June 14, 2012 – As part of Kiss's plan for monopolizing all purchasable goods and services in the western world (see their recent mini golf course, Archie comic, and Hello Kitty deal), the Hollywood Reporter says the makeup-wearing hard-rockers are now teaming with Fox to launch a cobranded Family Guy product line. The band — who is releasing its new album, Monster, allegedly in October — has appeared on the show three times so far, having become a part of the characters' infinite backstories when mother Lois talked about dating vocalist-bassist Gene Simmons before he hit it big. Now that will become a part of an even bigger backstory for Kiss, one that has led them to garnering over a billion dollars' worth of merch sales. "We are focusing more and more on the upper-tier, blue-chip opportunities for prestige partnerships," Kiss singer-guitarist Paul Stanley told the Reporter.

June 14, 2012 – Sorry, Barack Obama, the music industry may have a new savior and his name is Johnny Depp. The week after he donned a Keith Richards-like wardrobe and picked up a guitar to join the Black Keys onstage at the MTV Movie Awards, Billboard reports sales of that band's latest album El Camino saw an 18 percent sales rise, which equates to about 10,000 copies. Moreover, the two songs Depp played on — "Gold on the Ceiling" and "Lonely Boy" — each sold 30 percent and 19 percent more than the previous week. And it doesn't end there. "The Black Keys performance with Johnny Depp was the biggest musical moment of the night and it shows in our strong post-show sales," Livia Tortella, co-president/COO of Warner Bros. Records, told Billboard.

June 14, 2012 – After a three-year wait, British indie-pop artist Natasha Khan, who performs as Bat for Lashes, will release her third full-length of dark and dreamy music, titled The Haunted Man, in October. She gave the world its first taste of three new songs, which we've posted below (via Consequence of Sound), last night at a gig in Cambridge, England. The first song, "Laura," kicks off after about a minute of banter and Khan telling the audience she needs to catch her breath because the song is hard to sing.

June 13, 2012 – Apparently the news media got it wrong: An art collector didn't spend $119 million on Edvard Munch's expressionistic painting the Scream, it was actually retro glam rockers the Darkness. And they want to "shite" all over it, which is the subject of the Funny or Die video below. At one point frontman Justin Hawkins exclaims, "We're beating the KLF at their own game," referring to the British dance crew who burnt the money they'd earned from their music as a pseudo-artistic statement (which you can watch here). The rest of the video by the Darkness, who are releasing a new album called Hot Cakes in August, speaks for itself. The Darkness Shite On The Scream - watch more funny videos

June 13, 2012 – Dream-pop duo School of Seven Bells recently asked filmmakers from around the world to submit their own videos, via the site Genero.tv, for the song "The Night," which comes off their latest album, Ghostory. The winning video, submitted by Allie Aviatal Tsypin, features a girl who looks a lot like Seven Bells singer Alejandra Deheza mugging, singing and playing on train tracks. There's even a few shots where the girl is casting spells, which likely appealed to Deheza, who recently told us about her interest in mysticism and tarot. "This video really stood out for us in a big way," the band said in a statement. "Not only is the resemblance incredible, the emotion in this girl's face is beyond her years and her performance nearly had us both in tears the first time we watched it together.

June 13, 2012 – What would Pinkie Pie do? It's a question only a select few are prepared to answer, but hard-rocker party animal Andrew W.K. will be doing just that when he hosts a panel bearing the same name at September's My Little Pony convention, called Canterlot Gardens, in Ohio. As a self-professed "brony" — or adult male fan of the cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, which debuted in 2010 — W.K. says he identifies with the show's Pinkie Pie, an "earth pony" who exudes positivity, loves to play and has been known to throw together one-man bands to save the day.

June 13, 2012 – Patti Smith released her 11th album, Banga, last week, which we're proud to say we liked. To celebrate the new LP, she stopped by the Late Show to play the title track for David Letterman. The performance is great and belies the punk icon's 65 years, but we couldn't help but notice at the beginning of the video that freakin' Bootsy Collins is sitting in on bass with Paul Schaffer in Letterman's house band. What a missed jam opportunity! Patti does blow Bootsy a kiss at the end, though.

June 13, 2012 – Most festivals have two or three stages featuring artists playing at the same time, but this year's Lollapalooza has an overwhelming eight. Since announcing its full lineup in April, Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell's mega fest has had us biting our nails, waiting to see who will be playing against whom. The moment of truth arrived yesterday, when the fest posted its schedule. And with tiny little boxes bearing names like Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Black Keys, Black Sabbath, Jack White, and many more stacked on top of and next to each other, it looks like a mercifully teetering game of Jenga. To help make the tough calls, we've listed the five toughest decisions the Lollapalooza producers have foisted on us, and we've included our recommendation for what we think will be the right decision. Sabbath or the Keys? Metric or the Afghan Whigs?

June 12, 2012 – When their epic third album, Yellow & Green, comes out on July 17, sludge metallers Baroness can now officially be called alt-rockers. The double-album finds the group dabbling with funkier drum patterns, country rock and a whole lot of singing (as opposed to screaming). Some of this change has to do with frontman John Baizley quietly writing some of its songs while his infant daughter was sleeping but a lot of it has to do with the group simply wanting to see what they were actually capable of doing after touring relentlessly in support of 2008's metallic Blue Record. Fans who saw the band play a couple of its new songs on its recent tour with extreme metal ensemble Meshuggah and death metallers Decapitated saw firsthand how different their new music is, especially in contrast to their tourmates. Now Baroness are sharing those songs online.

June 12, 2012 – Last month, Rolling Stone reported that Corgan had written about 300 pages of a "spiritual memoir" with the hippie-dippy title God Is Everywhere, From Here to There. And while we figure he doesn't totally mean "spiritual" in the literal sense — he's said he will be addressing the child abuse he suffered — it's hard not to notice all the references to the world's many religions on Oceania, the Pumpkins' new album which is streaming on iTunes right now. In fact, the thing that sticks out right from the first lyric of this "album within an album" — other than the fact that, hey, they just posted one hour-long track with no song breaks (Lovesexy, much?) — is the varying spiritual allusions frontman Billy Corgan has snuck, or blatantly put, into many of the songs. We tracked down four such spiritual revelations (including one from the Book of Revelations!): 1.