Continuing their efforts to reward music fans who still patronize independent record stores, a coalition of small retailers will be offering exclusive releases on Nov. 26 from rock, pop, R&B and country artists including U2, Metallica, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix and many others.

The special releases are part of indie retailers' "Back to Black Friday" promotion for the day after Thanksgiving, typically the heaviest shopping day of the year.

Many are being released on vinyl, which gives rise to the "back to black" theme. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Cee-Lo, Iron & Wine and Drive-By Truckers are among the other acts participating.

"These exclusive pieces not only create nice sales, but a lasting memory and connection between the customer, the store, the employee and the artist, whose importance can't be overstated," Mike Batt, who owns Silver Platters, a Seattle indie music store, said in a statement Thursday.

The store owners also seek to increase awareness of existing retailers each spring with National Record Store Day, which also has become something of a cause celebre among pop and rock stars.

"Many of the great indies have disappeared in recent years, but Record Store Day is giving us yet another chance to show appreciation to this wonderful endangered slice of Americana," Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers said in the same statement.

Among exclusive high-profile reissues coming to the indie stores for the holiday season are a special edition of Harrison's 1970 solo triple-album "All Things Must Pass" and a Hendrix holiday EP, "Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year."

-- Randy Lewis

As far as solving the music industry’s financial woes, U2 manager Paul McGuinness still hasn’t found what he’s looking for. But he's not about to stop beating the drum.

The new issue of Rolling Stone has an abridged version of a piece McGuinness wrote for the UK edition of GQ addressing the file-sharing and piracy issues that he believes are largely the source of the meltdown of the music business in recent years. It’s an update and expansion on ideas he put forth at the international MIDEM music conference in Cannes two years ago, an event at which I spoke with him at length about some very specific recommendations on how to address those issues.

Now, as then, he holds Internet service providers — and the giant telecommunications corporations that control the vast majority of ISPs — responsible, arguing that they’ve built their industry to a large extent by providing free content, often irrespective of the intellectual property rights of musicians and other creative types responsible for that content.

When I sat down with him in Cannes, he noted that ISPs have no qualms about promptly shutting down the accounts of users who don’t pay their ISP bills; they should do the same for those who illegally share copyrighted Web content like music.

"Spider-Man," the now-infamous most-expensive-show-ever-on Broadway, has an opening date. Driven by music from Bono and The Edge -- U2 members don't really do things on the cheap -- the Julie Taymor-directed cross-media marketing vehicle will begin preview performances at the newly renamed Foxwoods Theatre (formerly the Hilton Theatre) in New York on Nov. 14 and will open on Dec. 21.

Our sister blog Culture Monster has more details on the "Spider-Man" saga, the massive production that will will feature Tony nominee Jennifer Damiano in the role of Mary Jane Watson and Reeve Carney as Peter Parker. The interest on Pop & Hiss is solely on the music of course, and Bono and the Edge are no doubt capable of reach-for-the-rafters grandeur. 

Yet when it comes to "Spider-Man" and music, my tastes probably lean more Queens than Broadway, if one's musical borders are drawn solely in New York. The punk-rock pride of the Long Island borough cut a take on the '60s theme song for the "Spider-Man" cartoon classic. It appeared on the MCA compilation "Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits," as well as the band's 1995 (and vastly under-appreciated) album "¡Adios Amigos!"

Added bonus: There's no choir. Did you read that, Green Day? 

Tickets for "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" are set to go on sale to the general public in September, but no specific date has been given. U2 fans are already comfortable shelling out Broadway prices, as tickets for the band's rescheduled Anaheim dates top off at $250, not including surcharges or VIP packages.

--Todd Martens

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Apparently Bono's back is feeling better, as U2 on Tuesday morning announced the rescheduled dates for its postponed 360 Tour. The band was forced to scrap its two appearances at Angels Stadium after its lead singer injured his back while rehearsing for the tour. They will perform the make-up shows in Anaheim on June 17 and June 18 next year.

In a prepared statement released this morning on U2.com, manager Paul McGuinness said:

“We’re delighted the dates are rescheduled and in all the same venues we originally planned to play. It hasn't been easy to accomplish this and I'd like to thank the managers of the many venues and sports teams across North America and Live Nation Global Touring for their help and cooperation in making this complex new plan possible. Above all we want to thank the U2 fans for bearing with us. They’re the best and the band wants to get back to where they belong, surrounded by their audience.”

