• Lil Wayne, Coldplay Lead Grammy Nominees
• Oasis, Ryan Adams Open U.S. Tour
• Grammy Nomination Show Live Blog
• Hot Band: MGMT
• Neil Young Says Toast Is Done
• Peter Travers Reviews Cadillac Records
• Busta Rhymes’ Controversial “Arab Money”
• Hot Scene: Laurel Canyon
• Grammy Noms: The Odd and the Snubbed
• Slash, Melissa Etheridge Protest Prop 8
• Hudson Family Killed In “Jealous Rage”
• M.I.A. Pays Tribute to K-Swift
• Hype Monitor Featuring The Hours
• Caleb Followill Talks Anorexia
• Weezer Record Christmas Tunes For iPhone
• On Tour: Fleetwood Mac, Scott Weiland
• News Ticker: NIN, AC/DC, Tori Amos

Top stories from the last three days:

• U2 Premiere “Father Christmas” Video
• Charts: Kanye West Tops Axl Rose
• Folk Singer, Civil Rights Activist Odetta Dies
• Flash Forward: The Music Industry In 5 Years
• Hayley Williams on Next Paramore Album
• Inside the Rock Hall Annex Opening
• Hot Beatle Progeny: Dhani Harrison
• Breaking: The Annuals
• Download New Franz Nicolay Song
• Twilight Star Cast as Joan Jett
• Dr Pepper Responds to Guns n’ Roses Suit
• Raconteurs New Video With Monroe, Skaggs
• New Reviews: Akon, Britney Spears
• Live Nation To Sell Tix Through Blockbuster
• On the Road With Coldplay
• Britney Spears on the Cover, Past and Present
• New Music Report: Kanye West, U2, Metallica
• Hot List: Janelle Monae
• Creed Reunion Taking Shape
• Britney on GMA: Behind the Scenes
• Bonnaroo Announces 2009 Dates, Ticket Plan
• Kid Rock Still Feeling Waffle House Heat
• Coldplay, Leona Lewis Top 2008 iTunes Chart

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

There’s an eclectic batch of films hitting the cinemas this weekend, including the Ron Howard-directed adaptation of the Peter Morgan play Frost/Nixon and the birth of rock and roll biopic Cadillac Records, which stars Beyoncé. Click below to see which movie Peter Travers thinks you should spend you movie money on this weekend, and stick around to drop kick Four Christmases into the scum bucket.

• Peter Travers Video Review: Frost/Nixon, Cadillac Records and Four Christmases

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• Movie Review: Frost/Nixon

• Movie Review: Cadillac Records

Photo: Gries/Getty

Fleetwood Mac spread Rumours and play the hits on their spring tour, Fountains of Wayne bring their acoustic guitars to their native Garden State and Scott Weiland goes it alone with his Galoshes. Follow the jump for the complete set of dates.

(more…)

Photo: Getty

The Hot List has been a Rolling Stone tradition since 1986. All this week, Rock Daily takes a look back at the people and trends that stayed smoking and the ones that cooled off. Today, we visit 2000.

Hot Hit: Sigur Ros. Named 2000’s “Hot Band,” the Icelandic quartet had just released their breakthrough album Agaetis Byrjun. They told David Fricke in 2000 that they would give English a chance, but their subsequent releases have stuck to their strange pidgin language they call Hopelandic. Those albums, incidentally, have been some of the finest rock of the 21st century, including this year’s Med sud I eyrum vid spilum endalaust.

Hot Miss: Kina. A tough-minded R&B singer who had a hit with “Girl From the Gutter” in the summer of 2000, Kina was part of a movement of hard-nosed, esoteric singers like Macy Gray and Kelis. Unfortunately, following her self-titled debut, Kina fell off the map. Even more unfortunate: she shared a spread in the 2000 Hot issue with Aaliyah, who died in a plane crash less than a year later. A bummer year for R&B.

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• The 2008 Rolling Stone Hot List

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• Album Review: Kina, Kina

Photo: Willnow/AFP/Getty

This past October Neil Young sat down with Rolling Stone to discuss his Linc Volt Project and his future music plans, including his new Crazy Horse album Toast, his world tour and his endlessly delayed box set. Since our conversation we’ve learned that the planned January 27th release date is a “non-starter for certain” and it will be out “perhaps March or April.” We’ll believe it when we see it, but here is the music portion of the Q&A.

