Artist: Micachu & the Shapes
Video: 'Golden Phone'
Highlight: The British trio give this breezy tune the visual treatment with bright colors and geometric shapes.

This Fourth of July weekend, you might feel moved to cue up Jimi Hendrix's 'Star-Spangled Banner' or the Ray Charles version of 'America the Beautiful.' Maybe Neil Diamond's 'America,' if you're feeling especially swell-chested. But your Independence Day playlist would be a lot longer if the Singing Senators hadn't broken up with such spectacular fireworks.

Formed in 1995 to sing a barbershop-style version of 'Happy Birthday' for fellow U.S. lawmakers, the Singing Senators were four Republican legislators with a shared taste for four-part harmony. Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott sang bass; Missouri's John Ashcroft sang baritone; Vermont's Jim Jeffords sang tenor, and lead vocals were handled by Larry Craig of Idaho.

The Singing Senators quickly made a name for themselves outside politics, performing on 'The Today Show' and with the Oak Ridge Boys. Taking instruction from Guy Hovis, a Mississippi organizer for Lott better known as one-half of Guy & Ralna, one of the more popular featured acts on the old 'Lawrence Welk Show,' the Senators recorded an album, 'Let Freedom Sing,' in Nashville in 1998.

Artist: U-N-I
Songs: 'Land of the Kings'
Album: 'Land of the Kings' [iTunes]
Sounds Like: Kid Cudi, 88 Keys

Download: 'Land of the Kings' (MP3)

[Get Winamp] [Download Help]

Artist: Sharon Van Etten
Video: 'For You'
Highlight: A series of black and white close-up shots add emotional weight to this clip from the Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter.

Apparently Jack White appeared in a campy sci-fi flick called 'Mutant Swinger From Mars.' Is that Oscar buzz we hear? [Corner Shop Studios]

Now Kanye West can add 'director' to the list of things he claims to be the best in the world at. [Rolling Stone]

The 'Rock of Ages' cast, crew and audience broke the world record for largest air guitar ensemble (as well as 'most pointless world record'). [BWE]

Moonwalk competition at the Apollo. Who's in? [Gothamist]

Brad Pitt + Department of Eagles = A wonderfully WTF Japanese commercial. [Pitchfork]

Several years ago musician John Doe toured with Wilco, who were taking fans' requests of what songs the group should perform onstage through their Website. That gave Doe an idea of doing something similar for his own band, X. So for the Los Angeles punk group's current 'Total Request Live' tour, X fans have the opportunity to vote for their favorite X songs for the band to play in their city. "It's fun," Doe, 56, tells Spinner about the experience. "It's a little bit more work but I have made so many set lists [that] it's not difficult."

On the group's official site, xtheband.com, fans can pick their five favorite X tunes from a list of approximately 40 songs prior to the group arriving at a tour stop. So far, it's led to some interesting picks. "'The Have Nots' was the biggest surprise," Doe says. "Even when we wrote it and released it, we didn't play it that much. Another big surprise was 'Under the Big Black Sun.' We never played that one very much either. It's also a little surprising that each night is very different."

Dredg frontman Gavin Hayes admits to Spinner that Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' is such a sick concept album that he remains "quite jealous of it." That might also explain Dredg's predisposition for recording concept albums. Or, at least, thematic ones. Initially inspired by a Salvador Dali painting, the band's stand-out 2002 disc 'El Cielo' dealt largely with sleep paralysis and their latest, 'The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion' was directly influenced by a Salmon Rushdie essay entitled 'Imagine There's No Heaven: A Letter to the 6 Billionth Citizen.'

"The concept unfolded after we had written a few songs," Hayes tells Spinner, recalling that guitarist Mark Engles stumbled across the essay and realized the content was directly applicable to material they had already been working on. "From that point on, we used the essay as an influence and template for the writing and art direction."