Caetano Veloso spoke with Newsday about his new album, the rock-infused, Cê, and his long history with the genre, going back to the early days of Tropicália. "I never intended to solve the contradiction between traditional and contemporary music," he says. "Real contemporary music can use tradition in so many ways: to reaffirm aspects of it while refusing others, to create a total contrast to it, to choose the role of its savior. Or, as we Tropicálistas did, sway through all of the above."

On New York Times music critic Jon Pareles's list of events to look out for this week are concerts by Caetano Veloso and Youssou N'Dour, two "musicians who qualify as full-fledged national heroes." While they come from different continents, both "accepted the same mission: to make contemporary pop that sounds both local and global, and highly individual." And each will perform at New York's Nokia Theatre.

New Yorker music critic Alex Ross will be reading from his new book, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century, at Politics & Prose in Washington, DC, tomorrow. In advance of the reading, he spoke with Washington Post's Express about the state of classical music, and offered readers some Top Five lists on the subject. Number one on his list of contemporary classical works pop listeners might like: Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians.

"Daniel Day-Lewis is a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination for his performance as an unscrupulous prospector in Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation of Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil!" So writes Ruthe Stein in her preview of There Will Be Blood in the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle special holiday movie section. "Day-Lewis is in almost every scene, and he shows how ambition can destroy as well as nurture," she reports. "He's scary. Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine) is frightful in another way as a fire-breathing preacher and would-be healer."

Catch a glimpse of director Paul Thomas Anderson's monumental new film, There Will Be Blood, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as a merciless turn-of-the-century oil baron. In the preview, you can hear Jonny Greenwood's powerful score, which the LA Times says gives the film with an "epic sonic scope" worthy of an Oscar nomination. Nonesuch will release the soundtrack December 18; the film hits theaters December 26.

k.d. lang was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, featuring the UK broadcast debut of the song "I Dream of Spring," off her forthcoming album, Watershed. She spoke with Jane Garvey about writing and producing the new album, due out in February, preparing for her US tour, and visiting her hometown of Consort in Alberta, Canada—pop. 736, up from 650 when k.d. was growing up there.

Caetano Veloso's tour through California in support of his album Cê began earlier this week in Pasadena, and Variety magazine reports that the singer "sounded effortlessly contemporary. Even more impressively, he did it without compromise." For Variety writer Steven Mirkin, the rocking stage show brings comparisons to Talking Heads, Lou Reed, and the Strokes.

The Criterion Collection has announced that it will release a special four-disc set of the Bernardo Bertolucci masterpiece The Last Emperor on February 26, 2008. The film depicts the tumultuous life of Pu Yi, who came to power in 1908, at the age of three, and became China's last emperor. It garnered nine Academy Awards, winning each of the categories in which it was nominated, including Best Original Score, by Ryuichi Sakomoto, Cong Su, and David Byrne. Among the special-edition DVD's bonus features are audio commentary by Sakamoto and new video interviews with Sakamoto and Byrne.

When Youssou N'Dour performed in upstate New York in 1994, he did so before a crowd of more than 150,000 at Woodstock ’94. This Sunday night, he’ll return to the region to play before a slightly more intimate, though likely no less enthusiastic crowd, at the Kingston, NY, Ulster Performing Arts Center. But as the town’s Daily Freeman reports, at least a few reminders of the spirit and sound of the original event at Yasgur's Farm in 1969 remain. The Washington Post recognizes Youssou as “the greatest contemporary singer from Senegal and possibly all of Africa," and of his new album, Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take): “the album's sound is intricate, indigenous and characteristically exhilarating.”

"Three-Way," the first song off the upcoming Magnetic Fields album Distortion, makes its Stereogum premiere today. You can hear it on stereogum.com now. The album is due out on Nonesuch January 15, 2008, with a US tour to follow.

Variety adds There Will Be Blood to its "Contenders" list for likely and deserving Oscar nominees. Citing Paul Thomas Anderson's past cinematic successes, Boogie Nights and Magnolia, Variety says that while the director has moved on from the "big tapestry" of those films, "he matches it here—and then some—with the big portrait."

Best known for his contribution to the soundtrack for the 2003 Italian Job remake starring Mark Wahlberg, Brazilian-born DJ Amon Tobin talks to The Moscow Times about a surprising array of influences, from Ennio Morricone to Grandmaster Flash, and about his latest record, Foley Room, on which he looked to Kronos Quartet to record new tracks he could sample. Moscow readers can listen for the Kronos samples at Tobin's show tonight at Ikra.