Fans of The Wire: Ever wonder how Prop Joe's earliest deals went down? Want to watch the very first McNulty-and-Bunk all-night bender? See Omar's first heist? The show's creator, David Simon, has produced three prequel shorts you can now catch on Amazon.com's page for the newly released fourth-season DVDs. 

Fans of the The Wire residing north of the 49th parallel will be able to catch the show's fifth and final season Sunday, January 6, the same day it debuts on HBO in the US. Viewers in western Canada can tune in on Movie Central at 8 PM PT and those in the eastern part of the country can watch on The Movie Network at 9 PM ET. The soundtrack will be available from Nonesuch two days later.

We can now bring you the complete track list from the album The Wire: “... and all the pieces matter." The deluxe, 35-track disc includes several versions of the show's opening theme song, Tom Waits’s “Way Down in the Hole,” along with tracks from the Baltimore club- and hip-hop scene that have never before been on a major-label release. Also included is some of the most memorable dialog from the program’s five years. We're also pleased to announce that a separate album, Beyond Hamsterdam: Baltimore Tracks from The Wire, showcasing only tracks by Baltimore musicians, will be released simultaneously.

Wired magazine's pop-culture blog, Underwire, reports on, well, The Wire. For those not yet wired in, writer Erik Malinowski previews the soon-to-be-released official series soundtrack from Nonesuch Records that "fans have been clamoring for years for." He recognizes the praise the series has gotten, saying that "few people will argue that The Wire is the best show on television. By far."

Responding to the news that Nonesuch will soon release the first-ever soundtrack from HBO's The Wire, Paste magazine points to the album's inclusion of local Baltimore artists as a prime example of the show's making authenticity paramount. Paste calls the upcoming soundtrack a "must-have" for the show's legendary die-hard fans.

As part of Pitchfork's Guest List feature, Sonic Youth founder Thurston Moore names The Wire as his Favorite TV Show at the Moment. He admits that he didn't own a TV for years and doesn't watch much these days, but he does make time to catch the show: "The writing on The Wire is pretty intense. The dialogue, the storylines—they're really involving."

Late last month, The New Yorker published an in-depth profile of the HBO series The Wire and its creator David Simon, covering everything from the inception of the show to a preview of its upcoming fifth season. Singer-songwriter Steve Earle, who has appeared on the show and is a friend of its creator, tells Talbot that Simon is "a music freak."

Nonesuch is pleased to announce the January 8, 2008, release of the first soundtrack from the critically acclaimed, Peabody Award–winning HBO series The Wire. That's two days after the series kicks off its fifth season. It also marks the first time music from the David Simon–created show has ever been collected and released as an album.