"[W]hen you hear something as audaciously new as There Will Be Blood," writes iF magazine, "it’s a listening experience akin to coming across an oil gusher in a movie theater—the kind that blows your seat (and ears) to the ceiling with the sheer, often-insane beauty of what you’re hearing." With an originality that "spurts in spades," Jonny Greenwood has created an "entrancing" score. "Greenwood shows he can do orchestra with the same innovative quality that he approaches Radiohead’s trance-rock with ... And like P.T Anderson’s best soundtracks, Greenwood achieves a musical f-you wallop that grabs our attention ... [W]e feel that Anderson and Greenwood have taken us on a journey into sound that’s truly new for film scoring." The film "offers a major discovery in the talents of Jonny Greenwood."

Giving Youssou N'Dour's Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take) four out of four stars and naming it the CD pick of the week, the Toronto Star says the new album is "another breakthrough" following Youssou's string of groundbreaking records with Nothing's in Vain and Egypt. Writes the Star's John Goddard, Rokku Mi Rokka features "rich, instrumental textures and soaring melodies" and should bring Youssou the "smash, crossover success" he deserves.

Sufjan Stevens, when asked at the PENultimate Lit event last night in Park Slope, Brooklyn, to name his top five albums of all time, named just one: Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians. The event was organized by the PEN American Center to examine the intersection of literature and the arts; hosted by Rick Moody, it featured a Q&A with Sufjan and fellow writer/singer-songwriter Wesley Stace (aka John Wesley Harding), as well as a performance by each. The "top five albums" question came from an audience member.

"Every time I’m about to watch a Daniel Day-Lewis movie," writes Variety's Stuart Levine on MSNBC, "I expect to be floored—to be brought into a world I’ve never seen and be enveloped by a character who I will undoubtedly obsess about for days, if not weeks ... Right now Day-Lewis is the Robert De Niro of the late 1970s-early ’80s, back when De Niro was a god among mortals." In There Will Be Blood Day-Lewis has made "as powerful and compelling a character as he’s ever created."

Wilco's Sky Blue Sky was the BBC Radio 6 Album of the Day today, as part of the station's weeklong run-down of the year's best according to its various presenters. Shaun Keaveny, host of the weekday Breakfast Show, named the album his pick for the year's best.

It was a powerhouse line-up when SFJAZZ gathered Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride, and Brian Blade at San Francisco's Herbst Theatre with a tribute to Thelonius Monk on May 4 of this year, so it's no surprise that the Contra Costa Times says it was one of the best jazz concerts of the year. 

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."

Among the nearly 10,000 foreign visitors who'll head to Glasgow this frigid January for the Celtic Connections festival will be two Nonesuch artists: k.d. lang and Punch Brothers—whom Scotland's Sunday Herald has dubbed "hot young Americana dudes"—each performing a set at what the paper says is "the best party in the world."

Filmmaker/provocateur John Waters has famously depicted his hometown of Baltimore on the big screen throughout his career. It's perhaps no wonder then that he admits to being a big fan of the Baltimore-based show The Wire. He tells the Toronto Star: "I'm addicted to The Wire on HBO. Not only is it set in Baltimore, but it's like reading a great novel."

The Savannah Music Festival has announced its 2008 schedule, and Audra McDonald will be among the performers at this, Georgia's largest musical arts festival. McDonald will perform on March 28 as part of the Divine Divas series. The festival will run from March 20 through April 5, 2008.

The Los Angeles Times has revealed its pop music critics' lists of their favorites for the year. On staff writer Dan Heckman's list for the best in jazz is Joshua Redman's Back East and for the best in world music, Youssou N'Dour's Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take). Heckman calls Redman "one of the rare under-40 musicians who are making waves" and says the new album showcases "his ability to star in the difficult saxophone-bass-drums instrumental format." And with Youssou's new record, "The irresistible appeal of N'Dour's emotion-laden voice and irresistibly body-moving music has reached well beyond the arena of African music"

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."