The holiday season is when all the action takes place in the video game business, and this year has already pitted Microsoft’s Xbox 360 against Sony’s PlayStation 3, and sleek new software against sequels like Halo 3.
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But one of the most watched rivalries is between two games that are not first-person shooters or movie tie-ins. Instead, Activision’s Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and MTV’s Rock Band put players in the role of rock musicians and allow them to play along with songs by bands like Metallica and the Who.

Both titles could be important to an industry that is trying to reach out to adults, women and anyone lacking interest in a fighting game. Like Nintendo’s Wii, the Guitar Hero games have found a receptive mainstream audience, and the earlier versions sold a total of six million copies. In its first week of release, Guitar Hero III had sales of $115 million. Rock Band was released last Tuesday.

Check out the new Arctic Monkeys' video for 'Teddy Picker' filmed by Roman Coppola, famed for previous works with The Strokes and Daft Punk as well as following the family tradition producing the upcoming Wes Anderson film - The Darjeeling Limited.

The video beautifully captures the energy and ease of the band's live performance and the intimacy and charm of the Arctic's unique dynamic.

'Teddy Picker' is released on Monday 3rd December, their 3rd single from album 'Favourite Worst Nightmare' and includes brand new B-sides 'Nettles' and 'The Death Ramps' and a version of 'Bad Woman', a cover of Pat Farrell And The Believers' 1969 track with the wonderful Richard Hawley on vocals.

The single will be released on 7", 10" , CD and as a download, new tracks 'Nettles' and 'The Death Ramps' will feature on the CD and 10".

Arctic Monkeys play 6 very special sold out UK shows in London, Manchester and Aberdeen in December.

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It's definitely starting to get colder around these parts. Collars are turning up, bodies are being braced from the cold. We need something raw and energetic to bring that warm fuzzy feeling back.

Well, like a morning sunrise, the Archie Bronson Outfit return with their bare-boned, jagged desire to quake the walls and floor of the 229 in London on Friday 16th November.

We're giving away 5 pairs of tickets to their upcoming one-off show to the lucky brain boxes that know…

Which 'Wonder of the World' shares the name with the Archie Bronson Outfit side project?
1) The Great Wall of China
2) The Pyramids
3) The Northern Lights

Answers on a postcard please – actually, you can just email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and if your luck is in, you'll be the first to know.
Competition closes on Tuesday 13th November.

You can also buy cheap concert tickets here.

SHANGHAI, Oct. 24 — A song often heard on the radio these days begins with a light and upbeat melody, and lyrics that are even bubblier.
“Don’t care about loneliness,” croons the lead singer. “I don’t think it really matters.”

Another much played song tries even harder to soothe. “Ah, little man, ah, succeed quickly,” it counsels. “Enjoy being poor but happy every day.”

Marxists once referred to religion as the opium of the people, but in today’s China it is the music promoted on state-monopolized radio that increasingly claims that role. China’s leader, Hu Jintao, has talked since he assumed power five years ago about “building a harmonious society,” an ambiguous phrase subject to countless interpretations.

But Chinese musicians, cultural critics and fans say that in entertainment, the government’s thrust seems clear: Harmonious means blandly homogeneous, with virtually all contemporary music on the radio consisting of gentle love songs and uplifting ballads.

In recent weeks, television networks have come under intense pressure from Beijing to purge their programming of crime and even mildly suggestive sexual references. Variety show producers are subject to new rules aimed at enforcing official notions of dignity. Art galleries and theatrical productions, meanwhile, have always been subject to review by censors.

R.E.M.'s 2001 album, Reveal, shared the "lugubrious pace" of Up. Global sales of the album were over four million, but in the United States Reveal sold about the same number of copies as Up. The album was lead by the single "Imitation of Life," which reached number six in the UK. Reveal included drumming by Joey Waronker, as well as contributions by Scott McCaughey (a co-founder of the band The Minus 5 with Buck) and Posies founder Ken Stringfellow. Writing for Rock's Backpages, The Rev. Al Friston described the album as "loaded with golden loveliness at every twist and turn," in comparison to their "essentially unconvincing work on New Adventures in Hi-Fi and Up." Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone called the album "a spiritual renewal rooted in a musical one" and praised its "ceaselessly astonishing beauty."

In 2003 Warner Bros. released the "best of" compilation In Time, which featured two new songs, "Bad Day" and "Animal." That same year during a concert in Raleigh, North Carolina, Berry made a surprise appearance, performing backing vocals on "Radio Free Europe". He then sat behind the drum kit for a performance of the early R.E.M. song "Permanent Vacation," marking his first performance with the band since his retirement.

R.E.M. released Around the Sun in 2004. Stipe had suggested the new album would be "primitive and howling," and the band had released a stark political protest song called "Final Straw" free over the Internet during the invasion of Iraq, leading fans to expect a return to roots. Instead, the album (and the final recording of that song) was ultimately more processed than even Reveal, although it featured some of Stipe's most personal songwriting. Around the Sun received a mixed critical reception, and peaked at #13 on the Billboard charts. The first single from the album, "Leaving New York," was a Top 5 hit in the UK. For the record and subsequent tour, the band hired a new full-time touring drummer, Bill Rieflin, who had previously been a member of Ministry. In late 2004 the band toured with Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, Bright Eyes and others on the Vote for Change tour. Throughout 2005, the band embarked on their first full-length world tour since the Monster Tour ten years earlier. During the tour, R.E.M. participated in the Live 8 concert event.

Today I woke up. I feel a bit sick as yesterdays night was a bit tiring... I turned on my favorite radio and heard a Goo Goo Dools song called Before It's Too Late. You can know this song from The Transformers.

You're probably aware that there's a new film about Joy Division and Ian Curtis's tragically short life called Control but did you know that the star of the film; Sam Riley used to be the lead singer in 10,000 Things?

The band erupted on the scene back in 2004 and released their incendiary debut EP on Domino/Dusty Company with the legendary Phill Brown, a man who was in the room when All Along The Watchtower, Stairway To Heaven and Sympathy For the Devil were recorded and judging by his performance, it seems Sam is doing pretty well for himself in his new profession.

Control is released across the UK this week but believe it or not, the US distributors for the film apparently requested Joy Division to perform at the recent premiere in New York. Some people eh.

SATURDAY night rolls around, and you realize your mom threw out your favorite Cannibal Corpse T-shirt. So you grab your skateboard and head over to Village X, a T-shirt shop on St. Marks Place, off Second Avenue.

Until the store closes at 1 in the morning, cool-looking teenagers mill about, some of them with wallet-chains and skateboards, some of them with combat boots and blazing Mohawks. The walls are lined with red and black band shirts folded into squares — an enormous quilt of rock. You know a shirt is cool if the band name contains at least one word that sounds as if it could be on the SAT: Incubus, Mastodon, Corrosion of Conformity.


Maybe you’ll run into Gus Fernandez, a 17-year-old from Harlem who shops there every weekend. The other night he stopped in, mid-skateboard-ride, with his cousin George Fernandez, who bought a T-shirt of the hard rock band System of a Down.


With his neatly combed black hair, a long-sleeve shirt with flames shooting down the arms, and fingerless black gloves imprinted with an X-ray image of hand bones, Gus looked almost conservative. If he were a more mischievous type, he would have found plenty of items on the shelves to tempt him — shot glasses, glass pipes, leather whips, handcuffs — but he wasn’t the least bit interested. “We’re just looking for clothes, man,” he said.