NPR has named "California Girls," off Distortion, The Magnetic Fields' latest Nonesuch release, today's Song of the Day. A perfect "cold-weather anthem" for the arctic chill about to hit much of northeastern US, the song "hums and reverberates with defiled surf-rock," says NPR. "California Girls" is "sung with supreme confidence by Shirley Simms, with the faint outlines of a catchy melody glimmering under a cloud of fuzz."

In a four-star review of The Wire soundtrack ... and all the pieces matter, the Independent declares: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that The Wire ... is the most consistently excellent tele-drama of this millennium," with its music "a large factor in the show's impact." In keeping with that high-set bar, the soundtrack itself offers "a compelling array of hard-hitting cuts."

While on the set filming Sweeney Todd in the UK, Helena Bonham Carter, who plays the Demon Barber's cohort in crime, Mrs. Lovett, spoke with the Independent about the role she'd waited a lifetime to play. It wasn't a role that was simply handed to her, either, despite her relationship with the film's director, Tim Burton. It was only when the show's composer, Stephen Sondheim, gave her the OK that Bonham Carter's place was secured, and the couple could "burst into tears" of joy.