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...Produced by longtime cohort Tony Hoffer and "Odelay" albums the Dust Brothers, the album is in many ways a return to form, melding the beats and rhythms of that album with the melodies and acoustic guitars of 1998's "Mutations".

"E-Pro," the likely first single, has a hip-hop vibe seemingly culled directly from the "Odelay" party songbook, complete with a "Na-na-na" chorus. The track also sees a return of Beck's trademark non-sequitur rhymes, his first since those on 1999's Day-Glo funk fest, "Midnight Vultures".

Meanwhile, "Gospel" is closest to the somber vibes of 2002's "Sea Change", but within the context of handclaps and beats. And another new track, "Guero," is straight-up East L.A.: A mixture of hip-hop, Spanglish rhymes and stripped-down funk, the track is an homage to Beck's roots in L.A.'s Hispanic neighborhoods, with samples of street noise and Mexican vatos (homeboys) chattering. "Brazilica" mines the same warm, bossa nova territory showcased on "Mutations'" "Tropicalia."

Other tracks under consideration for the album include the trippy Dust Brothers production "Earthquake Weather," and songs bearing the tentative titles of "Dance," "Scarecrow" and "Chain Reaction." White Stripes frontman Jack White also collaborated with the singer on a yet-untitled track.

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This debut from the most sought-after hip-hop producer not named Pharrell delivers the unthinkable: West magically sledgehammers home his opinions on taboo topics over beats that are equally daring. The envelope-ripping beats shouldn't come as a surprise given that he's supplied the soundscapes to monster singles by everyone from Alicia Keys ("You Don't Know My Name") to Talib Kweli ("Get By"). What is freakish is that in West's world, rhymes about strippers, God, college life, and guns can co-exist tidily and not undermine each other. On "Breathe In Breathe Out" he raps "I gotta apologize to Mos and Kweli/is it cool to rap about gold if I told the world I copped it from Ghana and Mali"--tongue firmly planted in cheek. On the catchy "Through the Wire," fuelled by a Chaka Khan hook, he spits some impeccable rhymes despite his jaw being wired shut after a near-fatal car accident. Maybe it was this brush with mortality that kicked his lyrics into high gear on "All Falls Down." The skits on here are just as potent, one poking fun at the overeducated underclass that makes a small fraction of the loot he does. With jaw-dropping cameos from Jay-Z, Common, Mos Def, and the Harlem Boys Choir plus the feel-good club tune of the year, "Slow Jamz" featuring Twista, College Dropout is as explosive, contradictory, and complex as rap music gets.

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The soundtrack to the Jonathan Demme documentary, Stop Making Sense captures the Talking Heads live in 1984 on what would turn out to be their last major tour. This collection, and the film, is a true gift to the band's fans, a testament to the Heads' extraordinary talent, both in the studio and especially onstage. Frontman David Byrne infuses each song with a jolt of energy and drama that could only have come from a late-'70s art-school student. Now-classic tracks such as "Psycho Killer," "Girlfriend is Better," "Once in a Lifetime," "Take Me to the River," and "Burning Down the House" have never sounded better. This expanded 1999 reissue includes all nine of the original tracks, plus seven previously unheard cuts, including "Heaven," "Found a Job," and "Crosseyed and Painless."

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Dick Dale's surf-guitar provided the memorable title theme ("Misirlou"), for Quentin Tarantino's 1994 smash, and although that sound runs throughout the soundtrack (along with bits and pieces of dialog from the movie), this is a pretty eclectic bunch of really terrific songs. I don't know how it all manages to hang together, but it does (you might say the same for the interwoven stories in the movie). Where else are you going to find Chuck Berry, Maria McKee, Al Green, The Statler Brothers, Kool & the Gang, Urge Overkill (singing a Neil Diamond ballad!), Ricky Nelson, Dusty Springfield, and the Tornadoes (among others) one album? McKee's beautiful "If Love is a Red Dress (Hang Me in Rags)" is a standout, partly because it's less familiar. One of the few soundtracks of the '90s that went into the CD player and stayed there for weeks and months thereafter.

