Speaking as a music collector, the ampersand is a tricky thing.

At the best of times, it signifies an expansion of one’s musical world. At the worst, it’s a way of bringing an unwanted intruder into what was, until then, an intimate experience. You’re doing just fine with John Lennon, and then all of a sudden, it’s John Lennon & Yoko Ono. But, on the flipside, you’ve spent enough time with Wilco to be bored by them, and then along comes Wilco & Billy Bragg. And here’s somebody new to catch up with, and obsess over.

It’s unpredictable, but then, so is collaboration. The ampersand indicates an artist’s willingness to bring new people into the fold, and share ideas. I think that’s a marvelous concept, regardless of the outcome. Music should be all about melding different perspectives, opening new doors. Even if that particular melding never happens again, it’s always interesting to me to hear what different artists can do together. It makes me want to sing “We Are the World.”

The thing is, most of these collaborations are one-offs, your only chance to hear what the meeting of two minds can produce. If they don’t catch lightning in a bottle, there’s usually no opportunity to do it again. That’s why these things are so hard to predict. So many other factors can creep in and ruin what should be a successful one-time partnership. Not only do the artists usually have one try at getting it right, you as a music fan usually have only one shot at hearing what may be a dream-come-true moment.

For months, my most anticipated ampersand project has been Lonely Avenue, by Ben Folds & Nick Hornby. There’s a number of reasons for this. Piano man Folds has long been one of my favorite songwriters, but his last album, the guffawing Way to Normal, left me cold. Folds used to be one of the best storytellers in popular music, filling his tunes with fascinating characters. (A few examples: Zak and Sara, Fred Jones, Alice Childress, even the nameless prizefighter in “Boxing.”) But his last two records have found him turning inward, writing sad songs and little joking ditties about things that really happened to him. And his work has suffered, somehow.

Novelist Nick Hornby, as I’m sure most of you know, is one of the best storytellers working today. He’s the author of High Fidelity, and About a Boy, and How to be Good, and A Long Way Down, and the new Juliet, Naked. His work is completely free of pretension, his characters talk like real people, and his stories are full of sweet and sad details that make you laugh while they rip your heart out. If there’s any prose author who would be a perfect match for Ben Folds, it’s Hornby, and on Lonely Avenue, they joined forces. Hornby wrote his first-ever song lyrics, and Folds composed the music for them.

The result is like a musical short story collection. There’s no reason, beyond their shared authorship, for these 11 songs to be on the same record. They veer wildly from one style to another, from 1970s Elvis Costello stomping to massively orchestrated balladry to white-boy blues to Devo-esque synth frippery. But the obvious mutual respect shines through here, and ties this all together. It’s obvious Folds and Hornby have sparked off each other, each leading the other to new heights, and that shared energy makes this album a unified work.

What’s surprising (although maybe it shouldn’t be) is how often Hornby’s lyrics sound like Ben Folds in his prime. Every song spins a tale, mostly through perceptive details. The divorced parents in “Claire’s Ninth” arrive in separate cars for their daughter’s birthday party, and pay for the meal with separate credit cards “as if they’ve never met.” In “Picture Window,” a mother checks her ailing son into the hospital on New Year’s Eve 2008, watches the fireworks, and refuses to hope: “Another mum gives her some sparkling wine, she nearly gives into the moment, but he’ll still be sick in 2009…”

For the most part here, Folds has stepped up with some wonderful tunes. His biggest mistake – and he makes it more than once – is hanging back too far, out of respect for Hornby’s words. The melody of “Practical Amanda” is so slight as to be almost nonexistent, and even comparative winners like “From Above” could have used more hooks, more sweep. But when he gets it right, as he does on most of the tracks here, Folds sounds back on form. This is the songwriter I fell in love with in the late ‘90s.

Much of Lonely Avenue is about the art of creation. Brief opener “A Working Day” runs through the emotional rise and fall of pulling art out of the air – it travels from “I’m a genius” to “everything I write is shit” in 1:51. (I got a special charge out of this line: “Some guy on the net thinks I suck, and he should know, he’s got his own blog…”) “Doc Pomus” pictures the wheelchair-bound songwriter in his cranky last days at a nursing home, listening to his old hits: “He never could be one of those happy cripples, the kind that smile and tell you life’s OK, he was mad as hell, frightened and bitter, he found a way to make his isolation pay…” (The album is named after Alex Halberstadt’s Pomus biography, and it’s clear that Hornby’s foray into lyrics has led to a kinship of sorts.)

There are missteps here. “Levi Johnston’s Blues” is possibly the worst of them, a drippy funk number that imagines what Bristol Palin’s baby daddy must have gone through during the campaign. The chorus is taken right from Johnston’s infamous Facebook profile (“I’m a fuckin’ redneck…”), and ceases to be funny after one repetition. “Password” is also an interesting idea, that of believing you know someone because you know their internet passwords, but it drags on too long. All is forgiven, though, when you hear a stunner like “Saskia Hamilton,” an ‘80s-style synth romp about falling for someone just because of her name. “She’s got more assonance than she knows what to do with, she’s got two sibilants, no bilabial plosives…” The English nerds in the audience are punching the air right now.

If there is a classic here, though, it’s the closing song, “Belinda.” This tune is a marvel of lyrical and melodic construction. It’s about an aging singer who, every night, must perform his one hit, called (you guessed it) “Belinda.” It was written for a woman he still loves, for a relationship that ended when he cheated on her with a stewardess he met on a plane. And so every night, he relives the memory. He can’t stop singing the song, because without it, “a one-hit wonder with no hits is what he is.”

Now here’s the incredible part. We never actually hear what this guy’s song “Belinda” sounds like. The closest hint we get is in the second line of the first verse (“Belinda, I love you, don’t leave me, I need you”). The chorus we hear is the music from his hit, but the lyrics are the dialogue running through the singer’s mind as he sings it. He relives his weak justifications for cheating (“She gave me complimentary champagne”) in the place of whatever lyric his audience is singing along with.

In the second verse, he laments that “no one ever wants to hear the song he wrote for Cindy,” and yet that song has the same words and melody as “Belinda,” pointing out the pattern in this sad man’s life. The final verse is just beautiful: “So every night about this time, he feels the old self-loathing, while the old folks in the audience sing along, and he smiles and waves the mike at them so they can do the chorus, he’s not there, he’s somewhere else, he’s with Belinda in the days before he made it all go wrong…” Folds sets all this to a classic pop melody, one that might have even been a hit once upon a time, and Paul Buckmaster gives it an astonishingly good string and horn arrangement.

“Belinda” is the kind of thing Ben Folds used to do. He used to spin stories like this all the time. My fervent hope is that this collaboration with Hornby has recharged that battery, because I miss that side of his work. Ideally, however, Lonely Avenue will be merely the first of many joint ventures from Folds and Hornby. It’s so good so often that it would be a shame to stop here. Lonely Avenue is a smashing success, the best Ben Folds album in years, and a terrific first foray into lyrics for Nick Hornby. It’s exactly what an ampersand project should be.

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And here’s another. Now, really, I don’t have to tell you that Wake Up, a collaborative effort by John Legend and the Roots, is great, do I? Let’s recap here. John Legend. The Roots. Doing old soul covers. My only job here is to tell you just how great it is. So let me put it this way: on a scale of one to ten, it’s pretty fucking great.

