Justin "Vernon" Timberlake.

​Call this the skit from this weekend's Saturday Night Live that they expected would end up on the blogs. In it, the power couple of Beyonce and Jay-Z are receiving guests to visit their newborn Blue Ivy Carter. Portrayed by various members of the cast, LL Cool J, Nicki Minaj, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and Taylor Swift all drop in with varying levels of amusing interactions with the youngest person ever to have a song on the Billboard Hot 100. What, no Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow in this parade of bold-faced names? Our Midwestern eyes and ears are stimulated by Fred Armisen portraying a wild-eyed, shy Prince, and yes, Justin Timberlake with a very convincing thinning head of hair as Justin Vernon of Bon Iver.

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Drowning in a bathtub has never looked like so much fun.

​Ecid's forthcoming Werewolf Hologram, due February 28, is a dark delight of an album. The prolific Twin Cities hip-hop experimenter's "Back From Japan" is a certified high point from the collection, and its ominous beat -- splintering, busting drums and an swelling keyboard score -- serves as a black backdrop for the harrowing interplay to unfold. "You can sell smiles, but they buy frowns," he raps with a soul-crushing finality in his voice.

Thus, it's a mixed feeling premiering a new Kyle Thrash-directed music video for the song. It's visually stunning, and a righteous companion for the subject matter -- but entirely an artful bummer filled with death, sadness, and destruction.
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"Profile photo."

​Thomas "@iheartmpls" Stinchfield has tapped into the nearly dessicated reservoir of ideas for a "Shit ______ Say" meme eating away at our brains and bandwidth. His inspiration: fans of the Twin Cities' hip-hop collective Doomtree.

And he even sprung for a fitted cap and the bandanna to complete his role. As you might imagine, there's a heaping amount of short-attention-span repetition having to do with the extremely young fanbase, the quality of Sims' solo material, and the genetic gifts bestowed upon one Dessa Darling. Every never is NOW?
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​Add another annoying item to the list of things Justin Vernon had nothing to do with leading up to the February 12 Grammy Awards. First, there was this treacherous ice sculpture of a poster, and now there's a 30-second ad trumpeting Bon Iver's involvement the We Are Music campaign yet again, featuring a snippet of "Holocene."

It plays out basically the way the Grammys people seem to want to pigeonhole this guy: Some animated snow, some trees, and a stiff breeze. And as you can see from the image on the right, it forever links Vernon to the late-'70s Kansas power ballad "Dust in the Wind."
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​A mysterious black feather and other items with symbolic possibilities aplenty figure in prominently into the new, moody "Cry, Cry Crow" video from Midwest folk act the Pines. Our star is a ginger-haired girl -- who should totally meet the L.L. Bean-clad loner boy in Bon Iver's "Holocene" video -- setting out on a mission to figure out where this feather belongs. The song comes from Dark So Gold, which is out in mid-February via Red House Records. Spoiler alert: Some characters in the story will not survive to the final frame.
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​Pop-up books were pretty great to have during the pre-Vimeo age, so it's a delight that the team of Katie Maren and Mike P. Nelson bring such a book to life in local group Still Pacific's new music video. There's plenty of other intriguing details about the clip, which follows the story of a jilted princess, a jerk of a prince, a misunderstood robot, and a whole bunch of medieval martial arts experts. Let's not forget that the group, fronted by Tracy Tabery-Weller on keys and vocals, has fashioned a charming template of smart hooks, and lovelorn lyrics. 

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