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After toiling away for fifty weeks in a row to bring you to-the-minute updates on the Arcade Fire's exact coordinates and what Sufjan Stevens had for breakfast, the Pitchfork news team takes a well-deserved two-week break at the end of every year. The rest of the music world keeps on turning, though.

A few things caused us to get up from the massage table and hit the laptop, like the Rolling Stone/Camel lawsuit filed by Xiu Xiu and Fucked Up, Oscar Peterson's death, Jay-Z's departure from Def Jam, and Radiohead's New Year's Eve webcast. But a whole lot more happened between December 14, 2007 and January 2, 2008.

Here's a short round-up of newsy notes to tide you over until we get caught up and back in the swing of things.

Happy new year!

THOM YORKE GIVES THE FINGER TO EMI, TIMES OF LONDON

When he wasn't busy celebrating the physical release of In Rainbows with a New Year's Eve webcast, Thom Yorke spent his holidays feuding with EMI, Radiohead's former record label, and the Times of London newspaper. On December 28, the paper published a story reporting that Radiohead had demanded an exorbitant amount of advance money from EMI for In Rainbows, as well as a share of the rights to their back catalog. When EMI refused, the band left the label. On December 29, Yorke took to Radiohead's blog, Dead Air Space, refuting the Times' and EMI's claims. Here's what he wrote:

F Y I_____ if you care

for your information>>>

we did not ask for a load of cash from our old record label EMI to re- sign.
that is a L I E.
The Times in the UK should check its facts before it prints such dirt.

whAT we WANTED WAS some control over OUR WOrK and how it was used in the future by them-
that seemed REASONAblE to us,
as we cared about it a great deal.

Mr Hands was not interested.
So neither were we.

We made the sign of the cross and walked away. Sadly.

We are extremely upset that this crap is being spread about.

To bedigging up such bullshit, or more politely airing yer dirty laundry in public,
seems a very strange way for the head of an international record label to be proceeding.

On a happier note we took no 'BRead-HEAd' advances at all from both independent labels XL and TBD for our new record.

So judge for yourself.

AND we are really excited to be working with them. SHock!

AT least they do not behave like confused bulls in a china shop.

much love

thom
x

Thom also took some time out to joke around on British television. (Via At Ease)

NEW SUFJAN CHRISTMAS SONG NOT HITTING THE WEB ANYTIME SOON

Back in early November, we announced "The Great Sufjan Song Xmas Xchange!", a contest run by Sufjan Stevens' Asthmatic Kitty label. Fans were invited to submit an original Christmas song, Sufjan himself would pick his favorite, and the winner would get the rights to a brand new Sufjan original Christmas song.

On December 20, Asthmatic Kitty announced the winner: Alec Duffy's "Every Day Is Christmas". Sufjan wrote an amusing note about how and why he chose the song. "It feels, at once, like a classic show tune, the perfect parlor song, a bar ballad, and a church hymn. It is unencumbered with the pejoratives and prophetic exclamations of Christmas, the most complicated of holidays," he wrote.

You can hear "Every Day Is Christmas", as well as several finalist songs, on the Asthmatic Kitty website.

But the brand new Sufjan song, titled "The Lonely Man of Winter"? Don't hold your breath for it to show up in Forkcast. Duffy is saving the song for the 2008 holiday season, when it will premiere as part of a production by his theater company, the New York-based Hoi Polloi.

In a message on Hoi Polloi's website, musical director Dave Malloy explains that Duffy and his company have decided that "The Lonely Man of Winter" is "the song that will never be uploaded." They want to preserve the excitement and mystery of the rarity with a song that isn't easily accessible via a click of the mouse. (Malloy's message makes some excellent points, and is definitely worth a read.) Thanks to All Good Naysayers for the tip.

So we'll just have to wait until someone tapes the Hoi Polloi 2008 holiday show on their camera phone and puts it on YouTube.

LOU REED, THURSTON MOORE, STEVE REICH TO SPEAK AT SXSW 2008

It's January-- that means South by Southwest is only two months away! Helping us get psyched nice and early was the December 20 announcement of a few of the festival's speakers, including Lou Reed, Daryl Hall of Hall and Oates, Sire Records founder (and Belle and Sebastian song inspirer) Seymour Stein, and a conversation between Thurston Moore and legendary composer Steve Reich. Shit, Thurston Moore and Steve Reich talking to each other, and we get to listen? A hundred million cool points go to anyone who breathes the same air as those two dudes.

The music portion of SXSW goes down March 12-16 in Austin, Texas. A million billion bands will play, but for now, we only know a few: A Place to Bury Strangers will be there, and the Kills, Lightspeed Champion, Sons & Daughters, These New Puritans, and White Williams are scheduled for the Domino showcase.

Oh yeah, White Williams signed to Domino.

LIL WAYNE SNEAKS OUT DIGITAL EP

Lil Wayne is always one for surprises. Remember that Tha Carter III prequel The Leak that was supposed to come out on December 18? Well, it looks like it was replaced by a five-song, digital-only EP, also called The Leak, which came out on Christmas day. It includes "I'm Me", "Gossip", "Kush", "Love Me or Hate Me", and "Talkin' About It". Tha Carter III is still due in February, according to Billboard.com.

 

THE SHORTLIST MUSIC PRIZE KINDA FIZZLES OUT

The Shortlist Music Prize, seems to have fallen on hard times...again. Once heralded as the American answer to the UK's Mercury Music Prize, the Shortlist honors the best albums of the year that have yet to sell 500,000 copies in the U.S., as voted on by a variety of artists, journalists, and other tastemakers. Past winners include Sufjan Stevens, Cat Power, and TV on the Radio, and past nominators have included Stevens, Wayne Coyne, ?uestlove, Jack Black, Beck, Trent Reznor, Cameron Crowe, the Cure's Robert Smith, and other luminaries.

However, infighting among the award's founders lead to its cancellation in 2005, its resurrection as the New Pantheon Awards, and then its reversion back to the Shortlist. And even though competition sprang up from the likes of the MTVU Woodies, the Plug Awards, and Canada's Polaris Prize, it was always fun to see which artists nominated which records. (Hey, Norah Jones digs Devendra! John Mayer is a Nellie McKay fan!)

Until this year, that is.

On December 21, the Shortlist announced the 2007 listmakers, as well as their initial picks. And those listmakers are...a dude from Snow Patrol, a dude from the Killers, a dude from KCRW, some dudes from something called "Hunnypot Internet Radio", and a dude from CMJ who seems to have named himself "Rev. Moose".

Really, guys? Really?

The list of finalists (which will be whittled down to a, um, shortlist of 10, and then a winner, in the coming months) includes, like, everybody who was on any critic's best-of list this year. The Arcade Fire, Feist, M.I.A., Justice, LCD Soundsystem, Spoon... You get the picture.