Welcome to the Week in Rock, where we round up all of the headlines posted on this site over the past week. This edition includes items about Dinosaur Jr, XTC, The English Beat, The Dream Syndicate, The Cure, Peter Murphy, The Stone Roses, The Replacements, Dead Can Dance, Elvis Costello and more.

The Pet Shop Boys will premiere “Winner,” the first official single from their forthcoming 11th studio album Elysium, this coming Monday between 9:30 a.m. and noon on BBC Radio 2’s “The Ken Bruce Show,” then, later in the day, make it available for sale via iTunes.

The Pet Shop Boys this morning announced they’ll release ‘Elysium’ — their 11th studio album, and first since 2009’s ‘Yes’ — this September, and are previewing the release with a ‘short film’ for downtempo album track ‘Invisible,’ which you can watch here. The film made by Los Angeles artist and filmmaker Brian Bress.

This week’s round-up of Slicing Up Eyeballs headlines includes news about Dexys Midnight Runners, Fad Gadget, Dalis Car, The La’s, Depeche Mode, Erasure, Morrissey, Dinosaur Jr, Killing Joke and The Godfathers — plus news of The Jesus and Mary Chain’s return to the U.S. this spring.

With the Pet Shop Boys’ brand-new double-disc B-sides compilation ‘Format’ out in the U.K. this week, EMI Music has put together this nine-minute interview reel with Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe discussing their method of writing B-sides, their format of choice and which song is most personal to them.

This week’s new releases include a new B-sides compilation from the Pet Shops Boys (‘Format’), a new live album by Wire (‘The Black Session’), a vinyl reissue of Cocteau Twins’ ‘Stars and Topsoil,’ a new John Foxx and the Maths’ album, a 2CD reissue of Big Country’s ‘The Crossing’ and an archival live album from The Plimsouls.’

New (work) week, new month, new year… time, it would seem, for the latest in our monthly series of Auto Reverse mixtapes — two 45-minute sides to help you ease back into post-holiday life. Stream or download the two sides, crammed, as always, with some ’80s college-rock favorites and a few new tracks.

Our round-up of the past week’s highlights on Slicing Up Eyeballs includes posts about Duran Duran, Big Country, Peter Gabriel, Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo, Pet Shop Boys, R.E.M. and Brian Eno, Morrissey, Killing Joke and The Stone Roses — plus our free November mixtape.

The Pet Shop Boys not only are expecting to release a new studio album in 2012, they’re currently assembling a brand-new B-sides compilation — a sequel to 1995’s 2CD set ‘Alternative’ that will be called ‘Format,’ and span the years 1996 to 2009 — for release in February, the duo revealed in a new interview this week.

Our round-up of last week’s Slicing Up Eyeballs headlines includes news about New Order, R.E.M., Wall of Voodoo, Pet Shop Boys, Peter Murphy, INXS, Kate Bush and more, plus a new Slicing Up Eyeballs mixtape and a contest to win the new B-52s live album.

Having wrapped their global Pandemonium Tour with a final show last December, the Pet Shop Boys now are at work writing material for their upcoming 11th album, which they hope to begin recording next month and then release sometime next year, singer Neil Tennant says in a recent post to the band’s official website.

Today marks the birthday of Neil Tennant — he’s 57 — and we celebrate by presenting the Pet Shop Boys’ earliest concert film, ‘Highlights.’ Released on VHS in 1990, this short film — which has yet to be released on DVD — features eight songs performed at London’s Wembley Arena in July 1989 during the duo’s MCMLXXXIX Tour.

Better known as the half of the Pet Shop Boys that wears hats and stands motionless behind banks of keyboards, Chris Lowe takes a rare vocal turn on a new cover of New Order’s ‘Subculture’ by Finnish DJ/producers Jori Hulkkonen and Alex Nieminen, performing under the name Stop Modernists.