Congratulations, the follow-up to MGMT’s excellent 2007 debut Oracular Spectacular, hits your local record store and (legal-type) MP3 download sites today, and here’s the video for the first single, “Flash Delirium.” Now, you don’t press play on an MGMT video without expecting some weird and potentially disturbing crap to go down (remember their video for “Kids”?), and while “Flash Delirium” seems to start off pretty staid and normal, just wait.

hat tip Stereogum

Not all of this news is brand new, but it’s all worth knowing about. At least, if you’re me or like the same bands as I do.

• The Dead Weather Announce New Album Details – Jack White’s current project The Dead Weather is set to release their second album, following 2009′s widely-acclaimed Horehound. It will be called Sea of Cowards, and will drop May 11th in the US. Pitchfork has the cover art and track listing at the link.
• Tokyo Police Club Announce Sophomore LP – Must be the time for sophomore albums, because Toronto-based Tokyo Police Club are releasing theirs, entitled Champ, on June 8th. They’re also embarking on a pretty extensive tour, most of it with Passion Pit.
• The Libertines to Reunite for Festival Performances – The Libs were one of my favorite bands several years ago, and I always kind of hoped they’d get back together at some point following their well-publicized and not-particularly-amicable breakup in 2004. This isn’t any more than a couple of reunited festival gigs, no album or anything in the works, and I have a feeling even this has all kinds of possible badness in store for it – as much as I love Pete Doherty’s music, he’s not what you might call a stable person. Hope this comes off better than I fear.
• MGMT’s Congratulations Streaming on Their Site – MGMT’s new album comes out tomorrow, but it leaked early so they put the whole thing streaming on their home page. It seems a little more mellow than Oracular Spectacular, but I quite liked it. Not sure how long they’ll leave it up after the album’s out, so check it out while you can.
• Two More Broken Social Scene Songs from New Record – Two more songs from Broken Social Scene’s upcoming Forgiveness Rock Record have been released, and Steregum has the Flash player to prove it. I really REALLY like “All to All,” though “Forced to Love” needs some more time to percolate around my brain, I think. Forgiveness Rock Record is out May 4th.
• Jason Boesel Talks About In-Progress Rilo Kiley and Jenny Lewis Records – Now, when I heard that coming from Rilo Kiley drummer Boesel, I got REALLY REALLY excited; Rilo Kiley is my favorite band, and their last record together was 2006, before they all sort of amicably split up to work on solo projects. I’d like nothing better than for them to get back together and work on something new. This is not quite that. The Rilo Kiley record is a rarities and B-sides compilation, which is still worth excitement, because they have a lot of B-sides and songs they’ve only done live that I’d LOVE to have in studio-produced form. Jenny is working on a new record with her boyfriend Johnathan Rice, but it’s unclear from the interview whether that means he’s working on her record, she’s working on his, or they’re doing a dual one (they’ve both worked on each other’s records before). Boesel is encouraging, though, that Rilo Kiley may reunite for a new project in the future, something I certainly hope comes true.

Just a few news items from the past few weeks, all courtesy of Pitchfork:

• The Strokes Back in the Studio – For the first time since 2006, The Strokes are working on a new album. They’re hitting two festivals this summer, Isle of Wight and RockNess, both in the UK – they say these are the only two tour dates for the year, though. A nearly ten-minute long clip of them in the studio can be found here.
• The Dead Weather Prepare Sophomore Album and Tour – Also back in the studio, though with much less long a break, is Jack White’s current project The Dead Weather. They’re also planning a major tour, including several of the big festivals. Fingers crossed for a Lollapalooza appearance!
• Info on New MGMT Album – MGMT’s follow-up to 2007′s massively acclaimed Oracular Spectacular is scheduled to drop April 13th. It’s going to be called Congratulations! and includes a track called “Lady Dada’s Nightmare”, a tribute to Lady Gaga. Should be interesting!
• The Bird and the Bee’s Hall & Oates Tribute Album Dated – The Bird and the Bee have been performing Hall & Oates covers at live shows forever, and we’ve known they’ve been planning a covers album for a while. Now it’s firmly titled and dated: Guiltless Pleasures Vol. 1: A Tribute to Daryl Hall and John Oates will come out March 23rd. Does “Vol 1″ indicate they plan more of these? Perhaps, and they do a wonderful job putting their own spin on covers, but I do hope to see some more original material from them sooner rather than later.
• Grandaddy + Earlimart = Admiral Radley – It’s not unusual for LA bands to share members back and forth, form new bands with different configurations, etc., and now Grandaddy members Jason Lytle and Aaron Burtch have teamed up with Earlimart duo Aaron Espinoza and Ariana Murray to form a new band they’re calling Admiral Radley. They already have dates lined up in Dallas and LA.

