Sometimes, the Internet can seem to hold the brain cells of humanity. There's so much available on the Web, it's easy to take it all for granted. And then I see something like this little program I found on a Swedish Web site. It's a text-to-speech converter that takes your words, finds those words as sung in pop songs, and then plays them back for you. It's sort of like an instant, over-the-top Girl Talk.

Try it, type in a phrase and be amazed. And guessing the song sources can be really hard.

In the comments section below, tell us what moments, albums, artists, trends, or developments you think best defined the past decade. You can also tell us in a Tweet. I put a note up on Twitter with the hashtag #decade00 (a hash tag is the # sign followed by a term so it's easy to track what people are saying), so in a Tweet you could tell us what you think and put #decade00 at the end. You can see people's responses on Twitter below.

I doubt Carl Sagan, before his all-too-early death in 1996, could have imagined that he'd one day release an incredibly moving, masterfully produced single (and an amazing video to go along with it), but that's exactly what's happening, thanks to composer John Boswell and Jack White's Third Man Records. Boswell composed and produced the song, "A Glorious Dawn," using the much-maligned AutoTune.

It's really an incredible piece, drawing on clips from Carl Sagan's Cosmos television series, with a special appearance by Stephen Hawking, from the documentary Stephen Hawking's Universe. "A Glorious Dawn" first appeared on YouTube a couple of months ago. Now Third Man Records plans to release it as a 7" on Nov. 9. It'll be a limited-edition, single-sided vinyl record, and only 150 copies will be made available. The release coincides with the 75th anniversary of Sagan's birth.

The Danish band Choir of Young Believers can have as many as eight members. But on this day, during the CMJ Music Festival in New York City, it was just a duo. The two performed at the Cutting Room Studios, with KEXP host John Richards. It was a beautiful performance, and while I saw it live, I'm glad to finally have this video to pass along, so you can see the band's performance, too. Thanks to KEXP and videographer Louis Sparre for capturing this.

After releasing The Beatles' re-mastered back catalog on CD in September, EMI and Apple Corps Ltd. are now introducing a limited edition apple-shaped USB containing the re-mastered audio plus a bunch of goodies.

The 30,000 USB editions will be available from the The Beatle's Website on December 8th in the U.S. and will retail for about $280. In addition to the 320 Kbps MP3s of The Beatles' 14 stereo titles, the USB will contain original album art, rare photos, expanded liner notes, and 13 mini-documentaries about the albums. The green apple shape is definitely cute, but will it be as much fun to open as the box set?

Last spring, Weezer debuted it's very own Wuggie, Weezer + Snuggie. Now Weezer is offering its exclusive Wuggie along with purchases of its latest album, Raditude. The standard album package gets you the album plus a blue Weezer Snuggie, but for just $20 more, you can get a deluxe CD, photo book, and exclusive zebra print Snuggie!

Fans of the classic Snuggie infomercial will enjoy Weezer's own take on the late night ad.

That's the subject heading of an email I received recently from a listener. As I began to write a response, it occurred to me that this was a good opportunity to talk to a larger audience about the music we play on All Songs Considered, and how we pick what we pick.

Producer Robin Hilton and I approach the show as music fans. Much of what we play on All Songs Considered we play simply because we love it. We tend not to cover music we don't like. Our tastes in music are wide-ranging on one hand, but we admittedly don't love everything. To broaden the music we put on the show, we invite others to play DJ. This week's show featured Kyp Malone from TV on the Radio. He played music by a band from the Western Sahara, a New Zealand-based noise rock group and Kermit the Frog among others.

Two weeks ago, I invited WBGO's jazz host Josh Jackson to keep us all in touch with music he's been excited about. Last week, I was at CMJ and covered a number of bands that fall into the "Indie Rock" category (which I think covers a wide range of music, but more on that in a minute), and on the same show we covered a contemporary classical violinist and an exciting hip-hop artist named Kid Cudi.

I'd never say that we cover all songs on the show any more than All Things Considered covers all news items, or ABC World News covers the world. We do cover a lot of ground, but, of course, it's impossible to cover everything.

Robin and I receive hundreds of CDs a week. We toss all press releases in the recycle bin and we try to come to what we love honestly. I won't fake what I do when I host the show. I tend to play music that speaks to me, and so my lack of love for hip-hop, country, classical and metal, stand out as big holes in our coverage. With the exception of classical, those genres tend to sell the best and get covered by traditional media and radio the most, especially hip-hop and country music. And while I can find all of that music on my local radio dial, including jazz, gospel and Latin, nowhere can I hear The Low Anthem, Bill Frisell, Anoushka Shankar, Taken by Trees or even Bon Iver.

