Pop Culture Week

Andrew Bird continues his blogged journey into songcraft.

Julie Burchill discusses fifty years of a living Madonna Ciccone.

Kitty Empire digs the darker moods of Portishead.

The Times profiles I Am Kloot.

Christopher Hitchens again indicates his almost pathological inability to not be an inflammatory, literate tosser.

Ben Gibbard has contributed an essay to Paste.

Feist is to appear on Sesame Street.

Spinner interviews hardcore frontman, uncompromising author and kickass mofo Henry Rollins.

More New Yorker fiction from TC Boyle.

Esquire has a list of the five most humiliating cover songs.

Pitchfork loves the new Sun Kil Moon record.