There are perks to having a single debut atop your home country's pop chart. For Elly Jackson, the young English singer behind the synth-pop duo La Roux and the irresistibly sassy "Bulletproof," these include having your name in lights. Very big lights, immediately behind you, every time you play your hometown.

"In London, the shows are massive, so for our last three shows there we had this big wall of red bulbs and floodlights that spell out 'La Roux' on stage," Jackson said during a phone call from backstage at a German festival. "It really helps; I have to fill a lot of space on the stage when we play."

The light rig won't be with her when she plays the Troubadour tonight, but she will have a number of other options for realizing her practically flawless self-titled debut, full of meticulously chintzy keyboards, joint-snapping beats and regally soulful vocals. The last time she came to L.A., the band performed as a two-piece, with Jackson prowling the Roxy stage while producer Ben Langmaid manned the electronics. Tonight, La Roux will sport an additional keyboardist and a live drummer. "La Roux," out Sept. 29, is a busy, hissing little pop record that rewards both close listening and top-down singalongs. 

What do you get when two incredibly creative musical minds sit down to simply talk with no agenda and nothing to hawk? Two guys mostly talking about where they grew up, the lost works of Euripides, and performing live without proper amplification.

Silver Lake's own Beck Hansen has just launched a series on his website "featuring conversations between musicians, artists, writers, etc. on various subjects, without promotional pretext or editorial direction."

Beck's fatal move was choosing Tom Waits as his first guest. Not because Waits isn't much of a conversationalist  --  just the opposite. Once you document a free spirit like Waits riffing without a net, how is Beck going to top that?

In Part 1 of their conversation together, Hansen and Waits provide so many good moments that you're doing yourself a disservice by not reading the whole thing. Beck swears in the conversation that people today are obsessed with "Best Of" lists, and we're not going to argue.

After the jump are the three best moments of their exchange.

While Vampire Weekend and the Dirty Projectors have replaced Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel as chief American ambassadors of African music, the reality of pop-savvy transliterators often overshadowing their source material hasn't shifted in the last 25 years. So while Ezra Koenig and Dave Longstreth are celebrated from Cape Cod to the Cape of Good Hope, the half-Kenyan, half-American quartet Extra Golden have yet to have their faces plastered on the cover of Spin, despite a story ripe for an episode of PBS’ "Frontline/World."

Formed in Nairobi while guitarist Ian Eagleson, formerly of the band Golden, was conducting research for a PhD dissertation on Kenyan Benga music, Extra Golden have endured a litany of challenges in their five-year existence, including co-founder Otieno Jagwasi’s death at 34 due to liver disease, a Sisyphean struggle to obtain passports during the dog days of the Bush administration, and most recently, the riots that broke out in the wake of Kenya’s disputed election, trapping singer Onyango Jagwasi in closed quarters for a week, and impeding his ability to earn a living.

In spite of this, Extra Golden has thrived with their Thrill Jockey-released third album, ”Thank You Very Quickly,” a gorgeous blend of East African guitars, polyrhythmic drums and vocals sung in both English and Luo.

Download: Extra Golden "Anyango"

In town to play Dub Club on Wednesday night at the Echo alongside legendary reggae band the Meditations, guitarist Alex Minoff spoke to Pop & Hiss about African music, overcoming obstacles and President Obama.

Two American musicians forming a band with Nairobi natives still living in Africa isn’t the most common arrangement. How did you guys meet and decide to form a group?

Ian [Eagleson] was studying for his PhD in musicology and had visited Kenya four or five times over an eight-year period. In 2004, he visited for a full year and I went out there to visit him. We’d been in Golden for the previous 10 years, but we’d stopped playing. However, Ian and I continued writing songs together, even though we had no way to present them.

Ask your average music fan about Arthur Verocai, and you’ll probably be met with a blank stare. Even among those well-versed in Tropicalia, Verocai lacks the name recognition of Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Os Mutantes or Jorge Ben. And in the ultimate sign of contemporary anonymity, Verocai has no Wikipedia page. But while unsung in his prime, the songs of the Rio de Janeiro-raised composer-crooner have been recently rediscovered, and cited as a touchstone for younger generations of musicians — making him akin to the Tropicalia version of Shuggie Otis, Vashti Bunyan or Son House.

In particular, the former civil engineer’s self-titled masterpiece has rightfully received lavish acclaim, with DJ/production maestro Madlib, MF Doom and Ludacris all sampling his samba and sunshine-soaked soul. Recorded partially in response to the repressive military junta then running Brazil, “Arthur Verocai” synthesizes soul, classical, funk, folk, samba, rock and jazz, occupying a psychedelic middle ground between Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew” and Frank Zappa’s “Hot Rats.”

Sweden might be best known in America as the place where stylish and deceptively easy-to-assemble furniture is manufactured. But a handful of DJs from the Scandinavian country are attempting to change the perception -- among music fans, anyway -- about what their country has been producing better than anyone else. (Hint: It's house music.)

