July 30, 2012 – Britain has played an outsize role in pop music history, so it was only fitting that pop music would feature prominently in the 2012 London Summer Olympics. For those who missed all or part of the Games' four-hour opening ceremony on Friday night, though, what might be remarkable is just how music-soaked the proceedings really were. Yes, James Bond and Queen Elizabeth II — or facsimiles thereof — parachuted out of a helicopter or something. Well done, Danny Boyle, director of Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire. But the music, overseen by '90s rave overlords Underworld, was worth noting in its own right. Paul McCartney, Arctic Monkeys, and Dizzee Rascal were among the live performers. Underworld performed, too, joined by Two Door Cinema Club singer/guitarist Alex Trimble.

July 30, 2012 – Monday doesn't have to be blue, thanks to last night's debut of Animal Collective Radio. In fact, the mischievous racket-makers premiered a new song on the broadcast that would suggest even a lowly Monday could be out of this world. "Today's Supernatural" — out digitally tomorrow — is the first single from Animal Collective's upcoming Centipede Hz, which clambers to Earth on September 4 via Domino. AnCo member Panda Bear hosted this week's show, which you can hear

July 30, 2012 – Even among box sets, Blur's 21-disc Blur 21, which arrives July 31 for the British band's 21st birthday, is a behemoth. But then, the London quartet of sophisticated pin-up frontman Damon Albarn, Sonic Youth-enamored guitar saboteur Graham Coxon, fringe-wearing bass idol Alex James, and drummer-animator-pilot-activist Dave Rowntree turned out to be a box set type of band. The recent winners of a Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music allowed no single style of music to define them. Their biggest U.S. hits, from "Girls and Boys" to "Coffee and TV" by way of "Song 2," each arrived as if by a different band, and each was in different ways unrepresentative of the group's discography as a whole.

July 27, 2012 – Next year's Austin City Limits might go the Coachella route and expand to two weekends. Those attending this year's festival might be wishing they had two weekends to choose from already. ACL has announced its full 2012 schedule, and while organizers have generally done a great job of avoiding overlap between acts with similar appeal, festival-goers will be faced with tough choices when it comes to some of the biggest names on the bill. Yes, Red Hot Chili Peppers headline Sunday night unopposed, and most people know which side they're on when it comes to Avicii and the Black Keys on Friday night, but that doesn't mean the weekend will be free of dilemmas. Luckily, for those torn between Big K.R.I.T. or Father John Misty, Poliça or Tennis, M83 or M. Ward, there's still plenty of time. ACL takes place October 12-14 in Austin's Zilker Park.

July 27, 2012 – Techno spins yarns. No less than any other genre, at least from this interloper's perspective, the realm of mesmerizing electronic beats has benefited from telling stories. It's a vast simplification, sure, but while Chicago house focused on jacking your body, Detroit techno was cranking out readymade post-industrial narratives — which partly explained why rock critics gave it shine years before guys like LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy helped the indie kids learn to love disco and house. London producer Darren Cunningham, who released the SPIN Essentials album R.I.P. under his Actress pseudonym earlier this year, shares Derrick May or Juan Atkins' knack for putting abstract, cerebral music into language the punters can understand. Dummy, which points to Actress' newly posted track "Shocktherapy101," also quotes a Cunningham interview to argue that R.I.P.

July 27, 2012 – Earlier this week, Australian noise rockers Slug Guts released their third album, Playin' in Time With the Deadbeat, via Sacred Bones Records. The newly posted video for murk-mongering opener "Scum" plunges us right in the middle of the six-piece band's dank scrum, looking out into a swamp of guitar and bass-guitar necks. Cigarettes are puffed, no-wave saxophone is honked, and raw-throated vocals are howled. And then Slug Guts push everything into the red. Directed by Aussie filmmaking duo Sam Dixon and Adric Watson, it's a stark and harrowing introduction to an album forged out of what the label describes as a year of mental hospitals, courtrooms, jail cells, funerals, and rehab centers.

July 27, 2012 – Stop the Internet: One week after Lil Wayne Photoshopped himself onto the cover of Nevermind, Lana Del Rey has covered Nirvana. Last night at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney, Australia, the Born to Die singer performed a version of In Utero's "Heart-Shaped Box," as celebrity blog Oh No They Didn't points out. The fan video doesn't do her vocals any favors — the Saturday Night Live haterade contingent should find plenty more to hate here — band cuts it off in mid-line. But the dramatic orchestral backing does manage to bring Kurt Cobain's blunt, dark, anti-glamorous thoughts into Del Rey's blunt, dark, glamorous world. Countdown until Foo Fighters or Hole cover "Diet Mtn Dew" ends in 3... 2... 1... Courtney, you mad?

July 27, 2012 – "I've had a shit day," Pink sings, without a trace of shittiness, on "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)," the first video selection from the take-no-prisoners pop singer and songwriter's forthcoming The Truth About Love. Like the peppy, guitar-spiked electro-pop song itself — not to mention its title — the video combines shit-day #dumpedpeopleproblems with a certain easy savoir faire. Directed by Dave Meyers, who has been working with Pink since her very first single in 2000 (and also directed videos for Jay-Z's "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" and Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway," among others), this black-and-white clip has an Instagram-style old-film look, with French text. Pink's relationships don't exactly work out, but red spills over the monochromatic palette more than once. It wouldn't exactly be a spoiler to note that in the end, when Pink has nothing left to lose, she soars.

July 26, 2012 – Miguel doesn't appear to be done with "that art shit / You know, that smart shit." Earlier this year, the singer, songwriter, and producer behind the promising neo-soul of late-2010 debut album All I Want Is You made ambitiously good on that promise with a string of three free EPs: the SPIN Essentials-stamped Art Dealer Chic Vol. 1, 2 & 3. Now, the Los Angeles-born artist has revealed he will be releasing sophomore album Kaleidoscope Dreams in three parts, starting with two new digital EPs, all via Bystorm/RCA Records. Stream the first release, the three-song Kaleidoscope Dream: Water Preview EP (available via iTunes beginning July 31), exclusively below, including catchy standout "Adorn." The second release, another three-song set and titled Kaleidoscope Dream: Air Preview, is set to hit iTunes on September 11.

July 26, 2012 – It exists. When Rick Ross announced the track list for latest album God Forgives, I Don't, the inclusion of a collaboration between the larger-than-life Miami rap kingpin and flamboyant, famously selective OutKast half André 3000 was enough in itself to turn a few heads. Now that the full album has leaked online ahead of its July 31 release, here are 16 more reasons to check out Southern-rap mind meld "Sixteen," the new record's eight-minute centerpiece: André is far from the best thing about it. That's the instrumental, a languidly funky, saxophone-led, '70s soul-inflected track by production trio J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League.