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The first track from The Weeknd’s bizarrely named Kiss Land is the title track, a 7-minute-2-parter-style thing, similar to tracks he’s done before. The first half isn’t all that, but the second is much more promising, having more of the wailing sex-flow and smooth production that we’ve grown to love:

Future’s ‘Karate Chop’ has, over the last few weeks, nudged ahead of Rocko’s U.O.E.N.O to claim the title for 2013′s most contentious rap joint. 

Lil Wayne’s guest verse, which makes a facetious reference to murdered civil rights icon Emmett Till, caused a major kerfuffle: Till’s estate took umbrage, and Wayne was subsequently dropped by sponsors Mountain Dew as a result of the fuss. Clearly not afraid to flirt with fire, newly ascendant crooner Jeremih has now produced his own remix of the track.

Jeremih’s been tolling like a Stakhanovite in the last week, releasing new track

Daft Punk’s ingenious marketing campaign appears to be paying off. 

Following 2005′s Human After All, the duo have enjoyed a remarkable resurrection in their commercial (and critical) fortunes: ‘Get Lucky’ is looking at its fourth week at Number One in the UK charts, and is already the most streamed track in Spotify history. As Music Week report, Random Access Memories is expected to become the fastest selling album in UK chart history, beating Oasis’ 1997 LP Be Here Now into second place.

Random Access Memories has already beaten Amazon’s pre-sales records for a dance album. Paddy Power have slashed odds on Daft Punk trumping Oasis to the chart milestone to 4/5, and have also put 7/1 odds on the album becoming the best-selling album of all time in the UK by 2015. For context, Be Here Now sold 650,000 copies in its first week

In a ludic statement, Paddy Power said:

“They might not have a catchy moniker like the ‘Beliebers’, but fans don’t come much more passionate and excitable than Daft Punk enthusiasts so we’re expecting big things for the French DJs next week. We only hope that the success doesn

The MMG and YMCMB empresarios are primed to drop a mothballed collaborative album, dating back to 2008.

Rumblings about The H have been going on for half a decade. Back in 2008, Ross revealed that he and Birdman were working on an album-cum-movie project, saying that he and Birdman “went in the studio for the hood.”. As Ross graduated from fame to bona fide superstardom, however, the project quietly slipped onto the backburner. As Complex report, the record is now finally set to see the light of day.

In an interview shot during the video shoot for DJ Khaled’s ‘No New Friends’ single, the pair have announced that the album will see release next week. According to Birdman, the record was recorded over a week or so in 2008, and sees the pair “speaking from the heart”.

The H: The Lost Album Vol 1 2008 is due on May 23. Ross’ forthcoming LP Mastermind is expected later in the year.

Boston’s finest are to be commemorated in a snazzy Kickstarter-funded compendium. 

Megafan Sean T. Rayburn, webmaster of the band’s fan-run website PixiesMusic, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a lush photographic collection of the band. Pixies: A Visual History, Volume 1: 1986-1993 will arrive as hardcover coffee table book, featuring previously unseen photos and archival images of the band during their initial recording career. The band’s members are on board with the project, with Rayburn pledging that he’ll also be meeting with their families and photographers from the period.

The Kickstarter page has set the bar very high, asking for $150,000 to get the project off the ground. The kitty currently sits at around $25,000, with the book priced at $75 and cheaper goodies like photo prints and postcards also available to buy. Provided the first edition sees the light of day, Rayburn has also promised a second volume covering the band’s post-Pixies activities and 2004 reunion.

Over to Rayburn:

Some of you may be wondering, “so Sean, WHY do you need a Kickstarter to put this project together?” The answer is that book publishing is very expensive, especially to do it right. To make this a great project, I am meeting with hundreds of people from all over the world, people who have worked with the band,...

We've all had those nights out. You know it happened, but you've no idea how. Well, that's a bit what listening to Daft Punk's Random Access Memories is like. That is, if you fell down the disco rabbit hole into a synth-funk dominated Wonderland.

You're getting ready for your night out somewhere in 1979, when 'Give Life Back To Music', with its clean instrumentation and distinct lack of electronic mayhem, pops on the stereo. It's just the right groove to soundtrack the doing-your-hair part of your evening. It gets you ready for whatever the night might bring. It could happily sit on Off the Wall, although instead of Michael Jackson on vocals, it

Jared Leto can't save you. Let's get that out of the way immediately. He can't save you any more than he can bring about world peace, turn water into wine or part the Red Sea. And whilst his rockstar messiah posturing is nothing new (although his philanthropy and support for gay rights in America is admirable), 30 Seconds To Mars' endless lyrical platitudes and 'you-are-not-fans-you-are-family' sloganeering can grate. But none of that mattered until now, because what Jared Leto could do, and do incredibly well, was compose/perform gorgeous alternative rock whilst looking gorgeous himself: he possessed the two vital prerequisites for pop superstardom in spades - good looks and big hooks. And while time has done little to diminish his faunlet-like androgynous beauty, sadly it does appear to have neutered his muse.

LOVE LUST FAITH + DREAMS has been engineered to make it appear grandiose, an album imbued with deep meaning and importance; the cover is Damien Hirst, the title is ALL CAPS, the artwork for first single 'Up In The Air' brazenly referenced Hum's Nineties space-rock classic You'd Prefer An Astronaut, and was subsequently literally sent into space. Whilst 30 Seconds To Mars have always traded in the sweeping and spectacular - their music videos, directed by Leto himself, are masterful, hyper-stylised mini epics - all the high profile perimetrics feel decidedly over-compensatory this time around, as LOVE LUST FAITH + DREAMS<...