• DJ AM Sues Over Plane Crash
• Oasis’ Noel Gallagher’s Xmas Wish
• Cobain’s Smashed Guitar Sells for $100,000
• Charts: Taylor Swift Keeps Number One
• Weekend Rock List: ‘08 Music Videos
• Watch Gravy as Biggie in Notorious
• News Ticker: 50 Cent, Coldplay
• Breaking: The Veronicas
• On Travers Take: Benjamin Button Review
• Springsteen Talks Working on a Dream
• New Year’s Eve Rock Guide
• Britney Tour Adds Madonna Choreographer
• Artists’ Picks: Best of 2008
• Watch Beyoncé’s Baffling “Diva” Video
• Michael Jackson Rep: “Tour in the Works”

Top stories from the last three days:

• The Man Behind ’80s-Fantasy “Shine on Me”
• Plant: No Led Zep Tour On Horizon
• Best Reissues of 2008
• New Music Report: Inside ’08’s Top Albums
• MTV Avoids Music With 16 New Reality Shows
• 2008 in Random Notes: Wild Rock Photos
• U2 Plot Five No Line Editions
• The Killers Inside: Full Feature
• Kelly Clarkson to Return in January
• Springsteen Plans Wal-Mart Hits
• Great Rock & Roll Gift Guide
• Readers’ Rock List: Best ‘08 Songs
• AC/DC Singer Penning Memoir
• McCartney Speaks on Lost Beatles Track
• RIAA Turns to ISPs in Piracy Fight
• Why Black Ice Beat Chinese Democracy
• Neil Young’s Biggest Fan: Donald Trump
• Gallery: 2008’s Best Live Shots
• Exclusive: Backstage Coldplay Photos
• Phish to Headline Bonnaroo, Sources Say

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

Yesterday we lamented the lack of videos on MTV, but the network’s neglect of the art form doesn’t mean 2008 wasn’t a banner year for rock clips. Kanye West dropped our jaws with not one but three “Flashing Lights” videos — though it was his “Heartless” clip we enjoyed the most — and clips from Metallica and Bjork also had us reaching for the popcorn. Tell us your favorite videos of ‘08 and on Monday, we’ll compile the votes and program a mini film festival from the results. Until then, enjoy our picks and happy holidays! (more…)

Photo: Cohen/Wireimage

The Big News: Taylor Swift’s Fearless continues to be the stocking stuffer of choice this Christmas, selling another 330,000 copies to keep its iron grip on the top spot. Keyshia Cole’s A Different Me was close behind, moving 322,000 copies its debut week to nab Number Two. Actor-crooner Jamie Foxx’s Intuition took third with 265,000 copies sold. And in the battle of Britney vs. Beyoncé, Circus edged I Am… Sasha Fierce by a mere 318 copies to claim the fourth spot. Circus is now only 100K albums away from platinum, a feat both Nickelback’s Dark Horse and the Twilight soundtrack will accomplish next week.

Debuts: While Cole and Foxx were scoring big, Fall Out Boy and their Folie A Deux were floundering, selling only 150,000 copies to land at a distant eighth on the chart. Three more rookies managed to hit the top 20 in their opening weeks: Anthony Hamilton’s Point of It All at 12, Plies’ Da Realist at 14 and the All-American Rejects’ When the World Comes Down at 15. And just to get in the Xmas spirit, Weezer’s Christmas With Weezer cracked the charts at 173. (more…)

Aussie twins Jessica and Lisa Origliasso survived a lawsuit from Archie Comics and a few bouts of sibling rivalry to keep their pop-rock act the Veronicas afloat. Now with a little help from the Jonas Brothers, the group are hoping to take over the States once again. Check out an exclusive performance of their hit “Untouched” and a full interview at the Breaking Blog:

• Breaking: The Veronicas

You’ve read Rolling Stone’s lists of the top albums and singles of the year — but how did the folks who work at RS rank their personal favorites? Here’s how our army of interns ranked the year’s best:

Albums of the Year

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
The Black Keys - Attack & Release
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Beck - Modern Guilt
Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band - Conor Oberst
My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
Coldplay - Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends
The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
Portishead - Third

Singles of the Year

Fleet Foxes - “White Winter Hymnal”
Santogold - “LES Artists” (more…)

