Photo: Joyner/WireImage
The Flaming Lips will release their version of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon (one of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums) digitally starting December 22nd. The Lips’ Dark Side — full title The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs With Henry Rollins and Peaches Doing The Dark Side of the Moon — will be an iTunes exclusive for one week until December 29th, at which point it’ll head over to the other digital retailers. As you probably guessed from the rerecording’s epically long title, both Henry Rollins and Peaches contribute “vocal assistance,” or those talking-head bits that served as segues between songs on the original TDSOTM.

As Rolling Stone previously reported, the Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs will team up to perform Dark Side in its entirety at the band’s New Year’s Eve Freakout! in Oklahoma City. It is currently the Lips’ only planned live performance of Dark Side, and Rolling Stone will be on the ground for a full report. Frontman Wayne Coyne has promised, “Oh, it’s going to be a good time.”

In case you don’t already know the Dark Side track listing by heart, check out it below, with the guest spots:

The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs with Henry Rollins and Peaches Doing the Dark Side of the Moon:
1. “Speak To Me” / “Breathe” (featuring Henry Rollins and Peaches)
2. “On The Run” (featuring Henry Rollins)
3. “Time” / “Breathe Reprise”
4. “The Great Gig In The Sky” (featuring Peaches and Henry Rollins)
5. “Money” (featuring Henry Rollins)
6. “Us And Them” (featuring Henry Rollins)
7. “Any Colour You Like”
8. “Brain Damage” (featuring Henry Rollins)
9. “Eclipse” (featuring Henry Rollins).

PC gaming - will it finally die in 2010? No. C'mon, stop already with that. Sure, 2009 had its ups and downs, PC gaming is very much alive and maybe looking healthier than ever in 2010.

Blizzard will, we hope, stick to its early 2010 release date for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, the first entry in the planned real-time strategy trilogy. And the publisher developer is threatening to release two titles next year, including the third World of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm.

But 2010 cannot survive on Blizzard alone. Blizzard and Valve? Maybe, but beyond more Left 4 Dead 2 and Team Fortress 2 content, we're not sure what to expect. Episode III? Let's not set ourselves up for disappointment.

Thankfully, there are many strong contenders due in the following year, including highly anticipated MMOs like Star Wars: The Old Republic, DC Universe Online, Star Trek Online and APB, to name but a few. So let's take a look at what's will be pushing PCs to their limits in 2010, starting right now.