The Grammy nominations were announced yesterday with the usual amount of manufactured drama and very little in the way of surprises. We have the usual players here, Dave Matthews Band, Beyonce, Black Eyed Peas, and the hits just keep on coming. In my opinion, this is the most embarrassing list of nominees we’ve ever seen. Should I be surprised? Of course not. This is an industry that is bound and determined to make “Irrelevent” it’s mantra. When Black Eyed Peas are nominated for Album Of The Year, there is zero hope for a music industry. How many more Madonna/Britney/Lady GaGa’s does a person need? Where is the innovation? What happened to rewarding artists for creating something special, instead of rewarding people for a persona or for a bunch of beats strung together? I really feel there’s a huge undercurrent in recent years for rewarding a persons sales, rather than for doing something truly interesting like say a Girl Talk, or an Animal Collective or Grizzly Bear. Hell, we don’t even see them in the alternative nominees. It brought me a bit of hope that Kings of Leon, MGMT and Silversun Pickups were nominated, but for every one of these we see the same old retreads, Hall and Oates? Clapton/Winwood? (I like Hall and Oates as much as the next guy, but come on). Phoenix was nominated in the alternative category, so at least they got that right. In the end, these nominees do seem to get worse every year. With all the categories they have, it seems to me they could do a lot more to promote innovative artists. Why is it such a surprise that people have turned to the internet to find their music? It’s the only place where music fans have found outlets that “get it”. For all the griping about the indie blog infliuence, I thank God for it. If not for that, where would we find anything interesting to listen to? We’re certain not to find it on the Grammy broadcast, that’s for sure.

Song of the Year:

• Poker Face, Lady Gaga
• Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It), Beyonce
• Use Somebody, Kings of Leon
• You Belong with Me, Taylor Swift
• Pretty Wings, Maxwell

Record of the Year:

• Halo, Beyonce
• I Gotta Feeling, Black Eyed Peas
• Use Somebody, Kings of Leon
• Poker Face, Lady Gaga
• You Belong With Me, Taylor Swift

Album of the Year:

• I Am … Sasha Fierce, Beyonce
• The E.N.D., Black Eyed Peas
• The Fame, Lady Gaga

Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, Dave Matthews Band

• Fearless, Taylor Swift

more nominees under the cut…
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Well, folks, its the end of another year. Hard to believe it is 2009 already, which means it has been 9 years since the Y2K end-of-the-world phenomenon, which I remember vividly and still recall the smug smirk on my face when the clock struck midnight and the world didn’t collapse in on itself due to our reliance on technology (mom, what a waste of $200 on that bottled water!). But I digress.

I’ve always enjoyed reading lists. I’ve always enjoyed making them. Nobody ever fully agrees with them, but I’ve never felt that was the point of them. That would be pretty boring to constantly looking through lists and being able to say, “By golly, this is the exact same list as mine. Bravo!” So, if you see a certain person or publication you like or enjoy recommending you something, you will be more inclined to check it out, and oftentimes you never would have checked it out and ultimately ended up loving it had it not been for that list. This has been the case for me often.

Without further ado, here is the ten best albums of 2008 according to moi. Click on the album name to go to their page, click on their individual songs to listen to them or see their official video.

Feel free to discuss your picks below.
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