See the entire roster of rescheduled dates after the jump:

After hurting his back during concert rehearsals in Munich, Germany, Bono and U2 have been forced to postpone the sixteen dates on the band's summer American tour, including the two dates at Angel Stadium on June 6 and June 7, the band announced Tuesday morning. The band also canceled its highly anticipated performance at the Glastonbury music festival.

The band's manager, Paul McGuinness, explained Bono's decision via U2.com. "Our biggest and I believe best tour has been interrupted and we're all devastated," he said. "For a performer who lives to be on stage, this is more than a blow. He feels robbed of the chance to do what he does best and feels like he has badly let down the band and their audience. Which is of course nonsense. His concerns about more than a million ticket buyers whose plans have been turned upside down, we all share, but the most important thing right now is that Bono make a full recovery. We're working as fast as we can with Live Nation to reschedule these dates."

Bono underwent emergency surgery on Friday, said the singer's doctor, Dr. Muller Wohlfahrt: "Bono suffered severe compression of the sciatic nerve. On review of his MRI scan, I realized there was a serious tear in the ligament and a herniated disc, and that conservative treatment would not suffice. I recommended Bono have emergency spine surgery with Professor Tonn at Munich's LMU University Hospital on Friday."

The statement continues:

Professor Tonn, who carried out the operation, added, "Bono was referred to me by Dr. Muller Wohlfahrt late last week with a sudden onset disease. He was already in severe pain with partial paralysis in the lower leg. The ligament surrounding the disc had an 8mm tear and during surgery we discovered fragments of the disc had traveled into the spinal canal. This surgery was the only course of treatment for full recovery and to avoid further paralysis. Bono is now much better, with complete recovery of his motor deficit. The prognosis is excellent but to obtain a sustainable result, he must now enter a period of rehabilitation."

Live Nation, which is promoting the band's "U2 360" tour, have confirmed that the band will reschedule the dates for 2011.  

-- Randall Roberts

Photo: U2 manager Paul McGuinness, left, and Dr. Muller Wohlfahrt. Credit: U2.com 

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This just in from U2 headquarters: The Irish band will release a DVD of last year's massive Rose Bowl concert sometime in 2010, according to U2's website. Details remain foggy, but apparently they want the info out immediately, before they finalize the decisions: "The band are still working on the content of the DVD," reads a note on their site, before asking fans to register to get the latest updates.

The news isn't a big surprise, considering the band partnered with YouTube to stream the concert live.

Do you need the DVD? Times pop critic Ann Powers, in her review of the show, suggests maybe yes:

[A]fter three decades as an important band, U2 is long past simple uplift. Its music is as much about emotional entanglement (as in "Ultraviolet" on Sunday) and disorientation ("Vertigo"). Ultimately, it is a meditation on space: the majestic natural landscapes that the Edge's guitar playing often describes; the crowded dance floors or train platforms Clayton and Mullen's rhythms evoke; the inches between a whispering mouth and a lover's ear, or the infinite journey of a prayer hurled into the air.

The Space Station allows U2 to make those musical and lyrical preoccupations physical in a new way. At the Rose Bowl, it created a new experience even for the most jaded concertgoer. U2 concerts have often included moments in which raised voices build goodwill, or shaking hips stimulate joy. But for the first time, perhaps, this band's noise resulted in a kind of silence and stillness -- not a literal one, but the rapture that comes when nearly 100,000 people relax together, as if held within a gentle, open hand.

Here's the set list of the show:

Pop & Hiss will be handicapping the major Grammy categories leading up to the Jan. 31 telecast. Read our picks, and vote for your own, below.

The category: Best rock album

The field at a glance: A pair of recent Grammy winners will compete for this year's best rock album title. U2 and Green Day have each won this category in recent years. Green Day for its first attempt at the rock opera with "American Idiot," and U2 for its prior two efforts, "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" and "All That You Can't Leave Behind."

Prior to the announcement of the nominations, it would have been easy to guess that best rock album would largely be a bout between U2 and Green Day. Green Day's "21st Century Breakdown" is another ambitious effort from the group, once again filling out its punk rock with Broadway-ready flourishes. U2's "No Line on the Horizon" wasn't the runaway sales success of its prior efforts -- although at more than 1 million copies sold to date, according to Nielsen SoundScan, it wasn't exactly a retail bomb, either -- and the band won high marks for its 360 Tour.

