August 3, 2012 – The athletes haven't been the only ones achieving victory at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. In a year when the only million-selling album in the U.S. actually came out last year, the music business has been getting a promotional boost out of the whole Olympic spectacle. See, the jocks and the punks aren't so different after all. It's like The Breakfast Club. Not that the music benefiting from Olympic exposure is necessarily punk. Not in any way, shape, or form. American Idol winner Phillip Phillips' comfort food offering "Home" has maybe gotten a bigger Olympic bump than just about any other recording. The track's frequent use as a theme during NBC's women's gymnastics TV coverage has industry insiders predicting it will sell about 200,000 downloads for the week ending Sunday, August 5, according to Billboard.

August 3, 2012 – Rick Ross' improbable rise to rap supremacy is paved with name-drops — the Black Mafia Family drug cartel on Teflon Don's "B.M.F. (Blowin' Money Fast)," MC Hammer on, well, "MC Hammer" — but even by those extravagantly eccentric standards, his latest reference might come as a surprise. In the video for "911," a straight-ahead luxury-rap lurcher that's one of the better tracks on Ross' recent mixed-bag album God Forgives, I Don't, Ross mostly just cruises around in the Porsche of the title. The busy, rapidly edited visual style, courtesy of previous Ross collaborators DRE Films and SPIFF TV, is well suited for viewing on mobile devices — no narrative, just a lot to look at.

August 2, 2012 – Elliott Smith would turn 43 on August 6 if not for his horribly sad death almost nine years ago. In the late Portland singer and songwriter's honor, indie label Kill Rock Stars is unveiling a set of previously unreleased tracks, Pitchfork points out. First up is an alternate take of "Alameda," which appears in its finished form on 1997's stark, masterful Either/Or, which ranked at No. 48 a couple of years ago on SPIN's 125 Best Albums of the Past 25 Years. A few lyrics are slightly different here — "All you're good at now is breaking your own heart" — but the harmony- and organ-drenched arrangement is just as fragile, immaculate, and, yup, heartbreaking as ever. The latest Smith rarity comes as Kill Rock Stars gets set to reissue Either/Or and Smith's 1995 self-titled album this month on 180-gram vinyl.

August 2, 2012 – A year later, Washed Out's full-length debut, Within and Without You, can be easy to take for granted. The "chillwave" moment Georgia synth-pop singer and songwriter Ernest Greene originally embodied seems to have come and gone, so much so that the latest issue of the New Yorker cheekily refers to Portlandia-soundtracking indie hit "Feel It All Around" as "a nostalgic paean to the heady days of the summer of 2010." We're all mermaids now. And yet Within and Without seamlessly transforms the low-key style of Washed Out's early releases into glossy, expressive, but still dreamy slow jams produced by Gnarls Barkley and Animal Collective zookeeper Ben Allen. It still works beautifully. On an album that showed how Washed Out's hazy synth-pop could resonate beyond trendy enclaves, "A Dedication" was a revelation in itself.

August 2, 2012 – Nude Beach toured with fellow Brooklynites the Men, owners of the SPIN Essential album Open Your Heart, earlier this year. That should give you an idea of what's in store on "Radio," a track from Nude Beach's new album II, which the Other Music label releases on August 14. It's a rollicking, road-dusted take on dive-bar classic rock à la Tom Petty, played with the sweaty ferocity of local do-it-yourself scene vets. Where the Men sing, "When I hear the radio / I don't care that it's not me," Nude Beach's views on the dial are more defeated: "The radio's playin' a sad song / I don't wanna hear," moans lead singer and guitarist Chuck Betz, as he contemplates "goin' back home." From opening drum volley to the blues-damaged guitar solo, this particular sad song — which you do want to hear — is the sound of Nude Beach refusing to retreat.

August 2, 2012 – The Blue Album will soon be back in black. Weezer's self-titled 1994 debut, known for its blue background by contrast with 2001's similarly self-titled Green Album, is to be reissued on vinyl August 13 via Universal's Back to Black push, including a free download of the album with vinyl purchase, as Fact points out. Now you can try out the Fonz's dance moves from Spike Jonze's classic video for the album's "Buddy Holly" with whole new layers of postmodern retro irony. Weezer aren't new to the nostalgia game: They've recently been playing The Blue Album and its cult favorite 1996 follow-up Pinkerton live in the albums' entirety. And in December, frontman Rivers Cuomo offered up $75 box set The Pinkerton Diaries, which includes demos from the group's once-panned sophomore album. This isn't The Blue Album's first spin around the reissue turntable, either.

August 2, 2012 – A scavenger hunt, Carole Lombard says in the 1936 screwball comedy My Man Godfrey, is exactly like a treasure hunt, except in a treasure hunt you try to find something everybody wants, and in scavenger hunt you try to find something nobody wants. Brooklyn psych-rockers Yeasayer's newly unveiled sneak peek at their upcoming album Fragrant World, then, is totally a treasure hunt. The follow-up to 2010's Odd Blood isn't out until August 21 on Secretly Canadian, but the music and accompanying visuals will be streaming online until Friday, August 3, at 8 p.m. Eastern. The only catch: Listeners had to locate the tracks themselves by scouring the Web. As Consequence of Sound points out, fans have had a successful treasure hunt.

August 1, 2012 – Bob Dylan isn't ruling out the possibility that his 35th album, Tempest, will be he his last. According to Rolling Stone, the 71-year-old rock legend "was dismissive" of the idea that his latest work would, like Shakespeare's similarly titled The Tempest, be his final one. "Shakespeare's last play was called The Tempest," Dylan is quoted as saying. "It wasn't called just plain Tempest. The name of my record is just plain Tempest. It's two different titles." Which is exactly the type of slippery answer you'd expect from a lawyer, politician, or Bob Dylan — but you'll notice how nimbly he avoids saying one way or another whether he'll ever make another record. Dylan did cough up a few details about his new album, out September 11 via Columbia.

August 1, 2012 – One of this writer's favorite Bob Dylan covers is "I'll Keep It With Mine" by Rainy Day, a sort of mini-supergroup made up of bands from L.A.'s early-'80s Paisley Underground scene. No less gifted interpreters than Judy Collins, Nico, and Fairport Convention had previously performed the wistfully jangling song, which centers around a beautifully evocative idea of time as a physical thing you can store somewhere. But Rainy Day's version has an affectingly warm, clear-eyed vocal by the Bangles' Susanna Hoffs, plus stabbing strings, rickety guitar strums (Mazzy Star's David Roback was also a member), and tuneful bass. A lone tambourine sits at the bottom of a pocket Wall of Sound. Emerging L.A.

August 1, 2012 – Miguel released his three-song Kaleidoscope Dream: The Water Preview EP yesterday (which you can stream in its entirety here and buy now from any digital retailer), offering up the first installment of his upcoming three-part album Kaleidscope Dream, out October 2. Last night, to mark the occasion, he played a secret show at Joe's Pub in New York City, performing the new EP's "Adorn," "Use Me," and "Don't Look Back" along with songs from the Art Dealer Chic EPs singer's 2010 album All I Want Is You, including the silky title track. Watch all four songs from the sweaty, intimate, smooth and much-Tweeted special event here: "Adorn" "Use Me" "Don't Look Back" "All I Want is You"