Sound quality here isn't great, and video quality is worse, but this is still worth a look: Built to Spill going from the surpassingly beautiful "Car"-- a defining song that still sounds brilliant 14 years after its initial release-- into a sincere and faithful cover of M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" that makes good use of Doug Martsch's liquid guitar....

You asked for it-- um, didn't you?-- and now Massive Attack (well, members 3D and Daddy G under the 100 Suns alias they use for soundtrack work) and Snoop Dogg have created the collaboration you've all been waiting for. No, not M.I.A.'s baby, it's a stormy, groove-governed new song about Mumia Abu Jamal, "Calling Mumia" (from the soundtrack to I...

In the second part of M.I.A.'s talk with Jessica Suarez, she talks about an upcoming cover of Tom Waits' "Way Down in the Hole" (aka the theme from "The Wire"-- oh heck yeah), reveals which major pop star convinced her to allow "Paper Planes" to be used in the "Pineapple Express" trailer (first name starts with a P), and talks about getting the ...

The world's four biggest music corporations-- Universal, Warner, EMI, and Sony BMG (soon to be Sony Music Entertainment Inc.)-- have teamed with MP3 player and memory card manufacturer SanDisk to create a new music media format called slotMusic.Here's how slotMusic works: These memory cards-- which come pre-loaded with albums in DRM-free MP3 for...

The first part of a damn interesting conversation between Pitchfork contributor Jessica Suarez and M.I.A. is up today at Pitchfork.tv. Conducted this past weekend at the Diesel xXx Party, the interview touches on politics, M.I.A.'s work on a new album by Baltimore MC Rye Rye, "creating a baby", and why a three-song gig doesn't necessari...