Note: We'll be looking at every platform's currently announced and estimated 2010 slate over the course of the rest of the week-and much much more.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
This little known Korean game pits humans, aliens and other aliens against each other in a battle for the biggest collection of minerals and gas. Said to feature more clicking than other real-time strategy games. (Serious portion: OH GOD STARCRAFT II)
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
Higher level caps, more real estate, flying mounts, Goblins, Worgen, frothing anticipation, oh my! Everything you really need to know about Cataclysm is summed up here.
APB: All Points Bulletin
Realtime Worlds does cops and robbers in an massively multiplayer online environment, with more style and flair than a proper Grand Theft Auto MMO could afford.
Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight
Tiberian Twilight may be the last traditional C&C game for the foreseeable future, the final chapter in the Tiberium saga. Thankfully, the Global Defense Initiative and the Brotherhood of Nod look to hash it out in a real-time strategy sense that taps the best of the Command & Conquer series.
Star Wars: The Old Republic
BioWare gives Star Wars fans another MMO to live and breath, this one set in the ye olde Old Republic era. Players side with either the Galactic Republic or Sith Empire, settling their differences with lightsabers and blasters.
DC Universe Online
Live your second life in the DC universe, hanging out with some of comics' greatest heroes and villains.
Natural Selection II
We're hoping that this real-time strategy meets first-person shooter sequel can make it to PCs in 2010 and we're keeping our fingers crossed all year just in case.
DeathSpank
Ron Gilbert's original DeathSpank should be on the radar of any Secret of Monkey Island fan, an action RPG spawned from Gilbert's own Grumpy Gamer comics.
Global Agenda
Kingdom Under Fire II
Metro 2033
Silent Hunter V
Naval sims? Not my cup of tea, but if you're looking for deep submarine control and find the prospect of first-person sub simulation exciting, look no further than Silent Hunter V.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
The sequel to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl promises more first-person shooter horror and more irradiated beasts to shoot up.
Star Trek Online
Space battles! Away missions! Bridge socializing! Klingons on the starboard bow! Atari's Star Trek themed MMO is looking more inviting than an empty Jefferies Tube. And I'm out of references.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online
This browser based golf game starring old whatsisname will be an interesting experiment to watch, given Woods' new tarnished reputation. Could it be the final EA Sports golf game to bear his name?
Splinter Cell Conviction
Sam Fisher is back and looking less haggard than originally planned. Expect Splinter Cell-style stealth gameplay, with a few new innovations, including more cooperative and competitive multiplayer.
Mass Effect 2
BioWare's epic space saga continues, now with better shooting mechanics on top of the already intriguing intergalactic soap opera.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
EA adds more multiplayer shooting to the mix with the release of Bad Company 2, which looks to take the Battlefield formula to the next level.
BioShock 2
Be the Big Daddy in 2K Games' sequel to the mega hit BioShock. The prequel adds multiplayer, if you consider that a positive or negative.
Dark Void
Capcom's oft-delayed jetpack hero adventure may have a hard time standing out in a crowded early 2010, but the third person shooting, climbing, flying and UFO hijacking sounds like a good combination.
Dead Rising 2
Zombies require killing in Fortune City and you're just the right guy to do it. Kill 'em again with motorcycles, roulette wheels or moose antlers. Your choice.
Dead Space 2
Visceral Games follows up on the excellent Dead Space (and very good Dead Space Extraction) with a new Necromorph dismembering adventure for old Isaac Clarke. Rocket boots? Yes, please.
Lost Planet 2
Get up in them giant bug guts with the sequel to interplanetary adventure shooter Lost Planet. Everything's bigger!
Medal of Honor
EA reboots Medal of Honor, taking the series from World War II theaters and into the modern age. Could have more beards than any other first-person shooter released next year.
Mafia II
Shoot things '40s style with Mafia II, another game that should've been released in 2009, but will settle for a 2010 release nonetheless.
Max Payne 3
Max is back and far less attractive to women. The paunchier, less follicled Payne is drawn back into the dive and shoot at things world he tried to leave behind him. Expect this one late in 2010.
Aliens Vs. Predator
Aliens and Predators settle their differences in this, the first Sega game that will actually take advantage of the Aliens license. Rebellion is at the helm again, which can only mean good things.
Fallout: New Vegas
Crap, they got Vegas too? We don't know too much about Bethesda's follow up to Fallout 3, only that gambling and mutant showgirls are likely to be involved.
Alpha Protocol
The espionage RPG!
Brink
Splash Damage's squad based and class based tactical shooter is brighter and more promising than most, featuring a unique movement method dubbed SMART.
Singularity
Raven's time-traveling first-person shooter was moved out of Modern Warfare 2's way, but now lands directly in the middle of 2010's busy first half. Perhaps that time glove will find it a better spot to find an audience...
R.U.S.E.
Assassin's Creed II
Like a fine wine, the extra aging of the PC version of Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed II will only make for a more flavorful experience. PC gamers will enjoy stabbing people in the neck as Ezio in the first quarter of 2010.

The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs have more than a few things in common, not least of which is the influence of Pink Floyd. Now, at long last, the pair has announced details of the track-by-track cover of Floyd’s 1973 classic, The Dark Side of the Moon, which will be available online Dec. 22.

The bands recorded the album together in Oklahoma City, accompanied by Henry Rollins and Peaches, and considered it all “purely a labor of love.” The Lips and Dwarfs additionally produced the tracks with their own modern interpretations on each song. The record will be available exclusively via iTunes starting Dec. 22, and then through all download sites Dec. 29.

The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs play their last show of 2009 on New Year’s Eve in Oklahoma City, where they’ll both play full live sets before performing Dark Side at midnight. For tickets and information, click here.