On this tour you’ve played a few songs like “Time Fades Away” that you haven’t touched in decades. What drew you back to that material?
Well, basically I do it out of just interest in what this band can do. I have so many songs, and now with this band I can play just about anything. As you’ll see in the show we’re equally at home with “Love and Only Love” or “Out of the Blue, Into the Black” and then “Old Man” and “Heart of Gold.” All my other bands were always one thing or the other. Some people may look at Crazy horse and go, “That was the greatest thing that ever happened, Crazy Horse. There’ll never be another Crazy Horse.” And they’re right. There’ll never be another Crazy Horse, but I won’t be another Crazy Horse either. I’m not going to be. I don’t want to be. I’ve done that, you know. What I’m feeling good about is that I have a band now that I can play anything with, but even more important, I can play anything I want to that’s new. I’m not limited to what kind of new music I can make. There’s no limit.

What’s the status of your next album, Toast? (more…)

Photo: Getty

While Rock Daily mostly agrees with this year’s class of nominations in the important categories, the Grammys also had their share of head scratching nominations this time around. For instance, over in the Best Hawaiian Music Album category, Wayne’s World actress Tia Carrere managed to get a nod for her third album ‘Ikena (we weren’t even aware this was a category, or that Tia Carrere is so dominant a name in the genre). Actress Gwyneth Paltrow is also up for an award in the Best Spoken Word Album For Children category, with Scarlett Johansson and her album of Tom Waits covers getting no love from the voters. Knocked Up director Judd Apatow and actor John C. Reilly are both also up for an award for the Walk Hard title song in the Best Song From A Motion Picture category, where the unlikely duo will face off against John Mayer’s “Say” and Peter Gabriel’s Wall-E contribution “Down to Earth.”

The Best Recording Packaging award features a David vs. Goliath matchup between Metallica’s Death Magnetic versus No Age’s Nouns. (more…)

MGMT have gone from a Connecticut dorm room project to the coolest duo in indie rock. They’ve been remixed by the likes of Justice and play to sell-out houses everywhere, and it’s all because of the Ghostbusters theme, which was an early jam for them. “We were thinking of ideas that were inherently obnoxious,” says Ben Goldwasser. Click below for more on MGMT, and click above for the video for the band’s “Time to Pretend.”

• Hot Band Everyone Wants to Be In: MGMT

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Photo: Kempin/Getty

Kings of Leon frontman Caleb Followill has opened up about his teenage struggles with anorexia in the new issue of Q. According to Followill, he was constantly trying to find ways to either trim down his frame or avoid eating. “I always thought I wasn’t good enough,” Followill said, adding that he’d do “anything to keep my hands and mouth busy without eating.” Followill found an unusual cure for his struggles, however: Marijuana and the inevitable munchies. (more…)

California’s Laurel Canyon is one of rock’s most mythic neighborhoods: Where Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young first folded their voices into one beautiful harmony; where Zappa welcomed artists including Hendrix and Mick Jagger to parties at his infamous “Log Cabin” in 1968. Laurel Canyon was the inspiration for the Doors’ “Love Street,” the Mamas and the Papas’ “12:30 (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon),” CSNY’s “Our House” and an entire album by British blues legend John Mayall. It’s where music-business legends David Geffen, Jac Holtzman and Elliot Roberts helped build the recording careers of the singer-songwriters who defined the very essence of the Sixties California sound.

The music in the Canyon quieted in the Eighties, when rock stars sought greater privacy in places like Malibu and Topanga Canyon and hair metal took over the Sunset Strip. But since Jonathan Wilson started hosting jam sessions a few years ago, an expanding group of artists — including the Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson; the Jayhawks’ Gary Louris; Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis and her boyfriend, singer-songwriter Rice — plus up-and-comers like the Entrance Band and the Whispertown 2000 have been reviving not just the old-school Canyon sounds but also that scene’s spirit of collaboration.