This is one of those pairings that just makes sense when you hear it. Legend has a deep love for old soul music – Curtis Mayfield, Teddy Pendergrass, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye – and even though his albums often drift into adult-contemporary pop, his voice is one of those old-school wonders. It’s smooth without needing to be acrobatic, and gritty without becoming unappealing. The Roots, of course, are one of the finest, funkiest, most supple bands on the planet, and even if you don’t like hip-hop (which I usually don’t), you have to respect their musicality. They are tight and deep and just plain awesome.

I can think of no better band to accompany Legend on this trip through soul’s back pages. There are no familiar hits reprised on Wake Up. Rather, Legend and the Roots unearthed some true gems and breathed new life into them. The record opens with the slamming “Hard Times,” written by Mayfield and originally performed by Baby Huey. The energy here is just extraordinary, the staccato horns hitting like bullets. It’s nothing, however, when compared with the explosive take on Eugene McDaniels’ “Compared to What.” Legend just knocks this out of the park. When he hits the dirty high note in the chorus (“Tryin’ to keep it real”), it’s amazing.

These updates of old soul numbers make room for some new hip-hop verses, courtesy of the Roots’ own Black Thought, and guests Common, CL Smooth and Malik Yusef. They fit in well, but I found myself wanting to hear Legend again each time they started up. The album’s more sedate second half is all singing, and includes a powerful run through Gaye’s spiritual “Wholly Holy” and a stunning little version of the Nina Simone great “I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to Be Free.” (It also contains the one original song, a sleeper called “Shine.” You can skip it.)

The album’s highlight, for me anyway, is the absolutely gob-smacking 12-minute treatment of Bill Withers’ “I Can’t Write Left-Handed.” The story of a soldier with a bullet in his shoulder, this song builds and builds over one repeated, incredible piano-bass lick. When guitarist Captain Kirk Douglas steps in with an extended, incendiary solo, the song hits new heights. This is just extraordinary stuff.

Should Legend and the Roots do this again? I think so, but more for Legend’s sake than anything. The Roots are the Roots, but they elevated Legend’s game immeasurably on this record. He shines as one of the best soul singers we have right now, and I wouldn’t mind hearing more from this team-up, if it brings this kind of performance out of him. Wake Up is a wonderful record, the fruit of an inspired collaboration, and I hope there’s more in the wings.

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One last ampersand before we call it a week.

Some time ago, I gave I’m Having Fun Now, the debut from Jenny & Johnny, a dismissive first-listen review on my blog. In the weeks since, however, I’ve spun this thing a few more times, and now I’m ready to declare it a big ball of fun. Jenny, of course, is Jenny Lewis, of Rilo Kiley fame, and Johnny is her significant other, songwriter Jonathan Rice. And this is the sound of the two of them having a blast in the studio.

I never quite understood Rilo Kiley’s acclaim, although Under the Blacklight made me smile. But I like Lewis on her own. She has one of those powerful, classic voices that works well singing just about anything. On I’m Having Fun Now, she and Rice spin out one simple, catchy ditty after another, their voices intertwining atop sloppy guitars, thumping bass, pounding drums and little else. They take turns playing different instruments – Lewis kicks it on the drums three times – and their easy familiarity lends this record a ramshackle charm.

Good songs? Glad you asked. “Big Wave” is my favorite, a clomping mass of melody with a distinctive synth line. Opener “Scissor Runner” is groovy, “Animal” makes me dance, and “New Yorker Cartoon” brings Rice to the fore for a man-out-of-place lament. There are lesser lights, like too-simple “My Pet Snakes,” but for the most part, these ditties do their jobs well. And closer “Committed” doesn’t feel like a conclusion so much as just the 11th song. When the record ends, it’s kind of a surprise.

Don’t expect anything that will stick with you, or will change your life. I’m Having Fun Now gives you exactly what the title promises. It’s what I usually expect from an ampersand project: a lighthearted side effort, a detour, an enjoyable little pitstop. And there’s nothing wrong with that at all.

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All right, before we close this thing out, it’s time for the Third Quarter Report.

This one was very tough. The last three months have brought us some amazing albums (including a couple I mentioned this week), and slotting them into place this time was nearly an impossible task. I don’t know what the next three months will bring – the only thing I’m excited beyond words for is the new Sufjan Stevens, out October 12 – but I would bet most of the albums listed below will be in my final list in December. If I were forced to release that list-in-progress right now, though, this is what it would look like:

10. Yeasayer, Odd Blood
9. Sufjan Stevens, All Delighted People
8. Janelle Monae, The ArchAndroid
7. Linkin Park, A Thousand Suns
6. Ben Folds & Nick Hornby, Lonely Avenue
5. The Lost Dogs, Old Angel
4. Joanna Newsom, Have One on Me
3. The Choir, Burning Like the Midnight Sun
2. Mumford and Sons, Sigh No More
1. Arcade Fire, The Suburbs.

Joanna has relinquished her crown, but could easily regain it. The Choir and Arcade Fire albums really are that good, though, and Mumford and Sons is my favorite new band of the year. And yes, Linkin Park. I promise you, it’s great. Listen to it. Honorable mentions this time go to Beach House, Hanson, Rufus Wainwright, Devo, Sia and the Dead Weather. (John Legend & the Roots are ineligible under my rules, but they’d get one too, if I could.)

All right, that’ll do for this time. Next week, we dive into October with Guster and Fran Healy, as well as a look at that comprehensive John Lennon box set. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I know people who hate to be surprised.

To me, that’s a really interesting way to go through life. I’m the exact opposite. I live for each new day to throw something unexpected at me. That’s part of the reason I love my reporting job – I never know what I’ll be covering from day to day, and sometimes from hour to hour. It’s just unpredictable enough to hold my attention. I’ve covered the same city for five years, and it keeps spinning my head around.

I’m the same way with music. I know to some, music is comfort food. They want to hear the same chords played the same way, with the same sentiments sung atop them. There’s nothing wrong with falling back into the familiar, but I love the feeling of the floor dropping away. I live for those moments when an artist does something I didn’t expect, pulls off something I didn’t see coming. Each new CD I buy is the promise of the unknown, and I want surprises. Nothing is more dispiriting to me than hearing a band go through the same old motions again and again.

When I find one of these vertigo-inducing records, I feel the need to tell everyone I know about it. This leads to some interesting conversations, because my favorite musical surprises often come from bands you wouldn’t expect. This week’s biggest shocker is one of those. It was recommended by several people, including the reliable Dr. Tony Shore, but even so, I hesitated. And for the same reason, I expect, my efforts to spread this music around have met with some resistance. (Almost, but not quite, the same level of resistance I got for that Hanson album I love.)

The record is A Thousand Suns, by Linkin Park.

Now look, I know this column hasn’t had a lot of time (okay, any time) for Linkin Park. For three albums, they’ve basically been Limp Bizkit’s more polite cousin, delivering rap-rock with hooks, but little imagination. If you’ve heard the singles (“In the End,” “One Step Closer,” “What I’ve Done,” “Breaking the Habit,” etc.) you’ve heard the best parts of the band’s first three albums. They sell truckloads of records, pack houses wherever they go, and up until now, they’ve done their level best to stay exactly as they are, and rake in the cash.

