December 6, 2012 – In early November, My Bloody Valentine mastermind Kevin Shields announced out of the blue that the band will at last release a full-length follow-up to their 1991 classic Loveless by the end of the year. At the time, he was "halfway through mixing" the album, of which Shields said, "Some people think it’s stranger than Loveless ... I feel like it really frees us up, and in the bigger picture it’s 100 percent necessary."A freshly published interview with MBV bassist Debbie Googe sheds more light on the band's recent activities, although it's unclear exactly when Drowned in Sound spoke to her ("earlier this year," they write).

December 6, 2012 – Austin music megafest South By Southwest has announced the second round of artists confirmed for its 2013 edition, which will run March 12 through 17. A month ago, SPIN sifted through the initial lineup announcement, a 230-band list that seemed quite massive at the time. Well, for this new batch, we had 583 more acts to organize. The biggest names this time around? Angel Haze, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Charli XCX, Crystal Method, Dead Prez, Flatbush Zombies, Major Lazer, Toro y Moi, and Wavves. (Oh, and Third Eye Blind.) All told, healthy additions to the already exciting announcements of Alt-J, the Zombies, Thurston Moore, Ryan Hemsworth, and WHY?.

December 6, 2012 – After nearly four years, Paramore will at last release their "fourth freaking album," the band have announced. The emo-pop trio credit producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen for "seeing a brand new band in us," and in honor of that development, they're calling the LP Paramore. They've set an April 9 release date for the set, and announced that the first single will be called "Now."As SPIN reported back in May, singer Hayley Williams explained that the process behind the new one has been "less toiled and troubled" than previous outings. And in early November, guitarist Taylor York sent out a promising tweet:So we finished tracking our fourth album. This is surreal. Stoked. I am exhausted. I hope you love it.

December 6, 2012 – San Francisco-based oddballs/eyeballs the Residents are celebrating the 40th anniversary of their first release, 1972's "Santa Dog" single, by releasing the Ultimate Box Set, a $100,000 music collectible to end all. In typical Residents fashion, the "box" is in fact a 28 cubic-foot refrigerator that comes stocked with first pressings of what appears to be every single Residents release ever — more than 100 items — including an actual eyeball-with-top-hat mask which you may recognize from their pioneerings pre-MTV music videos. More specifically, we're talking about "563 songs...40 vinyl LPs, 50 CDs, and dozens of singles, EPs, DVDs, and CD-ROMs plus other releases" and also objects, as is made clear in the insane infomercial above.

December 6, 2012 – London may not have a glut of post-dubstep psych-pop trios, but if they did, Darkstar would be the kings of the scene. After planting a flag for their distinct sound back in 2010 with debut LP on Hyperdub, North, the fellas signed to Warp for their upcoming album News From Nowhere, due February 5. We've heard the lush cybernetic garden that is first single "Timeaway," plus toyed around with the abstracted song loop snippets "News #1-10" and their corresponding GIF-like clips, but in the new Yours Truly-directed video for "A Day's Pay For A Day's Work," we get to see a rarer side of this already uncommon group. The camera opens on the three discussing a clutch change: translating their studio-born songs into something playable in person.

December 5, 2012 – So Snoop Dogg, as Snoop Lion, held a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" session Wednesday afternoon and in contrast to recent chats with Trent Reznor and Das Racist's Heems, the conversation didn't span the range of the artist's illustrious career, venture into broader social topics, or even stir up some controversy. Instead — and we admit our brazen foolishness in expecting anything else — the fan-run Q&A focused on one, ahem, heady subject to the exclusion of most others. You guessed it: weed. When the peanut gallery did stretch out into other territory, the queries were often still couched within a marijuana haze, and in the rare instances that they asked about the music, Snoop almost invariably directed them to the lyric video to his new Major Lazer-produced single, "Here Comes the King."So what was it like to read through the entire thing on the hunt for some tasty quotes?

December 5, 2012 – First things first, Kanye West doesn't deserve his name on the marquee of this one. Yeezy may have absolutely murdered Rihanna's "Diamonds" last month, but he contributes only a single slurred-out line (repeated for the chorus) to the Game's latest single: "Something like my Jesus piece." That's it. Not even a solid adjective or verb to stand on — just the open-ended "something," leaving Los Angeles' shirt-averse gangsta gawd to flesh the half-lyric out into a full thought. With that out of the way, "Jesus Piece" deserves its status as the titular track on the Game's forthcoming fifth LP, due December 11.

December 5, 2012 – First! Alicia Keys pushes Rihanna off of her pedestal, with Unapologetic falling all the way down to No. 6 (72K sold according to Nielsen SoundScan) as the more established songstress launches her Girl on Fire at No. 1 (159K). This is nothing new for Keys, who's seen all but one of her four previous studio albums (and one live set) sit atop the 10. She shouldn't get too comfy up there, however. Although 2009's The Element of Freedom started at No. 2, it sold 417K that week. Even her 2005 Unplugged LP did better. Nevertheless, it's a weird week, and Keys does hold the honor of having the only debut in the entire Top 20. Burn, baby, burn.2 to 10: It's bleak, people. Like, sleet and snow and sliding-cars-on-highways bleak. The only good news to report: Taylor Swift holds strong with Red coming in at No. 2 (137K).

December 5, 2012 – A Chicago judge has demanded that Pitchfork surrender its video footage of Windy City rapper Chief Keef brandishing a firearm at a New York gun range, says the Chicago Sun-Times. The music site retracted their "Selector" interview with the fast-rising young star upon realizing the clip's bad taste in light of the gun violence plaguing Chicago's rap community.But the 17-year-old MC born Keith Cozart was on an 18-month probation at the time for allegedly pointing a gun at a city police officer.

December 5, 2012 – WHO: Four hard-partying, hook-hawking punk primitivists from Los Angeles whose name is the skate-speak equivalent of "YOLO." FIDLAR stands for "Fuck it, dog, life's a risk"—a handy dare if your bud is feeling squeamish about popping that ollie off the neighbor's roof or, as singer Zac Carper explains, "If you're drinking at a party and you're like, ‘Should I have this 12th beer?' FIDLAR, dude. Just do it." Formed in 2009, the foursome attained local infamy by giving out free songs — like the recent Shit We Recorded in Our Bedroom EP — and promoting house shows online. "The Internet is our version of a zine," says drummer Max Kuehn.RIDING THE WAVVE: FIDLAR's catchy, but frills-free songs land them between the spiked hardcore of Trash Talk and the fuzzy surf-pop of Wavves. "That's our scene," says guitarist Elvis Kuehn.