January 11, 2013 – If you've got an hour to spare, Los Angeles' Local Natives will make it worth your time. The tropically tinged folk-pop posse recently recorded an intimate 60-minute concert (and interview) for L.A.

January 11, 2013 – As previously reported, Peter Jackson and the rest of the team behind the recently released West Memphis Three documentary, West of Memphis, put together an incredibly hefty soundtrack for their film featuring everyone from Marilyn Manson (covering Carly Simon) to the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines (covering Pink Floyd) to Eddie Vedder (covering ... well, his own damn self).In a new interview with Diffuser.fm Vedder discusses his song "Satellite," which he wrote for Lorri Davis — the woman who married the WM3's Damien Echols while he was on death row, and was joined by Vedder and others in the fight for the wrongly convicted trio's freedom. The minimal track initially appeared on his 2011 Ukelele Songs collection."I was just in a faraway place and their story came to mind. We were raising funds to get a new investigator on the case ...

January 11, 2013 – Don't say she didn't warn us. Last February, New York singer Sharon Van Etten broke down her Favorite Things to SPIN and when it came to the "not-so-new artist" of her obsession, she revealed, "I've been getting into Nick Cave lately. The Boatman's Call is amazing; it's an album of love songs, really beautiful." It hasn't even been a year yet and she's not only preparing to open for Cave and his Bad Seeds on a series of North American dates (below), but has absolutely mastered a ballad from that somber 1997 piano-based album she mentioned: "People Ain't No Good." (And yes, that's the same misanthropic delight featured in Shrek 2.)Van Etten picked up an acoustic guitar for her soul-stirring version of the song, performed above for the Australian radio station Triple J. It's a bold choice, of course, as Cave is of Aussie stock and, we can only assume, treated as a god over there.

January 11, 2013 – The initial cacophony that announces the presence of Popstrangers' "What Else Could They Do" is a bit misleading. While we begin with the grit and heft of a grunge-gaze basher, the New Zealand trio quickly lead us toward lilting melody. That's mostly thanks to Joel Flyger, whose strikingly calm delivery contrasts wonderfully with all of that unholy racket that Adam Page and David Larson are making. This is, of course, a hallmark of the Popstrangers sound: that thing that you might call pop couched within hard punk and occasionally unforgiving riffage.

January 10, 2013 – The third wave of acts for South By Soutwest 2013 has been announced — 480 more artists and bands, bringing the running list up to nearly 1,300. Check out our picks from the first and second waves, and then dive into the late additions below. The big names this time around include Tegan and Sara, Black Lips, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Prince Paul, the Skatalites, Bobby Bare and, oh, Vampire Weekend.

January 10, 2013 – Floridian noise-poppers and recent SPIN Breaking Out stars Merchandise are back with another one: the itchy seven-minute song "Anxiety's Door," the first sampling of the trio's just-announced Totale Nite album, due this spring on the low-flying Night People label. That, of course, follows up the group's fantastic 2012 debut, Children of Desire, which gave us the genuinely scary "In Nightmare Room" video and a great rooftop recording of "Become What You Are." This latest song certainly doesn't reinvent the band, but we weren't looking for that anyhow.

January 10, 2013 – Last summer, Beyoncé's father and former manager Mathew Knowles stoked up Destiny's Child reunion rumors when he told Huffington Post that a pair of retrospective compilations were on the horizon, which would feature "new material." The first of those sets arrived in October — Playlist: The Very Best of Destiny's Child — sans any big surprises, but the second has just been announced, and it features the first freshly recorded song from the R&B ladies in eight years. Love Songs, due January 29, promises "mainly ... romantic gems recorded between 1997 and 2004," but also includes a track called "Nuclear" produced by Pharrell Williams and featuring the final DC lineup: Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland, and Michelle Williams. In other Bey news, the soon-to-be Super Bowl XLVII halftime heroine appears in a new GQ profile that unfortunately includes very few revelations

January 10, 2013 – Seen Moon, Prometheus, and Event Horizon but always wondered what a six-minute, mid-budget mashup of those three sci-fi thrillers would look like? With a score designed by the grunge forefathers who directly inspired Godsmack into existence? Well, Alice in Chains have got you covered with the official video for "Hollow," the first single from their still untitled forthcoming 2013 album. Back in December, the Seattle O.G.s shared the song via a pretty rad lyric video compiling fan photography of the song's dark and mysterious words (example: "Easy to feed off a weaker thing / Harder to say what I really mean.") in various scenarios and scenes.

January 10, 2013 – The young dudes in Foxygen have an incredible knack for making old soul music. The Los Angeles-based duo's early experiments with nostalgia-tinged noise took glorious shape on last year's Take the Kids Off Broadway  with an assist from the mighty producer/player/Shins member Richard Swift. The gifted soundman returns for the boys' January 22 album We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic, and we've already heard a couple examples of their friendly mysticism. There was the appropriately titled, mildly funky "Shuggie" in late November, and the swooning, lovely "San Francisco" (with its appropriately '60s-flavored video) arrived earlier this week. Now we have "No Destruction" to mull over with its easy-rambling beat, Dylanesque phrasing and warm poetry about smoking pot on the subway and sipping milkshakes in hotel parlors.

January 10, 2013 – It looks like the worst-kept secret in music is finally officially out: Justin Timberlake has plans to release his long-awaited, still untitled third album, the first since 2006's well-remembered FutureSex/LoveSounds. While he hasn't outright said those exact words, this morning his website posted a YouTube clip called, "I'm Ready," in which the former 'NSYNC star and recent Myspace reviver takes a minute-long walk before winding up in the vocal booth at a studio. He narrates along the way, dramatically laying out his struggle as a recording artist before we join the real Justin who says to his off-camera producer (Timbaland, it's rumored), "I'm ready."Timberlake sent out an enigmatic Tweet yesterday now revealed to be the release date and time of today's clip, directed by John Urbano (One Direction, Lissie, Alexi Murdoch).