The Dark Side Of The Moon tracks:

1. Speak To Me / Breathe (w/ Henry Rollins and Peaches)
2. On The Run (fw/ Henry Rollins)
3. Time / Breathe Reprise
4. The Great Gig In The Sky (w/ Henry Rollins and Peaches)
5. Money (w/ Henry Rollins)
6. Us And Them (w/ Henry Rollins)
7. Any Colour You Like
8. Brain Damage (w/ Henry Rollins)
9. Eclipse (w/ Henry Rollins)

Radiohead's Thom Yorke has crashed the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, and you can see a video of him talking at the event below.

The conference, which is being held to discuss issues surrounding global climate change, is not open to the public, yet Yorke obtained a press pass to gain entry.

"I'm here as a press person," he explains on the video when asked what he's doing at the event. "Do you imagine they'd let me in otherwise? See how long it lasts before I get kicked out."

Last year Yorke spearheaded the Big Ask campaign, which saw a law passed that requires the UK to cut its emissions by 80% by 2050.

James and Doves are set to play next year's Isle Of Wight Festival.

The bands along with Ocean Colour Scene, Paloma Faith, The Saturdays, Shakespears Sister and Daisy Dares You are the latest editions for the event which takes place between June 11 and 13.

As previously reported, the 2010 festival will be headlined by The Strokes and Jay-Z, with a third headliner yet to be named.

The line-up so far is:

Blondie
Daisy Dares You
Doves
James
Jay-Z
Ocean Colour Scene
Orbital
Paloma Faith
Pink
Shakespears Sister
Squeeze
The Saturda

Depeche Mode will play at the Royal Albert Hall in London next year.

The band will perform at the venue for the first time on February 17 for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

The show is the first announced in the charity's annual run of gigs, which this year will mark the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the UK's first teenage cancer unit.

"We’re absolutely thrilled to be a part of Teenage Cancer Trust," said Depeche Mode's Martin Gore. "We’ve never played the Royal Albert Hall before, so we’re really looking forward to that too."

Tickets go on sale on Friday (December 18).

To mark the show, a limited edition run of 12 watches – one for each of the band's studio albums – have been created by watchmakers Hublot and will be sold via auction on Depechemode.com .

The music of guitarist Johnny Marr (The Smiths, The Cribs, Modest Mouse’s We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank) will soon be making its theatrical debut.

As MovieScore Magazine reports, Marr is set to score The Big Bang, which follows an L.A. private detective hired to find a stripper who is not only missing, but has never been seen before. In his search through New Mexico, the detective encounters a trail of bodies, a Russian boxer, and a billionaire perfecting his nuclear-physics version of The Big Bang, according to Variety.

The film is the third directorial effort for Tony Krantz, coming years after he produced another story of lost identities, Mulholland Drive. Antonio Banderas stars alongside William Fichtner (Entourage, The Dark Knight, Prison Break), Delroy Lindo (Up, Domino), Sam Elliott (Up in the Air) and Snoop Dogg, who is simply cast as a man named Puss. Huh.

In October, Marr also agreed to team up with Ian Brown to create music for a friend’s television drama, revolving around ticket touts, T-shirt grafters and pickpockets.

Listen to this charity single Portishead have released with Amnesty International below and support the cause and buy this outstanding single.

Portishead - Chase The Tear

“Chase The Tear” (like a paper tear, not a crying tear) is just as good as anything on Portishead’s fantastic Third. It says a lot about an artist when they donate music they can easily profit from themselves, especially music that’s up to par with their standard of excellence.

It may be billed as a Massive Attack video, but you probably won't remember anything about the music after watching it. (For what it's worth, the song is called "Paradise Circus", it features Hope Sandoval on vocals, and it's on the forthcoming album Heligoland, due out February 9 via Virgin in the U.S. and February 8 in the UK).

You can barely hear the track anyway, as it's beneath footage from the 1973 porn flick The Devil in Miss Jones intercut with testimony from its star, Georgina Spelvin. Which is all much less exciting or titillating than you would think it would be, in theory. Directed by Toby Dye.