The fact that A Thousand Suns is the first Linkin Park album I’ve felt compelled to include here should tell you something about it. The six members of the band have all joined hands and leapt off a cliff here, making a record their hardcore fans will probably reject as too arty, too experimental. This is exactly why I like it so much. Over 15 tracks, Linkin Park invade all kinds of new territory, and rarely sound like you think they will.

Being the best Linkin Park album is one thing, but even divorced from expectations, A Thousand Suns is really good. It plays best as a single piece – themes restate themselves, bits of lyrics resurface, and the cumulative effect (particularly on late-game tracks like “Iridescent” and “The Catalyst”) is impressive. Only nine of these tracks are full songs, the rest being segues, interludes and atmospheres, but these little pieces are integral to the flow and power of the record.

A Thousand Suns is an angry thing, certainly, only this time, instead of essentially masturbating with their rage, the band directs it. This is a political work – Mike Shinoda samples J. Robert Oppenheimer and Martin Luther King, and Mario Savio’s famous “put your bodies upon the gears and break the machine” speech – that also manages to be intensely personal. The theme is fairly cliched – change the world by changing yourself – but it works, and by the end, they’ve earned the transcendence this album seeks.

It’s the music that sets this record apart, however. Until you get used to it, you won’t believe you’re listening to Linkin Park. The first half is remarkably atmospheric. “Burning in the Skies” lets Chester Bennington belt out a chorus (one of the few on here that could sound at home in a more typical Linkin Park track), but he does so over subtle electronic drums and piano. “Robot Boy” is all orchestral magnificence, the harmonies adding a Flaming Lips feel to things. Between those is “When They Come For Me,” which finds Shinoda rapping over one of the most fascinating beat complexes I’ve heard in some time. Oh, and then the middle-Eastern-style wordless chorus comes in.

Over and over, the band makes surprising production choices. “Waiting for the End” includes a Jamaican-style chant over a massive beat and some piano-guitar interplay. “Blackout” should be a disaster – it finds Bennington screaming (SCREAMING) over danceable music that just doesn’t call for it – but it really works. It helps that the song takes off halfway through, turning into a sublime anthem.

As far as I’m concerned, they only made two mistakes with this album. The first is “Wretches and Kings,” which sounds the most like bog-standard Linkin Park, all scratches and rapping. Despite having been built around the Savio sample, this song could have been excised, and the album would have been better for it. The second is the closing track, “The Messenger,” a simple acoustic ditty which Bennington over-sings to death. His emo-tastic vocals send this into a nearly comic realm that a more subdued approach would have avoided.

But that’s it. The final third of A Thousand Suns is largely transcendent, starting with the King-sampling “Wisdom, Justice and Love.” King’s words of peace, spoken in 1967 about the Vietnam War, resound over subtle piano chords, and lead into “Iridescent,” a simple yet effective ballad that builds and builds over five minutes. Here is where Bennington shines, delivering these lines beautifully: “Remember all the sadness and frustration, and let it go…” This is nothing new, but coming near the end of this album, it takes on a surprising gravity.

And then comes “The Catalyst.” You may have heard this on the radio, but separating it from the context of the album is like shearing it of all meaning. It is the call to action at the end of a litany of woes – lead-in track “Fallout” even reprises the chorus of “Burning in the Skies,” just to hammer the point home – and as the climax of the record, it’s riveting. The discordant synth line, the chanted chorus, the tricky beat, the delirious melodic breakdown, the piano lines, the song’s transformation into massive anthem, it all works so well for me. It segues nicely into “The Messenger,” which, despite Bennington’s vocals, has a sweet album-ending sentiment: “When life leaves us blind, love keeps us kind.”

I don’t want to overstate things. A Thousand Suns isn’t a masterpiece, and it probably won’t rank among my favorites of 2010. (But it might – I like it more each time I hear it.) It is, however, an enormous leap forward for a band that had given me few reasons to hope for one. Each time this album finishes up, I can scarcely believe it’s Linkin Park I’ve just been listening to. A Thousand Suns is a remarkably well-made, experimental piece that’s full of surprises, and I have to take my hat off to the band for even attempting it. Here’s hoping it does well for them. I’d like to hear them travel farther down this path.

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A couple more surprises from the last couple of weeks:

Serj Tankian is mental. This is not news. As the frontman for Armenian rock band System of a Down, he added a madman’s flair to some of the craziest downtuned metal insanity I’ve heard. System songs flew off on unexpected tangents every couple of seconds, and right at the forefront was Tankian, using his odd, operatic voice to snarl and scream bracingly political lyrics. His solo debut, Elect the Dead, was a similar affair, but Tankian’s experience creating symphonic arrangements for this year’s live album (Elect the Dead Symphony) must have affected him more than anyone could have expected.

Why do I say that? Because here’s Imperfect Harmonies, Tankian’s second solo effort, and it’s… well, astonishing. You won’t find a lot of distorted electric guitars on here, but these songs are LOUD, so much so that my speakers often strained in protest. Every song here has been performed with a full orchestra, but that’s just the set dressing – there are disco-fied electronic drums, jazz-style bass lines, pianos, synths, armies of vocals, flutes, violin solos, and all manner of production craziness. When you’ve credited someone with “additional operatic vocals” in the liner notes, you’ve made a gigantic piece of work.

The songs, however, are all of modest lengths, and contain direct melodies. Tankian’s distinctive voice is front and center in this maelstrom of a mix, guiding us through it. Tankian composed and arranged these orchestral parts himself, and while it takes a minute to get used to the sheer density of Imperfect Harmonies’ sound, it’s never overcooked. Check out “Electron,” a basic stomper of a song – the string lines work perfectly with Tankian’s vocals, and the fascinating breakdown, which includes pianos and whispers, doesn’t distract from the song’s directness.

Lyrically, Tankian is still bringing the politics, raging against war and the machinations that bring it about. “Fear is the cause of separation, backed with illicit conversations, procured by constant condemnations, national blood-painted persuasions,” he spits in “Borders Are…,” and songs with titles like “Yes, It’s Genocide” and “Peace Be Revenged” are what you expect them to be. (The former references the Armenian genocide that began in 1915, and is sung in his native language.) It’s a dark and nearly hopeless album, lyrically speaking, which stands in contrast to the exploding colors of the music.

Tankian’s probably going to alienate a few of his old fans with this one, but hopefully he’ll entice a few of them to follow him down this rabbit hole. By exploring so many different styles and tones on this record, he’s come alive here like he rarely has before. Imperfect Harmonies is a crazy album, for certain, but it’s also daring, riveting stuff. I don’t know who the audience for this is, but Tankian shouldn’t let that stop him.

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Some albums surprise me simply by existing at all.

For example, I never would have thought that in 2010, we’d be hearing the second album from the Vaselines. Their first, Dum Dum, was released 20 years ago. You read that right. 20 years. Two decades. The Scottish duo has made plenty of music in the interim, with other bands and on their own, but they haven’t worked together since 1990. Listening to that second album, Sex With an X, I can only wonder what the hell took them so long.

The Vaselines are Frances McKee and Eugene Kelly, two Scots who share a whimsical, randy sense of humor. They never really achieved any measure of fame on their own, but when Kurt Cobain proclaimed them his favorite songwriters, and covered three of their tunes on Nirvana records, they kind of won the lottery. Too bad by that time they’d already broken up.

