July is the new December with music sites trumpeting The Best Albums of 2009… So Far. We thought we’d join in on this list-making exercise. Here’s some of our faves 7 months into the year that is 2009.

Eels – Hombre Lobo (Nikki)
M Ward – Hold Time (Fez)
Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (Karen)
Yeah Yeah Yeah’s – It’s Blitz! (Lisa)
Andrew Bird – Noble Beast (Tara)
The Decemberists – Hazards of Love (Darryl)
Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca (Liesl)
The Crystal Method – Divided By Night (Kara)

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For a rather limited time (2 weeks to be exact) we have partnered with the good folk at triple j to give YOU free music! Dreams Come True Girl is the new single from my favourite crooner of cool, Cass McCombs. Haven’t heard it? Shame on you! Get thee educated by dropping by triple j to get yourself a copy for nix! You can even get a preview here by watching the clip, which is a (kinda odd) combination of vintage (see silverscreen legend Karen Black swanning around) and contemporary (indoor skate park!  Woo!).

You might think you don’t know Cass McCombs but maybe you remember this song from the IKEA ad?

That’s the super-sweet Pregant Pause from his debut LP Dropping The Writ which I can highly recommend. Standout tracks include That’s That and my favourite to sing in the morning Crick In My Neck. As Molly would say, do yourself a favour!

Coldplay’s Chris Martin will play himself in The Simpson. Coldplay will perform a private show for Bart and Homer, after Homer wins a million dollars in the lottery of course! The band have to stop their show when Bart needs to go to the bathroom… god love The Simpsons.

The Sun has mocked up the Coldplay Simpsons characters here, including the requisite muso stubble.

And the kids (and big kids) will love their new video for Strawberry Swing which is up on www.babelgum.com/coldplay now.

JET’s youngest fan Liam, shows us how it’s done

The guys have landed in Australia this morning and will be performing on tonights The Footy Show and on Sunrise tomorrow morning. They’ll head to a back yard tomorrow afternoon for Nova’s ‘Bender In The Grass’ PLUS they’ll be doing an FREE hour set for [V] LIVE going live to air on [V] and their website from 2pm tomorrow afternoon down at Sydney’s Luna Park…BIG couple of days of rock n’ roll

Admit it… no one likes gymn junkies. No one likes those spritely peeps who jog around your block in figure-hugging spandex at 5am. In fact, the only time I’ve ever been inspired to join those freaks was the first time I listened to LCD Soundsystem’s 45:33: the incredible Sounds of Silver album which was reworked into a 45min workout (*shudder*) track for Nike. I challenge you to listen to Get Innocuous and not suddenly be desperate to jump on a treadmill.

Now my expanding posterior will be grateful for another opportunity to get back to the gym: a brand new collection of remixes of 45:33 will be released as a series of vinyl 12″ singles (hopefully this gym has a vinyl player) – before the whole set is released as a CD/Download on Sept 11. The 8 remixed tracks have been re-interepreted by some of dance music’s supposedly most innovative players. Here’s the tracklisting…

45:33 Remixes:
1. Runaway Remix
2. Prince Language Remix
3. Prins Thomas Diskomiks Remix
4. Theo Parrish’s Space Cadet Remix
5. Trus’ Me Remix
6. Padded Cell Remix
7. Pilooski Remix
8. Riley Reinhold Remix

They tour the world and are currently on tour in Europe finishing up their final dates this week. They also fancy themselves as movie makers… check it out

Our intrepid onground cameraperson at Splendour, Karen, wielded the powers of her All Access pass to get in front of the crowd barricade at Paul Dempsey’s set to document a very special cover of Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’.

Paul Dempsey has a way with covering the songs of others (check here and here for reference), and well, I think MJ would be pretty pleased with this one. The crowd sure was.

The album Everything Is True is out August 14.

Winter’s premier festival Splendour In The Grass has come and gone for 2009. Weren’t there? Well you missed out didn’t you! So what were the highs? The surprises? The low lights? Just keep reading and I’ll give you my two cents.

Manchester Orchestra
Leader Cheetah
Yves Klein Blue
Miami Horror
You Am I
Paul Dempsey
Bob Evans
more more more…

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Black Eyed Peas – My Humps
This one is a no brainer for the MJFH…… I just have to cut and paste the lyrics to show how terrible it is.

I drive these brothers crazy,
I do it on the daily,
They treat me really nicely,
They buy me all these ices.
Dolce & Gabbana,
Fendi and NaDonna
Karan, they be sharin’
All their money got me wearin’ fly
Brother I ain’t askin,
They say they love my ass ‘n,
Seven Jeans, True Religion’s,
I say no, but they keep givin’
So I keep on takin’
And no I ain’t taken
We can keep on datin’
I keep on demonstrating.

My love (love), my love, my love, my love (love)
You love my lady lumps (love),
My hump, my hump, my hump (love),
My humps they got you,

Actually Alanis Morisette does it justice.

At last we have the visuals! And they’re totally apt: dark, stormy, dramatic, and featuring Poseidon-esque ghouly giant band members towering out of crashing waves and craggycliffs scaring the living cr*p out their diminutive sailing counterparts. Watch it on Babelgum.

Take a gander at the making-of too, and you’ll recognise the director as Richard Ayoade (AKA Marurice Moss from The IT Crowd – the credits of which were done by my fave animation gurus, Shynola, who just did the new Coldplay vid):

Ayoade is a talented guy: as well as being a stand-up comedian, he also directed the Monkeys’ clip for Fluorescant Adolescant, plus the 2007 Arctic Monkeys Live at the Apollo DVD, The Last Shadow Puppets clips for Standing Next To Me and My Mistakes Were Made For You, Vampire Weekend’s Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa, Kasabian’s Vlad The Impaler, and the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Heads Will Roll.

CONNECTSHAWWWNS!