Because our good friend, Trip, didn’t know anything about O.A.R., here’s a quick on-line guide:

• The O.A.R. Home Page (ofarevolution.com) - Autoplays the new single’s video.  Used to have all the original albums archived for your listening pleasure, but doesn’t appear to after this redesign.

• The Official O.A.R. Message Board - Yes, the band members do infrequently post there.

• Free Concert Downloads - O.A.R. has always encouraged the recording and free sharing of recordings of their concerts. (They’re not allowing soundboard recordings anymore, though, for reasons which strike me as “just an easier excuse to make than the real reason.”) There are hundreds of concerts for download at Archive.org.  It’s been a while since I downloaded one. Might be time again. . .

• My First Mention of O.A.R. -  I reviewed the band for the first time almost five years ago now. They’ve become much bigger since then.

• Set List Archives - Fascinating fan site.  It lists all their concerts and the set lists for each.  Plus, users can log in and check off the concerts they’ve been to, find out which songs they’ve heard live the most, etc. Here’s the first O.A.R. concert I went to, with Howie Day opening and flipping off the fans.

• The O.A.R. Wikipedia page - With more info and plenty of links.

O.A.R.’s “All Sides,” available now

I just downloaded it through Amazon’s MP3 store. Can’t wait to give it a proper listen.

Am also not ashamed to admit that an awful lot of Pepsi points made this album free for me.

A proper review will no doubt follow in the week ahead. . .

• The new O.A.R. single, “Shattered,” has a music video up on MSN.  The first thing I noticed is that they used a LensBaby to make the video.  That was confirmed by their YouTube “Making Of” video.

• The complete Guitar Hero: Aerosmith track list.

• Guitar Hero: The Beatles?  Maybe.  I doubt it, but it would be cool.

• The Simpsons map for Quake III.  (YouTube video at the link.)

• The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries are coming to DVD, too!  That was an overlooked gem. Beautiful TMS animation, too.

This is the “deluxe” edition of the album, which has a few extra tracks.  If you just want to download the MP3s, click through and you can find those a little further down the Amazon page.  It’s likely how I’ll be listening to the album.  The Amazon MP3 store rules.

First:

“Idol” Singer Diagnosed With Cancer, Luke Menard Hopeful About Battle With Hodgkin Lymphoma

Handsome “American Idol” finalist Luke Menard has been diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma, a representative for the singer’s a capella group Chapter 6 confirmed.

Also:

Daughter of Steven Curtis Chapman Accidentally Killed By Son

The five-year-old daughter of American Christian music star Steven Curtis Chapman has been struck and killed by a sport-utility vehicle driven by her brother. […]

McPherson says several members of the Chapman family witnessed the accident.

I think I just want to hide in a hole for the rest of the day now.

Barenaked Ladies’ children’s album is out in stores today:

It should be noted that O.A.R. has a new album coming out. It’s called “All Sides.”

It “streets” on July 15th, but you can hear a new song or two on their MySpace page, linked above, plus the full track listing. I only see three songs that are concert staples.  Looks like we’re getting lots of new cuts.

It all started with this Metafile post.

First, the necessary background comes from Wikipedia. To put it simply, Victor Borge was a musical genius with a wicked comedy streak running through him. He combined the two to give us some of the funniest comedy routines of the 20th century.

Need proof? The all-time classic is “Inflationary Language.” The next time you refer to someone as having a “fivehead,” think back to this routine for the natural evolution of such tomfoolery.

It’s “Phonetic Punctuation,” though, that’s often the best remembered, as Borge explains his system to say punctuation marks out loud. When he reads the story using this system, it leaves the audience in hysterics.

You can find both of those routines and a lot more on the “Victor Borge Live!” album. It’s available for immediate download via iTunes and Amazon’s MP3 music store (both for just under $6).

The Victor Borge Birthday Gala DVD is also in stock today if you want to see the genius.

There is, of course, VictorBorge.com. It looks like a fan site that was run for about two days before the curator got bored and moved on.

And here’s something even I didn’t know about the man:

60-MINUTE GOURMET - New York Times

I was fascinated to read recently how Cornish hens were popularized in this country. In the 1950’s, Victor Borge, the pianist and comedian, raised the birds on a farm he owned in Connecticut and sold them dressed and ready for the oven. They are a cross between an American fowl, the Plymouth Rock hen, and a Cornish or Bantam rooster or small gamecock.

Borge was a genius in so many ways.

The Stranger might just be Billy Joel’s most successful album, both critically and commercially. It won him a Grammy, and many of the songs you know him best for came off that album — “Movin’ Out,” “Just The Way You Are,” “The Stranger,” “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant,” “Only The Good Die Young,” “She’s Always a Woman” amongst them. “Vienna” has become a favorite in concert in recent years, too.

Phil Ramone has remastered the album and there are two editions available of it now for pre-order. The first is a two CD set. The first disc is the remastered album. The second is a Carnegie Hall concert recording from just before the release of the CD.

The second release is a deluxe edition that comes with both of those CDs, another CD recording of a concert from that time, a DVD of BBC’s “Old Grey Whistle” recording from the time (I think I have an audio bootleg of this somewhere), and a 48 page booklet featuring pics from a photo shot from the album and liner notes from a Rolling Stone Magazine editor. That “Old Grey Whistle” video includes favorites like “Ain’t No Crime” and “Root Beer Rag,” which is an incredible little piano ditty that you’ve likely never seen before.