But in 2006, bygones were bygones, and Kelly and McKee started jamming again. Sex With an X is the result, a fun and blissful collection of simple, simply rockin’ songs. Their voices sound untouched by the ravages of time, their penchant for basic yet memorable hooks undiminished. If this album had come out in 1991 as the follow-up to Dum Dum, it would have carried on their sound admirably. Sonically, this one’s a little fuller, a little richer. But that’s it. Otherwise, it’s classic Vaselines.

Highlights? I love “The Devil Inside Me,” a dark, almost bluesy track with some great intertwined vocals. “I’ve got the devil in me,” Kelly intones, and McKee responds, “And he won’t let go” in her angelic voice. “Overweight But Over You” is my favorite song title of 2010 so far, its chorus (“Hey fat mama, I’m a fat man”) a shout-along delight. “I Hate the ‘80s” is perfect, a rollicking backhand to a decade that keeps reasserting itself: “What do you know? You weren’t there, it wasn’t all Duran Duran, you want the truth, well this is it, I hate the ‘80s ‘cause the ‘80s were shit…”

“Mouth to Mouth” continues the Vaselines’ dirty-romantic tradition. It’s sung from the point of view of a woman dying – literally, dying – to be kissed. The title track is about ignoring regret, Kelly and McKee joyously singing the refrain: “Feels so good, it must be bad for me, let’s do it, do it again…” These songs are accompanied by jangly, almost cute pop backdrops, so innocent-sounding that you’d never guess their sexual preoccupations.

The album ends with the slow crawl “Exit the Vaselines,” which seems to indicate that this scrappy, fun little record is the last we’ll hear from these two. I hope that’s not the case. Sex With an X was a complete surprise, appearing as if out of nowhere, and it’s 41 minutes of grinning joy. If this is it, I guess I can live with that, but I’d love to see this reunion stick. What do you say, guys? Surprise me.

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Next week, Ben Folds makes an album with novelist Nick Hornby, and John Legend raises the roof with the Roots. Plus the 2010 Third Quarter Report. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

First things first: has everyone heard the new Sufjan Stevens songs?

I’ve looked ahead to the end of the year (hard to believe we’re in September already), and there are only two upcoming albums I’m out-of-my-skin excited for. The first is Lonely Avenue, by Ben Folds with novelist Nick Hornby, and that’s out on September 28. The second is The Age of Adz, by Sufjan Stevens, out October 12.

Even had I not heard a note of it, I’d still be fascinated by The Age of Adz, Sufjan’s official follow-up to my favorite album of the last decade, Illinois. But now that I have heard where he’s going with this, I’m practically shaking with anticipation. The two songs he’s released from this record are called “Too Much” and “I Walked,” and both are available on his Bandcamp site. Those who loved the quirky, warm, organic music Stevens made on Michigan and Illinois are in for a shock.

Stevens has embraced electronics here, but he’s done it in a way I’ve never heard. “Too Much” is my favorite of the two. It’s nearly seven minutes long, it’s in 7/4 time, and for the first three and a half minutes, there are no instruments that are not electronic. Blipping synths construct a leaning tower of interlocking parts while computer drums whirr and explode in the background. Stevens’ voice is still fragile and lovely, and it works really well in this setting.

But halfway through, the song erupts – the strings and horns come in, and this song does something I’ve been waiting for since 1997: it takes the technorchestral ball dropped by Bjork’s Homogenic and runs with it. I praised Stevens for not taking some radical and ill-advised leap with All Delighted People, his first album of the year, but this… this is a massive step forward, and I’m eating my words. It may be too much to hope for, but it sounds like one of our most ambitious and remarkable musicians has found new ground to explore, and has made a strange and beautiful masterpiece. We’ll see.

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I tried an interesting experiment this week, and I think it went well.

I got my copy of Weezer’s new album, Hurley, on Friday, and decided to live-tweet my first impressions of it. It was a surprising amount of fun, although my biggest mistake was doing it on the spur of the moment, on a night when most people weren’t home. I’ve had several people tell me they liked the idea, and wished they could have taken part. So I’m definitely going to do it again, most likely with the two records mentioned above, and I’ll give everyone plenty of advance warning. If you want to follow along and jump in, I’m at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

I like having those first impressions out there, though, because they often contrast with the more considered opinions that make their way into this column. When it came time to officially review Hurley, I found I’d changed my mind on a few of the songs, and on the overall tone of the record. One way or another, though, I think those of us who review music on a regular basis should get on our knees and thank Rivers Cuomo for being so damn interesting.

Too often, I’ll sit down to write about an album and find I have nothing to say about it, other than, “Here’s 10 songs I sort of like.” That never happens with Weezer, because Cuomo cannily gives us so many hooks to hang a review on. Observe: Weezer’s eighth album is called Hurley, and its cover is just a big picture of actor Jorge Garcia, who portrayed Hugo “Hurley” Reyes on Lost. It’s an album of collaborations, featuring songs co-written by Ryan Adams, Dan Wilson of Semisonic, Linda Perry, and Mac Davis, who penned “A Little Less Conversation” and “In the Ghetto” for Elvis Presley. And it features vocal contributions by Johnny Knoxville, Wee-Man and Steve-O, and a mandolin part played by Michael Cera.

See? You’re already fascinated, right? I haven’t even gotten to the part where Weezer ditched Geffen Records for punk stalwarts Epitaph (Really? Epitaph??), or the bit where Rivers wrote a song called “Where’s My Sex?” that turns out to be about socks. You haven’t listened to a single song and already I’d bet this album has more going for it, in terms of curiosity, than anything else you’ve heard this year. That’s the sign of a savvy marketing mind. Rivers knows you want to watch him self-destruct, to walk that tightrope between brilliant and idiotic, and he does it very well.

But at the end of the day, Hurley is 10 songs on a piece of plastic, and they have to be good, or all the other stuff means nothing. Are they? Well, some of them are.

Cuomo is billing Hurley as a return to the more honest and poignant songwriting of his Pinkerton days. He does this a lot, and it’s never true. Hurley is certainly a deeper record than last year’s Raditude, which I loved for its devil-may-care catchiness and goofy sense of fun. When Cuomo gets all sentimental and introspective, his work starts to suffer – see Make Believe and the worst parts of the Red Album. But Hurley largely avoids this trap. The majority of its songs are slam-bang pop tunes with memorable choruses and a sense of energy that, before Raditude, had been missing for a long time.

This is definitely a rawer and less polished effort. The guitars buzz, the analog keyboards slice through the din, and Cuomo sings like his life depends on it. That vitality saves even the worst offenders on Hurley, and there are several. I’m guessing that part of that newfound energy comes from Cuomo’s collaborations this time. Only two of these songs are solo Cuomo creations. On the others, he worked with a wide selection of songwriters – pro hit-makers like Perry and Desmond Child and Greg Wells, and also left-field artists like Adams, Wilson and No Doubt’s Tony Kanal.

This potpourri makes for a pretty diverse album, despite the overall rock vibe. The Dan Wilson track, “Ruling Me,” is my favorite, a spunky, catchy, classic Weezer tune. It’s simple, but you’ll remember it. Similarly, “Hang On,” co-written by Rick Nowels (he’s worked with Madonna and Jewel and Nelly Furtado), is a big, wonderful pop song, with some Levellers-esque touches. (Here’s Cera with his mandolin, and also Tony Berg with his hurdy-gurdy.)

