Blog Posts by Jem Aswad

R.E.M. have accumulated a number of fan-club-only Christmas singles since they first began releasing them in 1988.

While the singles initially followed a format pairing a cheeky cover of a Christmas tune with a ragtag cover of a non-Christmas song (by artists ranging from Mission of Burma to George Gershwin), the band ditched that format in the 1990s. Since then it's been anything goes: In 1998 the group and Radiohead covered each other's songs, and they've done similar recordings with Neil Young and Wilco — as well as releasing Christmas videos, DVDs and even CD ROMs.

Photos: R.E.M. Through the Years

This year, at they've recorded Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)," from Phil Spector's 1963 Christmas compilation, paired with an ethereal instrumental remix that combines three songs from their forthcoming LP Collapse Into Now . Michael Stipe didn't take part, but bassist Mike Mills handles the lead vocal just fine. Bill Berry is back behind the drum kit, as he was for

The video for "Kush" — the first single from Dr. Dre's long-awaited Detox — came out on Friday morning. The Joseph Kahn-directed clip is a sleek, futuristic combination of vintage and present-day Dre.

Rolling In Compton With Snoop & Dre

Like a lot of classic Dre videos, this one has hot cars, party scenes, weed, beautiful women and Snoop — but the setting is drastically different. In a way reminiscent of the decade-old video for "Guilty Conscience," Dre's collaboration with Eminem, the song's vocalists (Dre, Snoop and Akon) walk through wild party scenes where time is standing still. The video makes him seem lonely and old, removed from the lifestyle he used to be a part of. It's a surprisingly somber twist on the traditional party-and-bling video — especially for a song that's an ode to pot.

Michael, the first collection of unreleased Michael Jackson studio recordings to be released since his death, is the most frustrating kind of posthumous release. It's a patchwork of mostly unfinished songs, recorded over decades and tidied up after the artist's death, without a single theme or collaborator — let alone the vision of their creator — to hold them together. And critical opinions on the album have, so far, varied wildly.

In many ways Michael has more in common with later posthumous Tupac albums or the abominations stitched together by Jimi Hendrix's estate in the mid-1970s than, say, Notorious B.I.G.'s Life After Death, Janis Joplin's Pearl or Hendrix's Cry of Love — albums that were largely completed at the time of the artist's death and can be seen as logical, unintentionally final steps in their careers.

Check Out All of Rolling Stone's coverage in "Michael Jackson Remembered"

Over the past few days, details have emerged about the recordings that constitute the 10-track

A new Pink Floyd-related movie is in the works — but it's about a relatively peripheral chapter in the band's long history. Andy Harries, a producer of The Queen, is working on a film about the schoolchildren who sang on the 1979 hit "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2" and their teacher, according to Deadline.com.

Harries, who described the film as "Dead Poets Society meets School of Rock," told Deadline that he has optioned the life story of music teacher Alun Renshaw — whose unorthodox methods included smoking in class and swearing at students — whose students sang on the track.

The song, of course, was immediately taken up by rebellious students all over the world and was even banned in South Africa at the time.

Renshaw ended up leaving the school and moving to Australia not long after the album was released, according to the BBC. Harries told Deadline that he has not yet procured the rights to the song, so filming and release details were not available at press time.

Roger Waters

After a hiatus of more than four years, System of a Down will reunite for 10 shows in eight countries in Europe this summer.

"We are playing these shows simply because we want to play together again as a band and for you, our amazing fans," the band wrote in a post on its website. "We also want to thank you for your loyalty and support, not only to System of a Down, but to all of our solo efforts as well."

Photos: Random Notes

The band released two thematically linked albums, Mezmerize and Hypnotize, in 2005, and its last gig took place in August of the following year. At the time, the bandmembers stressed that they were not breaking up but were taking an extended hiatus.

Since then, guitarist Daron Malakian and drummer John Dolmayan united for the Scars on Broadway project; Dolmayan also formed a band called Indicator. Vocalist Serj Tankian has released two solo albums and a poetry collection and continues to operate his Serjical Strike label; and bassist Shavo Odadjian worked with

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark finally had its first Broadway preview on Sunday night, in a performance that was stopped by delays five times — and at least one widely reported catcall from an audience member. One of the delays, which left lead actor Reeve Carney dangling above the audience for several minutes, caused the show's first act to end early.

The show, which has cost an estimated $65 million — the most expensive in Broadway history — has experienced financial and technical problems from the start. An aerial-stunt mishap earlier this month injured one of the actors and caused a two-week postponement of the opening performance. The delay caused U2's Bono and the Edge, who wrote the show's score and were heavily involved in its production, to miss Sunday night's performance due to U2's tour dates in Australia.

Video: Bono and the Edge Introduce Spider-Man Song

The Beatles sold more than 450,000 albums and 2 million individual songs worldwide in the first week that the group's music was available on iTunes, according to a representative from the company.

In the U.S., the best-selling album was Abbey Road, and the best-selling song was that album's "Here Comes the Sun."

At press time on Tuesday, three Beatles albums were in the top 20 of the iTunes albums chart (Abbey Road, the White Album and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) and 15 were in the top 100, with the $149 Box Set at Number 28. Of the albums made available on Tuesday, only the Yellow Submarine soundtrack, which includes just four songs unavailable elsewhere, was not in the top 100.

The iTunes songs chart had seven Beatles songs in the top 100, although "Let It Be" appeared twice (with one version coming from the album of the same name, the other from the boxed set).

The Top Ten Beatles Songs of All Time

Apple announced last Tuesday that the Beatles' recordings would finally

"Dreaming up the show, the scale of it, the flying sequence, the pop-art opera that it is — that was all pure joy," Bono tells Billboard of the long-delayed Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark musical, which will finally open to the public on Sunday. "What we didn't realize was how difficult it is to stage this stuff, both technically and financially."

That's an understatement, considering the troubles that the years-in-the-making musical, which features music by Bono and U2 bandmate the Edge, has undergone. Delays, staffing issues, cashflow problems, the size of the cast and production, the complexity of the stuntwork and other problems have brought the cost of the show to a reported $60 million — the most expensive musical in Broadway history.

Video: U2's Rolling Stone Cover Shoot

"It has never been achieved before — the kind of scale of what we're looking for," Bono says of the Julie Taymor-directed musical. "There may be very good reasons [for the delays]. We're going to find out. The