By Daniela Capistrano

We recently caught up with globetrotter and stage siren Ebony Bones after her triumphant return to SXSW, where she met with the winners who participated in our W.A.R.R.I.O.R. contest.

Currently touring with synth-rockers Passion Pit, Ebony gave us the scoop on her upcoming debut album, now officially called Bone of My Bones. For Ebony — whose moniker was inspired by comic book character Mr. Bones — using a biblical reference from the book of Genesis as her album title holds personal meaning:

"Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh, she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."

"It fit perfectly," Bones explained. "It's raw and abrasive and, like Adam to Eve, this entire album feels like an extension of me. I'm ridiculously excited about it."

Fellow Brits can purchase Bone of My Bones in June but citizens of the States will have to wait a bit longer, with a release timed for early fall.

Thankfully, her first U.K. single, "The Musik," will be out in May and we have a preview for you right here:

(Find out how 20 cities and 30 directors contributed to "The Musik," after the jump!)
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Five years ago this week, Usher dropped one of the biggest R&B albums of the decade, Confessions. I was actually in the studio that summer in New York when Ush was recording the title track with Jermaine Dupri — throwback jerseys were still in, Ush had the San Francisco jacket and JD still had his braids!

Listening to the music, on which Ush sang about everything in his relationship, I knew I would hear — hell, the world would hear — something different this time. He was already a star, but with this joint, you had the feeling it was going to be different. Usher would be talking about realer things that older cats could also relate to.

Then he dropped the megaton bomb with “Yeah!” I remember hearing the record on a mixtape — I wanna say it was a Big Mike R&B mixtape. I told my brother Ari it was going to be huge — it just felt pop and 'hood at the same time, like nothing else that was on the radio — and Luda put the nail in the coffin with his verse at the end. We just listened to the mixtape all that weekend — it had to be close to Christmastime — and “Yeah!” in particular. As the album release date neared, I had the chance to hear more material and do more interviews and really get a chance to know more about Usher as a person. He really let his guard down and got pretty personal.
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Mastodon rule. For proof of this, check their bludgeoningly brutal-yet-surgically precise back catalog (2002's Remission, 2004's Leviathan and 2006's Blood Mountain). For further proof, be aware that each of these efforts (well, maybe not Remission, but they were just getting started) are also concept records, about chasing metaphorical white whales and scaling terrifying mountains. They make rock mythical again, and for that, they rule even harder.

Their new album, Crack the Skye, hits stores March 24. While there's still a concept (more on that in a second), there's less pummeling this time around. Skye is still dazzlingly technical in scope, and there's plenty of riffing, but there's also newfound space. Songs are expansive, given room to breathe and explore quieter passages. For the first time, Mastodon don't sound like they're rushing to fit as many chords as possible into a song — tracks stretch to six, 10 and, in the case of album closer "The Last Baron," nearly 13 minutes. And that is most certainly a good thing.

We sat down with guitarist/singer Brent Hinds and drummer Brann Dailor last week at the Russian Tea Room in New York. We'll have a full-blown story and interview clips for you tomorrow, but we figured we'd give you a sneak preview right now. We asked Dailor to explain the rather heady concept behind Crack the Skye, and you can watch an exclusive clip of him laying it all out after the jump.
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By Joseph Patel

It's generally been a good rule of thumb when dealing with transactions — monetary and otherwise — to cut out the middleman. If you are selling widgets, you want to go directly to the customer so you may offer the most enticing price; if you are a customer in the market for widgets, you do not want to pay the markup that comes from dealing with others besides the seller. This is Economics 101.

But in the business of creativity, specifically music, sometimes the archetype known as "the middleman" is welcome.

Case in point: Lil Wayne needs a middleman.
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By Daniela Capistrano

We caught up with Ebony Bones yesterday, and in addition to giving us the details behind her upcoming video for "The Musik," Ebony let us know that she'll be in town next week to do a few DJ sets at yet-to-be-announced NYC hot spots. For fans who won't be in town, we've got some exciting news for you: Her MySpace blog is offering fans the chance to a trip for two to see her perform at South by Southwest 2009 in March.

