–Neil Hannon has written The Divine Comedy’s 9th
album, Victory For The Comic Muse, more or less by accident — by compiling more than 30 pent-up, forgotten and rejected songs over the past few years. Now the orchestral power pop group has a new disc slated to be released November 14 on Parlophone Records. Stream the first three singles here:
The Divine Comedy - “Diva Lady” (wmv)

The Divine Comedy - “Lady Of A Certain Age” (wmv)

–Two weeks ago we wrote about Pop prince-to-be Mika, who is on track to be the next buzzworthy artist not named after an NBA player. We’ve got another mp3 to share this week (we’ll also include “Relax” from before if you missed it):

Mika - “Happy Ending” (mp3)

Mika - “Relax, Take It Easy” (mp3)

–The soundtrack for the new Will Ferrell movie Stranger Than Fiction will be released on November 7th (Columbia Records) and features four Spoon songs, including a brand new track written for the film, “The Book I Write,” for which we have some tasty audio streams (we know, streams suck - but whatever): WIN, REAL, MOV.

–Got an e-mail from a co-founder of Amie Street today. Here’s the skinny from Josh Boltuch:
“Amie Street is all about supporting independent musicians, helping them promote their music in as many ways possible, and giving music fans the most organized, convenient and affordable access to great new music…We sell independent music according to a new model based on social networking and our recommendation system. All songs start free and rise in price the more they are purchased, with a cap at 98 cents. And we reward our members who recommend songs that subsequently rise in price with credit to buy more music.”

According to the fine print on the site, artists take 70 percent of every song sale after the first $5, which is used to cover bandwith and storage costs. The site doesn’t claim ownership of music, nor do they ask for exclusivity. Looks like the only drawback from a musician perspective is that you only get paid 3x/year.

The site is getting buzz from the likes of the WSJ, TechCrunch and more. Time will tell if you’d rather pay Amie Street 26 cents, iTunes 99 cents or just continue to steal from your friends like always.