• Grammy Faceoff ‘09: Artists Predict Winners
• Oscars Snub Springsteen, Celebrate Slumdog
• Sneak Peek: Guitar Hero: Metallica
• Parents Protest Spears’ “If U Seek Amy”
• Despite Rumors, No Faces Reunion in ‘09
• Lonely Island: Inside Andy Samberg’s Crew
• The State Reunite for Hilarious Q&A
• Remembering Heath Ledger
• Sirius XM Plans Rate Increase
• American Idol Hits Kentucky
• Lady Sovereign Sings Like Kanye on Jigsaw
• Bat for Lashes Return With Scott Walker on LP
• News Ticker: Jay-Z, Arcade Fire, U2
• Hype Monitor: Fever Ray, New Villager
• The Band on Bruce: Their Springsteen

Top stories from the last three days:

• The New Issue: Bruce Springsteen
• Beyoncé, Sting Rock Inaugural Balls
• Lars Ulrich: In Gn’R’s “Better” Video
• Artie Lange: The Story Behind the Story
• Vedder Parties for Obama With Knitters
• Breaking: Anya Marina
• Funky Electric Company Returns
• Tour Tracker: No Doubt, Animal Collective
• Hear Springsteen’s Dream, Read the Review
• Coldplay Go Puppet for “Technicolor” Video
• Swift Tops Charts in Bleak Sales Week
• American Idol Finds Little Talent in San Fran
• Yusuf Recruits McCartney, Parton for New LP
• U2’s “Get On Your Boots” Released Early
• Beastie Boys Pass the Mic for Obama
• Scott Weiland Seeks Redemption in Austin
• Q&A: Derek Trucks
• Antony and the Johnsons & New Reviews
• Joaquin Phoenix Makes Rap Debut, Falls
• Fricke’s Picks: The Whore Moans
• U2, Springsteen Kick Off Inaugural Party
• U2 Reveal Horizon Track List, Cover
• Jeff Beck on Rock Hall, Clapton Gigs
• Behind the Fall of Indie 103
• Random Notes: Springsteen, Metallica
• YouTube Mutes Warner Bros. Videos
• Jonas Brothers: Big Fans of the Band?
• Metallica, Run-DMC, Jeff Beck: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Class of 2009

Scroll down for full news stories, commentary and much more in Rock Daily.

This Saturday, for the first time in 14 years, all 11 members of the iconic, pioneering sketch comedy group the State will reunite onstage at San Francisco’s Sketchfest. The group brought inanely brilliant comedy to MTV for four seasons in the mid-’90s before splitting up and working on side projects that include Stella and Wet Hot American Summer. Rolling Stone grabbed some time with Michael Ian Black, Thomas Lennon, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Ken Marino and David Wain as they were prepping for their two big shows to talk fistfights, ball smoke, trucker speed and the future of the State. Click here to read the hilarious Q&A:

• A More Perfect (Re)Union: The State Return to the Stage

Related Stories:

• The State Reunites In The Midst Of A 1990s Sketch Comedy Renaissance
• Rob Sheffield’s Pop Life: The State 2.0

Photo: Mazur/WireImage

Ben Folds continues to search for the Way To Normal, DeVotchKa spread the gypsy rock and the School of Seven Bells hit the road with Fujiya & Miyagi. Full dates for all three treks, after the jump. (more…)

With all the Oscar talk in the air today, we started to get amped about the upcoming Grammy Awards, which take place February 8th at Los Angeles’ Staples Center. Rolling Stone recently polled some opinionated artists — Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump, Will.i.am, Gym Class Heroes’ Travis McCoy, Girl Talk’s Gregg Gillis, Nick Jonas and Best New Artist nominee Adele — to find out what awards they think M.I.A., Radiohead, Lil Wayne and Coldplay will walk away Grammy night. For their expert opinions — and to offer your own — check out our Grammy Predictions here:

• And the Winner Is… Grammy Faceoff ‘09

More Grammys:

• Lil Wayne, Coldplay Lead Nominations for 51st Annual Grammy Awards

Photo: IMPictures/FilmMagic

Today marks the first anniversary of the death of Heath Ledger. The gifted Australian actor died in a New York City apartment on January 22, 2008 after an “accidental toxic combination of prescription drugs” at age 28. He is survived by his daughter Matilda Rose from his relationship with actress Michelle Williams.

