Just days after R.E.M. started giving away MP3s of the opening track to 2011’s ‘Collapse Into Now,’ a second song — ‘It Happened Today,’ featuring Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder on backing vocals — from the album has hit the web after it was released as a single digitally in other parts of the world.

Christmas week is a light one for new releases, with only two notable titles: the digital edition of Duran Duran’s long-awaited ‘All You Need Is Now,’ and a 180-gram vinyl reissue of Ride’s shoegaze classic ‘Nowhere.’

Tonight’s ‘Dark Wave’ on Sirius XM’s 1st Wave featured a number of nice surprises, including a rare airing of a Morrissey album cut (‘Late Night, Maudlin Street’) and some lesser-played Peter Murphy (‘Marlene Dietrich’s Favorite Poem,’ ‘You’re So Close’).

With Duran Duran’s long-awaited new album ‘All You Need Is Now’ due out digitally on Tuesday, the band’s been doing loads of press here in the U.S. and back in Europe — including this live debut of lead-off single ‘All You Need Is Now’ on the U.K. television show ‘Loose Women’ this past Friday.

As we reported earlier this month, Sonic Youth is preparing to release its soundtrack to the French film ‘Simon Werner a Disparu’ (aka ‘Lights Out’) as SYR9 in the long-running Sonic Youth Recordings series — and today the band revealed the release date, tracklist and cover art for the project.

Erasure this week announced their first U.S. performance of 2011, a slot at the Ultra Music Festival, the wildly popular electronic bash that takes place March 25-27 in Miami.

Thirty-three years ago tonight, Elvis Costello & The Attractions staged one of the more infamous stunts in ‘Saturday Night Live’ history, pulling the plug on their label-approved song ‘Less Than Zero’ less than 10 seconds in and instead ripping through ‘Radio Radio.’