Surprisingly, it's taken us this long to THRWBCK to the Smiths, who are categorically the band we refer to as "the best ever" when we are posed with such a ridiculous questions as "who is the best band ever?" Our favorite Smiths album varies from hourly, but lately it's been Strangeways Here We Come, their 1987 swan song, which is by far their most realized and complete LP (and Morrissey's favorite, legend has it). If ...

Photo by Jessica Gelt for LA Times The Downtown RCRD LBL blog and The Guide (The L.A. Times’ pop culture blog) have some first-person accounts from Cold War Kids’ secret show at L.A.’s R Bar last week. It looked like a ramblin’ good time, and in our own experience, packed, sweaty, incredibly-over-capacity shows make for the most memorable performances, so we can only imagine what the show was like. Maybe the band will whip up ...

What do you get when you cross A-HA with Hall & Oates? Why, we're so glad someone asked! The new Chromeo video, "Momma's Boy" has some serious "Take on Me" overtones with the whole sketch-like animation theme. The song is pretty cute, even though it borders slightly on the creepy side: watch the video and you'll get what we mean. Love you Mom! Download: Chromeo - Bonafied Lovin' (Yuksek remix)

Check out this brand new Presets video, for their new single "Talk Like That", off of their amazing second album Apocalypto. We're so into this album it's kind of amazing, and along with Hercules & Love Affair, The Presets are turning out to be our favorite dance act of 2008. When this song comes on, we totally start dancing around the office like that girl in the video. Precious! Download: The Presets - This Boy's ...

If you enjoy: 1) Moody folk rock and 2) standing in the sun for long periods of time, you might want to hit up Conor Oberst’s upcoming instore tour, where he’ll be traveling coast to coast and record store to record store with his Mystic Valley Band promoting his new, self-titled record. Just one question: is there going to be a VIP line or anything…? Here are the dates: 7/30/08 Seattle, Easy Street Records @ ...

Yesterday we found out that The Human League, ABC and Heaven 17 are touring this winter as the "Steel City Tour" ("Steel City" being the nickname given to the bands' hometown, Sheffield), and dutifully freaked out, like any self-respecting electropop enthusiast would. We've been on a severe YouTube kick ever since, so enjoy "(Keep Feeling) Fascination", one of our favorite Human League tracks ever, off of the 1983 LP Fascination!. Nice way to start your ...

We know you guys have been salivating for some new Cold War Kids tracks, and we have just the thing to quench your overwhelming desire for urban indie Americana this morning. “Something is Not Right With Me” is a brand new, RCRD LBL exclusive track off of the Cold War Kids’ second album Loyalty To Loyalty (out Sept 23rd) , and if we use this as a measuring stick for the new material, then we’re ...

We're on a full-blown '90s kick at the moment--watching Party Girl and Unzipped, YouTubing old episodes of MTV's House of Style and of course, going through all of our old Britpop records. After Pulp and Blur, our favorite band from that era was Elastica, whose front woman Justine Frischmann embodied the spunk and style of the times. "Stutter" was their first single and it remains a classic.

No '90s band matched the wit and pop appeal of Pulp and their charismatic frontman Jarvis Cocker. After This is Hardcore came out in 1997, Jarvis described it in the press as having almost destroyed his band, life, and sanity, but man, was it worth it. Almost as good as its predecessor, the modern classic Different Class, This is Hardcore and our favorite single off the record, "Party Hard", were Pulp to a "T": lines ...

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but we’re willing to wager that that’s true for each pixel of the image above. Seriously we could stare at this thing all day. DJ extraordinaire and Dim Mak label head Steve Aoki guest starred recently on Current TV’s cartoon spoof show Hipsters in Space and the Dim Mak RCRD LBL blog has the full scoop. Check it out, it’s pretty funny. Steve Aoki at the ...

Every time we hear some dumb interviewer ask some amazing all-girl band like, the Coathangers or something a question like, "So, what's it like to be an all-girl band?" A) it makes us pukey and B) we get really pissed off when the band actually answer the question instead of doing what the Slits would do, which is obviously just be awesome, not care and do whatever (which is what the Coathangers pretty much do, ...

We're so excited for Donkey, the new album by Brazilian pop-rock juggernauts CSS, we're actually contemplating going to a record store and buying it on the day it comes out, something we haven't done since at least 2002 when we were really, really into the White Stripes. Like, really into them. It just might be that we love CSS even more, and even though we're still giving their debut album Cansei de Ser Sexy healthy ...

So, it's all over. Last night we went all the way to Southpaw in Brooklyn to see the Vaselines play what is sure to go down as one of the best sets of our entire lives. As Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee swapped lyrics over their indie pop/psychedelic punk masterpieces, we kept flashing back to this Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra song from the late '60s. "Some Velvet Morning" has been covered to all hell, ...