Guardian Music — Broken limbs, intransigent rules, alienating albums ... are the Walkmen their own worst enemies?It was the guitar Paul Maroon had been searching for his whole adult life: a Rickenbacker 360 Capri, made in 1959, with twin pickups, a rosewood fretboard... more info

We All Want Someone To Shout For — Last weekend The Black Keys played SNL They played “Howlin’ for You” & “Tighten Up” and blew everyone away, of course. These guys can’t be stopped. Check out both performances below via The Audio Perv (as always!): Howlin’ for You: Tigh... more info

Culture Bully — Coverage of the Black Keys' recent spots on The Colbert Report, Saturday Night Live and the Late Show with David Letterman. more info

We All Want Someone To Shout For — Last night Steven Colbert brought on both The Black Keys & Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, to compete in a “sell-off” to see who had more songs used commercials. It was his way of deciding who would get his Grammy vote for best alternative album.... more info

Chorus.fm — *Vampire Weekend (http://absolutepunk.net/vampireweekend)*'s Ezra Koenig and the *Black Keys (http://theblackkeys.com)* appeared on The Colbert Report (http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/370725/january-11-2011/metunes---grammy-vot... more info

Here Comes The Flood — Urbana (IL) band The Leadership go for a vintage garage rock sound. Keyboards osunding like a purring river, lots of echo on the guitar and sligthly hoarse vocals. Their album Frontiers is as not very 21st Century, but it will go down with the deni... more info

Stereogum — Last night’s Report featured Stephen’s analysis of the Grammys (he’s a voting member of NARAS since he won a gramophone last year). It centered mostly on the Best Alternative Album category, which served as a good setup — and netted a couple ... more info

Rollo & Grady — [Via - Bob Lefsetz] THE BLACK KEYS This Greg Kot story is full of nuggets. 1. The band intentionally tried to create a radio single. In other words, you can follow your muse all you want, maybe create some great shit, but there are rules for radio, a... more info

ContactMusic — The BLACK KEYS, the American blues rock band hailing from Akron Ohio, wowed viewers of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE at the weekend (16th December 2011) when they performed two tracks on the show guest hosted by actor and comedian JIM CARREY, reports the Exami... more info

The Good, The Bad and The Unknown — Alright...without further delay...here it is.  The final grand tally.  The 111 Best albums of the year...as voted on by you.  Don't send your complaints to me.  Send them to your own inbox. The Arcade Fire – The Suburbs Kanye West – My D... more info