Morrissey, as he’s wont to do, made headlines this week with a typically acerbic attack on his native England, this time blasting the London Olympics over “the blustering jingoism that drenches the event” and suggesting that the “spirit” of Nazi Germany no pervades modern-day Britain. Billy Bragg disagrees.

With Morrissey’s libel case against the NME slated to go to trial in a month, the music weekly today apologized to the singer, writing, ‘We wish to make clear that we do not believe that he is a racist; we didn’t think we were saying he was and we apologise to Morrissey if he or anyone else misunderstood our piece in that way.’

Elvis Costello’s new live box set ‘The Return of the Spectacular Spinning Songbook!!!’ is currently listed at $262.39 on Amazon.com, and if you think that’s a ridiculous price for a release that features just one CD, one DVD and one 10-inch vinyl record’s worth of music, you’re not alone — Costello himself does, too.

Peter Hook continues to lash out at his former bandmates, saying he wants to ‘fuck New Order over in any possible way I can’ and that he believes the band — which is reuniting without him for a pair of European charity gigs — is now planning to mount a full American tour as well.

Robert Smith’s not happy with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, slamming the organization online for not mentioning his just-nominated band’s current drummer in its bio of the group, writing, ‘Jason Cooper is The Cure’s drummer — and it sickens me that he doesn’t get a name check… bah!’

Peter Hook this morning called New Order’s surprise decision to reunite without him ‘very sad,’ saying ‘the other three’ didn’t tell him they’d decided to play two October concerts — and that, ultimately, ‘everyone knows New Order without Peter Hook is like Queen without Freddie Mercury, U2 without The Edge, Sooty without Sweep!’