To enter the contest, you have to guess how many times Bones says the word "warrior" in her soon-to-be-released track "WA.R.R.I.O.R.," and post your answer on her blog by January 12.

Actually, you don't have to guess at all. You'll have an edge in this contest if you check out what we have after the jump ... the entire song!
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On Monday, Amazon.com posted a listing on its site for a forthcoming Eminem album, claiming the set would be in stores on December 23. Later that day, a spokesperson for Em's label, Interscope, told us that "there's been no date scheduled" for Relapse yet.

And sure enough, on Tuesday Amazon removed the release-date information for the record, the title of which the site listed as "TBD." The site has a spotty record in terms of the reliability of such information: In recent years, they've listed several different release dates for Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy, all of which were not November 23, 2008, which is now apparently the album's officially official release date.

In short, this all probably means that there won't be a copy of Relapse in your Christmas stocking this year. As soon as we find out an official release date, we'll let you know.

The official Animal Collective Web site was recently updated with a mysterious, mind-melting, wallpaper-like pop-up jpeg, which we've just received confirmation is the cover for their highly anticipated album Merriweather Post Pavilion, due out January 20, 2009.

Stare at it long enough and you'll see a unicorn.

Not really.

But, seriously, does this artwork remind anyone else of those 3D Magic Eye posters that The Nature Company used to sell? In honor of my 14-year-old mallrat self ("Mom, I'll meet you in the LaserDisc section of Saturday Matinee!"), I just spent the last 15 minutes starting at this album cover, and here are 10 images that have emerged while my bleary eyes studied the pattern: Read more...

About a week ago, word got out that Kanye West was having a listening party for his new album, 808s & Heartbreak, in L.A. Not much information was provided on the invite except the date (10.14.08), time (9 p.m.), location, an excerpt from one of the tracks, "Welcome To Heartbreak" — "My friends showed me pictures of his kids and all I could show him was pictures of my cribs" — and the fact that the event would be a collaboration with artist Vanessa Beecroft. So, a week later, the assignment of covering the event came to me. Lucky me!
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Look up the word "cool" in any dictionary, and you'll see that it has a lot of different meanings. In my book, artists like Bob Marley, the Beatles and Prince are the very definition of the word "cool." Well, add to that list the name Robin Thicke. It's a bold statement, I know ... but then, so is Robin's new album.

It hits stores today, so we put the call in and got him to stop by MTV HQ on the eve of his big album launch. Something Else is definitely not what you would call ordinary. It's not cookie-cutter R&B, it doesn't have a whole load of big-name collaborations (only one ... yes, Lil Wayne on "Tie My Hands"), and it's undoubtedly the album that Robin always wanted to make. You see, that's something that's very important to Thicke. He's an artist who holds his own musical integrity in the highest regard. Simply put, Thicke would rather busk on the street all his life than put out an album that he had no creative control over.

We chopped it up about his new album; the lead single, "Magic" (and why it wasn't his first choice); collaborating with his lovely wife, Paula Patton (who starred in "Mirrors" with Kiefer Sutherland and "Déjà Vu" opposite the legend that is Denzel Washington); and of course, my new favorite song right now, the excellent "Dreamworld." This album might be his best yet. Trust me — go buy it, call over your "special friend" and press play. By the fifth track, it's pretty clear: A lot of babies are going to be made to this album.

We'll have much more from this interview in the coming days.

By Dave Harrison

In the chaotic world of the music business, taking a four-year leave of absence is right up there at the top of the list of things you shouldn't do. But after our visit to the set of the video for "Right Here (Departed)," Brandy's first single from her upcoming album Human, it's clear that the R&B songstress is determined to make her comeback in the biggest way possible.

She has enlisted some hip-hop heavyweights, including director Little X (Usher's "Yeah"), for the video and is reuniting with producer Rodney Jerkins for the first time in six years. Brandy insists she and Rodney have moved far beyond any past conflicts, saying, "The chemistry brought Rodney and I back together. It's undeniable, it's magical. ... We are back, and I'm never leaving Rodney again."

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