Tim Burton sat down with MTV News for an exclusive interview last night just before giving a Lincoln Center audience a sneak peek at three scenes from his upcoming film, Sweeney Todd. Nonesuch will release the film's soundtrack on December 18, and there'll be plenty to hear: As MTV.com reports, "It is the music that carries this film." And just to be sure, the site's headline reads, "Johnny Depp's Voice Steals the Bloody Show."

Daily News Los Angeles recently spoke with Caetano Veloso, whom the paper calls "one of the most respected Portuguese-language poets in the world," in advance of a rare Southern California appearance last night in Pasadena. He plays tomorrow night in Santa Cruz.

This week, New York magazine's "Vulture" recommends Sérgio and Odair Assad's latest recording, Jardim Abandonado, as "a blissful testament to the richness of their pairing." Throughout the album, "the brothers perform a brilliant act of creative give-and-take." And on a record of astounding performances, the "Vulture" notes as "most appealing ... their subdued and lyrical 'Rhapsody in Blue'—a reminder of what can be accomplished when a guitar is in the right hands."

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."

On Sunday, Caetano Veloso made his Toronto concert debut, and the Globe and Mail takes the opportunity to weigh in on the ever-evolving performer it calls, approvingly, "a master of 'all is not what it seems.'" "The music of Cê in itself is prime Veloso in trickster mode. It's rock music that's a poke in the eye of 'rockism,' the elevation of certain rock music to exalted elite status ... But the music, whether audacious and driving or achingly melancholic, and from whatever period of his prolific songbook, was unfailingly stronger for any inherent contradictions." In advance of tomorrow night's show in Pasadena, the Los Angeles Times has published a profile of the performer examining how he has maintained what may be "the most varied career of any '60s icon."

"Had Caetano Veloso just aged gracefully, it would have been enough," says The New Yorker ahead of Veloso's NYC Cê tour stops. "Had he merely written thirty or so perfect songs, it would have been enough. Had he only recorded Cê, one of the most striking and least indulgent rock records of 2007, it would have been enough. But on top of all that there’s the fact that when he comes to New York, he gets to play to his crowd."

With the national tour of Sweeney Todd now at its second stop, Toronto can experience the production that was so well received in Boston. BroadwayWorld says the reason for the response is clear: “the simple genius of exceptional material interpreted within a brilliant directorial vision and delivered by an immensely talented and inspired cast. In short, this Sweeney Todd is not to be missed.” The Toronto Star calls it “so musically thrilling, dramatically inventive and visually striking that anyone who likes theatre above the ordinary should be thrilled to spend a few hours in its company ... You'd be a bloody fool to miss this one ... It's a murderously magical evening in the theatre.”

Inside the 40th Anniversary edition of Rolling Stone and in the first-ever digital edition of the entire magazine is a snazzy four-page foldout devoted to the best in the "indie rock universe," riffing off the interplanetary theme with subheadings like "Intergalactic Ear Killers" and "Lost in Bass." Positioned at the very center of the spread and, therefore, the sonic solar system, is Wilco, among the Masters of the Universe—everybody else just rocks in it.").

In today's New York Daily News, Carolina Gonzalez previews Caetano Veloso's upcoming New York City performances at the Nokia Theater, and has a friendly suggestion for the folks who hand out the Grammys: "If the Latin Recording Academy gave out a Grammy for Best Living Songwriter, Caetano Veloso would walk away handily with the prize." (While that's not yet an option, Caetano has grabbed two nominations for his new record, Cê—Best Singer-Songwriter Album and Best Brazilian Song for "Não Me Arrependo" off the album.)

Caetano Veloso performed at Boston's Orpheum Theatre last Friday, and the Boston Globe reports on what was a full-on rock show by "the gifted and eclectic Brazilian superstar." With the focus of the concert on Caetano's latest album, the rock-influenced Cê, "the setting was stripped-down and austere by the artist's standards, but the ideas were not."

"Their speed, their gorgeous tone, their ease reaching over the body of the guitar to its extreme high range, their uncanny musical memories ... and their ability to play thousands of notes without a single clinker, click or buzz are the stuff of guitar gods," says the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel of Sérgio and Odair Assad's recent performance in Milwaukee. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, reviewing their performance in the Seattle Symphony's guitar series, says that "the Assads displayed all the taste and refinement for which they are known ... their music gleams with such innate virtuosity."

MSN has announced its list of the upcoming holiday season's must-see movies, and both Sweeney Todd and There Will Be Blood are among the top ten. "Combine Stephen Sondheim's Tony Award-winning musical of a revenge-seeking barber, Tim Burton's distinctive vision, the charisma of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Sacha Baron Cohen, and you're up for one hell of a bloody (literally) ride," says MSN of Sweeney. And Jonny Greenwood's There Will Be Blood score is a powerful player in that film.