What a double-edged sword 69 Love Songs has become for the Magnetic Fields. Perhaps the apotheosis of Stephin Merritt's clever talents, it is a sublime piece of novelty that manages to transcend its gimmickry. Yet since that flurry of content, the band has only managed two albums in eight years, 2004’s i and Distortion to be released today. (Read J. Gabriel Boylan's review here.) It's not that Merritt has run out of ideas; he has certainly kept busy. Here's hoping you'll find many of them on the new album. For a limited time, the entire album is being streamed on their myspace page—yay, Web 2.0!

From one New York musician to, er, another ... Thomas Ian Nicholas. You may remember him from such movies as Rookie of the Year and American Pie—he always played the straight man. He's branched out in a new direction—singer-songwriter—and he couldn't be more earnest on his debut album, Without Warning. (You ain't kidding!) Here he is playing in the streets of Brooklyn.  read more »