David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is an early Oscar frontrunner, but Peter Travers has some critical words for Brad Pitt’s new film. What’s better? The depressing but brilliant Revolutionary Road, starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. Plus, the final scumbucket of 2008: Adam Sandler’s nauseating Bedtime Stories and Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson’s dog Marley & Me. Full the full report — and Travers’ last “aye, chihuahua!” of the year — click here:

• Peter Travers Video Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Kurt Cobain’s smashed Fender Mustang guitar was sold at auction for $100,000, making it the second-highest selling Cobain item ever. “It’s a really cool-looking guitar because it’s smashed and held together with duct tape and Kurt Cobain wrote on it,” a curator at Seattle’s Experience Music Project said. The ax dates back to Nirvana’s first U.S. tour, where Cobain it onstage in New Jersey. Staying with a musician named Sluggo at the time, Cobain traded the destroyed guitar for a working one for his next gig. Sluggo, who was in bands like the Grannies and Hullabaloo, held on to the guitar through the decades, eventually lending it to the Experience Music Project for display.

Despite the sale, Sluggo hopes the new owner will allow the guitar return to Seattle in 2010 for a planned Cobain exhibit. “There’s not a huge amount of broken Nirvana guitars out there,” the curator added, saying most of Cobain’s destroyed guitars were “little slivers and fragments.” In 2006, a Mosrite Gospel Mark IV guitar — which was probably still in working condition — owned by Cobain sold for $131,000. Cobain has been a popular auction block attraction in recent years, with Courtney Love also selling everything from Kurt’s cardigans to his bass guitar to handwritten lyrics for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to the highest bidder, which she hoped would be in the $40 million range. For more on that auction and many more of rock’s most-prized items on the block, check out our Rock’s Rarest Artifacts gallery.

Related Stories:

• Rock’s Rarest Artifacts: The Most Expensive Memorabilia in Music

• John Lennon’s Organ, Cobain’s Bass Guitar Highlight Punk/Rock Auction

• Writer Charles R. Cross Digs Deep in the Archives For “Cobain Unseen”

Wondering how portly Brooklyn MC Jamal “Gravy” Woolard looks attempting to portray the most famous portly Brooklyn MC of all time, the Notorious B.I.G.? There’ve been a bunch of clips from the upcoming biopic Notorious floating around the Web, but here’s a particularly high-voltage one: it’s Biggie breaking the news of Tupac Shakur’s death to his own mom, Voletta Wallace. We’re a little meh so far, but what do you think? Is it like Eminem in 8 Mile, 50 Cent in Get Rich or Die Tryin’ or Method Man in How High?

When Rolling Stone spoke to Woolard about the film — which was named Hot Biopic on our annual Hot List — he detailed the intense boot-camp-like training he received for the film at Julliard, where he dove into method-acting techniques and had cotton balls stuffed in his mouth to learn better diction. (more…)

Photo: Hogan/Getty

When Rock Daily was chatting with Noel Gallagher recently regarding Oasis‘ new tour, the guitarist shared his holiday wishes:

“I’d like an iPhone, a laptop, a new haircut and a Christmas card that didn’t say fucking Noel on the front. That would be fucking nice. Just one year. I always get this shit, right. And people go, ‘Did you get my card?’ And you go, ‘I dunno, which one was that?’ ‘Oh, you must’ve seen it. It had Noel written on the front.’ ‘Really, and how many of those do you think I get?’ That’s right. All of them. They all end up at my fuckin’ house. ‘Oh, there’s a card with my name on it, brilliant. That’s from my parents. I’ll thank them again for that.’ Fuckin’ pair of idiots.”

What, you were expecting holiday fuzzies from the guy who told us, “I am fucking brilliant every night I go out there. I could give a fuck about anybody else in the band.” (more…)

• 50 Cent’s MTV reality show The Money and the Power lacked The Audience and the Demographics, thus the show was scrapped from MTV’s “empowering,” music-less new schedule. According to network’s president, the station is looking to “focus less on loud and silly hooks,” which spelled doom for 50’s first foray into TV.

• BMG’s mail-order music service, famed for its “12 for the price of one” and “10 for the price of a half of one” deals, will stop accepting new members. While its suspected the service might shut down completely, the company says they’re still “very actively engaged with our existing member base and will be making more changes to serve them.”
• Coldplay are giving their fans the gift of remix this Christmas, making the Thin White Duke remix of their Satriani-esque hit “Viva La Vida” a free download over at their Website. The band also posted a brief video of an instrumental live rendition of “Jingle Bells” the band performed with Simon Pegg at a recent concert.

