July 16, 2012 – Just before Kendrick Lamar took off for Chicago's Pitchfork festival, where Lady Gaga popped up solely to see his set, the Interscope signee unleashed a sludgy new single off his forthcoming debut good kid, m.A.A.d. city. Produced by T-Minus (whose recent work includes tracks on T.I., Rick Ross, and Slaughterhouse's new LPs), "Swimming Pools (Drank)" liberally combines sonic ooze and boozy lyrics with the brilliant, rapid-fire flow that helped earn his section.80 the No. 6 spot on our Best Rap Albums of 2011 list. As the murky backing track implies, this isn't necessarily a jaunty take on a nonstop summer party — you'll want to check out his summery collab with Dr. Dre earlier this year to grab a bit more of that vibe. good kid, m.A.A.d. city drops October 2 via Interscope/Top Dawg/Aftermath.

July 13, 2012 – During Vampire Weekend's nearly two-year absence from the stage, its four members have pursued projects both musical and journalistic in nature. And in the lead-up to their forthcoming headlining slot at this weekend's Pitchfork Music Festival, the foursome booked a handful of warm-up dates between New York and Chicago, returning to the stage last night at Cleveland's House of Blues with new songs at the ready (via CoS). One new song, deemed "New Song #2" by the YouTube user who posted it, falls nicely in line with the band's early defining work, West African guitar and harmonies included. When frontman Ezra Koenig interviewed the Walkmen's Hamilton Leithauser for SPIN last month, he mentioned that the NYC natives "have 80 percent of the songs" completed. They did, however, debut a 100 percent ready, 100 percent awesome new shirt at last night's show.

July 13, 2012 – Jennifer Lopez is now the second American Idol judge to quit the job in less than 24 hours. After waffling a bit on the topic yesterday following her costar Steven Tyler's ridiculous ERMAHGERD sign-off, she gave up trying to come up with an even funnier way to announce it and just told Ryan Seacrest on the radio this morning. "I honestly feel like the time has come that I have to get back to doing the other things that I do," she told Seacrest over the phone, after calling the decision "heartbreaking" on the Today show yesterday. Those things likely include staying the hell away from the Bronx and maybe making an album better/more confident/less cluttered by Idol performances than last year's Love?. Things are looking pretty bleak in Idol world ever since The X Factor scooped up Britney Spears and Demi Lovato for its upcoming season.

July 13, 2012 – TMZ has always had friends of questionable scruples at the LAPD, but today we applaud whatever ties the two organizations have because the batch of 911 calls they've turned up surrounding Justin Bieber's high-speed escape from dogged paparazzi in significantly less cool cars down the 101 freeway in Los Angeles last Friday is nothing short of a Summer Friday blessing. Monday, the leak of Bieber's own 911 call kicked off the ridiculousness.

July 13, 2012 – A lot of people have been talking about Frank Ocean this week, but aside from the occasional tweet or errant Tumblr post, Ocean hasn't done a whole lot of yapping since his confessional coming-out blog post and channelORANGE release. But a press push for such a high-profile record has to start sometime, and it did yesterday, when Ocean hopped on the phone with BBC Radio 1's Zane Lowe to talk — when he was given a chance, anyway; chatterbox Lowe over here — about its evolution. Perhaps the most surprising revelation to emerge from the interview: despite the fact that it's poised for a huge debut on the charts next week, Ocean has yet to touch a physical copy of channelORANGE.

July 13, 2012 – Throughout their world tour supporting I'm With You over the past few months, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have promised to shower fans with 18 previously unreleased singles before the end of the year. In an interview with Billboard drummer Chad Smith revealed the tracks will arrive as digital downloads and vinyl seven-inches because the band was passionate about getting the music directly to fans as quickly as possible. "We just wanted them to come out because we just really like them," he said, noting he didn't want them to "get lost." If the band hadn't pushed for the singles' release, they "would've waited for the Warner Bros. box set in, like, 2020, if there's even a record company around then," he added.

July 12, 2012 – Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Rolling Stones' first-ever gig at the Marquee Jazz Club in London. The band today is "a very different group than the one that played 50 years ago," Mick Jagger tells Rolling Stone, which is true. The Stones that played that first very short set in 1962 were comprised of Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones on guitar, Ian Stewart on piano, Dick Taylor on bass guitar, and, according to Richards' memoir Life, Mick Avory (who, two years later, signed on with the Kinks) on drums. Their quick-and-dirty five-song set list is one that more or less stood the test of time: They recorded all but one of them, and have continued to play several well into the 21st century. Relive the show you probably weren't at but would've killed to see the only way the Internet era knows how — the power of YouTube videos, of course. 1.

July 12, 2012 – Now that they've promised their first album in over a decade has a name and is indeed coming out this fall, No Doubt are tormenting fans, including Lady Gaga, already itching to hear new material with a seemingly exhaustive parade of teaser videos (a habit they share with fellow 1990s rockers Green Day).

July 12, 2012 – Austin's Fun Fun Fun Fest has revealed who will be joining the reuniting Run-D.M.C. as well as Against Me!, Baroness, and Danny Brown. This year's event will also welcome A$AP Rocky, Santigold, P.i.L., Refused, Japandroids and more to the riverside stages at Auditorium Shores November 2-4, per CoS. Seminal L.A. punk outfit X will be there, too, to perform their 1980 album Los Angeles in its entirety. If that's not your jam, there'll also be something called Altercation Punk Rock Comedy Hour, which is literally punk-rock-related stand-up (founded by New York native J.T. Habersaat) and has appeared on FFF stages before. Passes for the three-day fest go on sale today at 10 a.m. Central (that's 11 a.m.

July 12, 2012 – Whether Frank Ocean's expedited digital release of channelORANGE will perform well on the charts next week is more or less a no-brainer at this point, however there are still controversies surrounding its arrival. Comments Ocean's manager Christian Clancy made on Twitter yesterday kicked speculation into high gear when he accused Target of declining to carry the physical record not only because of its surprise iTunes digital pre-release (which, as Billboard reports, was planned from the beginning) but also because of its sticky history with anti-LGBT rights campaigns. "Target has refused to carry Frank's album because of iTunes exclusive," Clancy wrote in a since-deleted tweet.