Spiritualized Play Classic Album Live at SPIN25!
When Spiritualized closed their set Friday night at Radio City Music Hall with an orchestral-rock encore of gospel standard "Oh Happy Day," the venerable Art Deco landmark's roof was there for the raisin'.
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M.I.A., 'MAYA' (N.E.E.T./XL/Interscope)
The most combustive song on M.I.A.'s third album isn't loud or chaotic. Built on a mildly ominous, off-kilter beat -- plus an incessant shoosh like a bag of coins being shaken -- it bloops along with the grace of a janky PopCap game. But the sneakily titled "Lovealot" is perhaps the riskiest gambit yet from the 32-year-old artist born Maya Arulpragasam.
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The Roots, 'How I Got Over' (Def Jam)
When Jim James addresses a higher power on Monsters of Folk's "Dear God"—gently entreating, "Why do we suffer?"—he sounds like an uneasy supplicant. But on the Roots' "Dear God 2.0" (also featuring James), frontman Black Thought goes B-boy Book of Job, decrying technology, acid rain, tsunamis, stock-market collapse, wars, atrocities.
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Jamey Johnson Takes Country to New Heights
The That tent was the unofficial home of country music on Sunday, with Jamey Johnson, Kris Kristofferson, and Miranda Lambert going back-to-back-to-back, but Johnson's band was the one of the three that revealed an edge, like they had something to prove.
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Jay-Z Proves He's King of the Bonnaroo Headliners
Perhaps the loftiest praise Jay-Z could receive for Saturday's prodigious gig at Bonnaroo's What stage was that he didn't miss Beyonce (who was spotted on site, but didn't perform) and that he wasn't overshadowed by Stevie Wonder (who'd wowed the crowd on the same stage a couple of hours prior).
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Kings of Leon Star at Bonnaroo
A friend tells a story of volunteering at a small club in Athens, Ga., in the early days of Kings of Leon, before they were even stars in the U.K., and the band rolled up in their van the afternoon before a show. She went out to ask if there was anything they needed, and one of the boys grabbed a bag of dirty laundry, tossed it at her feet, and walked off into the club without a word.