Fittingly, and deservingly, Ledger was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the Joker in the box-office smash The Dark Knight earlier today. He was previously nominated in the Best Actor category in 2005 for Brokeback Mountain. Ledger’s win for Supporting Actor seems like a guarantee, having already captured the category at this year’s Golden Globe Awards. “All of us who worked with Heath on The Dark Knight accept with an awful mixture of sadness but incredible pride. For any of us lucky enough to work with him, he will be eternally missed, but he will never be forgotten,” Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan told the audience at the Golden Globes as he accepted the award on Ledger’s behalf.

Ledger’s final film appearance, in Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, is due out later this year. (more…)

Andy Samberg and his cohorts in the Lonely Island have brought a rock & roll spirit back to Saturday Night Live, satirizing ’90s R&cheese with their blockbuster digital short “Dick in a Box” and Pet Shop Boys-style synth-pop with new favorite “Jizz in my Pants.” Now the trio of childhood friends from the Bay Area — SNL writers Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, along with Samberg — are finally releasing their debut album, Incredibad, on February 10th.

Click above to watch the trio at work (i.e. screwing around in their SNL dressing room) and learn a bit more about their division of labor: “I come up with the ideas — all of them,” says Samberg. Rolling Stone was hanging with the funnydudes at their photo shoot for a feature in the current issue — pick it up for a bit more insight into Justin Timberlake’s role on “Dick” and more. (more…)

With its shares of stock worth little more than a dime, Sirius XM will reportedly impose a rate increase on March 11th. The company will seek an extra $2 per additional subscription per user, plus charge $2.99 to stream Sirius XM online. The latter fee comes with an upside: all Internet subscriptions will stream with a 128k “premium” feed. According to customer support reps, current Sirius XM users can lock in at their current rates for the next three years if they re-up before March 11th.

Whether the price hikes have any effect on programming remains to be seen. While the increase isn’t exactly wallet-draining, it’s just another straw on the camel’s back for those Sirius XM who told Rolling Stone in November that they were upset with the company since their respective stations merged into one entity in November 2008. Many listeners’ favorite channels and genres were causalities of the station-merge, and customers complained of too much song repetition and DJ bantering. (more…)

Photo: Micelotta/Getty

A spokesperson for Rod Stewart has denied reports that Stewart and Ron Wood have written an album’s worth of material for a new Faces LP that was to proceed a reunion tour. “There’s no plans for a Faces reunion tour this year,” the spokesperson tells Rolling Stone. Wood is working on a new solo project, but “Rod did not do any recording with him for that album,” according to the spokesperson. Reports out today also indicated that Flea was subbing in for the late Ronnie Lane on bass. Wood told Rolling Stone that Flea inquired about the job, but that Rod’s touring bassist Conrad Korsch was filling the slot.

In an interview with RS last month Ron Wood announced that the Faces had rehearsed a handful of times last year. “It was like no time has passed by,” he said, noting that tour plans were in the works. “We just have to sort out when and where and drop all of the management egos and just do what we can. We know we can do it. It’s just a matter of getting everyone’s availability sometime next year.”

With Rod’s calendar slowly filling up with tour dates, it’s looking more likely like Faces fans will have to wait until 2010 — though if Mick and Keith decide to bring the Rolling Stones back on the road by then, Ron Wood will become the one without time. Meanwhile, Faces drummer Kenny Jones and keyboardist Ian McLagan grow restless along with the rest of us.

Related Stories:

• Ron Wood Says Faces Reunion Tour Is “Ready to Go”
• Faces Keyboardist Says Faces Are “Serious” About Reunion
• Rumor: Rod Stewart Says Faces Reuniting, Rehearsing

Photo: Forrest/WireImage

Last year English songstress Natasha Khan grabbed our attention with her incredible Donnie Darko-esque one-take video for her band Bat for Lashes’ “What’s a Girl To Do.” The album it came from, the well-received 2006 debut Fur and Gold, led to a prestigious European tour support slot with Radiohead: “Thom Yorke told me I should do what I want and fuck everyone else,” she recalls. And so she has — Bat for Lashes will return April 6th with Two Suns, an album heavy on musical method acting.