Yet neither rock release was chosen to represent the genre in the overall best album field. Instead, that honor went to Dave Matthews Band's "Big Whiskey And the GrooGrux King," a release that received generally favorable reviews for maintaining a rather direct rock 'n' roll drive. But don't count out AC/DC's "Black Ice." While a late 2008 release, it was one of that year's bestselling rock efforts, and AC/DC is overdue for Grammy recognition. Though it doesn't do anything different, it showed AC/DC hasn't lost any of its energy.

A live release from Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood rounds out the field. It's here on brand recognition only, and while Grammy voters have a tendency to go with the elder statesman, it shouldn't be considered a serious contender.

Heroin and NASCAR, who knew? U2 fans watching the NFL playoffs on Fox this weekend surely heard what would seem to be an oddly placed song scoring the network's preview of the upcoming Daytona 500: U2's mid-'80s hit "Bad." The commercial features little more than a snippet of one of the Edge's most recognizable guitar riffs -- the few slow, glistening notes that set the table for the song's explosive rock 'n' roll release. 

U2 hasn't exactly shied away from commercial endorsements of late, or massive sporting events. Also, anyone who has attended any NFL, NBA or MLB game in recent years has likely heard "Beautiful Day" piped throughout the arena or stadium, further linking U2 with the sporting world. Yet judging by some previous NASCAR-branded music releases, U2 seems to be a bit out of place with the barroom hits and country rock more closely tied to the sport.

The band's 360 Tour was a big hit, with Bruce Springsteen coming in second place for the year

In just 20 beautiful days on the concert trail last year, U2 racked up the highest-grossing North American tour of 2009, pulling in $123 million at the box office in a year in which overall concert business was one of the music industry's remaining bright spots.

The Irish quartet’s bar-raising 360 Tour of sports stadiums, which visited 16 cities, sold more than 1.3 million tickets, translating to a nightly average of just more than 82,000 fans, according to Pollstar, the concert-industry tracking publication.

U2 was the only act to cross the $100-million mark last year, and its nightly average at the box office pummeled the competition, at nearly $7.7 million per show. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, which tallied nearly $95 million from 58 shows, follows U2 at No. 2 in Pollstar's ranking. But the hard-charging New Jersey outfit also drew more than 1 million fans to those shows, one of six tours to cross that threshold last year.

Compare that with 2008, when only one act -- country star Kenny Chesney -- topped 1 million in total ticket sales.

M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" wasn't the obvious choice to be nominated for a major Grammy Award. The song, after all, uses a string of gun shots as one of its hooks. At a major award gala, one in which the Dixie Chicks were considered a surprisingly political nomination choice, it would be safe to assume that the revolutionary anthem "Paper Planes" would be sitting the kudos event out. 

Yet old man Grammy had a few surprises in store for its 2009 telecast, nominating M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" for record of the year, and embracing obscenity-per-second rapper Lil Wayne in its album of the year field. Ultimately, the more conservative choices won, but a step on the continued road to relevancy had been taken.

Can the Grammys maintain a bit of adventure when nominees are announced this Wednesday evening? Pop & Hiss has already handicapped the major album and new artist categories, and today turns the attention to the record of the year field. In a year that featured new singles from Green Day and U2, is there room for any new blood in Club Grammy? Read on.

U2 has added a second night to its return to Southern California in 2010. With the act's June 6 gig at Angel Stadium now sold out, according to promoter Live Nation, U2 has extended its stay in Anaheim and will perform June 7 as well. Tickets, ranging from $30 to $250, not including surcharges, officially go on sale to the general public on Nov. 20, but head to U2's official website for a myriad of pre-sale information.

-- A Pop & Hiss public service announcement

RELATED:

PHOTOS: U2's 360 Tour: Live at the Rose Bowl

Amid the rattle and hum before U2's Rose Bowl show

The masses descend upon Pasadena for U2's Rose Bowl gig

Making the U2 set so big that it's invisible

Photo: Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times

Friday's Los Angeles Times features a report on the efforts to bring Marvel's Spider-Man to the stage, which has "turned into a tangled web of production delays, unpaid bills and costly theater renovations that even Peter Parker's alter ego would struggle to escape," according to John Horn's piece.

Based on interviews with a half dozen people close to the show, Horn writes that the budget for the musical has rocketed past $52 million in its six years of development. Music duties for the production are being handled by U2's lead singer, Bono, and the group's guitarist, the Edge. Bono, writes Horn, is a bit bewildered by the show's odyssey. "But who cares?" Bono said. "The visuals and the music are amazing, and that's what will matter."

Horn also provides some insight into the music of the production. An excerpt: