June 19, 2012 – "People gotta let us run amok," said Lars Ulrich, drummer for Metallica when we interviewed him about the Orion Music + More festival he and his bandmates are putting on the weekend of June 23 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. And amok they did run… in the best way possible, judging from the fest's lineup. But after we got over the excitement of seeing names like Best Coast, Titus Andronicus, and Arctic Monkeys sitting next to metal stalwarts like Avenged Sevenfold and Sepultura, we got to thinking, How is this going to work? Even with four stages, organizing the groups is a tall order. Luckily, the producers did a great job.

June 15, 2012 – Rock of Ages, Broadway's tribute to the hair-metal and AOR eras, arrives on the big screen today. And while the musical spends most of its time focusing on characters played by Diego Boneta, Julianne Hough, Russell Brand and others, whose problems are illustrated in songs like Night Ranger's "Sister Christian," Foreigner's "Juke Box Hero" and Twisted Sister's "I Wanna Rock," the movie's real draw is the portrayal of Stacee Jaxx, an egotistical, flamboyant rock star, by one Tom Cruise. Normally, when we think of the union of Tom Cruise and music, we picture him sliding across the floor in his socks and tighty-whities lip-syncing to Bob Seger.

June 15, 2012 – "More champagne," requests Damon Albarn drolly, after messing up the guitar intro to a new song during his solo set at London's Poetry Olympics. When his bubbly finally arrives, after a brief organ interlude, he tells the audience, "I just recorded [this song] last week," before playing what many people, including the fan who captured it on the video below, are speculating is a new song by his band Blur. But right now all it can be is speculation. The group, which is playing a show with New Order and the Specials in London to commemorate the end of the 2012 Summer Olympics in August, has had its soap opera-like ups and downs lately.

June 15, 2012 – Earlier this year, reformed hardcore growlers Ceremony released a thoughtful album of acrimonious post-punk, titled Zoo, which we dubbed a SPIN Essential. Since then, we've included Zoo on our list of the 40 Best Albums of 2012…So Far as they've been touring in support of the record. Now as part of a group of covers the band recorded while making the LP (their take on the Urinals' "I'm A Bug" surfaced on the "Hysteria" 7-inch), the group released its version of Ramones' "I Don't Wanna Be Learned/I Don't Wanna Be Tamed." Joey Ramone penned the ditty and the original punks demoed it in advance of their 1976 self-titled debut, but they didn't release until 1990 (maybe because Ramones already had four other songs with "Wanna" in the title).

June 15, 2012 – A few months ago, indie-pop alchemists Dirty Projectors released the downtempo song (and later video) for "Gun Has No Trigger," off their forthcoming album, Swing Lo Magellan. The record is now slated to come out in less than a month (July 10), and they've just released a breezy new song from it called "Dance for You," which you can conveniently listen to here. Between handclaps and meandering guitars, vocalist-guitarist David Longstreth sings about wandering, feeling "hopeless and sad" before breaking into the chorus, "There is an answer / I haven't found it / but I will keep dancing until I do." For added effect, he tacks some "oooh-oooooh"s to the end of "do," making for a catchy ode to escapism that almost belies its downtrodden verses.

June 15, 2012 – Last month, singer Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, and bassist Geezer Butler reunited as Black Sabbath (sans drummer Bill Ward) for a warmup gig in their hometown of Birmingham, England. With one show under their belts, the heavy-metal legends, who are joined by solo Ozzy drummer Tommy Clufetos and keyboardist Adam Wakeman (son of Yes' Rick), played their first major comeback gig at England's Download Festival this past weekend. The set list contained some of the group's best songs, including the obvious hits "Iron Man" and "Paranoid" and deep cuts like the sludgy "Tomorrow's Dream" and the doomy "Under the Sun," both from 1972's Vol 4. One of the up to 100,000 fans in the audience had the good sense to record the concert, which apparently was loud enough to sound crystal clear in the YouTubes he posted, embedded here.

June 15, 2012 – What artist's album will join the ranks of Arcade Fire's The Suburbs and Fucked Up's The Chemistry of Common Life as a recipient of the Polaris Music Prize? The organization — which honors and rewards outstanding Canadian musicians with accolades and, of course, CAN $30,000 — announced its long list of 40 possibilities, sponsored this year by the Musicians' Rights Organization Canada, for their Canadian Album of the Year award. And it is vastly diverse. Artists range from singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen to R&B artist the Weeknd, and from female noise-metal duo Mares of Thrace to alt-country singer Kathleen Edwards.

June 14, 2012 – While his former bandmates in Paramore are still working on their first album without him, the group's former drummer, Zach Farro has released a new music video for the song "Free the House" by his group HalfNoise. The artist — who per a press release inexplicably added an "h" to Zac sometime after his bitter 2010 departure from Paramore alongside his guitarist brother Josh — describes the music as "combining the ambiance of bands from Iceland with the sampling and electronic elements of Radiohead." What does it really sound like? Dreamy synth pop. The video, which you can watch below, finds the group whispering, singing gently and playing synths and chimes.

June 14, 2012 – "My girlfriend says I'm only truly alive when I'm arguing," exclaims Andy "Falco" Falkous, using his famous cool, dry wit. "I think it's good to argue with people face to face, as long as they're not armed." This is of course why arguments, or at least complaining, are the core of the lyrics he's been writing for over 15 years now while serving as the vocalist-guitarist of noisy angst rockers Future of the Left and, previously, the brawny Mclusky. FOTL's latest, The Plot Against Common Sense, comes with no short order of commentary.

June 14, 2012 – When David Byrne and St. Vincent first announced they would be collaborating, it was hard not to wonder how Byrne's rock experiments would mix with St. Vincent's delicate indie-pop. After all, the former Talking Head's greatest previous collaborative achievement — My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, with Brian Eno — is an art-rock masterpiece. Now we have our first taste of the 12-track Love This Giant, due September 11, and a promise from its creators: "It’s a pop record," Byrne said in a statement, adding, "well, in my book anyway." To see what he means, you can download the album's first song, "Who," right now via the widget below. It's sort of a combination of the best of both artists' music. Boasting funky brass, something that sounds like Baroque harpsichord music and both singers sounding like, well, themselves, it makes for a promising record.