DJ AM (a.k.a. Adam Goldstein) has filed a lawsuit over the South Carolina jet crash that left four people dead and AM and drummer Travis Barker severely burned. Barker and the family of one of the crash victims had already filed similar suits. Clay Lacy Aviation, Global Exec Aviation, Inter Travel & Services, Goodyear and Learjet were all named in AM’s suit, which claims that after a tire blew out during take-off, “Rather than proceed to takeoff, they decided to abort and/or reject the takeoff in a negligent manner.” After overshooting the runway, the jet burst into flames this past September, with the duo amazingly escaping the crash by sliding down the plane’s wing.

In a pretty cold move, AM also sued the estates of the two pilots who died in the accident, which also killed AM and Barker’s security guard and assistant. (more…)

Photo: Getty

Attention Killers fans who voted “Human” the Number One single of the year in our Readers’ Rock List: you have a famous ally in Chris Martin. “I’m just a sucker for a big melody — I like anthems. And songs like this put the Killers in the same fighting weight as Coldplay, which is good for all concerned.” Yes, “Human” is the Coldplay leader’s favorite song of the year — find out what Santogold, Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, the Jonas Brothers, Noel Gallagher and more artists were digging in 2008 right here:

• Artists’ Picks: Best of ‘08

More Best-Ofs:

• Reissues of the Year
• 100 Best Singles of 2008
• The Top 50 Albums of 2008
• Top 10 Reissues of 2008
• 2008’s Wildest Rock Photos
• The Year in Live Photos

Photo: Wireimage

Whether it’s the projected 31 degree temperature or a projected image of Ryan Seacrest, we honestly understand if you’re not huddled somewhere in Times Square for New Year’s Eve. But a night so charged with energy (and alcohol) never has a shortage of excellent rock shows to ring in the new year — and this crop of champagne supernovas are no exception.

My Morning Jacket
Madison Square Garden, New York City
Scruffy and ragged psychedelic riffers My Morning Jacket are trying to bring a little class to their New Year’s Eve fête at Madison Square Garden, imploring their fans come “dressed to tha nines” in tuxedos, ball gowns and hopefully a few monocles.

Wu-Tang Clan
Sonar, Baltimore
Ghostface, GZA, Raekwon and the rest of the Wu collective will be on hand to usher in the new year in the city where Method Man shot all those episodes of The Wire. The concert supposedly starts at 8 p.m., but keep in mind this is a hip-hop show, so err on the side of caution and be there promptly by April 2009.

David Cook, Scott Weiland (with Daughtry & Lynyrd Skynyrd)
The Mirage, Las Vegas
We have to guess this antedote to Dick Clark’s wholesome marathon of Taylor Swift and the Jonas Brothers is, uh, pre-taped, because …

Stone Temple Pilots
Club Nokia, Los Angeles
… Scott Weiland will actually be in L.A., where $78.50 nabs you a ticket to see the reunited STP. (more…)

Watch as Rolling Stone’s Christian Hoard explores TV on the Radio’s Dear Science and the magazine’s five best albums of 2008 (as well as his personal picks, led by Magnetic Fields) and breaks down Rock Daily’s top stories — if you haven’t listened to Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” paired up with Joe Satriani’s “If I Could Fly,” now is your chance.

>>Watch every episode of our weekly New Music Report video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Tuesday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.

Photo: Gries/Getty

MTV has heard your calls to put the Music back into Music Television, and it now has your answer: 16 new reality shows that have nothing to do with music. With the death of TRL, FNMTV remains the last vestige of original music programming on the station. The new crop of non-music shows shifts into a category MTV lovingly calls “aspirational, enterprising and empowering.” For instance: a student-shot series filmed at the University of Wisconsin called College Life, a daredevil program called Nitro Circus, the Donald Trump-produced Charm School-esque Girls of Hedsor Hall and a show about the founders of Collegehumor.com, ingeniously titled The College Humor Show.

“These new series reflect Generation ‘Why Not?’ — living, working and playing on their own terms, ‘adventure capitalists’ if you will, pursuing a variety of thrill-seeking, 2.0, express-yourself enterprises,” says MTV entertainment president Brian Graden. Everyone from Justin Timberlake to Kanye West have made public pleas for MTV to return to their music video ways, but the recent schedule announcements show those cries have landed on deaf ears. Should MTV even be allowed to put on the Video Music Awards anymore? It seems kind of superfluous, like if ESPN handed out Academy Awards. (more…)