Okay, so we had to go to the Abbey on its final night -- after all, it's right around the corner. It was sold out, but of course Billly Ruane got us in. What else is new? We were in time for the Coffin Lids, and as they played "Welcome to Pussytown," I reflected, "It's nice that someone's still writing songs like this."

Download: Lisa Bello, "Remix"

Unless you’re Mark Wahlberg, it’s tough being the younger sibling of a Boston song-and-dance dignitary. Still, Louie Bello’s kid sister Lisa is on a mission to lasso her brother’s loyal frosted-tip and visibly gellin’ following with an onslaught of dance-floor smokers that ring realer than cliché soul and hipster fare.

10. PINK IS ONE OF THE GREATEST ARTISTS OF OUR TIME. At least according to noted musical-greatness expert Scott Weiland. "Performing 'Sober' . . ., " introduceth he -- the irony of which wasn't lost on us. Not the only reason everyone's wondering what the hell that dude's on.

09. KANYE v. 1: "I WANT TO BE ELVIS." Dude, we've heard 808s

This is what the internet looked like when Chinese Democracy should have been released

Big week on the internet this week for music, as the last wave of high-profile 2008 releases are making their way to the masses.

First, Chinese Democracy is here. If you're reading this, chances are you know what Chinese Democracy is by now, which means you also know it has its origins in the 1990s.

DOWNLOAD: Henry Gale, "Stay Warm"

We’re suckers for a good Lost reference, so when we stumbled across a band named Henry Gale while skipping through the fields of MySpace, we approached their music with the same cautious optimism any Lost fan accords another on first meeting. It paid off: these guys are good.

They don't even look different now than they did ten years ago!

Recently mainstream emo-punkers Jimmy Eat World announced a tour to honor the tenth anniversary of Clarity, in which they will play the album in its entirety. My immediate reaction: "seriously, guys?"

I'm not knocking Clarity. I used to listen to it quite a bit back when it first came out - particularly during my first two years of college - and I'll still revisit it every now and again for a pleasant nostalgia trip.

We've been privately gushing over former Verbena frontman Scott AA Bondy's solo record American Hearts (Fat Possum) for about a year now -- we doubt that he'd consider it a compliment to hear us compare it to anything as cliche as Ryan Adams' Heartbreaker or the first Velvet Underground album, but that's unironic high praise in this cube.

DOWNLOAD: ViceVersah, "Man Vs. Wild"

Over the past year, ViceVersah has been spotted grinding in New York, outside Boston Phoenix headquarters, and on bills with hardcore street rappers whom he can easily hang with despite, well, being white. This week, after a pair of expertly executed mixtapes, the Greater Boston native turned North American wanderer drops his James and the Giant Beats debut.

Less than 24 hours after Barack Obama ended his historic victory speech with a rhetorical flourish riffing on the life of 106-year-old Ann Nixon Cooper -- a life that
spanned black suffering, black suffrage, and now black presidency -- Cooper's grandson, Lawrence D. Bobo, who is the W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University, was scheduled to introduce Michael Eric Dyson, the preeminent black intellectual, at Harvard's DuBois Institute for African and African-American Research in Cambridge.

The Fatal Flaw are a new pop-punk combo comprising recently transplanted bassist and singer Joel Reader (Mr. T Experience, the Avengers), guitarist Zack Wells (the Information), drummer Jason Seaver (the Vershok), and guitarist Matt Goldman (Steel Train). Local girlfriends who specialize in harshing all over their boyfriends’ respective rock bands might not appreciate the familiar bro-before-ho moral at the heart of their stunning new “The Great Indoors” — that settling down equals giving up, and that girls just don’t get it — but that shouldn’t stop them from eating up the song’s sugar-sweet pop-rock choppage.

Juliana Hatfield was released today from an eating disorder treatment center, where she went to face down anorexia, according to Stereogum via Hatfield's personal blog. Yesterday, the 41-year-old Boston rocker/author/former Blake Baby wrote an extensive blog post from the treatment center:

The Abbey Lounge, Union Square's venerable garage/indie/punk dive, has lost its battle with this shitty economy. According to club employees, the Abbey's last day will be November 28. In addition, Abbey booking agent Mike Fuedale (a/k/a the Coffin Lids' Skinny Mike) confirmed this afternoon that the Abbey's final show will be November 26 -- bands are still TBA.