When a group of revered and influential rockers come back together after a decade of acrimonious separation and/or inactivity, all but the most hard-hearted punks can grant them one lap around the reunion circuit playing the old should-have-been-hits, if only to collect the accolades and the cash that probably eluded them the first time.

Boston's proto-alternative quartet the Pixies took that victory lap in 2004. Now, while they remain popular enough to play three nights at the Aragon Ballroom—Friday and Saturday sold out, though Thursday only was about half full—it's hard to consider them anything but a cynical corporation cashing in on blatant nostalgia—a hipper version of Creedence Clearwater Revisited or Journey and whoever is singing with that group these days.

So go ahead, guys, and let him know that he should lighten up and stop being such a ridiculous asshole, and to quit being such an indie-purist while he's at it. And be sure to tell him that, duh, it's not possible that there's anything wrong with what the band's doing because they're not forcing anyone to buy anything! Altough maybe you don't have to, since it seems he already has his own commenters starting to show up. Just_A_Girl, for instance, thinks it was totally "pretentions" of him to compare them to Journey. Which is totally fair, come to think of it. I prefer to compare them to Kiss.

Anyway, because Beck is actually a lot cooler and with much better taste than I ever give him credit for, he released a 10-minute tribute to Partch on his website earlier this week. Was it in response to Friedberger being an idiot? We'll probably never know.

Now Friedberger's taken to his band's MySpace page with a pair of positively full-of-shit blog posts that are basically unreadable. In one of them, titled Imaginary Response (clever!), he appears to take a shot at Beck:

How fruitful an imaginary song proved in practice! So as we all move forward, shouldn't we admit that posting songs on the internet—being virtual, in other words—is so last year? So to speak. Isn't that what every music management company intern from Northeastern recommends that bands do? That can't be right

Yes! So last year! Said Friedberger in a blog post on fucking MySpace.

[via Pitchfork]

No word on what those will sound like, but the announcement makes oblique references to the involvement of Dr. Dre and Just Blaze, so that's promising. Relapse 2, meanwhile, will come out next year sometime. On an unrelated note, did you see those amazing cyphers from the 2009 BET Awards? Best idea ever. Check out Eminem, Mos Def and Black Thought freestyling together after the jump.

• You have no idea how many times Yahoo Answers has refused to respond to my question, "Dear Yahoo Answers, are Hall and Oates in love? Sincerely, L Magazine Film Editor Mark Asch, BFA."

Anyway that is a very brief historical summary of why Pitchfork's Douglas Wolk is reviewing Do What You Want, Be What You Are: The Music of Daryl Hall and John Oates today. He wisely leaves larger issues of taste, irony and history to idiot big-picture bloggers, and contextualizes the hits (and misses) within the style of the times. He gives it a 4.8, but that seems to have more to do with the selection than anything else, because we all know that it's ok to like Hall and Oates now, and not even ironically. Postmodernism wins!

Also, Nina Simone's cover of "Rich Girl", also.

After a typically extended period of silence, Belle and Sebastian have re-surfaced, posting the above image on their website yesterday, dropping a hint that they might be working on the follow-up to 2006's brilliant The Life Pursuit. Now if the Hold Steady and John Prine would just announce new records as well, my year would be totally set. [via Tiny Mix Tapes]

"Cousins," the second single from Vampire Weekend's forthcoming album, Contra, hit the internet on Monday, and today we get the video. The song itself is crazy good, like "A-Punk" on speed, and the video is pretty great too. Two thoughts so far: One, I don't know if it's the jagged movements or his slightly longer hair, but Ezra Koenig is starting to remind me of John Linnell from They Might Be Giants. And two, he holds up a boot, then a picture of a boot, that very well might be the very same LL Bean Katahdin boot I hope to receive for Christmas this year.

I'm just now getting around to watching the Bob Dylan video for "Must Be Santa," off his incredibly weird holiday album, Christmas in the Heart, and you know what? Bob Dylan is awesome. Bob Dylan in a big white top-hat is awesome, Bob Dylan in a Santa hat is awesome, Bob Dylan playing bartender is awesome, Bob Dylan smoking a cigar is awesome, Bob Dylan dancing and almost doing sort of a pelvic thrust thing (1:09) is awesome, Bob Dylan having the ability to transport himself from one side of a room to another in a split-second like a vampire is awesome, and Bob Dylan looking suspiciously at Santa Claus just moments after a man jumps through a window for no apparent reason is awesome.

The video for Alicia Keys new single, "Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart," made its way online this morning, and it's about a woman with healing powers or something. Totally not important. Fast-forward to 1:22, though, where you'll notice that a car has killed a dog and knocked over a bright orange distribution box belonging to a certain free, pocket-sized biweekly magazine.

In an interview with MTV News, he spoke candidly about each of his four full-lengths. Get Rich or Die Tryin, he reminds us, was the highest-selling debut hip-hop album of all time. His follow-up album, The Massacre, was the record he made when he was fat. And his third album, Curtis... well, that one was capital-A Art.

"This right here is my artist album — Curtis, album three. I had to name this album Curtis. My grandfather's Curtis Sr., his first born is Curtis Jr., I'm his first grandchild, I'm Curtis James Jackson III. And that's why my third album is titled Curtis. I attempted to make this album human. That was my outline for what the record should be. I wrote 'Straight to the Bank,' I put laughter in the record — that was one of three records. I wrote what I felt what was representation of joy. I wrote 'I Still Kill' featuring Akon. 'I Still Kill' had the aggression, anger. 'Ayo Technology' was love, sex. I put a lot of different things into this album, and I found a new place musically collaborating with all the talented artists on this project. What's interesting is I came up with the concept before Before I Self Destruct and wrote four demo tracks before I decided to go with Curtis because I knew Before I Self Destruct would impact harder behind this."

Then he talked about the new one, Before I Self Destruct, and he definitely likes it, but it's not clear if he thinks it's art. Click through to see what he had to say! But also feel free not to!