These two tracks are probably the closest to what you expect from Weezer these days. But listen to Cuomo’s collaboration with Ryan Adams, “Run Away.” It starts with a muffled piano melody, then morphs into a mid-tempo piece that wouldn’t have been out of place on Adams’ Love is Hell album. Closer “Time Flies” pulls off a similar trick. This is the one co-written by Mac Davis, and it’s an acoustic stomp recorded cheaply, like an old folk tune. The bass drum distorts, the guitar strings buzz, and Cuomo’s voice drops in and out. Yet somehow, it really works.

The biggest problem, as always, is Cuomo’s lyrics. Somewhere around Make Believe, he decided to forego any complexity in his words, and since then, they’ve all been at around a fifth grade level. Here’s a quick test for you. At one point in “Ruling Me,” Cuomo sings, “We first met in the lunchroom, my ocular nerve went, Pop! Zoom!” If you think this is funny and charming, you’ll be okay with most of Hurley. I think it walks that clever/stupid line David St. Hubbins was talking about. If you think that lyric is retarded, you probably should stay away from “Smart Girls.” It’s exactly what it sounds like: “Where did all these smart girls come from? Someone tell me how to get me some!”

There’s no song here that better illustrates Rivers Cuomo’s tumble into inanity than “Where’s My Sex?” It’s an entire song inspired by his young daughter’s inability to say the word “socks,” and it wastes its kickass riff with lyrics like this: “I can’t go outside without my sex, it’s cold outside and my toes get wet…” I’m sure Cuomo giggled his way through this in the studio, but it’s just jaw-droppingly lame, especially on repeat listens.

But I have to say, like Raditude, this one definitely invites those repeat listens. It would be easy to think Cuomo is kidding, or wasting his potential, but I think he’s at that stage in his life where he just wants to have fun. Hurley finds him sharing that Weezer joy with as many people as he can – the whole Jackass crew shouts along to first single “Memories,” and appears in the video – and the resulting record, while it stumbles here and there, is a loose and limber ball of fun. On first listen, I liked about half of it, but after a few spins, I think Hurley is a perfectly imperfect modern Weezer record.

* * * * *

While preparing to review the new self-titled album from Interpol, I went back and listened to their whole catalog. And I came to a startling conclusion, one I’m sure very few others share: their celebrated debut, Turn On the Bright Lights, is the worst Interpol album.

It’s muddy, it’s directionless, and it contains only a couple of songs. Not just good songs, but songs. Paul Banks sounds unmoored, given no melodies to work with, and the band in general sounds uninspired. For some reason, though, this album is considrerd the benchmark for Interpol, the height they never hit again. I don’t get it. I think they immediately improved, vastly, with Antics, and while Our Love to Admire isn’t quite as good, it does get more ambitious, and parts of it work very well. The accepted wisdom is that Bright Lights is the pinnacle, but I think even Banks’ solo album as Julian Plenti is better.

All that is my way of saying that my view on Interpol, the band’s return to shapeless, vibe-y semi-songs, is probably not going to jibe with the majority. Even so, I like it more than Bright Lights, still the winner and world champion worst Interpol record. This is the band’s first for Matador since their debut, and their last album with bassist Carlos Dengler, who left shortly after its completion. Perhaps it’s subconscious, but the bass work is right up front in the mix, and sounds excellent. The overall sound is crisp and clear, and when these songs work, they sound great.

Unfortunately, that’s not too often. Opener “Success” is the template, a mid-tempo dirge that stays in the same little box for its entire running time. With minor exceptions, these songs are a conscious return to the “classic” Interpol style – somewhat creepy, atmospheric, intertwining snaky guitar lines with agile bass runs, and few memorable melodies. Not only are they not doing anything new here, they’ve backslid, trying to erase the progress of the last two records. Sonically, that’s not the case – there are keyboards all over this thing, and big, big walls of sound. But when it comes to songwriting, they’re back where they started.

Only one of these songs is truly great, and you’ve probably already heard it. “Barricade” begins in a nondescript way, with a repeated guitar figure and a thumping bass line, but when it slams into the chorus, it’s one of those involuntary-fist-pump moments. Banks shifts that inimitable tenor into overdrive, and the band follows suit. “Barricade” is a tour de force, one of Interpol’s finest, which makes the more solemn second half all the more dispiriting. The final two songs just peter out, not making any impression at all.

As I said, though, my opinion probably isn’t going to match up with the majority. If you still think Turn On the Bright Lights is the brass ring for which Interpol should be reaching, you may like the self-titled album more than I did. Me, I liked hearing them write compelling choruses, songs with bite, songs with left turns and energy and verve. There are precious few of those on Interpol, and I think that’s a shame.

* * * * *

Who woulda thunk it – Robert Plant has nicely transitioned into a dignified elder statesman.

Yes, the man who once yelped “squeeze my lemon until the juice runs down my leg” is now, at age 62, a calmer, almost regal interpreter of rock’s long history. It’s been an interesting thing to watch. Plant garnered some well-deserved respect with Raising Sand, his album of duets with Alison Krauss, and now seems determined to surround himself with collaborators who will treat his worn, yet still supple voice with an earthy respect.

So here’s Band of Joy, Plant’s ninth solo album, and he’s hooked up with venerated songwriter and Nashville legend Buddy Miller. You can’t get more earthy and respectful than that. Miller’s beautiful guitar is all over this album, and Plant’s voice matches it perfectly. You’d expect this pair to dig up some traditional songs and play them with dusty honesty, and they do – “Cindy, I’ll Marry You Some Day” and “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down” are etched into the pages of history, and Plant and Miller do them gorgeous justice.

But they take on some surprises here as well – songs by Los Lobos (“Angel Dance”), Richard Thompson (“House of Cards”) and the late, great Townes Van Zandt (“Harm’s Swift Way”). Every one is performed with reverence. Perhaps the biggest shock comes in the form of two songs from Low’s The Great Destroyer, “Silver Rider” and “Monkey.” They certainly stand out here amidst the folk songs and pretty laments, but they’re marvelous. “Silver Rider,” particularly, is a beautiful ocean of rippling guitar, over which Plant sings like an angel.

With all that, I think my favorite thing here is the stomping take on “You Can’t Buy My Love,” written by Bobby and Billy Babineaux and popularized by Barbara Lynn in 1965. Buddy Miller just tears the roof off, ripping through one snorting lead line after another. And yet, when Plant and Miller take it down, and tackle more ethereal pieces, the results are just as striking. “Harm’s Swift Way” is lovely, all acoustics and bendy pedal steels, and “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down” is a far cry from the original (and Michael Roe’s recent version), riding a minor-key banjo and a cavernous bass drum into folksy bliss.

There’s just nothing bad about Band of Joy. It’s taken Robert Plant a long time to get to the point where a record like this sounds authentic coming from him, but it does. He’s taken his voice down many a dusty road, and each of those experiences has shaped it into the fine, weathered instrument it is today. He’s ready for these songs now, in a way he wouldn’t have been 30, 20 or even 10 years ago. He’s earned the respect due him with Band of Joy, and I hope he stays on this path for a long time to come.