Khan tells Rolling Stone that the record was inspired by intensely personal experiences that followed ’06’s hauntingly ethereal Fur and Gold. But instead of writing first-person confessionals, her new lyrics are channeled through two main personas, one of which is Pearl, an egotistical (and blond!) femme fatale. “When I was recording and struggling with relationships and being away from home, I would sometimes go out to a bar and get drunk and then dress up and some of the characters on the album,” she says. “It was like an escapist fantasy — a way for me to help make sense of what I was feeling. It sounds a bit mental but then again, I was feeling a bit mental at the time.”

Brooklyn experimentalists Yeasayer contribute to the album and Khan has even managed to lure the famously reclusive Scott Walker into providing vocals on the album’s finale “The Big Sleep.” “That song was meant to be drag queen’s dying song and I wanted it to be very theatrical. (more…)

Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet to find the ones you need to hear now.

The Band: Fever Ray
The Buzz: Solo outing of Karin Andersson of Swedish electro-Gothers the Knife. Sounds kind of like the Knife.
Listen If: Grey is your favorite color, or grim is your favorite mood.
Key Track: “If I Had a Heart,” a bleak, pulsing funeral march where Andersson’s wisp-of-smoke voice curls around fat blue bands of synth.

The Band: New Villager
The Buzz: Bi-coastal duo bang out brawny indie pop.
Listen If: You wish Animal Collective’s fangs were a bit sharper.
Key Track: “Rich Doors,” a thumping combo of mantra-like vocals, tribal percussion and cascading keyboards — it’s “Life in a Northern Town” writ very, very small. (more…)

There is a video clip in Guitar Hero: Metallica of Lars Ulrich performing on a silent drum set while covered in motion-capture equipment. He’s playing a song Metallica haven’t played in more than a decade, and he can’t get the timing right. After a handful of takes, he finally makes it through, and collapses in a heap on the floor. “I’m sorry for all the bad things I’ve done in my life,” he moans.

Now gamers can feel Lars’ pain as the Metallica-themed version of the juggernaut Guitar Hero franchise hits stores March 29th for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles (Wii and PS2 versions will follow later in the spring). In a storyline concocted by frontman James Hetfield, players begin as Metallica’s opening act, and eventually play as Metallica once they prove their mettle.

Everything about the game, from the menu animations based on art by Pushead, Metallica’s long-running collaborating artist, to venues and stage sets from all phases of the band’s career to signature lighting effects and crowd chants will be familiar to fans. The motion-capture used to animate the band is strikingly lifelike, as all of the signature moves are there: the contemplative Hetfield during the opening of “The Unforgiven,” the preening Ulrich hopping up from behind his kit to be seen after every song, and bassist Rob Trujillo’s crabwalk and spins.

The members all initially appear as their modern-day selves, but there will be unlockable character skins that hearken back to earlier eras. Although no past members are in the game (there go fantasies for a Cliff Burton cameo — the band feared his inclusion may have felt like a slight to Trujillo), a few of Metallica’s heroes make appearances.

The full track list for the game will be released next week, and Neversoft employees admit that the list of songs which has been announced so far was a bit of a tease (more…)

Photo: Devaney/WireImage

The Parents Television Council is livid that Britney Spears‘ cunningly titled “If U Seek Amy” is getting radio play, despite the fact that the title and lyrics essentially say “F-U-C-K Me.” Parents in Australia first complained about the song’s content, and now that the track has become the third single off Circus, American parents are lining up to demand radio stations cease playing the song between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. as it “violates the broadcast indecency law.”

“There is no misinterpreting the lyrics to this song, and it’s certainly not about a girl named Amy,” PTC president Tim Winter said. “It’s one thing for a song with these lyrics to be included on a CD so that fans who wish to hear it can do so, but it’s an entirely different matter when this song is played over the publicly owned airwaves, especially at a time when children are likely to be in the listening audience.”

