I posted a blog here several months ago to provide some history behind Jay-Z's award-winning but hella-lame "NY State of Mind." Now I'm back with the latest interpolation, brought to my attention by fellow journalist Dan McCarthy, a New Hampshire native who trolls the Internet daily looking for new musical numbers that lampoon his home state.

We may have mentioned this once or twice, but we love Beach House here at the Phoenix HQ. Their album Teen Dream has been in our lives for kind of a while now, and it's still just spectacular. Our bro-in-arms Nick Curran was at their recent sold-out show at the (very dark) Paradise and shot this video of them doing "10 Mile Stereo."

So the recent Sleater-Kinney reunion non-news left me excited enough to have possibly given short shrift to the real story here: Corin Tucker's return to making music after a long break. She announced on her Facebook page earlier this month that she is indeed recording a solo album and posted a bunch of pictured of her in the studio.

Further debunking the widespread rumor that overnight sensation SAM ADAMS inflated his chart-topping iTunes numbers by purchasing huge quantities his own digital EP, BILLBOARD MAGAZINE reported last week that, according to SoundScan, Adams' sales were evenly distributed throughout the country, concluding "So far, there isn't any evidence to support the blog-fueled allegations."

THURSDAY 03.25 | UNTITLED @ Good Life | Join the folks from Allston's beloved Rescue boutique for the second installment of UNTITLED - a heaping serving of new-wave and post-punk classics plus a pop-up mall featuring Rescue, Orchard skate shop, and Creep Street. Throw in some $3 'Gansett tallboys and you've got the makings of the dirtiest retail binge ever.

Standing in Austin on St. Patrick's Day, learning that Alex Chilton was dead too soon -- this mere hours before we all expected to see him play a Big Star show -- you sorta wanted to ask the universe, "Why?" And then, the following Tuesday, we got the answer: God is merciful, and He didn't want Alex Chilton to see some chooch butcher the Box Tops biggest hit on American Idol

There is actually not really much news in this recent Guardian interview with Carrie Brownstein. But we hear "Sleater-Kinney" and "reunion" mentioned in the same breath and our ears prick up. Here's Brownstein:

"I think it will happen," Brownstein said. "We [just] have to loop around."

The piece quotes her as saying the reunion is possible "in the next five years."

If I didn’t know any better, I’d read this quote from You Say Party! We Say Die! siren Becky Ninkovic and assume she’s candyflipping her face off as her band speeds across the Pacific Northwest to their next tour stop.

“We knew there was this energy of love kind of taking over everything, coming out of a hard time of too much touring and just being really worn down,” Ninkovic says regarding the conception of the band’s junior-year effort, XXXX (Paper Bag Records, 2009).

NPR's got the new MGMT album Congratulations streaming for the next three weeks: set your audio-ripping plugins on stun. We here at the Phoenix have to decide in the next few hours whether it's good enough that you'll want to vote for it in a month. So stream some more tracks after the jump -- and then speak up, or else this'll be banished to the Best Music Poll 2011 bracket. 

THE NATIONAL just leaked the first song from their highly-anticipated album HIGH VIOLET, due May 11. Download it after the jump . . . 

We stumbled into WFNX honcho MIKE TIERNEY at a couple of shows in Austin, and we must've been pretty shitfaced, because apparently we asked him to write something for the Phoenix this week. Not to worry: the man's got impeccable taste in about-to-become-volcanic alt-radio bangers. You can read his piece in this week's issue or right here online.

Our intrepid videobloggers P. NICK CURRAN and ADDISON POST spent SXSW week tracking down some of their favorite bands. Or, in the case of Gwar, being tracked down by them. Here's a few of the highlights:

BEAR IN HEAVEN INTERVIEW:

More video: Bear In Heaven live at SXSW

BEACH FOSSILS INTERVIEW:

So . . . bad news first. Remember that THURSTON MOORE - J MASCIS - ANDREW WK supergroup we told you about? Well, um . . . it didn't happen. Or, well, it kind of happened. But Andrew WK didn't show up. He didn't bother to cancel, either. He, like, just didn't show up. As in, the rest of DEMOLISHED THOUGHTS were hanging out on stage, waiting.

20 MORE PHOTOS: Hole at SXSW 2010

When we saw Courtney Love's name on the SXSW schedule, we assumed that the first Hole shows in a decade would bring the week's biggest trainwreck. Amazingly: not sucky! Actually good! Instead, meltdown-of-the-week honors went to her Saturday-night opening act: ex-Fall Out Boy singer PATRICK STUMP. Video evidence of both after the jump . . .

SLEIGH BELLS + Saturday, March 20 at Fader Fort

Our videographer P. Nick Curran was lucky enough to catch it on video: right up there is the moment SLEIGH BELLS became stars. Not that they were without buzz coming in. They emerged blog-famous from CMJ this winter; MIA's putting out their album in May. And there's no secrets about their appeal: ex-screamokid Derek Miller blaring feelgood metal riffs, ex-popsinging siren Alexis Krauss earning her tattoos with updated Digital Hardcore swagger, iPod handling the rest.