* * * * *

Next week, some things I didn’t get to this week, like the Walkmen, the Vaselines and Brandon Flowers, along with some new stuff, like Serj Tankian. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

It’s been a boring week, musically speaking, so I’m going to try something different this week. I had originally planned to write about new records from Philip Selway and Jenny and Johnny (Lewis and Rice, respectively), but then I listened to them, and found I didn’t have much to say about either one. (I reservedly liked them both. What I came up with can be found at tm3am.blogspot.com.)

But I started this column as something of a travelogue of my journeys in music, chronicling the events in my obsessive, addictive life. And this week, an unreleased album from 1989 has been dominating a lot of my listening time. I realize I’m opening myself up to a lot of ridicule with this one, but it’s about time I discuss a band that means a lot to me. That band (he says, ducking for cover) is Mr. Mister.

* * * * *

I don’t know if you’re on Facebook, but for the past two weeks or so, there’s been this little game going around. You’re supposed to list 15 albums that have made an impact on you, and you’re supposed to do it in no more than 15 minutes. The idea isn’t to put together a list of the best records you’ve heard, but the ones that have left a lasting impression, or were important in your musical growth. This is exactly the kind of thing all my Facebook friends are certain I’ll enjoy doing, and after the third or fourth tag, I finally composed my list.

I did it in about three minutes, though, and while I’d probably make some revisions if given the chance (No XTC? Really?), I decided to just go with my first instincts. I kept the list in the order I thought of it, starting with the Beatles and Brian Wilson (obvious) and moving through more personal stuff (Human Radio, Tori Amos). And there at number 10 is Mr. Mister’s 1987 album Go On. It was literally one of the first 10 albums that came into my head.

Believe me, I understand all the criticisms of this band. They’re faceless, people say. Even their name is practically anonymous, and singer Richard Page, while quite good, isn’t what you’d call distinctive. They play radio-ready synth-driven fare, straight out of the ‘80s, but without the sense of fun. Everyone in the band was (and still is) a session musician. They’re like Toto, without the personality. I hear all of that, and I get why they’re saying it.

But they’re wrong. At least, to me they’re wrong. Mr. Mister is one of those bands that imprinted themselves on me at an early age, and truly got me thinking about what kind of music I wanted to hear most. I was 11 years old when “Kyrie” and “Broken Wings” were all over the radio, and I’m not ashamed to admit I loved those songs. I still think of “Broken Wings” as one of the finest songs of the ‘80s, and the album the hits hailed from, Welcome to the Real World, was in near-endless rotation in my preteen years. (I just recently bought the 25th anniversary edition, which made me feel older than I can tell you.)

For all that, though, Welcome is just a pop record, a collection of catchy ditties. I still like it, particularly “Don’t Slow Down,” and I used “Uniform of Youth” to score part of a movie I helped make in college, but that album doesn’t get a lot of love in my house. Its follow-up, on the other hand, I have memorized.

Go On hit when I was 13, and it knocked me flat. It was a commercial failure, particularly when compared with Welcome, and just as a side note, I don’t get that, because if an album is popular enough to spawn two songs virtually everyone alive at the time can still sing from memory, that album’s follow-up is surely worth at least a curiosity listen from the masses. But apparently America had had enough of this band, just as I was falling in love with them.

Go On isn’t just a pop album to me. It was one of the first Serious Artistic Statements I’d heard, and while I’ll never pretend this record is anything profound, it does approach its subject matter (including abandoned children of U.S. soldiers, spiritual dishonesty, the destructive nature of television, and human interconnectedness) with earnest intent. It’s clear the band was trying to make Something Important. In the words of the first single, “Something Real.” And yes, I was 13, but for me, they succeeded brilliantly.

But why do I still love Go On? Why, 23 years later, have I never grown tired of it? It’s not just nostalgia, not just adolescent imprinting. I honestly, sincerely, truly love this album. These songs work for me still, even though the production is dated. I think part of it is the sense of yearning for truth that runs through every track. That’s not a quality one usually associates with keyboard-driven pop from the ‘80s, but it’s here, and it’s the lifeblood of this record.

Yes, some of this yearning is clearly spiritual. Both “Healing Waters” and “Man of a Thousand Dances” utilize big gospel choirs, and the lyrics are about Page’s struggles with his own faith. But much of it is human, as perfectly summed up in the gorgeous closer, “The Border.” “Every step we take gives us the strength to go on, and all the love we make gets us closer to home,” Page sings over a lush synth backdrop. It’s the culmination of the searching lyrics in “Stand and Deliver” and “Power Over Me,” just as “Thousand Dances” wraps up the journey started in “Healing Waters” and “Watching the World.”

Along the way, Page and company take on some heady issues. I still haven’t heard another song that addresses the same subject matter as “Dust,” about the children fathered by U.S. soldiers and left behind in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. The song’s a mini-masterpiece of mood. “Out of the dust reach tiny hands to touch their fathers in other lands…” Still gives me chills. “The Tube” thrills me in a different way – it’s not subtle, but Page ties his condemnation of television into the larger theme of human connection: “Well dear, it’s a good thing, I don’t have to look at you, you don’t have to look at me, I think that’s a good thing…”

At its core, Go On is all about how we’re all one, and we should act like it. This isn’t a new observation, and I can name dozens of records that explore it in more depth. But there are very few with the hold over me this one has. I have no illusions about the fact that anyone coming to Go On now will probably not hear the same thing I hear, and will likely snicker at this little love letter. I’ve already been laughed at numerous times for praising Mr. Mister’s forgotten third album, so I’m used to it. I can’t help it. This album is hugely important to me, and even now, I love listening to it. I’m listening to it right now, in fact, and grinning with inexplicable joy.

* * * * *

All of which was my way of setting up what happened to me last week.

As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m an extremely loyal music fan. I’ll follow a band for decades, if they let me. I’m also pretty good at keeping up with the travels of my favorite musicians, long after they’ve left the spotlight. But for some reason, before last week, I’d never heard Pull, the fourth Mr. Mister album.

Yes, there was a fourth. No, it was never released, although Richard Page has announced it will be officially made available in October. It was recorded in 1989, after the departure of guitarist Steve Farris, and the band used session guitarists (ironic!), including Trevor Rabin of Yes. I’ve known of Pull’s existence for a while, and heard “Waiting in My Dreams,” the song that appeared on a best-of some years ago. But for some reason, I’d never heard the whole thing.

Enter music fan Brian Smith, who pointed me in the right direction. (I won’t let on, but if you search for it, you’re bound to find it.) This, for me, was like discovering Human Radio II some years ago. More music from a discarded band I love. How great is that? Pull has the added cachet of having been rejected by RCA Records, and I’m always interested to hear things the guys in suits don’t want me to. I mean, they paid for it. Exactly what could make the record company wave away something they’d already bought? I was fascinated to find out.

After listening about seven times, I’m pretty sure what freaked out RCA. Pull is a weird record, at least by Mr. Mister standards. I’m not an A&R man from the ‘80s, but I don’t hear a killer single. What I do hear, though, is a moody, dark and ultimately rewarding record, one that travels further down the path the band started with Go On, albeit without the social conscience. The lyrics are aiming for the charts, but the music is decidedly strange, built on atmosphere instead of hooks.

With all that, I quite like it. I’m not sure what I would have thought had I heard this in 1989 or 1990, but sonically, this is a nice leap from the comparatively upbeat Go On, stepping more into a progressive realm. I bet the RCA bigwigs were hoping this art-pop thing was a phase, and the Misters would get back to writing hits with album four. Instead, they jumped further into difficult, brooding material, some of it actually presaging drummer Pat Mastelloto’s later work with King Crimson.

