This week’s releases include a new studio albums from Bryan Ferry (‘Olympia’) and Elvis Costello (‘National Ransom’), a live DVD from R.E.M. (‘Live From Austin, TX’), a 4CD ‘omnibus edition’ from The Fall (‘The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall’) and the belated U.S. release of Prefab Sprout’s new album (‘Let’s Change the World With Music’).

Twenty eight years ago today, the first of what would turn out to be two multi-day US Festivals — envisioned by their organizer, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, as ‘Woodstock West’ — opened in blistering 110-degree heat at Glen Helen Regional Park in San Bernadino County, Calif.

Ever-quirky frontman Fred Schneider will take a break from the long-running B-52s this fall to release ‘Destination… Christmas!,’ a collection of 11 original and “party friendly” holiday tunes with his Orlando, Fla.-based side project The Superions.

Erasure’s Andy Bell talks to Slicing Up Eyeballs about ‘Non-Stop,’ his dancefloor-ready second solo album that, in some ways, is actually Bell’s third, after his record label forced him to scrap a Stephen Hague-produced effort that ‘sounded too much like Erasure.’

New Wave vets from both sides of the pond — Brit pop-rockers Squeeze and New York mainstays Blondie — each will tour the U.S. this summer co-headlining some or all of their dates with long-running rockers Cheap Trick.

This week’s new releases include ‘Purity of Essence,’ a new studio album from the Hoodoo Gurus (out in Australia, anyway); ‘Sunflower Stories,’ a four-track EP from the Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie; and an Audio Fidelity gold-disc reissue of The B-52s’ ‘Cosmic Thing.’