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Styled more along the lines of a revolutionary cell than a band, Bloc Party approach the medium of rock'n'roll with the sort of high seriousness usually reserved for philosophy lectures. Yet on their debut album, Silent Alarm, this "autonomous unit" of smart, wiry London youth don't just succeed in reinvigorating the artform – they come pretty close to reinventing it from the ground up. 
Whereas early singles like "She's Hearing Voices" found the band still attempting to chisel their own image out of familiar post-punk reference points – The Fall, Joy Division, and Gang Of Four, to name but three – newer tracks such as "Like Eating Glass" and the prickly "Price Of Gas" find Bloc Party pioneering a freshly-minted template of staccato percussion, expansive soundscapes, and cryptic lyrics that artfully straddle the political and the personal. Russell Lissack has forsaken that overdone hallmark of post-punk, brittle tortured-fretboard skronk, in favour of an effects-laden guitar sound that adds genuine prettiness to Bloc Party's edgy rush. But it's Kele Okereke's vocal that's the band's most flexible facet, morphing from frothing anger to breathless desperation. "Are you hoping for a miracle?" he bays, on "Helicopter". Yes? Well Silent Alarm ably fits the bill.

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During the two years that passed between the release of Silver Apples of the Moon and its follow-up, Sounds of the Satellites, the dub, trip-hop and drum'n'bass sounds which made Laika so distinctive and original the first time out became commonplace; never given their proper due as pioneers of electronica anyway, their prospects for creating music of similar depth and invention appeared to grow dimmer and dimmer as time went on. Miraculously, Sounds of the Satellites is even better than its predecessor, a simultaneous expansion of the band's sonic palette and a brilliant refinement of their past innovations. The pivotal difference between Laika and other similarly inclined artists is their unparalleled sense of atmosphere: far removed from the pummeling insistence of groups like Prodigy or the Chemical Brothers, Laika also avoids the cinematic film-noir ambience of Portishead in favor of a subdued, dreamlike labyrinth of sound -- the album is, by turns, claustrophobic ("Breather"), sexy ("Almost Sleeping") and menacing ("Shut Off/Curl Up"). Rarely is electronic music so suggestive, so fluid, or so human; Sounds of the Satellites exists in its own orbit, so far ahead of its contemporaries as to be off of the map. 
      

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album credits 
 Laika  Main Performer, Artwork, Layout Design 
 Lou Ciccotelli  Percussion 
 Louise Elliott  Flute 
 Rob Ellis  Drums, Vocals (Background), Prepared Piano, Percussion, Piano 
 Alonso Mendoza  Vibraphone 
 Jai Williams  Mixing Assistant 
 Tony Cousins  Mastering 
 Margaret Fiedler  Drums, Vocals, Moog Synthesizer, Engineer, Sampling, Mixing, Mini Moog, Bass, Guitar, Trumpet 
 Guy Fixsen  Drums, Vocals, Moog Synthesizer, Engineer, Sampling, Mixing, Mini Moog, Bass, Guitar, Trumpet 

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Best known for his atmospheric, leftfield production work with alterna-rapper Aesop Rock, Blockhead makes a perfect addition to the klix roster of Ninja Tune, the most consistent purveyor of experimental hip-hop and downtempo electronica on the planet. Like his Ninja labelmates Amon Tobin and Bonobo, he excels at grafting delicate, ambient soundscapes onto chunky beats (check “Carnivores Unite” and the groovy sitar break on the title track). Like Wagon Christ and Kid Koala, he’s got a great ear for goofy samples -- scratched-up Charlie Brown voices on “Hello Popartz,” variable-speed jazz vocals on “Triptych.” Coolest of all, though, is Blockhead’s skillful use of horns, strings and other sampled orchestral touches, which lend ambitiously dense cuts like “Breath and Start,” “Sunday Seance” and especially the excellent “Insomniac Olympics” a grandeur that few other underground hip-hop producers, apart from Tobin, have even attempted.