R.E.M. employed a decidedly old-school medium to announce the full tracklist of its new album ‘Collapse Into Now’: The band revealed the titles of the record’s 12 songs via its snail-mail fanclub newsletter.

A set of lyrics to ‘Disintegration’ opening track ‘Plainsong’ — handwritten and autographed by Robert Smith earlier this year — will be included in the ‘Art of the Song’ auction on Dec. 15, a fundraiser for the U.K.’s Teenage Cancer Trust.

Just last week we marked the 48th birthday of Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield — and today we celebrate a Stone Roses birthday again, as guitarist John Squire also turns 48. Here’s video of the Roses performing “Waterfall” on Tony Wilson’s show “The Other Side of Midnight” in March 1989, prior to the release of the band’s self-titled debut.

Primal Scream will celebrate the 20th anniversary of ‘Screamadelica’ next year with a lavish 4CD/1DVD/2LP box set highlighted by ‘a new cut of the album’ made with occasional collaborator Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine.

The folks at 24 Hour Service Station, who are putting out Peter Hook’s Freebass project here in the U.S., will provide three lucky Slicing Up Eyeballs readers with a copy of the band’s debut CD, ‘It’s a Beautiful Life.’

With the release of the digital edition of Duran Duran’s new album ‘All You Need Is Now’ now less than a month away, the band on Monday night revealed the album’s cover art — which may, truthfully, be more important to those fans waiting for the expanded CD edition to come out in February.

The members of Devo today rescheduled a trio of California concerts that were canceled last month after guitarist Bob Mothersbaugh sliced his right thumb ‘to the bone’ on a shard of glass, severing a tendon and requiring emergency surgery.

Slicing Up Eyeballs recently chatted with Peter Hook about his upcoming tour of the U.S., during which he’ll perform Joy Division’s ‘Unknown Pleasures’; the acrimonious split of Freebass; and his plans to re-record classic Joy Division tracks for a new EP.

Reformed 2 Tone-era ska act The Specials this morning announced a lengthy tour of Europe and the band’s native U.K. next fall, a trek that puts the band’s reunion well into a third year.

This week’s new CDs include a huge new box set from Orange Juice, plus reissues from XTC, Nine Inch Nails, Heaven 17, Robyn Hitchcock and The Fall, as well as the U.S. release of Killing Joke’s new album and a special U2 EP tied to Record Store Day.

This week’s episode of ‘Dark Wave’ on Sirius XM’s 1st Wave features a pretty routine lineup, with notable appearances by a pair of lesser-played Depeche Mode tracks (‘Monument,’ off ‘A Broken Frame,’ and ‘Violator’-era B-side ‘Sea of Sin’) — plus the return of the always-out-of-place Puscifer.

]The ever-enigmatic Björk turns 45 today, and to mark the occasion, we go back to the beginning: Here’s a clip of her late-’80s/early-’90s band The Sugarcubes performing ‘Motorcrash’ at London’s Town & Country Club in 1987.

The ‘Omnibus Edition’ of The Fall’s ‘This Nation’s Saving Grace’ that first was announced in the summer of 2009 finally will arrive in late January, packed with 31 singles, alternative edits, John Peel sessions and previously unreleased ‘working mixes.’