Former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr joined composer Hans Zimmer and a 20-piece orchestra last night in Hollywood to perform the score to ‘Inception,’ the new mind-twister from “The Dark Knight” director Christopher Nolan.

For the latest installment of the A.V. Club’s weekly web series “Undercover: 25 Bands, 25 Cover Songs, 1 Small Room,” prog-metal outfit Coheed & Cambria stripped down to an acoustic duo and performed a tender cover of The Smiths’ ‘A Rush and a Push and the Land is Ours,’ which opens 1987’s ‘Strangeways, Here We Come.’

Six previously unreleased Morrissey tracks finally will see the light of day this fall when EMI releases a 20th anniversary reissue of the ex-Smith’s iconic early-career singles compilation ‘Bona Drag.’

‘Dark Wave’ on Sirius XM’s 1st Wave continues to impress by digging somewhat deeper than normal, with tonight’s episode featuring unexpected cuts from the likes of The Cure (‘The Baby Screams’), The Smiths (‘The Hand That Rocked the Cradle’) and Ministry (‘Flashback’).

This year may be nearly half over, but it’s certainly not too late to catch up with The Smiths Project, an ambitious and impressive effort by San Jose, Calif., musician Janice Whaley to record layered vocal arrangements of every song ever released by The Smiths — all by the end of 2010.

Given today’s release of ‘Intriguer’ in the U.K., it seems fitting to post this sweet clip: Crowded House and the venerable Johnny Marr covering the David Bowie classic ‘Moonage Daydream’ during the encore of the band’s May 27 concert in Manchester.

Highlights from tonight’s ‘Dark Wave’ on Sirius XM’s 1st Wave include a pair of album cuts (‘More Than a Party,’ ‘And Then…’) from Depeche Mode’s ‘Construction Time Again,’ a Giorgio Moroder tune from the ‘Cat People’ soundtrack (‘Leopard Tree Dream’) and one of The Smiths’ finest moments (‘Death of a Disco Dancer’).

Fans of The Smiths’ underrated final album, ‘Strangeways, Here We Come,’ are abuzz about a rough demo of ‘Paint a Vulgar Picture’ that recently hit the web. The track features slightly different lyrics, and in a different order, than the 1987 album version.

As it marks its own 25th anniversary this year, Spin magazine has churned out a list of the 125 best albums of the past quarter century — an honor roll topped by U2’s 1991 left turn ‘Achtung Baby,’ a record the mag says ‘genetically engineer(ed) rock music into the hybridized mutant we know today.’

Promise Ring offshoot Maritime covers the Depeche Mode classic ‘Enjoy the Silence,’ with a keytar no less, for the A.V. Club’s ‘Undercover’ series.

Tonight’s episode of ‘Dark Wave’ on Sirius XM’s 1st Wave featured rare airings from Concrete Blonde (‘Darkening of the Light’), The Smiths (‘Unloveable’) and David J (‘Girl On Fire’), not to mention true shockers from Theatre of Hate (‘Original Sin’) and Stewart Copeland and Stan Ridgeway (‘Don’t Box Me In’).

Less than a month after dropping its debut EP, Peter Hook’s triple-bass supergroup Freebass — which also features The Smiths’ Andy Rourke and Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield of The Stone Roses and Primal Scream — today released its five-years-in-the-making album, ‘It’s a Beautiful Life.’

Attention tapeheads: The ever-iconoclastic Robyn Hitchcock is releasing an ultra-limited run of his new album ‘Propellor Time’ — on which he’s backed by members of R.E.M. and The Smiths — on ‘hand-assembled’ cassette.