Just listen to “Close Your Eyes,” one of the most radio-ready tracks here. Washes of minor-key synths drape themselves over a tricky, mid-tempo beat. The chorus is less of a hook than a hand-off – the whole thing flows nicely from end to end, without actually changing much. Despite lyrics promising safety, the song sounds menacing to me. “Waiting in My Dreams” is similar. The chorus (“Waiting in my dreams, when I close my eyes you’re here with me…”) sounds sweet, but in its musical context, it’s almost spooky.

“Like Rain Falling” is my favorite. Rousing blasts of electric guitars surround the most immediate chorus of the lot, and though this tune never explodes, it’s the loudest and most energetic thing here. The second half of Pull is one proggy mid-tempo piece after another, culminating in “Way Oh,” a nearly instrumental outing that closes things out in style. More than any other Mr. Mister album, this one demands and rewards repeated listens. I wish I could say RCA was nuts not to release it, but if they were looking for another “Kyrie,” then I can understand reacting negatively to this.

Me, I think it’s pretty great, and I’m glad I finally got to hear it. It’s like finally finishing a puzzle I started when I was a kid.

* * * * *

I also wish I could say this story has a happier ending.

In addition to Pull, Brian Smith also made me aware of Richard Page’s new solo record, Peculiar Life. I wasn’t overly fond of his first one, 1996’s Shelter Me, but I plunked down my cash anyway. Now, I love Page’s voice. I’d probably pay to hear him sing anything. But Peculiar Life is fraught with the same disease that afflicts so many artists from my youth: Page grew up and he calmed down. It’s a tepid, safe, middle-aged affair with only a few remarkable songs, and some cringe-worthy lyrics.

But Page means them all. He has always understood the importance of being earnest. On this album, alas, that means giving us banal observations about life and love. “A Kiss on the Wind,” the slow and silky opener, is one of the best, but even that has lyrics like this: “Let the wind blow, and let the tears flow, and thank you for the chance to feel my heart again.” I’d never say he’s wrong, or untruthful – we are here and then gone, with not much to lean upon, as he sings. I just can name so many other songs that say the same thing more artfully.

Peculiar Life veers between acoustic balladry and prog-pop with a pulse, and the latter stuff is pretty good. “Worldly Things” rises from its white-funk opening to become a melodic tour de force, and “Brand New Day” (not the Sting song, thankfully) does the same thing, besting its too-simple prelude with a burst of loud guitars. “Shadow on My Life” is probably my favorite, since it shares some sonic similarities with the Pull material.

But elsewhere, Page sounds just like his detractors have always said he does: anonymous. The light reggae beat of “No Tomorrow,” the basic chords and sentiments of “You Are Mine,” the teary-eyed numbers at the end… none of it has any real spark. Page’s voice is in fine form, as always, but there’s more than a touch of your father’s Oldsmobile to this. He even does a duet with his daughter Aja, a budding singer herself. But father-daughter duets are a certain sign that an artist has settled down to a comfortable life. If you like simple, surface-level balladry, there’s nothing wrong with Peculiar Life. But there’s nothing about it that sounds like it came from one of my favorite artists, either.

But that’s all right. Page is still a great singer, and I’m still happy I heard this. And as one of the minds behind Go On, a record I expect I’ll never tire of, he gets a lifetime pass to do whatever he wants. He’s already given me more joy than most. I’ll buy whatever he does next, and when Pull gets its full-on remastered release, I’ll pick that up too. No matter how many times they’re called a two-hit wonder, Mr. Mister means a lot to me. And probably always will.

Go On is long out of print, but you can probably find it on eBay or other similar sites. Peculiar Life (as well as a free download from Pull)is available at Richard’s site.

* * * * *

In case you’re interested, here’s my 15 Albums list:

The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Beatles – Revolver
The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds
Brian Wilson – SMiLE
The Cure – Disintegration
The Choir – Circle Slide
Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes
Human Radio
Aimee Mann – Whatever
Mr. Mister – Go On
Adam Again – Dig
Jellyfish – Spilt Milk
The Alarm – Eye of the Hurricane
Sufjan Stevens – Illinois
Radiohead – OK Computer

Next week, back to business as usual with reviews of Robert Plant, Weezer and Interpol. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Like just about everyone with an Internet connection, I’ve spent the last 10 days obsessed with Cee-Lo Green’s new single.

It’s called “Fuck You,” it’s nowhere near safe for work, and it’s the first genuine phenomenon I’ve heard in quite some time. (If you haven’t heard it, do so now at ceelogreen.com. I’ll wait.) Cee-Lo Green, you may recall, is the singing half of Gnarls Barkley – along with his partner Danger Mouse, he hit it huge in 2006 with “Crazy.” Most people never get a megahit like that in their lives. To wish for two of them is just greedy.

But Cee-Lo’s got his second now, and as I watched the wildfire spread over the past week and a half, it struck me that “Fuck You” is an interesting test case for this new paradigm we find ourselves in. Just 10 or so years ago, a song like “Fuck You” wouldn’t have had a chance to catch on. It would need radio airplay just to be heard, and its delightfully profane nature would have prevented that from happening. A record company would have needed to put marketing resources behind it, and without radio play, those resources would have been all but stymied. Perhaps it could have been included on a soundtrack or something, but even then, the probability of turning such a gleefully filthy tune into a smash hit would have been slim.

But not these days. Here’s what happened: Cee-Lo uploaded “Fuck You,” along with a simple and cheap scrolling-words video, onto YouTube on August 19. (I’d like to mention here that YouTube didn’t even exist six years ago.) Within a week, nearly three million people watched that video, and bloggers from every corner of the nation talked it up. I heard it thanks to my friend Jeff Elbel, and I know I personally recommended it to about 25 others. “Fuck You” spread the way songs used to spread, before ClearChannel – people heard it from other people, and told their friends about it.

The only difference is, while music fans in the olden days had to tape songs off the radio and make copies for their friends, now all they have to do is email a link. The music spreads much faster that way, as Cee-Lo Green found out.

This system has been in place for a while, but this is the first time I’ve seen its true potential unleashed. I think it was just waiting for the right song. “Fuck You” is a really good song – easily the best pop single of the year so far, and probably of the last several. (The aforementioned Jeff Elbel, an authoritative connoisseur of pop music, has gone so far as to call it his second-favorite single of all time, right behind the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.”) It’s almost a new genre, combining hilarious gut-level lyrics with old Motown sweetness. There’s a hook every 10 seconds in this thing, and even the backing vocal lines are insanely catchy. (“Oh shit, she’s a gold digger!”)

I think there’s something elemental about this song, about the way it combines feel-good funk with profane anger. The story is a simple one: boy meets girl, girl wants money, boy is broke, girl dumps boy, boy sees girl tooling around town with her new sugar daddy, boy shouts title phrase. She’s no good, he still loves her. We’ve all been there. The song is a non-threatening license to swear at a bad ex, and the juxtaposition is simply wonderful.

