My recession-hit pockets can only afford to buy five albums right now — Revolver, The White Album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Rubber Soul and Abbey Road. But let me tell you these are all worth the price.

The remastering of the albums are superb. The quality is top notch and there is a clarity to the new release that makes you appreciate the songs more. It also reveals new elements and details to the songs that, in most cases, makes you feel that you’re listening to the song for the first time. I won’t even try to rave about the packaging of the digipacks. The pictures are beautiful and the liner notes reveal new information and details that, for a Beatles fan like me, is just a joy to read.

My next project — The Beatles in Mono box set.

The new album will be called / \ / \ / \ Y / \. Before you start thinking that M.I.A. has suddenly acquired Prince-like delusions, look at it closely. Those “glyphs” actually spell out her nickname MAYA. Clever, isn’t it. The stylized title actually reflects M.I.A.’s roots in visual art and graffiti. Stricty speaking, the new album is actually self-titled, only more creatively written and displayed.

Now that we know the title, the next bit of info to be revealed regarding the album is the new release date. The earlier announcement was that it will be released on June 29. But the new dat has been pushed back a couple of weeks to July 13. There’s no explanation as to why it was pushed back. But with just a two week delay, it’s something that fans can obviously live with. But if you think that is still too long a wait then you can head offer to the N.E.E.T. web site (M.I.A.’s custom imprint) and head over to the site’s blog, which streams the new single off the album entitled “XXXO”. Just to clarify, the single streaming from the N.E.E.T. blog is the “RIGINAL BLAQSTARR VERSION” of the song, and is markedly different from the single being sold on iTunes and what’s being played on the radio.

The band is about to release their third album on May 18. The new album will be entitled Infinite Arms. The slight kink to the release though is on which label it will be released. At this point, it’s still up in the air. There’s talk that Sub Pop, which released the first two albums, will release it. But there’s also talk that the label probably won’t be releasing it.

Infinite Arms will also mark the debut of touring members Tyler Ramsey and Bill Reynolds. Phil Ek, who produced the band’s other albums, returns to the producer’s chair alongside the band. The album is also notable, according to frontman Ben Bridwell, because all five members contributed to the recording of the album, which even prompted him to say that this is the first Band of Horses record.

Nothing much came out from Robyn’s camp after that, but 2010 is going to be Robyn’s year. The Swedish pop darling is coming out with three, yes, three albums that will be released all throughout this year.

The new songs are reportedly going to be more dance oriented. She’s even going to collaborate with Snoop Dogg in one track called None of Dem, which will be produced by Royksopp (how’s that for indie cred!).

The first album will be released this spring, while the next two albums will come out in summer and winter, respectively.

Sage Francis once collaborated with indie troubadour Will Oldham in 2005 for the song Sea Lion. The collaboration sort of made waves because even in the indie world, rapper and rockers usually don’t cross paths. But then that’s Sage Francis for you, always seeking to redefine what you think are established truths.

In his new album, Sage Francis is again collaborating with another artist — this time indie rockers Progress! The collaboration will appear in Sage Francis’ new album Li(f)e, which will be released on May 11.

Flying Lotus said that he has reached a point most artists dream of, a time when he can actually do anything he wants and make the records he wants to make. He said that he can now do the albums that he was dreaming of when he was younger. He further revealed that the direction he’s taking is being able to make a kind of fusion of all of the things in music that he loves. The description is enough to make any music lover salivate. Hopefully,he does succeed in his aural pastiche. But if it’s any indication Flying Lotus has always been consistently good. For Cosmogramma he was able to enlist the help of Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke, who will sing on the song “…And the World Laughs with You.” Previous Flying Lotus guest Laura Darlington will also lend her vocals again for the new album. Another guest is Flying Lotus’ own cousin, jazz impressario saxophonist Ravi Coltrane.

One such collaboration would be the pairing of Lady Gaga – the current queen of weird – and indiesynth darlings Passion Pit. The collaboration between the two happened with the Passion Pit remixing Lady Gaga’s new single Telephone. Yes, the same Telephone single that also features Beyonce. And no, this is not some bootleg or unauthorized remix. This is an OFFICIAL remix. Talk about a genre-blurring collaboration!

Either Lady Gaga’s got really cool music taste, or The Passion Pit guys sees something in Gaga that I don’t (aside from the theatrical strangeness of course). I do admit that Lady Gaga’s songs are infectious (I sometimes find myself just suddenly singing “p-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face”) so there really must be some kind of mutual admiration thing going on here.

And it looks like she did.

M.I.A. is apparently about to release her new album this summer. According to M.I.A. the as yet untitled album was recorded most of the material with Blaqstarr. The two had previously collaborated on the “The Turn” and “Way Down in The Hole” off the Kala album.

Strangely enough, M.I.A. is also collaborating with a group of Filipino Verizon workers on the song “I’m Down Like Your Internet Connection.” M.I.A. relayed that she was having problems with her cable and wireless and was calling tech support for almost three hours. She suddenly had the idea that what she’s doing could become part of her music and asked the tech support guy to learn some lyrics and sing it over the phone. After 10 phone calls, she said she had her internet fixed and a complete song.

Now that’s creativity in action.

Now, after dabbling for a few years on soundtracks, Massive Attack has announced that it has finally finished album number five. Entitled Heligoland, the album will be released on February 9. The new album will, as usual, feature some very cool collaborations, namely, Damon Albarn, Tunde Adebimpe of TV on The Radio, Guy Garvey from Elbow, Martina Topley Bird, Hope Sandoval and Massive Attack regular Horace Andy.  Other collaborators include Portishead’s Adrian Utley, who plays guitar on one track.

I am stoked about this album because it will be interesting to see where Robert Del Naja and Daddy G will bring the band’s sound this time. I’m also looking forward to the Heligoland remix album that will be handled by Burial.

Not much has been heard from Interpol after 2007’s Our Love to Admire. Aside from Interpol vocalist Paul Banks’  Julian Plenti solo project, Carlos D.’s stab at filmmaking and Sam Fogarino’s side project with Adam Franklin (Swervedriver) Magnetic Morning hardly a peep has been heard from the New York-based post punk darlings as a group.

Last March, Interpol revealed that the band was working on songs for their new album. That’s enough to create a growing frenzy for the new Interpol release. After months of production work, more information is now available about the band’s new album. According to Fogarino, the new album is set to be released early next year and was recorded at the famed Electric Lady studio.

Fogarino shared that the new album will be a sonic return to Turn Out The Bright Lights, the band’s debut. He also admitted that Our Love to Admire is not the group’s most cohesive effort and it is a direction that they do not intend to go back to.

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