Watch it here, via Stereogum.

By pre-ordering Just Cause 2 at Amazon, GameStop, Target, or Wal-Mart -- The Man would rather I say "participating retails," but screw him -- you can get a whole mess of goodies, including a hovercraft. A hovercraft!

Avalanche Studios has got the full list with pictures and descriptions right here. For the lazy (more power to you), the five items are Rico’s Signature Gun, Bull’s Eye Assault Rifle, the Chevalier Classic, a Chaos Parachute, and the Agency Hovercraft.

These are all usable in-game, and will be available for download on launch, which means your pre-order will net you a download key, most likely. Note: this fun stuff is for North America only. As far as I can tell, pre-order bonuses for other regions haven't been divulged yet

Portishead have released a band new song for Amnesty International.

The track, 'Chase The Tear', is available via 7digital.com/portisheadamnesty from today (December 10), which is also International Human Rights Day.




All earnings from the single will go to the charity's human rights work, and Amnesty International are being given all rights to the song.

A video of the band performing 'Chase The Tear' can be seen at Amnesty.org.uk/portishead.

Sonic Youth are set to begin work on their 17th studio album.

The follow-up to this year's 'The Eternal', guitarist Lee Ranaldo has confirmed that they're "most probably going back into the studio next year", but did add that the band were still enjoying playing their current album live.

"We're still deeply ensconced in our new record, so we're gonna play a lot of 'The Eternal'," Ranaldo told BBC 6 Music, "that's what we're having the most fun with."

In the meantime the band are also planning a DVD release, combining footage from their recent 2007/2008 'Daydream Nation' tour, as well as footage of them playing the classic album back in 1988.

As for future releases, Ranaldo revealed plans to digitise over 30 years of the band's recordings.

"We're doing a big archival house clean right now," he explained. "We've got a massive archive of audio and video that's sitting in our studio in Hoboken. We've got somebody in there who's noting every single thing down and making a massive database, and then we're going to start digitising it because some of the tapes are 30 years old now."

The most talked about band in the world with an EP that still defies easy categorization

8 out of 10

Imagine for a moment that the internet is something you can hold in your hands. You pick it up and, ignoring mother’s pleas to leave the mucky thing alone, you set about building a scrapbook for every band ever blogged about, by anyone, anywhere. When you’re done, a billion volumes of yack-stack tower and teeter above you like an ironic and never-ending forest of corpse trees, but it’s Animal Collective whose music has inspired the most virtual ‘column inches’; their book of clippings is so thick Yuri Gagarin can see it, and he’s not just flung out in space any more, he’s nowhere.

And that’s strange, isn’t it? Not that they attract praise, or that Gagarin’s dead (it’s a dangerous profession), but that so much blather surrounds the quartet when the noises they make – slippery, absurd, familiar yet future-new – are so hard to talk about. Taking this record apart is like diving into the sea and trying to glue water together. Better to let it wash over you, because the sound of ‘Fall Be Kind’ is one of a band fast running out of context.

Baltimore-born, Brooklyn-based, Animal Collective already seem to exist on no-one else’s terms but their own. This EP looms into life with ‘Graze’; a track that begins by stealing Walt Disney’s strings and disappears while playing electric panpipes on a medieval waltzer. Where did it go? Where did the electricity come from? Is Walt Disney still frozen in the past? Gluing. Water.

That absurd, time-defying hoedown somehow bleeds seamlessly into ‘What Would I Want? Sky’, which has been in Animal Collective’s live set for over a year, and as such is already more famous on the internet than Tyson the skateboarding bulldog. Sun-baked and blissed out, it’s just as warming and impressive as watching Tyson roll around California’s oceanfront and mocks the band’s assertion that what’s here was “too dark” for their last album. It contains the first legal sample, sounds a bit like Lemon Jelly’s ‘The Staunton Lick’ and still manages – through its hook’s hypnotic repetition – to be the best thing you’ll hear all day.

