Radiohead, Radiohead, Radiohead. Word has it they put out an album this week. And get this — it was only available via a Web site!

Like Radiohead, Madonna may be looking to get out of the record biz while still being a recording artist. Ditto for Nine Inch Nails.

Radiohead made a record and didn’t comment much about it. But Jay-Z’s new LP hasn’t even come out yet and he’s got a lot to say about it.

Radiohead haven’t been to “Rehab,” but Amy Winehouse has. Now she’s plotting a new disc, says producer Mark Ronson.

Britney Spears has been to rehab! And like Radiohead, she’s … okay, we give up. But this week Spears moved up Blackout’s release date, confirmed its tracklist and gave us a look at its cover.

If you thought that after all the buildup — the VMAs debacle, the lackluster “Gimme More” video, the post-custody-loss tanning session — the cover of Britney Spears‘ big comeback album is a bit … craptacular … so did some of our readers (let’s just say there was some bad use of an outer-glow effect going on there). Had she hired a different art director (or cleared her head a bit), maybe Britney would have gone in a different direction. With assistance from some friends of Rock Daily, we’ve pointed out some alternative covers for Blackout right here.

Related Stories:

• Britney Spears Confirms “Blackout” Tracklist and Art
• Britney Spears Loses Custody of Kids
• Britney Spears’ “Gimme More” Video: Pole Dancing, Fishnets and a Camera as Shaky as Brit’s Mental State

To paraphrase the classic Chuck D quote, rock music is now CNN for white people. For one, bands are actually debuting songs on CNN, as when R.E.M. used the recent Anderson Cooper documentary “Planet In Peril” to premiere their new song “Until the Day Is Done” (see above video). Exhibit two would be the fact that every single new rock album has at least one political song: Even the Eagles got active on the anti-Iraq War title track to their new album, Long Road Out of Eden. Other prominent political songs from recent months: Arcade Fire, “Windowsill”; Bruce Springsteen, “Last To Die”; Kid Rock, “Amen”; Nine Inch Nails, “Capital G”; Tori Amos, “Yo George”; the list goes on. So, should Wolf Blitzer be scared? Let us know which heartfelt missive is your favorite.

As we await the start of Delusions Fest ‘08 (a.k.a. American Idol Season Seven auditions) this January, we can’t help but snicker at the recent allegations that the folks at Camp Idol have broken child labor laws by hiring “underage touring acts.” The aforementioned include most recent Idol winner Jordin Sparks, 17, and Sanjaya Malakar, who was 17 during the New York dates of this summer’s tour. The New York Daily News reports that while the two are allowed to perform as they please, the touring company 19 Touring, LLC neglected to “get the proper permits to hire and feature” the young’uns. (In accordance with the law, employers must register their underage acts with the state to ensure appropriate child labor, education and workers’ comp. for folks under eighteen) A mere $5,000 in fines settled the issue between the company and the Labor Department … which sadly, at 60 percent concert occupancy, is kind of a considerable chunk of the tour’s profits.

Rolling Stone’s 2008 Hot Issue spotlights acts like Band of Horses and Vampire Weekend (more on that here). All week, we’ve been taking a look at Hot Issue hits and misses from the past twenty-one years (because nobody’s cultural thermometer is accurate all the time).

Hit: “A savior,” we called him. “The hip-hop Proust.” Whatever insane expectations we placed on Nas, the Hot Rapper of 1994, he’s lived up to them. He’s since feuded with Jay-Z and somehow survived, he married the girl who’s milkshake brings all the boys to the yard (Kelis), and he’s one of the few rappers who has credibility enough to claim Hip Hop Is Dead. Unfortunately, Nas’ hotness didn’t rub off on his 1994 Hot List page 64 neighbor, Hot Athlete/Baltimore Orioles Jeffrey Hammonds, who finished his disappointing baseball career in 2005 after playing for six teams over the course of twelve years.

Miss: In his 2002 Hot Singer-Songwriter write-up, we (and his Wikipedia page) had the audacity to mention Cory Branan in the same sentence as peers Ryan Adams and Bright Eyes. Branan’s The Hell You Say lead to appearances on David Letterman, Carson Daly and our Hot List, but it would be another four years before Branan’s sophomore album 12 Songs was released to little fanfare. Branan also probably wins the award for Hot Lister with the smallest MySpace following (7,458 fans as of right now).

