We can’t imagine the folks over at NME altogether hated New York Magazine’s current cover story detailing how New York once again became an epicenter of musical creativity (hint: use rent prices to force nearly every struggling artist and venue into one borough, have loft mixer or something). After all, it did get MGMT on the cover. And the Brits seem to love those crazy chaps and their face paint. But they also don’t seem to want to let New York (the city or the mag) get too cocky. So they released a list today (their top 100 albums of the 2000’s) crowning The Strokes 2001 debut Is That Is? as the high watermark of the decade and reminding the city that their best music is behind them. Suck on that, Longstreth. (Via: NME)

NME is reporting that Yeah Yeah Yeahs are set to perform their 2003 debut masterstroke in its entirety this December  11-13 at the All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival in Minehead, England. According to report, the performance will be exclusive to the event and comprise the “first part of their show.”  This is all seems a little early and rushed. We could maybe get behind the Strokes uncaging Is This It in it’s entirety right about now, but even that feels like it needs some more time to age.

The skinny:

It’s possible that over the past several weeks you’ve noticed the reviews slow to a trickle around these parts. We had our reasons! Cookies weren’t involved! Okay, maybe they were! All of us at Tripwire HQ are pleased to introduce to you today a new chapter in our “take” on music criticism—by handing over the keys. Starting this week and every Tuesday hereafter, we’ll be posting a full album stream through our friends over at LaLa. What we’d like you to do is lend us your brainwaves and tweet whatever crosses your mind while listening. Maybe there’s a riff you can’t get out of your head. A lyric? A moment? An image? If you’re feeling ambitious, spend your 124 characters reviewing the record as a whole. Just toss those tweets over to us at @thetripwire and by the end of the week, we’ll cobble together and share the beautiful mess of a madlib it creates. Or, if you’re a complete Luddite/TwitterHater, you can just leave a review in the comments section. We’re flexible. You’re the boss now.

This week’s album is Julian Casablancas’ Phrazes For the Young, the Strokes frontman’s first solo adventure.

The bright side of this brief quote from Strokes’ singer Julian Casablancas is that it means several new Strokes songs are somewhere near finished. So there’s that! “There is a disagreement as to whether the songs are ready,” Casablancas told The Sun. “Some of the band think they are and others don’t. I’m somewhere in the middle.” The whole L.A. residency, New York houses, solo touring gigs can’t make the resolution to that all that timely either. “The problem is getting us together,” he said. “We’re scattered everywhere, and apart from when we’re rehearsing we don’t see each other. We’re not like people who go to the movies together.” But hey, at least this delayed album dilemna seems less overbearing than say, a yearlong sentence due to gun charges. (Via: NME)

By now you’re very much aware that frontStroke Julian Casablancas is getting into the solo album racket. You’ve probably also enjoyed the many melodic curves and turns of that album’s synthtastic early listen, “11th Dimension.” Casablancas will be bestowing further riches in the coming weeks by finally releasing Phrazes for the Young (November 2nd in the UK; November 3rd in the States) and spending the month of November in residence at LA’s Downtown Palace Theater. Every Friday of next month he’ll be performing solo cuts which, considering how wildly what we’ve heard has differed so far, may be nothing like the weirdly operatic and newly streaming “River of Brakelights” above. Surprises! Again, just to be clear, if you don’t live anywhere near LA, you won’t be as rich as someone who does. No word yet on a full tour, though hopefully the recording of the next Strokes full-length might get in the way of all that. It was a close call.