It’s $40 for the latter, $17 for the former at Amazon for pre-order today.

Billy Joel will be appearing on Oprah Monday for the first time to promote it.

I am very excited. This is a great case of an edition you don’t want to just download off Amazon or iTunes.

Rolling Stone : Paul McCartney Divorce Settlement: $48.7 Million

The divorce saga between Paul McCartney and his estranged wife Heather Mills has finally come to an end, with Mills receiving £24.3 million, or $48.7 million.

Last week, the pundits disagreed with me. They dared to say my prediction that the Beatles catalog would wind up on IDOL that night was bunk. They said I didn’t know what I was talking about. Everyone knew, after all, that it couldn’t and wouldn’t happen until after McCartney’s divorce was finalized.

The divorce is now a done deal. And IDOL is doing a second Beatles week this week. The timing couldn’t possibly be better, aside from Yoko Ono casting a spell to bring Lennon back from the dead to perform a duet with David Archuleta.
I thus renew my prediction — the Beatles are coming to iTunes tonight. You’ll see the announcement in an ad during the first half of the show. Bring it on!

And if it doesn’t happen tonight, then it’ll happen on the results show tomorrow night. If it doesn’t happen then, I’ll come up with a new excuse. . . Eventually, you know I’ll be right!

(Let us all just hope that rumors of Mariah Carey acting as a guest judge tonight are horribly horribly wrong.  I know she has a new album out to pimp and all, but — Mariah judging Beatles covers?  No.)

Rolling Stone : Smoking Section: Jakob Dylan, Pharrell Williams, Eddie Vedder

While his Wallflowers have been on hiatus, Dylan spent 2007 visiting Rick Rubin’s studio, where he laid down minimalist acoustic tracks that deal with the darkness of these times — “Evil Is Alive and Well” and “All Day and All Night” — and more contented tunes like “Something Good This Way Comes.”

While I wasn’t a huge fan of their last album, I generally like The Wallflowers.  They’ve mixed up their sound a bit with each album, produce memorable tracks, and do solid work.  Sadly, I think everyone thinks of them as “one hit wonders” after “One Headlight” and moved on.  Frustrating.

I hope this upcoming solo album for Dylan works out, and will be downloadable at Amazon.com, where I’ve redeemed enough Pepsi bottle caps to earn almost a complete free album. =)

As I write this, we’re only 2.5 hours away from an announcement of the Beatles on iTunes. I’m guessing it’ll be announced on a commercial at the first break. Come to think of it, tonight’s show was already taped. So I bet Seacrest didn’t make the announcement. (That would have leaked by now, unless they laid it in afterwards.)

It has to be a commercial.

Update: It’s 9:32 and we have no Beatles on iTunes yet.  I’m beginning to think it’ll be announced during the results show tomorrow.  That’s live, so there’s no need to keep things a secret during the taping of the performances.

Yeah, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Failing that — yeah, the Beatles songs ARE on the iTunes store.  They’re just sung by the IDOL contestants. . .

Today, Apple signed the deal with Paul McCartney (rumored to be at about $400 million) to carry the complete Beatles catalogue on iTunes.  (I presume it’s an exclusive.)

Tomorrow, American Idol’s Top 12 perform Beatles songs.

Apple is a major sponsor of American Idol.

Apple traditionally releases new products on Tuesdays.

As I predicted a couple of weeks ago, the math on this is too good NOT to be true.

So how will it work?  Will Apple announce the Beatles on iTunes tomorrow morning?  Will they wait until Tuesday night and have Ryan Seacrest announce it?  Would Steve Jobs appear on Idol via satellite to help pad out a two hour show that only needs to be 90 minutes?  Or will Apple stay quiet and product a single 30 second commercial during Idol to make it official?  (Picture a Beatles song playing for 30 seconds with a montage of pics of the Beatles from their prime, followed by a card, “Only on iTunes” followed by the Apple logo.  And cut.)

Make your predictions now!

Here’s a complete history of the Leonard Cohen song, “Hellelujah.” It comes complete with sound clips tracking the progression of the song and its popularity as a cover ditty, right up to and including the recent cover of it by The Fall Out Boys that sounds pretty heinous.

It was announced today that AMERICAN IDOL acquired the rights to the Lennon/McCartney songbook for the first time in its seven seasons. And what does that mean? BEATLES WEEK!

IDOL has said that they’re focusing on the contestants more this season and only planning on four guest mentors. Surely, scoring McCartney or Ringo would be a huge “get” and one worth doing.

Now, hold onto your hats:

Apple is a major sponsor of IDOL this year. Besides selling all the audio and videos of the show performances on iTunes, they’re also advertising their computers and iPods during the show.

Wouldn’t “Beatles Week” be the perfect time to release the Beatles catalogue to iTunes, with an original Beatle appearing on the show and everything?

It’s corporate synergy. It’s the biggest TV show of the week. It’s masterful marketing and promotion. You don’t need Steve Jobs to make the announcements to a few hundred journalists when you have Ryan Seacrest telling tens of millions of people, after weeks of advertising the iPod Touch on the show.

Discuss.