Though the Indie rock world thinks of someone like Andrew Bird as a big artist, the musical world he inhabits is tiny compared to any good-selling hip-hop or country artist.

I'm also thinking about the categorization of music in general. There is something to be said for naming a style of music, but too often it seems to just make it easier for people to dismiss it entirely. So Indie rock might be stereotyped in your mind as one kind of music, but to others, it's as diverse as M.I.A. and Iron and Wine. Those two artists alone have elements of so many different styles of music. So I may play something considered Indie, but really The Be Good Tanyas were probably more down home and country than the best-selling country act.

All that said, the most important mission for All Songs Considered, as we complete our 10th year, has been (and will always be) to turn people on to good, new music, give it some context, find some old gems and do it in a way that informs and entertains. It's a mission that informs all of NPR Music, and as a Web site, has a broader scope then just this one show.

We don't do it all, and we are nowhere near perfect. But as I look back at a decade of All Songs Considered shows, it's a pretty eclectic mix, From Bix Beiderbecke to LCD Soundsystem, from Amadou and Mariam to Art Brut.

But what do you think? What would you like from All Songs Considered in the in the coming years?

The prolific singer and lyricist Johnny Mercer wrote over 1500 songs in his lifetime, including "Come Rain Or Come Shine," "Fools Rush In," and "That Old Black Magic." To celebrate what would have been his 100th birthday on November 18th, Mercer is getting his very own YouTube channel, featuring 100 videos of world famous musicians covering his songs.

The collection of videos and performances features classic versions of Mercer's songs, from artists such as Frank Sinatra, Etta James, and Billie Holiday. But also includes more surprising choices, such as Bjork's version of "I Remember You" and Iggy Pop's "One For My Baby." Also commemorating this month of Mercer is an upcoming television special, produced by Clint Eastwood, which will air on TCM tomorrow night (November 4).

Here's Johnny Mercer and The Hi-Lo's (From The Rosemary Clooney Show) doing "Jamboree Jones"

"Moon River" from Breakfast At Tiffany's

Iggy Pop's 1999 performance of Mercer's "One For My Baby"

Bjork performs "I Remember You"

Download "Burden Onto You" by Abbott Carter (Right-click or control-click to save to your computer)

All I can tell you about folksinger-guitarist Abbott Carter is that he's based out of Austin, Texas. What he looks like and his age are both mysteries to me, but I think that only adds to his music. His anonymity allows me to romanticize my image of him: I see him sitting on a porch somewhere picking out his beautiful folk tunes and singing to the trees.

When I first listened to his self-titled album, I thought his music was just simple folk that maybe deserved a second listen. On that second listen, though, I found details in his guitar playing and lyrics that really made me stop and pay attention. Some songs feature touches of electric guitar, plodding percussion (usually a stomping foot) and Grateful Dead-like harmonies. But they mostly focus on Carter's fine acoustic fingerpicking and weathered voice. I hear the gnarled lyricism of Bob Dylan as well as the low rumblings of Leonard Cohen. Most songs have a tinny, vintage sound, but the music doesn't sound dated. After a few listens, the songs have stayed with me and haven't lost their novelty. It was hard for me to pick just one to share -- I really love them all. But luckily, the one Web site of his that I found streams what appears to be his entire catalog of songs, including the beautiful "I'd Only Ask It." But one of my favorites from the album is the bittersweet "Burden Onto You."

Subscribe to the Second Stage podcast to automatically download each song to your computer.

Submit your music for possible inclusion in Second Stage or All Songs Considered.

A few weeks back at a 9:30 Club show, I ran into a music-industry friend who said she had something I'd probably want to hear. It was too loud in the club and the opening act too boring, so we dashed to the car and fired up her iPod. That's when I heard a good half of the new Spoon record.

Sitting with a publicist and listening to a record is an uncomfortable affair. It's something I do rarely, and only with the few who can take my honesty and not be crushed when I don't like a record; after all, they have a vested interest in me liking it. But in this case, it was easy.

The new record, called Transference, sounds great. The actual recording sounded surprisingly detailed, considering we were in a car. What impressed me most was the care and the craft. It's one thing to write a great pop song (and Britt Daniel has a pretty sharp history of that), but then there's that next level. Lots of people can play a poignant guitar part, but the next part of the art is mixing it at the right volume, placing it in the best position in the stereo field to serve the song, and putting just the right effect on it to either blend well with the song or act as counterpoint. That care and craft is what I was hearing in Transference. These are, of course, first impressions, and I've not heard it all, though it has me eager for its release in 2010.

