• This Is It On Pace to Break Records
• STP Confirm Plans for New Album
• Is The Who: Rock Band On the Way?
• Win a Copy of DJ Hero
• Billly Corgan Blogs About Swine Flu
• News Ticker: Peter Gabriel, U2
• Can Shakira Conquer the World? New Issue
• Michael Jackson’s This Is It: Full Report
• Lambert Defends “Campy” Album Cover
• Watch the Trailer for John Lennon’s Biopic
• Eminem Gets Censored at BET Awards
• Watch Jamey Johnson Cover Kristofferson
• Nick Jonas Announces Side Project LP
• New Moon Rules the Charts
• Lil Wayne’s No Ceilings Leaks
• Google Announces Song Search
• Breaking: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
• Chris Brown Returns to the Stage in NJ
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• Jay-Z on DJ Hero, His Upcoming Tour
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• Sublime Debut Singer at SmokeOut Fest
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The Band: Thao with the Get Down Stay Down
The Buzz: She may play the guitar with instruments as unconventional as a toothbrush and a pen, but the songs 25-year-old Virginian Thao Nguyen writes are sweet as honeycombs, as rich in detail as they are sparse in arrangement. And if that’s not appealing enough, she’s offering to write a personal song for a lucky fan to benefit the musicians’ organization CASH.
Listen If: You always wondered what Cat Power might sound like providing guest vocals for late-period Modest Mouse.
Key Track: “Know Better, Learn Faster,” where Nguyn’s surprisingly husky voice grounds a skipping guitar line, making the whole song sound like a giddy playground afternoon.

The Band: Cold Cave
The Buzz: The name says it all — this Philly band skews dark and somber. Their debut was released on excellent New York noise imprint Hospital Productions, but they’ve settled down and cleaned up for their Matador debut, losing all of major player Wesley Eisold’s rougher impulses in favor of bleak, brooding dark pop.
Listen If: Your idea of a party record is David Bowie’s “Low.”
Key Track: “Love Comes Close,” with its shadowy throb and spindly guitar riff sounds like what might happen if a gaggle of skeletons tried to cover “Where the Streets Have No Name.” That is, until Eisold’s grim, Bowie-esque croon comes in. Then all bets are off.

The Band: Knight School
The Buzz: Kevin Alvir channels the sound of ramshackle British bands like the Television Personalities, making sub-lo-fi pop gems that wobble violently before collapsing in a heap.
Listen If: Your idea of “overproduced” means “recorded on anything other than a boom box.”
Key Track: We’d start with the raucous “Pregnant Again,” where Alvir proves all you need is a good idea and a great hook to make a pop masterpiece.

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In an attempt to tap into the digital-music market dominated by iTunes, Google today unveiled a new song-searching system that will allow users to quickly stream a free track using LaLa or MySpace Music. Both Google and the record business hope the simple-to-use form of music search dissuades users from typing in, say, “Beyoncé” and “torrent” and turning up thousands of illegal song-download results. “The best way to address that [torrent-searching] situation is to provide a really great and comprehensive and fast, excellent music service,” says R.J. Pittman, a product management director at Google. “We really feel the way is to make it much better for people — and that’s going to have a positive impact on music industry.”

With the new system, Google users will find a large “play” button at the top of the results page when they search for an artist, song or album. They’ll also get one free stream, as well as “buy” links to LaLa, MySpace, Rhapsody, Pandora, iMeem and others. “Millions and millions of consumers search for music every day — they’re trying to get to music the best way they know how. And the best way they know how is Google,” says Geoff Ralston, LaLa’s chief executive officer. “ITunes is a great program, but it’s big and it’s heavy and it’s slow. You don’t live in iTunes all the time.”

Still, while the new Google service is likely to be more convenient for customers, David Pakman, a venture capitalist and former eMusic CEO, believes it is unlikely to generate any more income for LaLa, MySpace or the major record labels who provide the content. He says Google searchers probably won’t jump from streaming a song for free to actually buying tracks via LaLa. “Getting access to streaming music isn’t really that hard,” he says. “The problem is there’s just no business around it.”

One advantage for Google is the search giant didn’t have to make deals directly with the labels to get the music — they simply let LaLa and MySpace, who already have such deals, lay the groundwork. Labels, contending with another 20 percent drop in CD sales this year, according to Nielsen Soundscan, have been more aggressive recently to remake themselves in the digital age. “They have been supportive [of the Google deal],” LaLa’s Ralston says. “They understand there’s a new world out there.”

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