I’m not sure Cee-Lo knew what he had here. I can’t imagine listening to “Fuck You” and not expecting it to be a massive word-of-mouth hit, but I guess the Green team didn’t. The song was uploaded to YouTube as a teaser for Green’s new album The Lady Killer, which has no release date as of this writing. The “Fuck You” single was slated for October. That means, as the song was careening all over the web last week, people who heard it had no option to legally acquire it. I know I looked around for a way to buy it, searching iTunes and Cee-Lo’s site to no avail.

They finally got it together late Wednesday night, August 25 – there’s a “buy now” link at www.ceelogreen.com, and a t-shirt to boot. But those seven days probably cost Cee-Lo a million bucks, at least. In the days before YouTube, it would sometimes take months for a song to really catch hold, and drive people to the stores to buy it. These days, it’s instantaneous. People hear it, they want it, they click over to buy it, and you have to be ready.

Likewise, this song has already left the old system in the dust. Part of the thrill of “Fuck You” is that it’s such a radio-ready song, but it could never be played on the radio. Still, Team Green is plugging away – they’ve created a “clean version,” which substitutes “forget” for “fuck,” and thereby sucks all the life out of the song. This thing is already a bigger hit than most radio tracks ever become, and I would have liked to see Cee-Lo just shut radio out entirely. But I’m not sure I would have done anything different, in his shoes.

It’ll be interesting to see what all this means for The Lady Killer, once it finally comes out. Much as I think “Fuck You” is a timeless piece of work (really!), the excitement over this track is here, now. The earliest potential release date I’ve heard for the album is December, which may as well be 10 years from now, as far as the Internet is concerned. I think this is a classic case of not knowing how good one’s song truly is. Green probably should have kept “Fuck You” under wraps until the album’s release, but now he should bring that release date forward. If he could put out The Lady Killer next week, he’d clean up.

Most of these lessons are moot anyway, because “Fuck You” is a song that comes along only once in a great long while. It’s easy to say Green should have foreseen its universal appeal, but I’m not sure anyone could have expected it to take off like it has. This song absolutely proves that the new model works, however. Give the people something they want, and it’ll be everywhere before you know it. I’ll be interested to see how many of the song’s fans ponied up for the download.

I did, and I’m glad to have this song in my collection. Of course, it’s spent the last 10 days in my head anyway. I sing it to myself all the time, even in public, and I’ve gotten a few strange looks. But this is an incredibly catchy tune – as I said, easily the best pop single of 2010 so far. Enjoy your second worldwide hit, Cee-Lo. You’ve earned it.

“I see you drivin’ ‘round town with the girl I love, and I’m like…”

* * * * *

A couple of news tidbits:

Sufjan Stevens’ dry spell looks to be officially over. Just a few days after releasing his surprise All Delighted People album, Stevens announced a new full-length, set for October 12. It’s called The Age of Adz, although “Adz” is apparently pronounced “Odds,” and has something to do with artist Royal Robertson, whose work adorns the cover. Asthmatic Kitty flaks describe the record as Enjoy Your Rabbit meets The BQE, meaning electronic noise slamming up against orchestral grandeur.

The first song leaked from the record certainly bears that out. I have no idea what I think of “I Walked,” with its crackling electronic drums, synth flickers and oceans of vocals. Like everything on All Delighted People, this is going to take a number of listens to click. The track list for The Age of Adz is fascinating – some of Sufjan’s shortest songs share disc space with his longest epic yet, the 25-minute “Impossible Soul.” I would put my excitement level at orange, with a definite chance of escalation to red soon.

Before that, I’m most excited about Ben Folds and Nick Hornby’s Lonely Avenue, out September 28. I’ve waxed eloquent about that before, but suffice it to say that when one of my favorite novelists writes lyrics for one of my favorite pop songsmiths, I’ll be there with money in hand. Elvis Costello has a new album called National Ransom out on October 5, and that one’s produced by T-Bone Burnett. Weezer returns that same day with Hurley, and I can’t help being excited for this one too. It features songs co-written by Dan Wilson, Ryan Adams and Mac Davis (who wrote “A Little Less Conversation” and “In the Ghetto” for Elvis Presley), and one tune called “Where’s My Sex?” Jaw-dropping, as always.

Beyond that, I’m anticipating new things from Belle and Sebastian, the Old 97s. Antony and the Johnsons, the Orb with David Gilmour (seriously, someone should have thought of this pairing earlier), Guster, Steven Page and Kid Cudi. But October’s most intriguing record might be the self-titled debut from Mt. Desolation, an alt-country project put together by Keane’s Tim Rice-Oxley and Jesse Quin. Can Britain’s best piano-pop band convincingly do country? We’ll find out.

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Just enough space and time left to tell you about my new favorite band.

They’re called Mumford & Sons, they’re a four-piece from London, and their first album, Sigh No More, is one of the best of the year. I’m a good six months behind on this one – I only heard it on the recommendation of my boss Mike Cetera, and the prodding of my friend Luke Beeley. I’m catching up quickly, though, because this stuff is marvelous.

I’m not entirely sure how to describe what they do. There’s an earthy folksiness to their sound – it’s based in acoustic guitars, but incorporates banjos, dobros, mandolins, and gorgeous down-home harmonies. But there’s a punk edge to it as well. Most of these songs blossom into huge, thumping, rousing refrains worthy of the Levellers, with banjos and strings flailing, and when they break into these bits, they rock. Not an electric guitar to be found, but man, they rock.

“The Cave” is the perfect Mumford & Sons song. It’s based on a simple acoustic guitar figure, has a superbly melodic chorus, and when it kicks in, it just knocks you flat. Marcus Mumford has a gritty, passionate voice, and he writes literate, yearning lyrics. (M&S is as spiritual as old U2, singing of their maker as often as they sing about the pain of life.) “I will hold on hope, and I won’t let you choke on the noose around your neck,” he sings as the pulsing number rises and rises. It’s simply awesome.

Here’s the point where I usually say “…and they never hit those heights again.” But it just isn’t true. Sigh No More is full of brilliant little numbers, each of them packed with explosive moments that grab you and won’t let go. “Roll Away Your Stone” is simple in the extreme, but the banjo-fueled chorus just works, Mumford’s bass drum barreling along at breakneck speed. “It seems that all my bridges have been burned,” he sings, “but you say that’s exactly how this grace thing works.” “Little Lion Man,” the first single, is a killer, its chorus (“But it was not your fault but mine…”) staying with you long after it’s over.

My favorite thing here, however, is “I Gave You All,” a mini-epic of betrayal and pain. It starts with a Dave Matthews-esque minor-key acoustic section, but after three minutes or so, it just rips open, Mumford wailing the title phrase over a wall of noise. The final section is staggering, Mumford sounding for all the world like Mark Chadwick as he screams “Well now you’ve won” over and over. It’s powerful stuff, and it ends where it began, quiet singing and gentle acoustics. Those heights, they never quite hit again, but they come close, and often.

There’s nothing about this record I don’t like. Even a song like “Dust Bowl Dance,” which essentially repeats its piano figure for five minutes, is captivating in these hands, and dark folk pieces like “Timshel” are mesmerizing. Every year, I seem to discover a new band that takes my breath away, and this year, it’s Mumford & Sons. I’ll be listening to this record for years to come, and greatly anticipating whatever they do next.

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Keeping it relatively short this week. Come back in seven days for reviews of new albums by Interpol, Phil Selway and John Mellencamp, along with whatever else strikes my fancy. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.