LHB’s Shorties (Green Day, Mogwai, and More)

The Village Voice reviews Green Day's new album, 21st Century Breakdown (out Friday).

Remember, of course, that Green Day are as major-label as they come, and this will undoubtedly be one of 2009's bestsellers—Breakdown is pure capitalism even as it repudiates it. They aren't exactly pulling a Radiohead/Girl Talk trick and offering the album for free online, either. Yet despite the skepticism and self-derogation, I detect triumph and the kind of radical sentiment that pumps blood toward political engagement, not away from it.

East Bay Express profiles Mogwai.

Because of the expansive, cinematic quality of Mogwai's music, it was something of a no-brainer when the band begun working in movies. Between the release of the band's last "proper" album and the making of The Hawk Is Howling, Mogwai collaborated on the score for Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain with composer Clint Mansell, and the group composed and recorded the soundtrack for the documentary Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, about the French soccer star Zinedine Zidane.

Drowned in Sound interviews Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders about the band's next album.

Former Guided By Voices member Tobin Sprout has written a children's book, Elliott.

At Blog on the Tracks, Flying Nun Records' Roger Shepherd discusses his love for New Zealand music.

The New York Times examines the current trend of adding bonus songs and content to albums.

With music sales depressed, record labels are happy to strike arrangements for bonus content; indeed, many recording contracts now stipulate that with a new album artists must deliver as many as a half-dozen additional songs for promotion. But artists and their managers are not always so eager to comply. Some complain of bullying by powerful retailers as well as by their own labels to pack their albums with secondary, often inferior material.

The Riverfront Times interviews Kelley Deal of the Breeders (and formerly of the woefully under-appreciated Kelley Deal 6000) about covering Bob Marley's "Chances Are."

What's the genesis of deciding to cover that song?

Kim [Deal, Kelley's sister and Breeders co-vocalist/guitarist] had made herself a mixtape years ago, and it had that song. Doo-wop was really popular, this was back in the '60s. So [the song does have a] reggae feel, but you can also hear this doo-wop feel on it. She found that, put it on a mixtape and kept listening to it, and just loved the song and thought, "God, I'd really love to cover it, but no way could we cover it in reggae style." That would just be gross. We'd done it a couple different ways, with the whole band, making it a bar-band feel. [But] the best way to do it was just to really simplify the beauty of it, and get that across.

Help finance an 8-bit tribute album of Kind of Blue Miles Davis.

- David Gutowski