Excellent Online

Here's the official word: *Canadian singer Leslie Feist is the winner of the Seventh Annual Shortlist Music Prize for her album The Reminder. Feist is the second female artist to win the prize, following Cat Power who won the award last year. In a statement, Listmaker Gary Lightbody called The Reminder "the album of the year for 2007 or any year I can think of: it's modern and classic all at once."

Elbow have revealed that Richard Hawley makes a guest appearance on their forthcoming album. - Source

Modest Mouse must be the busiest rodents since the dress-makers in Cinderella. In the February 7 issue of Rolling Stone (the one with Thom Yorke on the cover), frontman Isaac Brock revealed a whole bunch of post-We Were Dead activity to the amp;quot;Smoking Sectionamp;quot; column. Although none of this info has been confirmed yet, here's what he had to say: - Source

Jazz Summers, who has managed bands such as Snow Patrol and The Verve, has launched a new "all-encompassing" record company-style fund which bands will be able to sign to. - Source

The Danish trio spills the beans on their MySpace blog: *we are getting very close to having a finish record. everything comes from finland these days, it's cool there. actually, to be more exact when i say finish i really mean finished and when i say finished i reeeeally mean almost finished writing the record. we have thrown so much material away its sick, SICK. i have plus 200 recordings on my computer, perhaps 25 percent is stand up, the rest is straight to remix. we have now decided on a producer for the record and he was here in copenhagen for a few days recently. it was great to get started on those talks, discussions, arguments. for a couple of days we played and talked music, had indian food and shared one bottle of red wine. amazing. anyways all. hope you are all well.*MP3: Mew - Special (via SCO) - Source

Chris & the gang are back. The band gets chatty on their official blog over the weekend: *"Mixing has been slow and painstaking but that's just the nature of the beast. So give us another month or so and we might just have an album worthy of your patience."*Also, despite rumors, the album will not be titled Prospekt. - Source

Despite a sinking stock and plummeting sales, top executives at Warner Music Group are still enjoying nosebleed compensation pay... - Source

Revived The Jam band From The Jam have hinted at the release of a live DVD and a possible album of new material this year. - Source

As previously reported on NME.COM, Eels' Mark 'E' Everett planned to place an advert for his new compilation album, 'Useless Trinkets', during the Super Bowl half-time ad slot yesterday (February 3). - Source

We tip our caps to Jools Holland regularly around here, for his musicianship whenever we blow the dust off our Squeeze records, but more frequently when he hosts musicians we love on that BBC show of his. A show which turned 200 episodes old Friday night with a very special lineup of musical well wishers. The Times Online captures the scene:The cake has been sitting all day in the middle of Studio 1 at BBC Television Centre. But only ten minutes before the 200th episode of Later with Jools Holland is due to be recorded does someone realise that lighting 200 candles - and keeping them lit while the studio audience sings Happy Birthday - is easier said than done. The urbane ringmaster of terrestrial music television doesn't fancy his chances of blowing them out either, at least not without singeing his trademark dapper suit.