Not the Love Language. Photo by Jason Arthurs.

​"Time and transition is a wave that'll put you over," Superchunk frontman Mac McCaughan avers on "My Gap Feels Weird," one of eleven sparkling new songs on Majesty Shredding, the band's first LP in nine years. Who could doubt him? It's Superchunk's fall, more or less, though as Jessica Hopper writes in this week's Voice, "don't call it a comeback." And it isn't one, not just because Superchunk never left, but because they never squandered their ample indie world goodwill, never did anything they had to apologize for, except maybe stop releasing great records every couple of years. It's been fun finding out how many people still adore them in 2010, and their two sold-out shows this weekend in NYC (at the Bowery Ballroom and the Music Hall of Williamsburg) are a testament to that fact. Luckily, they're also doing a free in-store at Other Music on Sunday--no need for tickets there, though you'll probably want to be in line before 1pm, when the whole thing starts. Hoping for a John Darnielle cameo somewhere in there, since he sings on the new record; the Mountain Goats frontman also stars as an unlikely dentist in the band's new "Digging For Something" video, right here:

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​Ha, note to celebrities: request someone other than Dave Itzkoff, should your publicist force you to go on a night out with the New York Times. 22-year-olds as pretty as Penn Badgley do not belong in Mars Bar. They do probably belong at former CBGB retail outlet John Varvatos, where Itzkoff also walked him through--"At least they didn't turn it into a bank," Badgley remarks, sagely. And what better comedy than to repeat the whole "Other Music is a judgmental cred-test" ritual with a helpless TV star?:

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In 2009, the traditional practice of exchanging physical copies of records for money is a trade that might best be called quixotic. But New Yorkers are stubborn people, and the record store is not dead. Below, the top ten records that actually sold in the last week at a store near you.

Photo of Taken By Trees at Other Music via roboppy's photostream

Other Music is on almost any shortlist of the best record stores in the city, and we're not just saying that because it's a two-minute walk from our offices. The staff, many of whom are musicians, selects the relatively small inventory. "If you pick up a record, at least two people in the store can tell you about it," says employee Mikey "IQ" Jones, 27. The store is still adjusting to being the only record-seller on the block--Tower Records, which used to be across the street, closed two years ago. "We're dealing with a clientele we've never had before," Jones says. A clientele that, contrary to the store's enduring snobby reputation, are pretty much welcome. "There's always been that stupid High Fidelity myth," Jones says. "We do our best to dispel that."

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