For The Record – July 14th

By Yumna Yousry On Jul 14, 2013

• At long last, Lady Gaga announced the release date for her new album ARTPOP this week – the album will be released November 11th, and the corresponding app will be available starting the beginning of September.

• The countdown on the Pearl Jam website that was making us all crazy (no? Just me then.) has finally hit zero and revealed an announcement of the band’s 10th album, titled Lightning Bolt, to be released mid-October. First single Mind Your Manners is already out.

• And this September we can expect a duets album from Toni Braxton and Babyface, despite the fact that she retired and he’s only been producing other musicians’, albeit successful, records for the past decade or so.

• It was announced earlier this week that Daft Punk had teamed up with Durex to make a Get Lucky brand of condoms, but Durex has since denied these claims. Although after the hype it created, it would be terrible business sense to not make them.

• Rudimental’s new track and video are absolutely perfect – check out their new one Right Here featuring Foxes:

• And here are the Phoenix boys Trying to Be Cool:

• Queens of the Stone Age are re-releasing latest album …Like Clockwork on a USB drive that also includes photos, artwork, music videos and lyric sheets, and the best part is that the promo features comedian Fred Armisen as a salesman named Ricky Chism dancing awkwardly:

• The teaser to MIA’s documentary was pulled from Youtube by her label Roc Nation, causing the director to pull out of the project. The documentary was set to accompany her fourth album Matangi which will be released later this year, but both have been delayed several times by the label.

• Yasiin Bey, the actor and musician formerly known as Mos Def, has released an intensely graphic video of being force fed to raise awareness of the force-feeding of over 100 Guantanamo Bay prisoners who have been on hunger strike since February. The procedure is detailed in a 30-page document titled Standard Operating Procedure: Medical Management of Detainees on Hunger Strike which was obtained and published by Al Jazeera. The United Nations had condemned the procedure as a form of torture.

• And Glee creator Ryan Murphy announced this week via Twitter that Adam Lambert would be joining the show’s cast for season five, which airs this September.