And now for another Julian Casablancas post…

I’m really turning into a little Julian Casablancas fanboy, there’s no point in hiding this fact. His first solo album, Phrazes for the Young, comes out tomorrow, and I’m very excited! I’ve heard all of it, thanks to the wonders of the internet, but I love it so much that I’m still going to buy it. Below is one of my favorites, “Glass,” for your listening pleasure, and here’s a profile of him that ran in the New York Times.

Julian, Jay & The Strokes

I don’t know about you, but I am very excited for the Nov. 3rd release of Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas’ first solo album, entitled Phrazes for the Young. To celebrate, I point you to this insightful and (to me, anyway, quite interesting) profile of the Strokes from 2006, written for New York magazine by author Jay McInerney. It offers a balanced portrayal of the band’s rise to fame and of the sometimes tense relationship between its mercurial frontman and the rest of the group. Excellent piece by McInerney. There are few things I enjoy more than well-done profiles of artists/groups that I admire.

Girls – “Lust for Life”

Girls, a band led by Christopher Owens, is a San Francisco band with a (you-guessed-it) sun-kissed pop sound, and both the band and its video above are indie as hell, which might make me prejudiced if they didn’t do such a great job with the production, the songwriting, and the videomaking. All of these are first-rate, and I was charmed, and so I thought I’d share.

Julian Casablancas

By now, you may have heard that Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas is releasing a solo album called Phrazes for the Young (the title of which comes from Oscar Wilde’s “Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young,” a truly witty article first published in the 1894 December and only issue of the Oxford student magazine The Chameleon (this article is delightful and makes me think Andy Warhol definitely took some cues from Wilde in his public quotables as well as in his wonderful The Philosophy of Andy Warhol)). Anyway, it is an appropriate reference, as Casablancas, in lead single “11th Dimension,” now streaming on MySpace, builds on the lyrical philosophy of the Strokes’ last album, First Impressions of Earth, dispensing numerous lived truths and observations (one suspects) throughout the song, such as “Your faith has got to be greater than your fear”; “Forgive them, even if they are not sorry”; “We’re so quick to point out our own flaws in others”; all of which sound cliched on paper but which work swimmingly in the context of the buoyantly optimistic, keyboard-led sunfest of a pop song that is “11th Dimension.” If the single is any indication, this promises to be a musically and lyrically worthwhile album from Julian, and more than a little fun to listen to. It’s sober, married, wiser Jules!

You’ll be free

George Harrison, Concert for Bangladesh, 1971, “Awaiting on You All”

Fangela

Here is a wonderful song by Luke Temple’s new group, Here We Go Magic: “Fangela.” It reminds me of Paul Simon’s world music, and really makes me wish I still had a radio show!

Basement Jaxx – “Raindrops”

Real Love

Here’s Regina Spektor, angel that she is, covering John Lennon’s “Real Love.”

Dark Night of the Soul

Head over to NPR to hear the new Sparklehorse/Danger Mouse collaboration, Dark Night of the Soul, featuring a host of great guest vocalists including Julian Casablancas and Iggy Pop. This might be the best post-Beatles album I’ve ever heard, and I mean that as a big compliment. The only bad news: it’s not getting a proper release because of ongoing legal issues with EMI. It will be released as a 100-page booklet with photographs by David Lynch (!) as well as a blank CD-R to be used as you wish (wink wink).

Supernova

This is some quality pop music right here:

Definitely very radio-friendly, but I dig it.