"Certainly the body of artists on the museum's roster represents pop—yes, it's a certain idea of pop, one with a stamp of Importance that's defined by values rooted in privileging rock's ethos over others, but it's pop nonetheless." READ MORE

Everyone knows you can't dust for vomit. But, man, Pink Floyd's fingerprints are all over this new song from the wonderful San Francisco band, Girls. (I know that metaphor is sort of backwards, since the thief, or "borrower," leaves his or her fingerprints on the thing they stole from somebody else, rather than vice versa, but for chronological reasons, it doesn't make sense to set it up that way.) You can hear very distinct elements of two different eras of Pink Floyd music here. READ MORE

● ?uestlove
● Dr. Cornel West
● Naomi Campbell
● Tavis Smiley
● Jamie Foxx
● Whoopi Goldberg
● Spike Lee
● Sherri Shepherd
● Alicia Keys
● John Leguizamo
● Guy in Steelers jersey who was quite possibly a Steeler READ MORE

Against Me!: White Crosses READ MORE

The American Music Awards are simultaneously the silliest and the most honest music-related gala. Nominees are based on things like Soundscan numbers and online streams instead of trifles like artistic intent or legend status, and the winners are dubbed "favorites," not "bests." Yet there's an air of seriousness about it that you'd never see at, say, MTV's Video Music Awards, one that will be ever more present this year as the Black Eyed Peas bring us their latest wedding-floor-filler "The Time (Dirty Bit)" live for the first time on TV and Train play That Train Song You Hear Everywhere one more time. Which is to say, come back Sunday at 8 pm eastern for a good old-fashioned liveblog of the show by me! And pray, pray that Kanye shows up.

My greatest regret of CMJ week, which just blew through New York in a whirlwind of panels and open bars and late-night Kanye sightings, was missing the almost-dozen performances by Marnie Stern. Marnie's self-titled album, which came out earlier this month on Kill Rock Stars, is my favorite record of the year—brash but vulnerable, energetic but melancholy, and full of . Plus, "Female Guitar Players Are The New Black" is not only a great title that sorta-forces critics to deal with their "OMG a girl is playing guitar really fast that's like so weird" biases, it's a whirlwind of a track, with an army of Sterns leading the assault over Zach Hill's pummeling drumming and guitar bursts that sound like they were inspired by the "pew! pew!" sounds people make when they're playing Finger Lasers. READ MORE