July 17, 2012 – The sight of Lana Del Rey will now be associated with the trendy yet affordable designs at H&M. The Stockholm-based clothing chain confirmed Del Rey's new job via Twitter early this morning. "The mood is very L.A. noir," H&M creative director Donald Schneider told Women's Wear Daily. "It’s inspired by our fall collection." According to WWD, Del Rey will be "the global face of H&M's fall advertising — with a second campaign planned for winter." In addition to pants-less cardigan-wearing, Del Rey's H&M duties will also include singing a cover of "Blue Velvet," the standard popularized by Tony Bennett, for a "minifilm" that will be released via the chain's website September 19. We're going to go out on a limb and guess that it'll look kind of like an A$AP Rocky-less "National Anthem." Earlier this year, English house Mulberry named one of its $1,200 handbags after Del Rey.

July 17, 2012 – On March 19, 1962, Bob Dylan released his eponymous debut album on Columbia Records. Featuring largely folk standards and only two original songs, the record flew largely under the radar at the time of its release and it sold terribly, at least initially. Eleven Grammys, four Hall of Fame inductions (Rock and Roll, Grammy, Songwriters, and Nashville songwriters), an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a Pulitzer, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom later, Dylan has announced that to honor the 50th anniversary of his now landmark debut, he'll release his 35th studio album. The LP will appropriately be called Tempest and arrive September 11 via Columbia. Tempest will be comprised, an announcement posted on the Bard's site reads, of "ten new and original Bob Dylan songs," two of which, the Wall Street Journal reports, will pay tribute to John Lennon ("Roll on John") and the H.M.S.

July 16, 2012 – Kitty Wells, the world's first female country music superstar, died today at her home in Nashville, Tennessee, due to complications stemming from a stroke. She was 92. Born Ellen Muriel Deason in Nashville, Wells recorded 50 albums over the course of her 50-plus-year career, which took off in 1952 when she became the first solo woman to top the country charts with "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels." She recorded that single as a badass response to Hank Thompson's "Wild Side of Life," which bemoaned a woman's unfaithfulness and claimed that God made her that way. Her feat came eight years after Billboard starting tracking country singles. Wells' song, which implies unfaithful men make "honky tonk angels" cheat, has been covered by

July 16, 2012 – Following up on threats made when the Queen of Pop debuted a video featuring ultra-conservative French party leader Marine Le Pen with a swastika emblazoned on her forehead in Tel Aviv in May, Le Pen's camp announced today that the politician will file a lawsuit for "public insult" after Madge brought the same video to Paris' Le Stade de France Saturday night. The video, which also visually criticized leaders like Pope Benedict, Chinese leader Hu Jintao, and (because who can resist) Sarah Palin, backed the song "Nobody Knows Me" and highlighted the "Nazi-sympathizing image," reports the Guardian, that Le Pen attempted to clean up after she took over the party from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen.

July 16, 2012 – The Five returneth! After over a decade filled with solo projects, collegiate a cappella recording sessions, ill-fated singing competitions, and collaborations with authors and Internet-savvy cohorts keeping them apart, Ben Folds Five are finally getting the gang back together again. On September 18, the band will keep the promise they made in January and release their first album in 13 years (since 1999's Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner) via ImaVeePee Records/Sony Music. Precociously (as is the Ben Folds Five way) titled The Sound of the Life of the Mind, the record was born out of a Kickstarter-esque campaign on charity-based direct-to-fan site PledgeMusic, which allowed fans to literally fork over $2,500 to get their names in a Ben Folds Five song.

July 16, 2012 – Folks watching Bruce Springsteen's headlining slot at the Hard Rock Calling festival at London's Hyde Park were dealt two surprises Saturday night. The first was the appearance of Paul McCartney onstage to perform "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Twist and Shout" with the Boss, and the second was the fest cutting off the superstar collaboration midway through the second song. The MusiCares People of the Year's performance, which already featured guest appearances by John Fogerty and Tom Morello, went quiet when organizers cut shut down the power a little before 11 p.m., 30 minutes after the local 10:30 p.m. noise curfew.

July 16, 2012 – The studio recording for the xx's first Coexist single "Angels" has arrived with a quick note from the band: "It's been a long time since we've played you anything new. This song is called 'Angels,' it is the first single from our new album, Coexist. We've been playing this song live recently, so it feels good to share with you the version we've been working on for so long. We hope you like it. xx The xx" This is indeed the track the group has been playing at a few of their live gigs recently, and it will be available on Spotify and via iTunes at midnight tonight. It's a pensive, echo-laden lullaby filled with the kind of heart-stopping moments that defined the band's self-titled debut.

July 16, 2012 – In what's becoming a troubling trend, for the second time this month there's been a stabbing at a Swedish House Mafia concert. Three fans were hospitalized after being attacked at the group's Milton Keynes Bowl performance in Buckinghamshire, England, on Saturday night. A 23-year-old suffered a punctured lung and is still being treated; another 23-year-old received treatment on-site, and a 24-year-old was treated for minor arm and head cuts at a hospital and has since been discharged. The assailant, described by police as a white man in his early 20s in a blue Nike tee and "black jogging bottoms," has yet to be apprehended by authorities. Three additional people were arrested at the concert on suspicion of possession with intent to supply class-A drugs. Per U.K.law, that classification covers Ecstasy, LSD, heroin, cocaine, crack, mushrooms, and injection-prepared amphetamines.

July 16, 2012 – Last month, Mumford & Sons dropped a twee 36-second trailer that hinted via maritime flag signals that the their follow-up to the ridiculously successful debut Sigh No More would be called Babel. Now, they've confirmed the sophomore album's title and have announced that the record will be released on September 25 via Glassnote. "You might hear a little bit more of a slight flavor of darkness on a couple songs," bassist Ted Dwane told Rolling Stone, confirming what Babel's track listing implies with song titles like "Whispers in the Dark" and "Ghosts That We Knew" (which the band premiered on Philadelphia's Radio 104.5 last fall). He added that an Odyssean being-away-from-home theme (the kind that perpetually on-tour musicians experience) will also be a big factor.

July 16, 2012 – SPIN really dug Brooklyn sextet Ava Luna's full-length February debut, Ice Level. Its crisp, R&B-inflected soul-punk manages to groove perfectly and excite intellectually, not only because the songs are so beautifully layered, but also, as singer/guitarist/keyboardist Carlos Hernandez puts it, because "the rules are simple… unless we can play it live… no overdubs, basically." It's no surprise then that the band's first post-Ice offering, "Water Duct," is a product of opposites, too, even though it's the first time the band has laid down a track without exhaustive rehearsals. Recorded in May for Philadelphia-based non-profit Weathervane Music's Shaking Through series, which challenges "rising star" artists to record a song on-camera in two days, it's a luxurious yet minimal number that occasionally descends into chaos.