Jonny Greenwood's There Will Be Blood soundtrack is out in the UK today, and musicOMH says the music sets the scene well for the film's early-2008 release there. "As scene setting goes," says the site, "this is something pretty exceptional, the rising melody lingering in the memory even after the first listen." Come Oscar time, "the judges would do well to consider this fine piece of film writing." Regardless, "As a piece of music in its own right the group of pieces works handsomely ... There's an urgency and tension throughout that makes it difficult to ignore."

Time Out New York, though reluctant to use the word "masterpiece" for fear of contributing to its overuse, says Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, earning a perfect six stars, is worthy of the word: "[T]he writer-director’s attempt to map the moment when bootstrap mentality curdles into cutthroat corporate culture earns the title. There hasn’t been a more breathtaking, damning portrait of frontier paranoia since [Robert Altman's] McCabe & Mrs. Miller."

CBS Sunday Morning's film critic David Edelstein counts Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood as "the jewel" among holiday releases. Edelstein calls the film "a psychodrama with the epic scale of an Old Testament parable," and says Daniel Day-Lewis, in the lead role, "looms as large as the derricks that dominate the unruly landscape." Even the film's already-controversial final scene is, in Edelstein's opinion, "brilliant," all part of the "mad American classic" Anderson has created.

NPR's music programs and reviewers are turning in their lists for the Best of 2007, and a number of Nonesuch artists are among the top choices from public radio. Wilco's Sky Blue Sky tops World Cafe's list of the best albums of the year. All Things Considered's Banning Eyre has three Nonesuch albums among his Top Ten of 2007: Caetano Veloso's Cê, Sérgio and Odair Assad's Jardim Abandonado, and Youssou N'Dour's Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take). On the list for "Top Ten Jazz Jewels of 2007" from WDUQ is Metheny/Mehldau Quartet. And Wilco's "Hate It Here," from Sky Blue Sky, is among the best songs of the year, per KUT.

In its review of the new big-screen version of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, Rolling Stone calls the film "a thriller-diller from start to finish: scary, monstrously funny and melodically thrilling ... This Sweeney is a bloody wonder, intimate and epic, horrific and heart-rending as it flies on the wings of Sondheim's most thunderously exciting score." The review exclaims that the "brilliantly conceived and executed film moves from one highlight to another."

"Watershed highlights what lang does best," says MOJO magazine of k.d. lang's upcoming Nonesuch release: "fulsome, ballads sung with precision-timing, intelligence, and a humorous twist." The new record, writes MOJO's Lucy O'Brien, is "reflective and wistful." In keeping with that tone, Watershed "shows lang revisiting the wry country style of her early work  ... layering her laconic delivery with lush, seductive harmonies."

Jonny Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood was recently acclaimed in a Los Angeles Times article as signaling "new heights of inspiration" for director Paul Thomas Anderson's use of music in film. In this week's Time Out London, writer Sharon O'Connell further explores the interplay between movies and music in her review of Greenwood's score, saying: "[A] soundtrack needs to be so dynamic as to propel or even predict a narrative/mood, to be aesthetically empathetic to the nth degree and yet, it must guard against standing out from the movie like a large pair of creatively aggressive bollocks. That's a tall order ... Jonny Greenwood has long since proven himself up to the task."

While calling the Oscars at this point is still the gamble of the year, the Guardian's Jeremy Kay decided to get in on the game after seeing Paul Thomas Anderson's "deliriously barmy tale" There Will Be Blood. "If the white knuckles of Daniel Day-Lewis aren't squeezed around the lead actor statuette come February 24, 2008," writes Kay, "I'll be stupefied. Which is precisely how I felt after watching his performance as Daniel Plainview, a masterful amalgam of determination and loneliness that was so utterly compelling I crushed the hand of the poor soul sitting next to me out of sheer terror."

Jardim Abandonado, the latest album from Sérgio and Odair Assad, was reviewed in today's edition of All Things Considered on NPR. Says Banning Eyre, these "legends of the classical-guitar world" have done their instrument and their precursors proud. Listen to the review here.

Youssou N'Dour performed the closing show of his current US tour before a sold-out crowd at the Somerville Theatre, outside Boston. According to the Herald, "the singer with the astounding pipes" led the audience through "two sweaty, dance-inducing hours" of songs throughout his career, including his latest album, Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take). And by the end of the show, writes the Herald's Bob Young, "N’Dour left no doubt that he—and Africa—still rule the world of scintillating powerhouse grooves." In last night's tour closer, "N’Dour showed why he’s one of pop music’s most commanding performers."

"It's bloody wonderful." That's how David Ansen describes the Tim Burton–directed Sweeney Todd in the latest issue of Newsweek. Ansen finds the film to be faithful to the Stephen Sondheim musical, itself the source of "some of the most beautiful, witty and disturbing songs in the musical-theater canon." Time says: "Burton and Depp infuse the brilliant cold steel of Stephen Sondheim's score with a burning passion." The Hollywood Reporter says that "the show couldn't have fallen into better hands ... Depp is a Sweeney Todd for the ages." Billboard exclaims: "Johnny Depp is pretty much perfect."

Johnny Depp and Tim Burton grace the cover of New York magazine's Best of 2007 issue this week, which wittily names the duo's film version of Sweeney Todd "The Best Serial Killer Musical Ever!" Inside the magazine is a more serious evaluation from critic David Edelstein of "Tim Burton's brilliantly intense adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's great musical." Edelstein compliments Depp and his co-star Helena Bonham Carter for their "riveting" performances and Burton for filming the duo "with such loving intimacy that their fever takes hold."