Related Stories:

• Hot Issue Hits and Misses: “OK Computer” and “Cockamamie”
• Hot Issue Hits and Misses: The Replacements and Wilson Phillips
• Hot Issue Hits and Misses: Coldplay and Enuff Z’Nuff

To paraphrase Gary Cherone, life is more than words. Here are five of our favorite rock instrumentals:

• Booker T. and the MG’s, “Green Onions”
• Dick Dale, “Miserlou”
• Santo & Johnny, “Sleepwalk”
• Led Zeppelin, “Black Mountain Side”
• Van Halen, “Eruption”

Let’s hear yours, and come back Monday for the full list.

Rock Daily recently caught up with John Legend, who had just returned from the Tanzanian island Zanzibar, where he shot the video for “Show Me,” the latest single from last year’s Once Again. The Grammy winner is in the very early stages of plotting his next LP, but he’s already done a track with — you guessed it — Will.i.am. Legend says he’s demoed five songs so far, and plans to finish the album in early ‘08 for a potential summer ‘08 release. “It sounds different than anything else I’ve done before,” he says. “There’s some piano, there’s some guitar. It’s more guitar-driven than piano-driven so far, but that’s because I’m writing with a couple guitarists.”

“The only song that’s kind of similar to a past song on this new project so far is a song that’s kind of in the same vein as ‘Show Me,’ vocally, and I love that song, so I was definitely not avoiding going back to
that spot again,” he reveals, expanding on his creative process. “When I write, I don’t really have a goal that day, I always just go in and say, ‘We’ll see what comes.’ I don’t have any rules about it other than that I have to love it. We’ll see.” In addition to the ever-present Will.i.am, Legend has worked with a new British songwriter named Think, and some lesser-known writers, but noted that some big-name collaborationsn are not out of the question: “I’ll bring in some of the big guns later.”

• Britney Spears revealed that the Blackout tracklist that was mistakenly leaked by the Germans is, in fact, the real lineup. Timbaland protege Danjahandz produced four of the twelve tracks, while Pharrell Williams appears on album closer “Why Should I Be Sad.” And yes, what you’re looking at is the final album cover.

• Paul McCartney and his ex-wife Heather Mills will hit divorce court next February after failing to come to a monetary settlement today. While it’s estimated that Macca could part with between twenty to seventy million pounds, the main stumbling block has been Mills’ reluctance to sign a gag order preventing her from discussing the marriage in a potential book deal.

• The Kinks’ Ray Davies will pull a Prince and distribute his new album Working Man’s Café as a giveaway in U.K. newspaper The Mail on Sunday on October 21st. Prince’s Planet Earth was given away in a similar fashion back in July.

• Further proof of the MP3 revolution: Download sales are up forty-five percent over 2006’s numbers, and experts predict iTunes and friends will likely rake in over a billion dollars in sales by 2012.

• Peter Hook’s post-New Order trio Free Bass, featuring Smiths bassist Mike Rourke and Primal Scream bassist Mani, have recruited Oasis’ Liam Gallagher, the Stone Roses‘ Ian Brown and Echo & The Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch to contribute vocals to some instrumental tracks.

After almost three decades of near inactivity in the atomic sector, a bill has been sent to the U.S. government to loan $50 billion dollars to the nuclear power industry to kick-start stalled plant plans. In a protest against the proposed loan, members of the famed “No Nukes” group, namely Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and Graham Nash, have filmed a YouTube video (above) for the Buffalo Springfield song “For What It’s Worth.” The “No Nukes” group — which once featured Magic man Bruce Springsteen and performed a series of concerts including a famous one at New York’s Madison Square Garden in 1979 — now boasts appearances by Ben Harper and Keb’ Mo’. (more…)

What It Is: The iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, which lets you buy songs and download them right to your iPhone or iPod Touch — no computer necessary — as long as you’re in a wireless hotspot.

Who It’s For: Compulsive shoppers and instant-gratification music-hounds.

Why It’s Worthy: Provided you’re in a hotspot, you’ll find the service to be extremely quick, easy and smooth (we downloaded about forty songs in just under six minutes). It’s the full iTunes music store, too, though most of the music is only accessible via the search mechanism. Also, your songs download automatically to your desktop iTunes the next time you sync up your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Our Only Complaint: If you don’t know what you’re looking for, or just want to browse, you might be disappointed with the dozen or so “top ten” music selections in each music genre category. Somehow, though, that didn’t stop us from buying most of our songs of these very same “top ten” lists, which are not unlike the New Releases bins at your average brick-and-mortar music store.

Cost: Free to download to your iPhone or iPod Touch, but songs cost the same as on standard iTunes ($.99 for most songs, $1.29 for iTunes Plus songs).