Despite the PTC outcry, radio stations continue to play the track, as evidenced by its Number 92 debut on the Billboard Pop 100. A Jive-edited version of the song excises the “k” from “Seek,” thus “If You See Amy” (which is pretty much still “F-U-C Me.”) (more…)

Photo: Forrest/WireImage

Perhaps taking cues from Kanye West, pint-sized British MC Lady Sovereign will follow up her 2006 album Public Warning by attempting to sing on her latest record, Jigsaw, due out April 7th. But don’t think about comparing her style to West’s. “Kanye can’t sing and everyone knows that,” says Sov, phoning from her dad’s home in London, where she now lives. “There’s a reason why some people are rappers to begin with.”

While Sov’s singing abilities aren’t necessarily mind-blowing, she does deliver some hot, club-ready jams on Jigsaw. On the title track, she gets over a recent breakup by singing in a mellow croon, “My heart is like a jigsaw puzzle/ Pick it up and fix it for me” over orchestral flourishes and a deep electro beat. And on tracks like “I Got You Dancing,” she experiments with Auto Tune. Still, unlike Kanye’s singing-only 808s & Heartbreak, the latter track is crammed with sweaty robo-grooves and cheesed-out Eighties synths. But the clear highlight of the record is “Student Union,” a caffeinated pop-punk tune that sort of sounds like a long lost Go-Gos song. “I don’t care if my voice doesn’t sound perfect,” says Sov. “I just really enjoyed doing it.”

This album marks a turning point for Sov, who will release the record on her own new label Midget Records. (She recently parted from Def Jam.) Following the release, Sov will work on beefing up her own roster. So what sort of acts is she looking for? “Stuff from across the board,” she says. “Whatever I think is worth being signed to my label, I’ll snap it up. I can’t wait.”

Photo: Becker/FOX

It was the night of a million horse-racing metaphors as the American Idol auditions hit Louisville’s Churchill Downs, the home of the Kentucky Derby. Yes, Randy Jackson put on a flouncy Derby hat and that was sadly the highlight of the hour-long episode. You know you’re in for trouble when the most dramatic moment in the teasers involves a nerd sipping out of Paula Abdul’s straw. The judges were so desperate to beef, they tried to spin poor Mark Mudd’s farewell comment (”Be careful”) into a threat. A threat? That’s what grandmothers say when they bid you goodbye. And Ryan Seacrest once again left us with a deep thought: “Behind every cloud is a silver lining — or at least a golden ticket.” Even grandmothers don’t say crap like that.

There were 11,000 hopefuls and the judges handed out 19 yellow passes to Hollywood Week. Here’s a quick rundown:

Ones to Watch:

• Does anyone believe Kara DioGuardi just happened to recognize Joanna Pacitti? (”Weren’t you on A&M Records?”). Pacitti (i.e. this year’s Carly Smithson) belted Pat Benatar’s “We Belong” and wept her way through the congratulations.

• Piano man Matt Giraud sings with soul and grit — and reminds Simon of Elliott Yamin.

• Twenty-one-year-old mom Alexis Grace is a small blonde with enough voice to rock Aretha Franklin’s “Dr. Feelgood.” If only she’d done the Motley Crue version …

• Tear-jerker Leneshe Young grew up homeless, but that hasn’t dampened her humor: her (not bad!) original song included the lyric “I like your thuggish ways.” The show loved her too: they played Kelly Clarkson’s “Breakaway” after her audition. (more…)

Photograph by Bao Nguyen

• Obama staffers were rewarded for all their hard work last night with a special concert featuring Jay-Z and the Arcade Fire. The Obama Staff Ball was hosted by actor Kal Penn and featured a speech by the new President thanking the crowd of 4,000. In addition to a set that featured the hits from both Funeral and The Neon Bible, the Arcade Fire also covered Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.”

• U2’s “Get On Your Boots” has quickly surged up the radio charts in Europe, topping the chart in the band’s native Ireland and placing fourth in the U.K. just days after its premiere. In the States, a day after the song debuted, Los Angeles radio station KYSR had played the song 24 times.
• Does Lil Wayne have a problem with Rochester, New York? After the rapper postponed two 2008 gigs in the upstate city, Weezy canceled last night’s makeup show as well, saying the concert was a  “conflict” in the tour’s schedule as Wayne is due tonight in Calgary, Alberta. The concert promoter is considering legal action against the rapper.