Today we celebrate Concrete Blonde frontwoman Johnette Napolitano’s 53rd birthday by forgoing some of the more obvious cuts from the late ’80s or the band’s breakthrough album ‘Bloodletting,’ and instead digging up this early 1994 performance of ‘Mexican Moon’ on the ‘Late Show with David Letterman.’

The Pet Shop Boys today revealed the tracklist for their upcoming 19-song best-of ‘Ultimate Pet Shop Boys’ — which also will be available as a special edition with a bonus DVD of vintage BBC live performances — and announced the set will close with a newly recorded single called ‘Together.’

Largely sidelined by the 2001 suicide of frontman Stuart Adamson, Scottish New Wave rockers Big Country — immortalized by their iconic hit ‘In a Big Country’ — have drafted Mike Peters of The Alarm to take over as lead singer for a series of 30th anniversary concerts beginning New Years Eve.

Fans who purchase Yazoo’s forthcoming ‘Reconnected Live’ album on iTunes will get a much-coveted bonus: the previously unreleased track ‘Get Set,’ recorded by Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke in 1983 for use as the theme to the BBC children’s TV show ‘Get Set For Summer.’

This week’s releases include new studio albums from OMD, ex-Orange Juice frontman Edwyn Collins and reunited no-wave act Swans; plus a new Jesus and Mary Chain best-of; and expanded reissues of the Bangles’ first two albums, ‘All Over the Place’ and ‘Different Light.’

Beginning Monday, fans of The Cure will be able to bid on a double-vinyl edition of the new ‘Disintegration’ reissue signed by Robert Smith that’s being auctioned off to help raise money for the West Memphis 3 legal defense fund.

The Jesus and Mary Chain will be anthologized next week with a new U.K. career-spanning, 44-track collection called ‘Upside Down: The Best Of,’ a 2CD compilation that features the band’s sole post-reunion recording, ‘All Things Must Pass.’

Ex-Bauhaus leader Peter Murphy took to his Facebook page today to update fans on a number of projects, including his Dalis Car reunion with Mick Karn (sessions being ‘next week’) and the pending release of his new solo album Ninth (‘shouldn’t be too long now’).

A long-rumored concert film of Depeche Mode’s 2009-2010 Tour of the Universe will be released this November in three different DVD/CD and Blu-ray configurations, according to fan site Home, which also reports the famed synthpop act is rumored to be prepping a new remix CD for release next year.

On Oct. 6, 1990, The Cure made a second attempt at a pirate-radio broadcast in London to promote its upcoming ‘Mixed Up’ remix album; this one went off successfully, and we’ve got edited audio from that night of the band being interviewed and spinning records.

The second episode of DirecTV’s new performance and discussion show ‘Guitar Center Sessions’ — capturing the short-lived Jane’s Addiction lineup with Duff McKagan — premieres next weekend, and the series has posted this video of the band doing an unplugged ‘Jane Says’ as a preview.

In what could be the first taste of the next Erasure album — or perhaps just a throwaway — Vince Clarke has posted a new instrumental called ‘Symphony’ on his official website and is asking fans to download the track and make their own music video.

It’s long been expected that the next installment in U2’s ongoing reissue campaign would be the band’s landmark 1991 album ‘Achtung Baby,’ and today we received some confirmation — via indie rocker/producer John Vanderslice, of all people — that such a release is in the works.