Somebody call the Web Sheriff. In a post on Nine Inch Nails' website, Trent Reznor has revealed a late holiday "gift" for fans with lots of extra hard drive space-- three whole NIN live shows in HD. The footage comes from the band's shows in Victoria, Portland and Sacramento early last month and was taken with multiple cameras. Reznor writes:

"The internet is full of surprises these days.

"I was contacted by a mysterious, shadowy group of subversives who SOMEHOW managed to film a substantial amount (over 400 GB!) of raw, unedited HD footage from three separate complete shows of our Lights in the Sky tour. Security must have been lacking at these shows because the quality of the footage is excellent. If any of you could find a LINK to that footage I'll bet some enterprising fans could assemble something pretty cool.

"Oh yeah, you didn't hear this from me."

So uh, forget what I said about Reznor revealing the videos on his site. And especially what I said about the Web Sheriff. This post will self-destruct...

Videos:> Nine Inch Nails: Three Full Live Shows in HD
[The Slip is out now and self-released]

After their global smash "Young Folks", which seemed like it was around forever in blog land, Swedish popsters Peter Bjorn and John have taken a few unpredictable turns. First came the instrumental album Seaside Rock, then that weird-ass video for a new song in December, and now they're premiering a new song called "Nothing to Worry About" on Kanye West's blog. It's got a child choir, echoing tribal drums out the wazoo, and big handclaps. "DRUMS ARE CRAZY AND I LIKE THE KIDS ON THE HOOK," says Kanye. "Crazy" may be going a little far, but hey. (via Stereogum)

Stream:> Peter Bjorn and John: "Nothing to Worry About"
[presumably from Living Thing; due 03/30/09 from Wichita]

It’s not about words, per say. Those nouns and adjectives might be conjugated perfectly, the sentences flawless, the rhyming impeccable…

As with Bon Iver on Letterman a couple of days ago, Fleet Foxes on Conan is a nice way to wind down 2008. Both have logged some serious miles this year touring behind very strong records. I've been looking for a YouTube of this one but no luck yet (NBC's not a big fan of those). So video comes courtesy of Hulu, which is using pretty harsh compression on the audio here, plus you have to sit through an ad. Still worth a look for this lovely song.

Video:> Fleet Foxes: "English House" (Live on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien")
[original version from Sun Giant; available from Sub Pop]

So, we have a new book out, The Pitchfork 500: Our Guide to the Greatest Songs from Punk to the Present, published by the Simon & Schuster imprint Fireside Books. It explores our 500 favorite songs from 1977-2006-- interspersed with sidebars on the most vital subgenres from electro to grime to riot grrrl-- to construct an alternate history of the past three decades of popular music. In the coming weeks we'll be posting streams of tracks from the book here in Forkcast and giving you a sneak peek at some of the entries. 

We recently announced The Pitchfork 500 iPod Giveaway Sweepstakes. Go to the contest's website and type in your information before 9 p.m. EST on December 15 to enter. What might you win, you ask? Well, the grand prize winner will receive an iPod Classic and a $100 iTunes gift card, and 10 lucky first prize winners will score a copy of the book.

Speaking of which, The Pitchfork 500 is available in your local bookstore right now. Or you can order it via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Insound, Powells, or Simon & Schuster.

And now, here's Matt LeMay on Pavement's "Summer Babe", with a stream (good for one free play every 24 hours, via Lala) below the text.