Last year, Swedish DJ and producer Axwell turned in one of the most energetic live sets I've seen in years at the Avalon as his countrymen (and women) swarmed the dance floor, where oversized Swedish flags waved  among the house-heads.

This month, the same club on Vine Street hosts no fewer than three spinners from Sweden, including the Swedish House Mafia's Steve Angello & Sebastian Ingrosso. And before the House Mafia hits Hollywood on the 21st, up-and-comer John Dahlbäck twists and tweaks beats at the Avalon this Saturday night in his Los Angeles debut.

Though Sweden's long had a history in the pop world of producing big hits with commanding synth-based hooks, over the last five years or so, a new generation of house-music DJs has left its mark all over Europe and South America (mainstream American music fans, naturally, are the last to get hip to the trend). Eric Prydz, a former member of the Swedish House Mafia, scored a massive club smash (and crossover pop hit, with the tune going to the top of the charts in countries such as England and Germany) in 2004 with "Call on Me." The track still receives play in clubs from Miami to Munich nightly and is based on, of all things, a sample of Steve Winwood's 1982 hit "Valerie." Call it perhaps the most unlikely house hit of the decade -- but it never fails to get bodies on the dance floor every time it's played. 

As we ease into a new decade, it looks as if ascendant DJ and house music producer John Dahlbäck might be the next breakout star out of Stockholm. Tracks such as "Blink" (seen in the video above) and, in particular, "Hustle Up" exemplify the producer's knack for locking down tight grooves and adding just enough unexpected twists to keep fans of intelligent electro-house on their toes. See how Swedish House Mafia members support one another in this clip, which features Ingrosso and Axwell dropping "Hustle Up" during a 2007 appearance.

We fired off a few questions to Dahlbäck by e-mail earlier this week in anticipation of his opening set for Sander Kleinenberg on Saturday at the Avalon. His answers after the jump.

The New Jersey post-hardcore band Thursday is a case study in the difficulty of navigating the lines between punk and pop. In the early aughts, when every major label was scrambling for new rock saviors, Thursday took the occasion to make an acrimonious split with indie Victory Records for Island Records, who hoped the band would usher in a golden age of arena-ready emo. But Thursday's byzantine riffing and singer Geoff Rickly's feral yelps on the 2003 album "War All the Time" and its 2006 follow-up proved a touch obtuse for mainstream rock tastes, and now the band is set to release its newest and possibly densest album yet, "Common Existence," next week on Epitaph Records. We talked with Rickly about dizzying label politics, how growing older changes your taste in hard music and imagining a Thursday tribute to avant-garde jazz saxophonist John Zorn. The band plays the Hollywood Palladium on Saturday as part of the Taste of Chaos tour.

Your band has been through a lot of career cycles in recent years: buzzing underground act, the big rock hope of a major label, a later return to an indie label. Has it been difficult to keep your bearings on songwriting given these big swings in label politics and expectations on Thursday?

It's a funny thing. We've always maintained a very strict stance of, "It's our music.  No label politics or business pressures should have any influence on how we write." This seems to be a pretty common ethic that most "punk" bands live by. The thing that you never hear about, though, is the way your writing naturally changes when you even acknowledge pressure from outside sources. You become self-conscious. You start to write from a reactionary position in which you lose a lot of your own drives and concentrate on not becoming what other people want you to.

The ideas that Merlot and Sprite can give a man.

That was Travis McCoy's drink of choice when he crashed at Pete Wentz's house over the summer for a couple of weeks. In no time, he got Wentz hooked. "It sounds like it would be the worst thing," Wentz said, "but the combo is surprisingly good." And a creative catalyst to boot: During the course of those two weeks, the kohl-eyed bassist of Fall Out Boy and the frontman of the Gym Class Heroes collaborated on several pieces of graffiti-inspired, '80s-nostalgic art that they'll be showing at Gallery 1988: Los Angeles, opening Tuesday, with proceeds benefiting Invisible Children. Prints will cost around $200 to $250, with original pieces running approximately $300 to $3,000.

The bands have worked together before -- most notably, FOB singer-shredder Patrick Stump produced part of the Heroes' "The Quilt" -- but they traded one studio for another this time. The pair worked each night on canvas, paper and cardboard coated with acrylics, spray paint and adhesives, sometimes roughened with sandpaper, sometimes adorned with scrawls. Experiments happened, with mixed results. "I thought it would be cool to set rubber cement on fire," Wentz remembers. "But I almost lit up the entire rug instead." They weren't thinking about an art show or much of anything at all. "It's a conversation with Travis, a record of a time that won't exist again," Wentz said. "It was exciting to work with no end-goal."

Anniversary concert tours are traditionally about celebrating history and waxing nostalgic with loyal fans. But the Smashing Pumpkins don’t put much stock in tradition, even less in nostalgia.

