Noting his contributions “to the music and cultural scene of Minneapolis for over four decades,” the mayor of Minnesota’s largest city has declared Thursday — Valentine’s Day to most — also will be Slim Dunlap Day, honoring the former Replacements guitarist who suffered a debilitating stroke a year ago.

The NME later this month will bestow its “Godlike Genius” award to Johnny Marr, and in conjunction with the issue celebrating that honor the guitarist recorded a couple videos for the publication’s “Song Stories” series in which he offers insight into the writing of the Smiths’ “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now.”

Duran Duran today announced it will mark the 30th anniversary of the band’s first U.K. No. 1 single — “Is There Something I Should Know?,” released on March 9, 1983 — by reissuing the single as a limited-edition blue-vinyl 7-inch for Record Store Day, which this year falls on April 20.

After returning to U.K. stages for the first time in a decade last fall for a handful of shows, Karl Wallinger will take World Party out on a proper tour of his home country this spring, performing 11 concerts across two weeks in April in support of last year’s 5CD box set ‘Arkeology.’

Tonight’s Slicing Up Eyeballs Music Hour featured brand-new music from OMD, Depeche Mode, The Butthole Surfers’ Gibby Haynes and New Order, plus old favorites from The Clash, X, Iggy Pop, Camper Van Beethoven, Was (Not Was), Transvision Vamp, Max Q, Simple Minds and more.

The reconfigured Big Country — with The Alarm’s Mike Peters filling in for the late Stuart Adamson and the new addition of original Simple Minds bassist Derek Forbes — will release a new album titled ‘The Journey’ this spring and embark on a world tour that will hit the U.K., Europe and North America.

Like New Order, the reunited Dead Can Dance is using its twin appearances at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival this April as an occasion to squeeze in a couple extra performances — in this case, just-announced shows in San Francisco and Napa, Calif., the week between the band’s festival dates.

It’s not exactly the return to music anyone would have guessed from Michael Stipe, but the former R.E.M. frontman is back with his first new recording since that band split in 2011: a duet with Courtney Love called “Rio Grande” off the new Johnny Depp-curated ‘Son of Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys.’

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark today premiered “Metroland,” the first official single off the band’s upcoming album ‘English Electric’ following a pair of Kraftwerk-esque teasers. The 7½-minute track — which you can stream below — will be released March 25, ahead of the April 9 release of the full album.

A brand-new Simple Minds single — “Broken Glass Park,” off the band’s upcoming multidisc set ‘Celebrate — The Greatest Hits+’ — debuted today on BBC Radio 2, and you can hear it now via the BBC’s stream or the radio rip posted below (courtesy YouTube user Dennie Rijnsewijn).

This week’s new releases include the U.S. release of the Bryan Ferry Orchestra’s ‘The Jazz Age,’ plus reissues of the debut from The Names, a two-for-one package by INXS combining ‘Shabooh Shoobah’ and ‘The Swing’ on one CD, and a five-disc box set from R.E.M. collecting all five post-Bill Berry albums.

Tonight’s edition of “Dark Wave” — the Sunday night “darker side of alternative” show on Sirius XM’s 1st Wave — featured brand-new My Bloody Valentine, plus Echo & The Bunnymen, The Bolshoi, John Foxx, Ultravox, The Cure, Christian Death, The Teardrop Explodes, Alien Sex Fiend and much more.

The Lincoln car company this afternoon released its heavily promoted video of Beck performing David Bowie’s “Sound and Vision” with a gigantic, 160-piece orchestra in a 360-degree setting, part of the automaker’s new “Hello, Again” series that finds artists reinterpreting old works. Check it out.