Here's the track list:

Before Destruction
I Love Forever?
The Mystery Zone
Who Makes Your Money?
Written in Reverse
I Saw the Light
Trouble Comes Running
Goodnight Laura
Out Go the Lights
Got Nuffin
Nobody Gets Me But You

Hi! Will Hermes here. I'll be taking the bus down to Madison Square Garden in NYC later to see the first night of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's 25th Anniversary Benefit Concert. The billed line-up tonight is Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band, Stevie Wonder, Simon & Garfunkel, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Friends. However, the idea is that these artists will be paying (and playing) tribute to their influences and inspirations. So Bruce is expected to perform with Sam Moore (Sam & Dave) and Darlene Love (The Crystals and various other Phil Spector concoctions), Stevie Wonder will be joined by Smokey Robinson and young soulman John Legend, etc. You can peek at the Hall of Fame's site for more info: http://www.rockhall25.com/

There's no telling at this point who all's gonna show up, on stage or in the crowd. But it should be interesting, so I'll be tweeting throughout the night, from around 7 p.m. ET until the show is over, around 11:30 p.m. ET. Follow me on Twitter @williamhermes.

Peter Gabriel is working on an ambitious new covers album featuring Radiohead, Neil Young, Bon Iver, Arcade Fire and David Bowie doing versions of each other's songs. The BBC reports that the album will be called Scratch My Back and will also include Randy Newman, Elbow, Talking Heads and Paul Simon.

Gabriel collaborator John Metcalfe says on his Web site that "the album will be acoustic, using only orchestral instruments (no guitars, drums or world instruments), and range in size from sparse chamber music to much fuller orchestral sounds."

Here's a list of tracks, posted on Gabriel's forum Web site.

01. "Heroes" - David Bowie
02. "Street Spirit" - Radiohead
03. "The Book Of Love" - Magnetic Fields
04. "Flume" - Bon Iver
05. "My Body Is A Cage" - Sara Lov
06. "Listening Wind" - Talking Heads
07. "I Think It's Going To Rain Today" - Randy Newman
08. "Apres Moi"
09. "Waterloo Sunset" - The Kinks
10. "The Boy In The Bubble" - Paul Simon
11. "The Power Of The Heart" - Lou Reed
12. "Philadelphia" - Bruce Springsteen
13. "Mirrorball" - Elbow

A new film about John Lennon's childhood is due out late this December. Nowhere Boy, from Bob and Harvey Weinstein, is based on the book Imagine This: Growing Up With My Brother John Lennon by Lennon's half-sister, Julia Baird. The story follows Lennon's early childhood into his teen years, his friendship with Paul McCartney and first steps toward becoming a megastar. Kristin Scott Thomas plays the aunt who raised Lennon, while British actor Aaron Johnson plays Lennon. Thomas Sangster fills the role of Paul McCartney. Sangster is right-handed and is reportedly learning how to play the guitar with his left hand, like McCartney.

The British electro-rock duo Goldfrapp is scoring Nowhere Boy. Producers are also negotiating with Yoko Ono for the right to use some of Lennon's songs in the film.

Here's the trailer:

When he's not pondering questions about the state of music today ("What's the point of a song?"), Sufjan Stevens is busy promoting his multimedia project, The BQE.

The "cinematic suite, inspired by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the hula hoop," began as a performance back in late 2007. Stevens and his collaborators have spent almost two years putting together the BQE package and making it available to fans. His label, Asthmatic Kitty, describes the package, which was released on Oct. 20, as "a grand creative franchise-incorporating movie, symphony, comic book, dissertation, photography, graphic design and a 3-D Viewmaster reel in which a songwriter's interrogation of one of New York's ugliest landmarks expands athletically to forums and formulas outside of the song itself."

A number of screenings of the BQE film will take place throughout the Midwest over the next few weeks. The string quartet Osso (which recorded arrangements of Stevens' songs on Run Rabbit Run) is touring with the film, and Stevens himself will appear in Minneapolis, Madison, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and possibly Louisville to introduce the film. Watch the trailer below.

THE BQE- A Film By Sufjan Stevens from Asthmatic Kitty on Vimeo.

Download "Acting Like A Kid" by Slow Skate (Right-click or control-click to save to your computer)

Seattle band Slow Skate is fronted by married couple Caitlin Sherman and Jason Goessl, with help from Brian Oppel on drums and Geoff Harper on bass. Songwriter and lead singer Sherman has a clear, haunting voice that drew me deep into the music at first listen. I love the way it never stays the same between songs, instead moving between delicate and powerful from track to track. It blends perfectly with the band's eerie brand of indie-pop, and brings to mind voices like St. Vincent and Fiest. Strings, toy piano, autoharp, and glockenspiel punctuate the finely crafted pop tunes, giving them a woozy, carnival-like feel.

Slow Skate released its second full-length, Past The Whole Parade this past September. The album opener "Acting Like a Kid" features beautiful, faraway vocal harmonies backing Sherman's light and agile voice.