The surprises continue to gather. ‘On A Highway’ and ‘I Think I Can’ are the most ‘standard’ Animal Collective fare here, the former guided through a lonely night drive by Avey Tare, his eyes picking out pissing workmen, pretty lady passengers and dreaming bandmate Noah Lennox. The latter, the EP’s final track, is Noah’s, and as such loops and lopes along, his throat trailing cascades across strange, quacking synths and war-march drums as he harmonises with sampled versions of himself. It’s good – everything on ‘Fall Be Kind’ is good – but it’s not something we haven’t heard done better before, either in Animal Collective’s past or in 2007, on Lennox’s full-length ‘Person Pitch’.

That’s not to say their past is becoming a curse. This EP’s centrepiece, a stunning hymnal called ‘Bleed’, ranks alongside anything Lennox, Tare (real name David Portner), Brian ‘Geologist’ Weitz and Josh ‘Deakin’ Dibb have ever put their names to. Slow-motion and sparse, it’ll widen your eyes and put an ache in your gut; consisting of little more than Tare’s cooing, Lennox’s wailing and the sombre drone of a lone cello. Stripped of all the sonic flotsam that usually surrounds them, Animal Collective come into their own – if you can ignore the chatter to listen with innocent ears, they surpass ‘good’ and remain bewildering.

Traditionally a PC game publisher, Paradox Interactive dons a cowboy hat and a pair of six-guns, moseying onto the console scene with Fatshark's Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West, and we've got pictures to prove it.

Lead and Gold first popped up in October, when developer Fatshark chummed the publishing waters with a video of the game in action. Europa Universalis developer Paradox Interactive took the bait, with the game's Q1 2010 release marking the company's debut on consoles, downloadable or otherwise.

"We've said all along that for the right title, we'd jump on the opportunity of going console and when Lead and Gold crossed our path, there was no turning back. The team over at Fatshark is very experienced and has done an excellent job," said Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive. "There's ample opportunity to roll this out on several different platforms, including PC."

Every passing moment we get closer and closer to the day when we'll be saying, "Oh great, another cowboy game." I can almost taste it!

Some of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's cheating issues will be addressed soon, as we've found that the 1.06 patch is in the hands of certification to be released. Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling tweeted PS3 patch notes, along with word that it's with Microsoft certification now (via Joystiq). We can only assume this means the patch has also been sent to Sony, or will be in the very near future.

The update will remove the javelin glitch, which allowed players to turn themselves into powerful, fast-moving weapons. The patch will also fix exploits that allowed for infinite care packages, and areas where players could hide inside pieces of geography. Check out the video above for a look at the javelin glitch in action, and shed a tear for the cheap tactic that will soon be nothing but a memory. Here's to you, cheaters.

This year's big releases are mostly behind us, so it's time for companies to start drumming up hype for next year's line-up. Today, EA announced Dead Space 2, and gave some details of what we can expect from the sequel. It stars Isaac Clarke again and features the same undead-slicing gameplay from the first game, along with its highly-praised zero-G environments. The press release promises new characters and tools, but doesn't detail any of them quite yet. The sequel is coming out for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. Updates can be found on the Isaac Clarke Twitter account, which of course isn't the account of the real Isaac Clarke, since that would have many more tweets about creatures stuck to his face.

"We're thrilled to jump back into the series, making the next chapter in Isaac's journey," said executive producer Steve Papoutsis in the press release. "The infection continues to spread throughout space and our hero Isaac Clarke is the only person able to contain it. In Dead Space 2, not everything is exactly as it seems. Expect plot twists that will surprise you and a huge cast of twisted, disgusting monsters that are sure to scare the daylights out of you."

One piece of information notably missing from the press release is a release date, or even a launch window. But as we move into next year, and with several magazines promising coverage of the game, we're sure we'll find out soon enough.

The Smashing Pumpkins have posted a new song from their upcoming 44-track release Teargarden By Kaleidyscope, entitled 'A Song For A Son.'

http://www.spinner.com/2009/12/07/smashing-pumpkins-a-song-for-a-sun-song-premiere/