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The question is this: can Liam Gallagher ever be an elder statesman of anything? In an England swamped in punk and new wave variants, Oasis' Britpop now borders on adult--which isn't to say it's stodgy. The group's newest spins the psychedelic style as a textural wonderland.

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If you think Brandi Carlile's unlucky in love, you haven't heard Meiko. Like Carlile, the L.A. songstress makes a husky-voiced post-coffeehouse pop--and makes art out of feeling forlorn. Along with Priscilla Ahn, expect her to vie for diarist of the year.

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The Upcoming Releases panel at Bandwidth 2008. Left to right: Chuck Fishman (Cisco), Michael Scherotter (Microsoft), Kurt Wolff (CNET Download.com), and Dave Goldberg (formerly of Yahoo Music).

(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET Networks)

The Bandwidth music tech conference in San Francisco attracts folks from all corners of the music industry: from label owners and musicians, to Internet radio broadcasters and mobile phone software developers. This year, the conference featured panel discussions on topics such as the future of music gadgets (a subject dear to my nerd heart), developing music services for mobile phones, and the realities of running a label in today's fractured music industry.

One of the more popular themes drawing heated discussion across all panels was the idea of ditching the paid download model dominated by iTunes in favor of giving music away for free. Throughout the day I heard several compelling arguments for and against moving toward a free music download model, but my sense is that economic times will need to get a little tougher before the industry takes a serious look at a free music strategy. That said, with the decline in CD sales drastically outpacing the uptake of MP3 sales, a future of legitimate free music downloads may arrive sooner than you think.

As the nation's premier music phone, the iPhone and its App Store garnered plenty of discussion as well, with comments from Tom Conrad from Pandora connecting to an audience eager to leverage the iPhone's popularity and potential. During ... Read more

Tim Westergren, the founder of popular Web radio start-up Pandora, has said in an interview with The Washington Post that his company may be close to a shutdown.

"We're approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision," Westergren said in the article, published Saturday. "This is like a last stand for webcasting."

The problem, he explained, is last year's royalty hike for Web radio, which makes it extremely expensive for an independent start-up to stay afloat in the business. The royalty increase will eat up 70 percent of Pandora's $25 million in revenue, Westergren said.

SoundExchange, an organization comprising representatives from record labels and performers, believes that Internet radio owes a bigger cut of profits than traditional radio does. Activist groups like the SaveNetRadio Coalition, along with start-ups like Pandora, have fought the fee hikes.

A few Web geeks weren't convinced that Pandora's situation is as dire as Westergren says it is. "I love Pandora like my old baseball glove, but they can only pull this Chicken Little move so many times," marketing consultant Brian Oberkirch posted to Twitter on Monday morning.

But Westergren assured in the Post interview that he's not exaggerating. "We're funded by venture capital," he explained. "They're not going to chase a company whose business model has been broken. So if it doesn't feel like its headed towards a solution, we're done."

Brooke's new LP is required listening, and not only for folk junkies. "The Works" sets old Woody Guthrie lyrics to new Brooke tunes, a whopper of a project that the songstress proves equal to. Her bittersweet sort of melody is a great match for Guthrie's wry sensibility.

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Inspired by beaches, ocean and sun, Pacific! seeks to remind us sonically about the stuff we love scenically. The pair that make up Pacific! are electronic music light bearers who sound more like Daft Punk-loving French producers than Swedes who dream about the sea.

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Junior Sanchez is a favorite of many dance-music heads who know their stuff, rocking the turntables for almost two decades and enjoying the perks that come with being a favorite nearly the whole way. In recent years, Junior's electro-indie-rock and hip-hop tastes have led him to start his own label, Brobot--a venue for him to put out tracks like "Elevator" featuring buddies Good Charlotte and hipster-hop sensation Hollywood Holt, again proving his taste in the cool way only this tastemaker can.

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The Sony Walkman NWZ-A828K includes Bluetooth headphones and high-quality earbuds.

(Credit: Sony)

Don't you wish companies would just include great headphones with their MP3 players, instead of those cheap tin cans they call earbuds? In a bid to prove their sonic superiority over the iPod, many competitors are finally bundling their MP3 players with headphones that can do justice to your music.

To imagine a world without crappy white earbuds, we've got a round-up of our favorite five MP3 players that offer high-quality headphones right out of the box.

Hailing from rural Massachusetts, teenager Sonya Kitchell is coming of age with her fresh approach to singing and songwriting. Much like Norah Jones, Kitchell hooks you in with her quiet-is-the-new-loud vocals and delicate arrangements.

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Rep is on it when he describes his "Unclosed Mind" disc as music first and hip-hop second. The tight rhymes and chopped rhythms are critical, but this is really melodic storytelling. The dreamy final effect can recall the Roots at their most abstract.

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