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The former Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman talks about "vindication" and a solo hit from 1985.

For more than two years, a company called Spotify has been operating in Europe, with 10 million users taking advantage of a digital music service with an almost bottomless supply of songs. And, after a long wait, Spotify launched in the U.S., last Thursday. Our senior producer, Joel Meyer, weighs in on the service after taking it for a test drive over the weekend.

If you want to enter our Remix the Rails song contest, you'll have to get cracking! Our deadline for submissions is this Monday, March 14 at 9 a.m. ET. So, cancel your plans for this weekend and hole up with your laptop, instruments, pen and paper, side musicians, etc. 

Check out this song entered by The Reverend MC Daniel Fiesta. It's called "World-Bound Train."

Iceland’s troublemaking volcano has been back in the news, and that country's music is back in our weekly picks. 

Fair warning: In the words of a certain hollerback girl, collegiate a cappella is about to go b-a-n-a-n-a-s.

Atlantic Records signed the Indiana University group Straight No Chaser to a five-album deal. The group sold an impressive 100,000 copies of their Christmas CD over the holidays. Meanwhile, NBC has ...

Michael Benjamin Lerner of the Seattle-based band Telekinesis talked to us for a recent "Last Night, Right Now and Beyond" podcast on the Art.Cult blog. The 22-year-old songwriter told us why he was looking forward to his first visit to the ...

My Friday night:

1. Los Fancy Free (Mexico City)
2. The Renderers (Christchurch, New Zealand)
3. ABSU (Dallas)
4. Lady Sovereign (London)

Watch Lady Sovereign perform "So Human" (before a very unsteady camera)

5. King ...

The worst-kept secret of the week was Metallica's performance at Stubb's on Friday night. Promotional events for the band's forthcoming 'Guitar Hero Metallica' video ...

A live report from Soundcheck producer Joel Meyer on this year's South by Southwest Festival in Austin, TX.

DJ duo NASA performs in the tent outside Emo\'s.

This picture doesn't do last night's NASA show at Emo's Annex justice. (It turns out iPhones aren't even good for taking pictures ...

How does Austin handle the electricity needs of 1,900 bands and thousands of South by Southwest attendees? Pretty well, if you ask me. (Pssst: AT&T Wireless ... you should learn a thing or two from these guys.)

Priestess at Emo\'s Annex

With 1,900 bands in Austin, it's pretty easy to hear just about anything at South by Southwest. I caught about six shows on my first evening in town, and I can now tell ...

Once you've taken three trains and a bus to get to La Guardia, the SXSW experience begins at the boarding gate. The Austin-bound seem to stick out a bit, often because they're carrying precious cargo.

I've never traveled ...

Today marks the first day of the music portion of the annual South by Southwest conference. Film geeks and tech geeks have been swarming around Austin since last week. Now, the music geeks get their turn in a bonanza that includes some 1900 bands.

I'll be blogging here and ...

Here's a slideshow of Soundcheck's recent in-studio guests, including jazz trio the New Standards, rock group the Heartless Bastards, art-electronic duo High Places, and more. (Click here for the full-screen slideshow, with information about each of these guests.)

During today's installment of our Seven Sins series, we heard how the sin of sloth – has a lot to do with melancholy. And few bands do melancholy quite like the British group Tindersticks.

Starting ...

In the latest installment of our Friday series, “Seven Sins: The Deadly Medley,” we examine sloth – a “deadly sin” that walks the fine line between laziness and melancholy. Our guest Jody Rosen shares this list.

Harry Fields, "Oh! How I Hate to Get Up ...

This week’s picks bring a French accent to the Arizona desert, a historic look at Jerusalem through music, and an accordion virtuoso from Argentina. French-born, and living in the US since her teens, Marianne Dissard is a charter member ...

In the film 'Apocalypse Now,' two characters learn the hard way that you 'never get out of the boat.' But today the Soundcheck Smackdown dares to venture into a tiger-filled jungle with a debate over a cultural icon who's pretty beloved in this neck of the woods.

(Learn why ...