More Top Stories: Katy Perry, Phish, Allison Iraheta

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Katy Perry to Perform on 'SNL'
Katy Perry will make her first Saturday Night Live appearance when she performs on the show's season premiere. Former SNL cast member Amy Poehler will host the show, which airs September 25th. [ Entertainment Weekly ]

Phish Ready 'Coral Sky' DVD
Coral Sky, a 2-DVD set being released through the Phish's JEMP Records on October 19th, documents the band's November 2nd, 1996 concert at the Coral Sky Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach, Florida. Santana percussionist Karl Perazzo and the Allman Brothers' Butch Trucks accompanied the band at this show. [Phish.com]

The xx Win Mercury Prize
Indie-rock band the xx have been awarded the Mercury Prize — which designates the best British album of the year — for their debut, xx. The duo beat out artists like Paul Weller and Dizzee Rascal for the award. [Barclaycard Mercury Prize]

Allison Iraheta leaves Jive Records
Less than two years after finishing fourth on American Idol, and about nine months since releasing her debut on Jive, Allison Iraheta has parted ways with the label. The split is most likely a result of Idol's decision to break from Sony, Jive's parent company, to release their artists on Universal Music. [ Entertainment Weekly ]

Hip-Hop Birthplace Saved By Loan
The building at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, New York, where DJ Kool Herc first laid the groundwork for hip hop by playing records at house parties, will be maintained as affordable housing for its current tenants. The federal government fronted a $5.4 million loan to prevent the building from being sold and redeveloped. [All Hip Hop]

Justin Bieber: Twitter King
How popular is Justin Bieber on Twitter? Three percent of the company's servers are entirely dedicated to processing Tweets that include his name. [Gizmodo]

XTC to Reissue 'Skylarking'
XTC will reissue their 1986 album Skylarking on double-vinyl, with its original artwork (which was originally rejected by the record label) restored and "30 percent better sound." No release date has been set. [Slicing Up Eyeballs]

Plus: Brad Pitt may star in Jerry Lee Lewis biopic, Howard Stern ponders his future and more.

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  MOVIES The 10 Best Zombie Movie Scenes
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  TV The Most WTF? Moments of 'Mad Men'
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  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The Joy Formidable | 2011

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”

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