Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark today released the video for the third single off their 2010 album ‘History of Modern,’ a cool stop-motion/animated clip for ‘History of Modern (Part I)’ created by Sweden’s Lapantafilm, winner of a make-our-next-video contest hosted by the group.

The Godfathers today released their first new single since 1995 — a 4½-minute rocker called ‘Back Into the Future’ — and next week will release expanded reissues of 1988’s ‘Birth School Work Death’ and 1989’s ‘More Songs About Love and Hate.’

Members of R.E.M.’s fan club have begun receiving their annual holiday single in the mail, and, like last year’s, the 2010 installment features the return of departed drummer Bill Berry on a cover of Darlene Love’s classic ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ — as well as an instrumental mashup of three tracks off the band’s forthcoming album ‘Collapse Into Now.’

Erasure this morning announced both ‘Total Pop!,’ a seven-date greatest-hits tour of U.K. forests next summer to coincide with the release of their next studio album, and a new version of ‘A Little Respect’ recorded to raise awareness about gay bullying and teen suicides.

The Primitives will release their first new music in 20 years next spring in the form of the four-track ‘Never Kill a Secret’ EP — available as a 7-inch single or digital download — designed to coincide with a just-announced March tour of the U.K.

With Grinderman’s European tour now complete and an American trek ready to begin next week, Nick Cave’s sludge-blues side project this week released a video for ‘Worm Tamer,’ the forthcoming second single off the band’s ‘Grinderman 2’ album.