Downloads

Surfing the Web for new music, video and MP3 downloads can be a serious time investment. Tips from Times staff and contributors will help take the drag out of click-and-drag music choices. Some downloads may contain explicit lyrics. All are free, except as noted.

“The Knife”

Grizzly Bear

www.stereogum.com/videos/grizzly_bear.htmlGrizzly Bear is last year’s Cinderella story, moving from a scratchy unrecognized indie band bent on sounding unrehearsed and poorly recorded to the creators of 2006’s sumptuously weird and wonderful sophomore album, “Yellow House,” a staple on many critics’ year-end Top 10 lists. In this video, exploring the relationship between man and the Earth, animation is incorporated to depict a wounded geologist who is cured by the crystals of a desert deity and returns to the sandy womb of an alluvial plain. The members of Grizzly Bear have cameos as the assistants behind a contraption producing drops of blood, sinking into the sediment as they sing, “Can’t you feel the knife?”

“Do What You Want”

OK Go

www.mtv.com/music/video/premieres.jhtml

As any rock musician knows, it helps to be in shape for the grueling tasks at hand. For OK Go, the degree of athleticism required exceeds that for an entire high school gymnastic squad. Previously, they proved their aptitude with treadmills. Here, every imaginable cartwheel and leap is attempted and achieved, all in a wallpapered world of brilliant vermilion. Clothing, guitars, everything in the video conforms to the background pattern. The great English polymath, William Morris, would have admired their utility in design. As for the song, it’s a rocking little number that offers fewer surprises than the visuals but recalls the Stax Volt leanings of late Jam or early Style Council.

“Last Request”

Paolo Nutini

www.youtube.com/watchvZF97N8FCI-Q

This young Scottish singer knows his ‘60s soul singers -- Bill Withers and Al Green are his most apparent influences -- and, combined with matinee idol looks, promises to go far. In this marvelously deceptive video, things are not as they seem. Set against a jewelry heist gone bad, Nutini lies on a floor littered with broken glass resembling the diamonds intended to be stolen. Next to him lies another victim -- an employee of the shop who is also his girlfriend. But as he sings, “Sure I can accept that we’re going nowhere, / But one last time let’s go there, / Lay down beside me,” events take a curious twist.

casey.dolan@latimes.com