On the 25th anniversary of the movie – marked this week by its Blu-Ray debut – it still has few equals, as concert spectacles are most often relived via immediate, if lo-fi YouTube clips. Former Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz, 58, talked to spin.com about the film's legacy and his continued frustrations over not being able to get the band back together. How do you think Stop Making Sense has held up over it's release 25 years ago?I think it holds up very well.