So on the group’s 20th anniversary tour, which reached Los Angeles this week for shows Tuesday and tonight at the Gibson Amphitheatre, founding members Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin are emphasizing provocation over comforting celebration, with performances that have been greeted by as many jeers as cheers in previous tour stops.

That’s stemmed from set lists devoted as much or more to new and outside material as well as extended jams than the group’s hits.

“These past 20 years (not that I've been a fan for that long) of music have been awesome,” wrote one fan on the Pumpkins' fan forum after the group’s New York show last month, “and we're looking forward to another 20. But out of the 25 songs that are played or so, give us 2 or 3 that would make us -- the true fans -- have a nostalgic, or ‘mellon collie’ moment.”

That’s the kind of response that has prompted some onstage rants from Corgan, and more caustic feedback from the Pumpkin faithful.

“When we played in New York,” Corgan, 41, said Monday in Hollywood, relaxing backstage after a TV show taping, “people were freaking out and screaming and yelling ‘This sucks!’ yet [New York Times rock critic Jon] Pareles gave us a good review, because we’re still dangerous and we’re still relevant on some intrinsic musical level that can’t even be defined.”

The veteran Chicago band has booked many two-night stands on this tour, crafting distinct sets for each of the two nights -- labeled “Black Sunshine” the first night, “White Crosses” the second -- in part so that those who catch both nights won’t be subjected to major repetition of the material.

There must be something about former LA Times writer Claire Hoffman that makes people say controversial things in her presence, because her recent sit-down with noted pancake chef Prince in the New Yorker is a humdinger. In the piece, Hoffman drops by Prince's Beverly Park compound (he's lived in L.A. since last spring) and dryly notes his decorating style (Neo-Narcissist, as in more than one purple throne) and samples his idiosyncratic poetry that accompanies a new anthology of photographs.

But when Hoffman's conversation with the converted Jehovah's Witness turned to the testy topic of gay marriage and the nature of homosexuality, Prince let slip some unexpectedly fundamentalist ideas, especially for a man who made his career in ascots and eyeliner.

To say that Christina Aguilera has had a remarkable career is an understatement.  The chart-topping songstress is now a bona-fide brand and arguably the heir to Mariah Carey's R&B throne.

While fans eagerly await a new record -- tipped as "futuristic" and perhaps marking a return to dance-floor bangers such as "Dirrty" -- Xtina today (Nov. 11) releases a greatest-hits collection, "Keeps Gettin' Better: A Decade of Hits," exclusively through Target and the retailer's website.

Pop & Hiss had a five minute chat via phone with the "Beautiful" singer late last week, when she shared a few thoughts on the last decade.  Suffice it to say, this new mother is not looking back in anger.

How does it feel to release a greatest-hits package already?  You’ve had such a remarkable career, yet it doesn’t feel like you’ve been here a decade.

I feel so fortunate. I can’t believe it’s been a decade already.  It’s not that new to me to revisit my catalog because on tour I do reinvent old hits of mine and sort of give them a new life.  But hearing the original versions in their radio form, was a trip down memory lane for me. It’s kind of crazy!

Is there any one of your older songs that you feel especially attached to?

There’s definitely one with extra sentimental value for me.

(More after the jump) 

My Pop & Hiss colleague Ann Powers mulled over the genesis and cultural ramifications of "flyover rock" in Sunday's Calendar, trying to pin down the reasons behind the huge popularity of bands such as Hinder, Nickelback, Daughtry and such. There is a lineage that goes back decades, from the titans of '70s codpiece rock through hair metal, grunge and "American Idol" outliers, and she articulates it well. To my ears, though, this latest crop of modern rock is actually a continuation of a sound and ethic that planted its roots in the immediate post-grunge '90s, and no man is more responsible for it than Creed's Scott Stapp. So let me be your Virgil, dear reader, into the maw of Creed's gifts to today's mainstream rock music.

Nine long years.

That’s how long it's been since Q-Tip, the iconic “conscious” rapper and primary producer for beloved '90s rap quartet A Tribe Called Quest, last put out a collection of music as a solo artist.

An earlier Times story traces his new album's twisty-turny odyssey from ProTools to iTunes.

But just one day before his second solo disc, “The Renaissance,” hits retail -– and at a moment when hip-hop artists such as Kanye West and Pharrell Williams have largely transcended their rap roots to become tastemakers and early influencers across the cultural spectrum -– it’s informative to look back at the trail Q-Tip blazed outside making some of the most head-nodding, forward-thinking music of rap’s “golden age.”

It’s hard to imagine a time when Hollywood and hip-hop were like chalk and cheese. But in the mid-'90s, Q-Tip was one of the first rap stars to bro down with actor friends and regularly hobknob with movie stars. By dint of his assimilationist tendencies -- Tip was the first hip-hop guy to sample Lou Reed, after all -- the Queens, New York, rapper-producer effectively broke the glass ceiling segregating rappers from other movers and shakers on the pop cultural landscape.