I don't want to be the sort of person who puts down a wonderful organization like the March of Dimes. Hey, I'm for healthy babies too! I've fathered two of them, and I was certainly thankful for their health. However, look at this lineup for Stork Tunes, "a CD celebrating motherhood with calming, inspirational musical compositions focused on mothers and babies." Really, they couldn't do any better than this?

Celine Dion, "A Mother's Prayer"

Dixie Chicks, "Godspeed (Sweet Dreams)"
Jessica Andrews, "I Wish for You"
The Boys Choir of Harlem, "Children of the World"
Katrina Carlson, "Mother"
Norah Jones, "Sunrise"

Dean Backholm, "Mother & Child"
Kenny Loggins, "Rainbow Connection"
Billy Joel, "Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)"

Sinead O'Connor, "All Babies"
Wynonna Judd, "Always Will"
Raffi, "May There Always be Sunshine"

I get the idea of wanting to relax while giving birth, but do we really want to give babies this sort of first impression? I'm trying my best to keep my kids from having to deal with the knowledge that Celine Dion is out there—somewhere—for as long as possible. March of Dimes, I'll send you the $5 that's donated from each purchase of this disc in lieu of buying it, because I'd rather stick to this realistic and moving take on the bond between mother and child, which my children heard while entering this world.

Stork Tunes [March of Dimes]

As an act of full journalistic disclosure, I should mention at the start of this installment of VHS or Beta that in the bitterly cold winter of early 2007, I performed one day's work on the production of My Blueberry Nights, the first English-language feature from world-renowned Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai (after two decades of acclaimed films like Chungking Express, So Happy Together, and In the Mood for Love).

I day-played for the mere sake of being able to boast in cocktail chatter that I worked on a Kar Wai film, and apparently I wasn't alone in wanting to have such a topic for polite conversation. Marquee names like Norah Jones, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, David Strathairn, and, uh, Cat Power, no doubt felt a similar urge to imbibe Wong Kar Wai's secondhand-smoke brand of cool, too.

For if anything, Kar Wai is cool. Always in sunglasses, a smoke perpetually in hand, he absorbs and namechecks Western culture expertly. For those who asked me to sum up the man in a single sentiment, I explained, "He's the Haruki Murakami of cinema." Kar Wai's soundtracks are infused with choice selections, as meticulously pondered as the color palettes, costumes, and lingering shots of curlicues of protagonist smoke in his films. When first sitting through In the Mood for Love, how could you not be swept up by those FO-NET-ick-lee sung Portuguese numbers from Nat King Cole? (It's strangely fitting that Shigeru Umebayashi, whose music also appeared in that film, reappears here with a harmonica-led version of that lingering melody.)

One suspects that the opportunity to shoot in the states might also give the man a chance to fully indulge his love of American music (and hit more than a few record stores along the way). And the soundtrack for My Blueberry Nights namechecks Otis Redding, Ruth Brown, and, uh, Cat Power. Most of the interludes come courtesy of Ry Cooder, who since his soundtrack slide guitar work on 1968's Performance has shown he can conjure bottleneck incidental music in his sleep. And here, he really does. He also pads out the proceedings with two of his producer efforts (for Mavis Staples and Hello Stranger). Standout is Cassandra Wilson's ambient take on Neil Young's "Harvest Moon."

Alas, Ry Cooder's not the only sleepwalker during said Nights. "Living Proof" and "The Greatest," from Chan Marshall's most somnambulant album, The Greatest, get deployed throughout the film. As for her first on-screen appearance, in the liner notes, Kar Wai talks about Marshall visiting the set: "We got along great, and immediately fell to joking about how she could play... a part that then did not even exist. Come winter 2006, Chan re-visited the set, this time in front of the camera playing that very role we once laughed about." True, as it is pretty laughable to have the stilted Chan Marshall portray a Russian émigré ingénue, but this passage also gives the impression that Kar Wai came over to rub elbows with 'cool' celebrities himself.

For the most part, though, the secondary characters give the film its wee bit of gravity. These characters (played by Strathairn, Portman, and Weisz) are addictive personalities: drunks, card sharks, the lovelorn. In their brief time onscreen, they far outstrip the Law and Jones, whose passion is about as torrid as room-temperature vanilla ice cream. There are many other structural problems to the film, the most glaring being the naturally arising question: "What sort of road movie has only two stops on it?"

Throughout, it feels as if Wong Kar Wai is caught up in the veneer of the American myth, his camera merely capturing—yet ultimately unable to penetrate—the shiny surfaces. But what gives with that diner's perpetually uneaten blueberry pie? Given that Jones always passes out after eating a bite of it (it's when she's passed out that Law slips her the tongue), perhaps these blueberries are really just roofies.

Yes, those are Norah Jones-branded booty shorts complete with dangling ass cheeks, only $16 and part of the Post's rundown of the hottest music-related junk to waste your gift money on this holiday season. (You can also get Sean Kingston panties, but sadly they don't say "You'll Have Me Suicidal" across the butt. The Bon Jovi thong does say "Slippery When Wet," however, because that's how we do in Jersey.) We're already wearing a pair of Ashlee Simpson's "fingerless gloves with the anarchy 'A' symbol," but we know a few more things we'll be picking up thanks to the witty urgings of the Post's Billy Heller, who should really be moonlighting as an advertising copywriter. Fer instance:

Hopefully, Dave Matthews wasn't thinking about his 1996 double-platinum album "Crash," when he decided to sell die-cast DMB NASCAR models for $64.99.

Or maybe:

Drive into a swimming pool with the Keith Moon drumsticks from thewho.com

Wow, Bill. Just...wow.

