Thanks for all your comments to last week’s purgative 2010 disappointments thread. Now we’ve got that our of our systems, this week’s playlist features plenty of 2011 releases, as you can see.

Rappers use Sellaband to fund new record

Frontman says he has no plans to retire

Among the many tales about Ariel Pink, there’s one, possibly apocryphal, about a live show where he came onstage and did nothing but intone the word “Xanax” for the duration of the gig. It’s slightly worrying, then, when he emerges out of the leftover Halloween dry ice at this Club Uncut show to solemnly pronounce “Carrots”, then disappears again.

He says he's giving up on writing hit singles

Guitarist says he's been clean for 17 years

Macca describes mugging in Nigeria

Over the summer, I got pretty hooked on a playlist/mixtape thing, "Wah Wah Cowboys", that turned up on a blog called The Old Straight Track. A triumph of early ‘70s crate-digging, "Wah Wah Cowboys" located a high place where country and country-rock found a groove, and packed a fair few revelations into 45 minutes.

Sitting on stage at London’s BFI Southbank, Bruce Springsteen is reflecting on events 33 years ago, when he and the E Street Band entered New York’s Record Plant studios to record the Darkness On The Edge Of Town album.