March 1, 2012 – Just when you thought the world was done extracting money from the grave of Tupac Shakur, AllHipHop points out that Broadway is directing our attention back to the late rapper's legacy. That's right, Holler if Ya Hear Me is slated to be the world's first Pac musical! Holler will be directed by Tony-winning director Kenny Leon, whose previous work includes the 2004 revival of Raisin in the Sun that starred Sean Combs and a 2010 production of Fences with Denzel Washington and Viola Davis — in other words, even if you think a Pac musical is a little exploitative, at least the directing will be excellent.

March 1, 2012 – Thanks to our friends over at Prefix and the Big Picture, we are now listening to Kurt Cobain's isolated vocals on now-20-year-old Nevermind's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." The YouTube was actually posted in January 2010 but is making the rounds today for no clear reason, but there it is! If you're listening for the first time, the a cappella vocal track is eerie, especially considering that its first 45 seconds, when the song's infamous riff is repeated over and over, it's completely silent. When Kurt starts singing, though, even his breath is audible, and the song with some of the most unlikely brilliant rhymes ("a mulatto / an albino / a mosquito / my libido") becomes shockingly solemn. It almost feels like accidentally walking in on the late frontman rehearsing in some echoing, furniture-less, white-washed practice room in the sky.

March 1, 2012 – A few weeks ago, on "Valantine's Day," as he put it, Billie Joe Armstrong announced via Twitter that Green Day had started recording their first studio album since 2009's woefully predictable, Butch Vig-produced 21st Century Breakdown. Last Friday, looking like he rolled out of the makeup trailer on the set of Napoleon Dynamite, Armstrong and his bandmates appeared onscreen in a 35-second in-the-studio video update (via NME). If we are correctly hearing what Armstrong is telling us, the band has finally gotten over their Bush-era rage and the record will mercifully explore more straightforward subject matter.

March 1, 2012 – After performing with the xx, Yuck, Male Bonding, Warpaint, and former Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur, London-based Irish sister duo 2:54 have signed to Fat Possum. Their woozy debut EP, Scarlet, which drops stateside Monday (it's been out in Europe via for a few months already) and screams "I love the '90s!" is streaming exclusively here at SPIN. Hannah and Colette Thurlow's hallmark is their disarming intensity, derived from their pre-2:54 days as punk outfit Vulgarians.

March 1, 2012 – As we reported earlier this week, on Tuesday night Frank Ocean told his Tumblr following Don Henley had threatened to sue him over his use of the entire master track for the Eagles' classic "Hotel California," which Ocean reinvented as his own "American Wedding," an elegy to the hypocrisy of Western culture's ideas of love and marriage. Now SPIN has learned that wasn't exactly the case. When asked to confirm that Henley had made contact with Ocean's people, a rep for the Eagles told us it wasn't actually Henley who made the threat, but rather the owner of the master track Ocean nicked: Warner Music Group. In a statement to SPIN, Larry Solters writes, "Frank Ocean did not merely 'sample' a portion of the Eagles’ Hotel California; he took the whole master track, plus the song’s existing melody, and replaced the lyrics with his own.

February 29, 2012 – This afternoon, Lady Gaga took the stage at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society with her mother Cynthia Germanotta, Oprah Winfrey, and assorted prominent academic, professional and political figures to introduce her new anti-bullying Born This Way Foundation. While her efforts are undoubtedly coming from the right place and positively impact her zillion fans worldwide, only ol' Meat Dress could find a way to make such a solemn subject feel a little, well, vaudevillian. We've compiled a list of 10 ridiculous things one should do at a launch event if one wants to become a pop star, start a foundation, and emulate Lady Gaga. 1. Wear a large, sparkly black hat with flaps reminiscent of fly wings.

February 29, 2012 – This isn't the plot of a glorified, thug-life rap flick: there really was a dead body on Rick Ross' lawn this morning. TMZ reports that Miami Gardens Police discovered the gunshot-riddled body of a 40-year-old man in front of the Teflon Don's Florida mansion. Ross wasn't home at the estimated time of the shooting, so he's not being ruled a suspect just yet, but police nevertheless want to speak with him, as he's the property owner of the crime scene.

February 29, 2012 – Despite appearances, post-Fall Out Boy life has been rough for Patrick Stump. The vocalist/guitarist posted a lament on his official website titled "We Liked You Better Fat: Confessions of a Pariah" (via ONTD) last night in which he explained, "The reality is that for a certain number of people, all I've ever done, all I ever will do, and all I ever had the capacity to do worth a damn was a record I began recording when I was 18 years old." Which, he explained, would be fine, if people weren't such assholes about it: "What I wasn’t prepared for was the fervor of the hate from people who were ostensibly my own supporters (or at least supporters of something I had been part of).

February 29, 2012 – Michael Jackson's life brimmed with controversy, and the first album of posthumous music that arrived after his 2009 death was no different. At the time of its release, Michael was subject to rumblings regarding who, exactly, was singing on the record. The biggest rumors hypothesized that unsigned Seattle-based pop singer Jason Malachi contributed vocals to the disc. Now new reports claim that in 2008, a year before her father's death, Jackson's daughter Paris had admitted to friends via videochat that the record her father was preparing was being made by Malachi. Malachi first made waves in the Jackson fan community with his song "Mamacita" in 2007, when listeners picked up on the track and could have sworn it was new material from the King of Pop.

February 29, 2012 – Someone has agreed to publish Cee Lo Green's sure-to-be-wacktastic memoir. The five-time Grammy-winning singer and The Voice judge announced yesterday that, at the ripe age of 37, he has decided to reflect. The as-yet-untitled book (but who wouldn't put money on some iteration of Forget You?) will hit the market next year. In an official statement (via the Hollywood Reporter) that no doubt is riding the buzz following his recent announcement of new solo and Goodie Mob albums, Cee Lo introduced the book in mystical fashion, foretelling, "You will enter into the supernatural, the surreal, and extraordinary... I will make you a believer.