I hate seeing anything Christmas related until after Thanksgiving. The neighbors who put up Christmas decorations prior to that day are gauche, tactless people. And here comes Sufjan with his guaranteed-to-make-you-cry interpretation of “I’ll be Home for Christmas” way before Christmas should even enter our consciousness. And this version is depressing as hell, so how’s that going to get you in the spirit? This disturbing video certainly won’t help matters. But the man does have a new Christmas album to hawk, so he’s prepping early. Commerce comes first.

Seems like every few years …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead releases a new album and everyone goes, “man, this is their best since Source Tags & Codes.” Ok, that didn’t happen when So Divided came out. But you know what I’m talking about. Worlds Apart is the only outright stinker in the cannon and even that record isn’t horrible- just a touch heavy on the prog and pomp and a little light on the punk. But even getting down to the nitty gritty, the band’s past two albums have been pretty stellar. And the new one, Lost Songs, is in heavy rotation.

INXS confirms split in official statement. Hahaha. What? INXS was still a thing? Surely, no. It’s not exactly cynical to say that this should have happened 15 years ago when lead singer Michael Hutchence hanged himself on the back of a hotel door, but carrying on the way the leftover five did has just been excruciating to witness. And letting fans know while opening for Matchbox 20 of all things? Makes me nauseated just thinking about it. SO, lesson learned: Hiring game show contestants to replace your iconic lead singer is ILL-ADVISED. But INXS soldiered on and endured the worst case “running it into the ground” in music history. I can’t think of another band that tried so desperately to keep at it with absolutely no hope of survival. Even The Beach Boys’ shameless incarnations over the years don’t seem as crass. Finally, Michael Hutchence can stop trying to Uma Thurman his way out of his coffin and get some rest.

The long-lost demo of Sex Pistols’ “Belson Was A Gas” was recently discovered during a record label transition. The controversial song has been released in various live and alternate versions over the years, but the demo version with Johnny Rotten on vocals has been much sought after and long-since written off. With its sarcastic Holocaust lyrical theme (allegedly written by Sid Vicious), the band was simply trying to offend the powers that be, using as sensitive a topic as it could muster at the time, since taking the piss out of the Queen was old news by then. You can barely hear the vocals in this mix, so I’m not sure anyone could claim offense at this point. It features the stellar musicianship of one Sid Vicious on bass. The track will be tacked onto the Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols super-deluxe boxset due for release on September 24th via Universal Music UK.

The Dismemberment Plan‘s latest reformation seems to be sticking. News has been trickling out about new songs. The bands seems to be having a blast playing live, too, as this live video at The Metro Gallery clearly indicates. A new official band YouTube page has surfaced featuring “Mexico City Christmas,” which sounds like vintage D-plan crica Emergency & I. I can’t believe it’s been a decade since the comparatively somber Change came out, but I’ll gladly welcome a new album should it happen.

Having promised retirement after her successful sophomore solo album, It’s Not Me, It’s You, Lily Allen, now know by her married name, Lily Rose Cooper, has returned to music (surprise). Now, the way in which she has returned is slightly unexpected in that it’s by way of a duet with perennial chart mainstay Pink. “True Love” is a but Pink-er than anything you might expect from the Lily Allen of yore, but it’s nice to hear from her anyway.

Talk Talk’s final two albums, Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock, respectively, are two of my favorite records, but they were Talk Talk’s least commercially successful because the band utterly ignored its synth-pop, new wave roots (and its audience) to embark an an experimental tangent that has influenced a generation of songwriters. Ex-Depeche Mode keyboardist Alan Wilder has compiled a tribute album to a band he says “experienced a career in reverse.” He continues, “There was a direct correlation between the quality increase and the popularity decrease.” Talk Talk stormed onto the charts with a string of pop hits in the early 1980’s, replete with layers of synths and grandiose, unforgettable choruses. It was its third album, 1986’s The Colour of Spring, where band leader Mark Hollis began to steer the band away from such overtly catchy pop music to create a much more introverted scape of sounds and structures. The band’s final two materstrokes, the aforementioned Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock, are so enigmatic by virtue not only of the music therein but also by their secretive recording processes and the fact that no one related to any of those recording sessions will discuss them. It’s a bizarre story. After Talk Talk dissolved, Hollis has only released one self-titled solo album in 1998, which was just as obtuse and beautiful as his final Talk Talk recordings. The Guardian has a much more in depth look at the band’s career and the subsequent evolution of the tribute out now on Fierce Panda. The tribute features artists ranging from Alan Wilder (Recoil, Depeche Mode) to members of Bon Iver, White Lies, members of Arcade Fire, Guillemots, Lights, Turin Brakes, and many others. The official tribute site has more details. The deluxe edition is sold out.