Music News in Brief

Sad: Tony Wilson, founder of Factory Records and the legendary Haçienda, he who introduced the world to Joy Division and put Manchester on the indie map, has died. As a Joy Division fan, I’m bummed (but then again, as a Joy Division fan, I’m pretty much bummed all the time).

Wilson protégés and Joy Division survivors New Order are staunchly refusing to carry on their recent breakup with any measure of dignity. Instead, they continue to make me look like a big idiot, since I wrote a whole goddamn article thanking them for breaking up at a serene moment without a lot of fuss. But, oh me, there’s a fuss. Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris announced retarded plans to carry on without Peter Hook (perhaps the one irreplaceable bassist in indie rock), and Hook announced plans to be a dick about it.

So confident is 50 "Curtis" Cent that his upcoming album will sell more copies than Kanye‘s, he’s staked his career on it. The glassy-eyed MC, his dull, fixed stare brightening only when his weary synapses recognized an opportunity to boast, predicted aloud to SOHH.com that his record would outsell Kanye’s Graduation, to be released on the same day; if not, swore he, he would stop releasing solo albums. In an interesting coincidence, Ja Rule‘s Amazon.com wishlist now contains three million copies of the new Kanye album.

Britney Spears’s weirdness: diminishing returns? She’ll have to do something pretty goofy to make us notice. Maybe if she pukes in her hands and uses it to slick back her hair.

The Gallagher brothers, of Oasis, are attempting to set a world record for "largest family reunion" by inviting all the world’s Gallaghers to some kind of a big party, for some reason. Those who love Oasis and watermelon smashing are in for a rare opportunity.

Beatles frontman Mick Jagger is set to release a "Best Of" compilation spanning his decades-long solo career. But why? Since he could make twice the money simply by re-re-reissuing any Rolling Stones album with a three-second "bonus track" of Keith Richards doing one of those inward old man burps into a microphone, one imagines that Mick is doing this out of some kind of sad artistic miscalculation.

And speaking of — what once was denied has been reconfirmed — Keith really did snort his dad’s ashes. He didn’t mix them with coke though, really, because that would be sick. Funny how it was denied when he was in bed with Disney and it’s undenied now that he’s promoting his memoirs. A less cynical man might say he’s not lucid enough for such calculation, but I am not a less cynical man.

Underrated eccentric Robyn Hitchcock will do us all a big favor soon by reissuing three of his impossible-to-find albums in boxed-set form. While we suckers have already paid way too much for Black Snake Diamond Role, I Often Dream of Trains and Eye, the prudent shall be rewarded with a five-disc set collecting those and more. I Wanna Go Backwards, it’s called. Meanwhile, Robyn is topping the charts in the UK. The other Robyn.

Usher recently married, having forgiven his girlfriend for that two-timing business with R. Kelly. Kelly, meanwhile, is currently releasing new Trapped in the Closet chapters, presumably in order to lay groundwork for an insanity plea in his child molestation case.

Now entering year two, month four, week eight, day three of me having "Lucas with the Lid Off" stuck in my head. Next up in my brain’s rotation: six months of "No Diggity," followed by a year and a half of "Motownphilly."

Rapper DMX, maybe thinking he was joking, apparently agreed to promote a dog clothing company. He didn’t, and now must pay a quarter million to said dog clothing company (Amusing Diversions Inc.). Pardon me while I lean back in my chair and let a few jokes write themselves.

After a lifetime of false starts, scrapped plans and hiatuses (hiati?), it seems that the time for a Van Halen reunion tour is drawing near. The 25-date North American tour will begin in late September and run through December; after years apart, Van Halen and David Lee Roth are reuniting to celebrate the 22nd anniversary of when everyone stopped giving a shit.