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.

The reunited Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark today debuted the video for ‘Sister Marie Says,’ the second single off ‘History of Modern,’ the synthpop group’s first new album in 14 years.

Much-buzzed digi-punk duo Crystal Castles has tapped Robert Smith of The Cure to sing new vocals on ‘Not In Love,’ a cut off the band’s second self-titled album that will be released as a single Dec. 6.

The Pet Shop Boys today announced details of their new single, ‘Together,’ which will be released Nov. 29 in the U.K. — backed by new studio recordings of two cover songs — and appear on the duo’s forthcoming best-of ‘Ultimate.’

Next month’s 20th anniversary reissue of Morrissey’s ‘Bona Drag’ will be accompanied by the re-release of ‘Everyday is Like Sunday’ with a new set of B-sides — including the much-coveted ‘November the Second,’ a long-unreleased alternate mix of ‘November Spawned a Monster.’

The folks at Sub Pop Records are giving away a free mp3 download of ‘Sex With an X,’ the title track and first single from The Vaselines’ forthcoming album — only the second ever from the newly reunited Scottish indie-pop duo.

British hard-rockers The Cult this weekend are releasing their first new song in three years — a three-and-a-half minute track called ‘Everyman and Woman Is a Star’ — via iTunes as a taste of a new four-song ‘capsule’ due out this fall.

The Pet Shop Boys will issue two previously unreleased tracks recorded in the early 2000s on a limited-edition 7-inch single as part of the U.K. installment of Record Store Day next Saturday.

Bad Lieutenant, featuring New Order’s Bernard Sumner, last week issued ‘Twist of Fate,’ the second single off its 2009 debut, ‘Never Cry Another Tear’ — and now have offered up a video for one of the remixes of its first single, ‘Sink or Swim.’

Tweet Members of R.E.M.’s fan club have begun receiving their annual Christmas single from the band, and this year’s disc features a surprise: an appearance […]