Musically Gifted [NY Post]

The NFL is apparently figuring that there's only one way to top this year's completely epic performance by Prince at this year's Super Bowl, and that's to bring in The Boss. From Variety:

Bruce Springsteen and Norah Jones are at the top of the list. The NFL is hoping the recent successes of Prince, the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney can be used as leverage to bring in the Boss while Jones would be ideal to sing the National Anthem during the pregame ceremonies, according to NFL VP of programming Charles Coplin.

The league is starting to approach performers "earlier than ever before in our history," said Coplin. "The music business is going through some hard times. Performers care deeply about their album sales, and an appearance on the Super Bowl can move the needle dramatically."

Coplin points to the sales that followed Prince's performance at this year's Super Bowl. His overall album sales in the follow-ing week more than doubled to 31,000 and his digital downloads rose to 102,000 from 59,000.

While we're pretty sure that a performance by Springsteen would be nearly as epic as Prince's (maybe he can throw in a cover of "Big Me," just for good measure?), we have to wonder just what the NFL would decide to do for the next Super Bowl, because the "how-can-you-top-that" Monday morning chatter will surely be in full force should the Boss play. Clearly, the only solution to that speculation is the announcement of an endless U2/Prince/Springsteen cycle until at least Super Bowl L, when the downgrading of expectations from "extra large" to merely "large" will usher in an era where the 3-D Elvis concept becomes acceptable once again.

Inside Move: NFL on star search [Variety]

Biggest Debuts: Katharine McPhee is in the bridesmaid slot again; the American Idol runner-up's self-titled debut entered the chart at No. 2, with 116,000 units sold. And there was another TV-fueled phenomenon with a top five debut: Celtic Woman, an Irish sextet whose performances pop up on PBS a lot, sold 71,000 copies of its second album, A New Journey. Harry Connick's New Orleans-themed album Oh, My NOLA, came in at No. 11, selling 44,000 copies, while Jill Scott's collection of duets, Collaborations, came in right behind Connick. And Lily Allen's Alright, Still, despite being available to U.S. fans via British stores and less legal methods of music acquisition, sold 34,000 copies and came in at No. 20.

Biggest Slides: Last week's top two records—Pretty Ricky's Late Night Special and the Shins' Wincing The Night Away—both had sales declines of more than 50%, with the Pretty Ricky album dropping to No. 5 and the Shins full-length dipping to No. 8. (Yes, we almost made the "dropping—its pants" joke regarding the Pretty Ricky album. No, we aren't proud.)

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: Oh, Daughtry. We can't help but be fascinated by the seemingly unending success of your record, which hangs tough at No. 3 again. We're even thinking of renaming this section in your honor—but only if you and your shaved skull stay strong next week, when Fall Out Boy and Ashley Tisdale try to crowd their way into the chart's top five slots. We'll be keeping an eye on you.

Norah Jones' "Not Too Late" Debuts At No. 1 [Billboard]

Norah Jones, Not Too Late
The artist: The music industry's last, great hope.
The sound: Pretty, delicate, slightly soporific. (What, no Peeping Tom bonus track?)
The first in line: A harried mom who was planning on just getting a latte before she headed into work.

Katharine McPhee
The artist: Season-six American Idol runner-up who fancies herself a hybrid of Christina Aguilera and Judy Garland.
The sound: More Xtina than Judy, with a healthy dose of How Will I Know-era Whitney Houston.
The first in line: Foot fetishists, thanks to the strappy-shoe ode "Open Toes."

Young Love, Too Young To Fight It
The artist: Model-pretty scenester with a knack for aping the last three years' biggest disco-emo gestures.
The sound: Frothy, overproduced electro that wears thin after half a listen.
The first in line: The MisShapes of Peoria.

Various Artists, Endless Highway: Music Of The Band
The artists: It's like a Bonnaroo lineup: Jack Johnson, Guster, Widespread Panic, Bruce Hornsby. And Death Cab.
The sound: Painstaking reworks that border on the overly reverent.
The first in line: Rock writers in training.

On The CD Front [Pause & Play]

Norah Jones' upcoming Not Too Late just started pinging around the Internet this week, and in the interest of putting the "egads" in "egalitarian decisions," we present a track below. And why not? After all, it will likely be one of the best-selling albums of the year, and we do the best we can to live up to our mission statement of "discerning, but never snobby." Besides, your dad will love you for this:

Norah Jones - Wake Me Up [MP3, link removed]

The releases come as some high-tech and music-industry executives are becoming increasingly concerned about Apple's growing clout in the music business. Only online music files purchased from iTunes, ripped from users' own CDs or downloaded from pirate services can be played on the popular iPod. Copy-protected songs purchased from Yahoo and other legitimate sources don't work on it. By selling music in the MP3 format without copy-protection software, Yahoo can offer music that works easily on iPods.

Blue Note General Manager Zach Hochkeppel called the initiative "an experiment," adding that he doesn't believe it will cut into sales of Ms. Jones's forthcoming album, also called "Thinking About You," which is due out Jan. 30. That's because even if early copies of the song end up widely copied among friends or online, Ms. Jones's mostly adult fan base is thought to be less likely than teenage pop fans to be satisfied with just one song from the album and thus willing to buy the entire album even if they have gotten one song free. "Nobody gets hurt — we think," Mr. Hochkeppel said.

The article notes that the Buyin' Jones-Sound Massacre could be the first of many battle cries in the war between the music industry and Apple; as the labels realize how much of a bum deal they got from Steve Jobs, they'll start pushing to work around the ITunes store's digital-music domain. If this results in a no-holds-barred cage match between Jobs and Universal nag Doug Morris, we're all for it—especially if we can bootleg the whole thing and put it up on BitTorrent.

In a Turnabout, Record Industry Releases MP3s [WSJ]