Last summer in California Brian introduced me to the rock-and-roll music of the Cold War Kids. Friday evening the kids are playing a $3 show at the Prospect Park Bandshell. This concert is mandatory. Either you’re going to be there or you need a valid excuse.

The free single on iTunes this week (until Monday) is “Can’t Find the Words” by Karina. You’re going to want to have this song, because it’s perfect for summer. And it’s free, so why not?

“Handlebars” by Flobots. Good song, great video. Check it out here.

Two big Brooklyn cover stories this week.

1. Marc Ferris does a fine job explaining the Brooklyn country music scene in the Village Voice.
2. In New York magazine, writer Adam Sternbergh examines Brooklyn through the prism of the Brownstoner real estate blog.*
   

If you read these stories, you’ll think they’re about two different cities.

The borough I know is the one in the first story, a place where all sorts of people manage to live in close quarters and get along, everybody listening to their own style of music. It’s not a nervous hive of interlopers bickering about real estate.

The new Weezer video for “Pork and Beans” is on YouTube and about YouTube.

They Might Be Giants have recorded a whole series of Dunkin’ Donuts commercials. Here are two of the latest ones.

Video:

Video:

Some people think 2:42 is the perfect length for a song. On further consideration, I’m thinking 30 seconds.

Gradually, maybe over ten years, TV commercials have emerged as the best way to debut new music. Not radio (Over!), not MTV, not AOL, not MySpace. It’s great if you can get your song into an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, but it’s even better if you can get your song into something like a car commercial. Years ago, music fans would turn against bands that they thought were corporate sell-outs. Now I think audiences are so wise to the entertainment marketing machine that nobody is shocked to learn that some musicians are in it for the money.

For a few impossibly lucky bands, success comes in the form of an Apple commercial (like the two videos above). It’s a safe bet that Apple doesn’t have to pay these bands a dime to license their music. The labels probably lobby Apple pretty hard to get songs into these ads.

Apple advertising songs are their own genre. The tunes are happy, upbeat. They are from bands that sound familiar but that you’ve never heard of. They have a uniform volume level, so they sound good through a set of uninsulated iPod headphones in a train or on a treadmill. And most of all, they sound absolutely tight the first time you hear them in a 30 second commercial (which, coincidentally, is the length of a song preview on iTunes). But these songs aren’t destined to become classics or outshine the product they are advertising. The novelty wears out and they get tiresome just in time to make room for the next song — and the next Apple product.

Let’s coin a 30-30 rule for iPod commercial songs: They sound great in 30 second clips, and they wear out after 30 plays.

Today, I can’t get enough Yael Naïm’s “New Soul” and The Ting Ting’s “Shut Up and Let Me Go.” Ask me in six months if I can even remember the names of these artists.

Here’s a mix of exceptionally weird cover songs. As a reminder: Weird can mean good. Weird can mean bad.

Listen to this mix on Muxtape (while it lasts!)

* * *

1. Proclaimers - King of the Road

2. Alanis Morisette - My Humps

3. Sean Connory - In My Life

4. Tom Jones f/ Ruby - Kung Fu Fighting

5. Fountains of Wayne - … Baby One More Time

6. The Cardigans - Iron Man

7. Paul Anka - Smells Like Teen Spirit

8. Leonard Nimoy - I Walk The Line

9. Richard Cheese - Fight For Your Right To Party

10. Joah Valley - Can’t Buy Me Love

A theory is circulating the Internet that 2:42 is the perfect length for a pop song.

Here are some songs I like that are exactly that length:

• “California Dreamin’” by The Mamas & The Papas
• “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash
• “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell
• “Teenagers” by My Chemical Romance
• “Have You Ever Seen The Rain?” by Credence Clearwater Revival
• “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” by Paul Simon

If we allow another second on either side, we get some more classics:

• “Crazy” by Patsy Kline
• “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You” by Elvis Presley
• “Hot Rod Lincoln” by Commander Cody
• “I’m On Fire” by Bruce Springsteen
• “Waterloo” by ABBA
• “This Charming Man” by The Smiths

Hmm, there might be something to this.

A geography expert studied the 2001 song “Area Codes” and concluded: “Ludacris has hoes in the entire state of Maryland.”

Behold Ludacris’ Rap Map of US Area Codes (via the Strange Maps blog).