Last week’s news that troubled pop star George Michael would be covering New Order’s late-’80s smash ‘True Faith’ as a charity single for Comic Relief was met with the appropriate derision — which turns out to be totally appropriate, now that we can hear the Auto-Tuned bastardization that the ex-Wham! singer has churned out.

Real or fake? Depeche Mode fans are debating a trio of 30- and 40-second samples — including one that may be a never-before-released track — that surfaced online yesterday and purportedly come from a 1980 demo tape. Hear those samples here.

To help promote ‘Riot Now!,’ the upcoming 10th studio album from Chicago’s Eleventh Dream Day, indie mainstay Thrill Jockey Records is offering up a free download of the track ‘Satellite.’

The Meat Puppets today offered the first taste of their upcoming 13th studio album, ‘Lollipop,’ in the form of a free MP3 of the track ‘Damn Thing'” via RollingStone.com.

When The Godfathers hit Chicago last week on their first U.S. tour in 20 years, the band stopped by radio station KDHX to record an in-studio session. Hear the four-song set and a 15-minute interview here.

Much of R.E.M.’s new album has been intentionally leaked by the band over the past two months, but now — one week before ‘Collapse Into Now’ actually arrives in stores — you can hear the whole thing, streaming here.

This one made the rounds on a wide swath of music blogs this week, but in case you didn’t hear it, check out this cover of Depeche Mode’s 1987 single and ‘Music For The Masses’ favorite ‘Strangelove’ by Natasha Khan aka Bat For Lashes.