Oh My God Whatever

The second single from Goldfrapp’s Seventh Tree, “Happiness” is set to be released on 4/14 in several formats, including CD and vinyl, with remixes of “Happiness,” “Eat Yourself” (by Yeasayer) and “Monster Love” (with Spirtualized) and an acoustic version of “Road to Somewhere” as b-sides. One of the official remixes by Metronomy has already leaked - download it below:

Happiness (Metronomy remix ft. the Teenagers)

Also, here’s a very bizarre video for an officially commissioned yet ultimately rejected remix of “Happiness” by Rex the Dog. According to the info accompanying the video posted by Rex the Dog:

“This is our remix for Goldfrapp’s song ‘Happiness’. Unfortunately for us, it didn’t get approved, but we still really like this song so we did some cooking to celebrate. Happiness is a severed hand!”

Seems likely it might not have been approved due to how much this version sounds like something off Supernature, though that certainly is not a bad thing.

Alanis Morissette is set to release her new album, Flavors of Entanglement, on 5/20. It is her first album since 2004’s mostly disappointing So-Called Chaos. It seems there might be hope for this one as Morissette reportedly recorded the album with producer Guy Sigworth, also of the band Frou Frou who co-wrote and co-produced several songs off Bjork’s Homogenic and Post as well as Madonna’s “Nothing Fails” and “What It Feels Like For a Girl.”

Alanis told Billboard: “When I heard the song ‘Let Go’ by [Sigsworth's band] Frou Frou, I listened over and over again. I was blown away by it. I called him on the phone myself and after a couple of conversations, I could tell we were going to be on the same page.”

The first single, “Underneath” will be officially released on 3/25 but was first heard back in September of 2007 when an unofficial video for the song was debuted at the Elevate Film Festival in LA. Morissette posted on her official website that the video was not intended for release and would not necessarily be used moving forward. The piano breakup ballad “Not as We” (”From scratch begin again, but this time I as I, and not as we“) was also heard in an early form after being featured on a 2007 episode of House.

Though not from the upcoming album, here is undoubtedly one of Alanis’ best songs, though never officially released beyond this Unplugged version, “No Pressure Over Cappucino” - download it here.

At the beginning of 2008, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs announced via their official myspace page that they are in the process of recording a new album, the follow-up to 2006’s Show Your Bones. Since then the band has posted sporadic updates to the blog on their official site, most recently from Texas where they are currently in the studio. Drummer Brian Chase rather cryptically wrote on the blog last Tuesday: “It’s not surprising we’ve heard so many stories of [the area] bringing out/breeding a misfit outlaw spirit, but of it also freeing the imagination and redefining what’s taken for granted. Creativity reveals endless possibilities and options, but you’re still left with you (we’re still left with us) in the end.”

While we’re waiting for new material, here are a couple of key tracks from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs for those less familiar with their stuff (their myspace page also offers a few additional tracks to sample) :

• Yeah Yeah Yeahs - “Way Out” (Show Your Bones)
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs - “Date With the Night” (Fever to Tell)

In related news, lead singer Karen O is reportedly writing the majority of the music for the soundtrack of the live-action movie adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, to be directed by Spike Jonze (who directed Adaptation, Being John Malkovich and a variety of insanely inventive music videos, including the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ video for “Y Control”) with a script written by Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius). If that’s not intriguing enough, the cast will include Catherine Keener, James Gandolfini and Six Feet Under’s Lauren Ambrose. Now the other shoe drops, of course: the film was set to be released later this year, Warner Bros. has reportedly pushed the movie’s release date into October 2009 for unspecified reasons with rumors that the studio is unhappy with the somewhat dark tone of the film and hopes to reshoot the majority of it, possibly with a new director (though this hasn’t been confirmed, the delay of over a year seems to support the theory).

Definitely not complaining but here’s yet another record that’s leaked before even making it to the month of its release date: the new Portishead album Third, their first album of new material in over 10 years. Definitely need more time with it to really comment but so far it seems to have a slightly more raw and sinister sound than their previous records, and that’s saying something.

Download it here.

The album is set to be officially released 4/28.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have been booked to headline the Lollapalooza festival to be held this summer in Chicago’s Grant Park from 8/1 to 8/3. The official lineup has not yet been announced but should be within the next couple weeks. This will be the 4th year in a row that Chicago has hosted Lollapalooza since it became an annual event, rather than a traveling show, in 2005.

Danger Mouse (of Gnarls Barkley) is working on producing tracks for the next Beck album, according to HARP Magazine (which they report to be confirmed by Danger Mouse’s publicist). It’s not officially confirmed that Danger Mouse will produce the entire album, though Beck has typically worked with one particular producer for each album in the past (such as Nigel Godrich on his last album, The Information and Sea Change and the Dust Brothers on Odelay and Guero). The album is expected to be released some time in 2008.

The latest official release by Beck was in 2007 near the end of the August, a single called “Timebomb” that was only officially distributed online. Beck described the song on his official website as “a song for bonfires, blackouts and the last hurrah of summer.” Download it here. In late 2007, three b-sides that Beck co-produced for the White Stripes were released with the single “Conquest,” called “It’s My Fault for Being Famous,” “Honey, We Can’t Afford to Look This Cheap” and “Cash Grab Complications on the Matter.” In addition to adding vocals, piano and slide guitar to certain songs, Beck reportedly recorded it all with Jack and Meg White in his own living room.