Click above for a tour of Laurel Canyon hosted by the Entrance Band, and below for our full feature:

• The Return of Laurel Canyon

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• The 2008 Rolling Stone Hot List

• Los Angeles: High Times on the Sunset Strip and In Laurel Canyon

• California Dreaming: Photos of Neil Young, The Doors, Joni Mitchell and More

Two months ago, voters in California approved Proposition 8, which banned same sex marriage in the state. Since then, a wave of protests have popped up throughout the state in opposition to the new law. Many rockers have weighed in on the situation, including Slash, who made the video above with his wife Perla to drum up support for a protest several weeks ago. “I married my sweetheart,” Perla says as her husband plays “The Star-Spangled Banner” in the background. “You should be able to marry yours too.”

Others have joined in the fight. (more…)

Radio and club DJ K-Swift, who passed away earlier this year in a swimming pool accident, tirelessly championed her hometown’s bombastic brand of hip-hop/dance music known as Baltimore club. Swift’s longtime record label, Unruly Records, will release a tribute album, K-Swift’s Greatest Hits, on December 23rd, which will show just how far the DJ’s evangelistic fervor spread. “I’m a big fan of Baltimore club music and the movement that Unruly Records has established,” says Sri Lankan MC M.I.A., who hosts the 36-track compilation. M.I.A., who has been taking time away from music since announcing her pregnancy in October, agreed to host the disc out of her appreciation for Swift, who is among the only female DJs to host a Number One rated radio show and a nationally syndicated mixtape show. On the day of the album’s release, BET’s The Deal will host a tribute to Swift.

Related Stories:

• M.I.A. Live at Bonnaroo

• M.I.A.’s Unexpected Smash: How “Paper Planes” Stormed The Charts

• Album Review: M.I.A., Kala

In the big box retailer that is the Internet music community, it’s hard to determine what are the really good deals and what are just empty promises. That’s why the Breaking blog brings you Hype Monitor once a week, which acts as your personal shopper in the Wal-Mart of life. Click below for this week’s column, including a look at British epic poppers the Hours, throwback DJ Zomby and gritty Canadian indie rockers Land of Talk.

• Hype Monitor: The Hours, Zomby and Land of Talk

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Photograph by Tim Mosenfelder for RollingStone.com

Manchester, England’s Oasis and New York’s Ryan Adams & the Cardinals both focused on workmanlike songcraft as they opened the United States stretch of their joint world tour last night in Oakland, California. Although both bands are known for the verbal swagger of their respective leaders, Oasis and the Cardinals both kept the emphasis firmly on their music: Adams barely spoke a word, while guitarist Noel Gallagher’s most pointed comment came when a nearby fan passed out during through a grinding “Slide Away.” “Did somebody get overwhelmed?” he quipped. “I’m sorry about that. Buy a T-shirt on the way out, please.”

• Photo Gallery: Oasis and Ryan Adams Kick Off Their Tour in Oakland

The Britpop icons remained typically immobile bellow four massive video panels that mixed live projections with canned Pop Art imagery. (more…)

Photo: Getty

Busta Rhymes‘ new song “Arab Money” continues to be a lightning rod for controversy, with one UK DJ being suspended after playing the Quran-sampling track on the radio. Steve “Smooth” Sutherland was suspended from his popular show after the song’s broadcast resulted complaints from listeners. In the song’s chorus, the first chapter of the Quran is sung and sampled, which is against strict Arab law dictating that singing a Quran verse in combination with music is prohibited. “I really only respect the Arab culture,” Rhymes said in a recent interview. “I ain’t really trying to pay no attention to, ya know, these little people in political positions and executive positions that ain’t Arab culture oriented people because a lot of the times, what are you really showing all of this concern for?” (more…)

Photo: Getty

Weezer have teamed with the makers of Tap Tap Revenge for a new, Christmas-inspired game for the iPhone. The band have recorded new versions of six classic holiday songs for the game, which “takes full advantage of the innovative Multi-Touch capabilities and accelerometer as players tap and shake their phones.” Get your thumbs ready for Weezerfied versions of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas,” “Silent Night,” “O Holy Night,” “First Noel,” “Hark The Herald Angels Sing,” “O Come, All Ye Faithful” and two unspecified bonus tracks. “I agreed to do these special recordings for the game because I am a fan of each of the songs. The melody and vocal lines are incredible and it was fun to sing them,” said Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo. (more…)