Beastie boys

But debate is whether it has made a difference to eco-attitudes

Within seven minutes of BBC1 picking up live coverage, Chris Rock gets in the first "C’mon motherfuckers". This shortly after David Gray and Damien Rice have murdered "Que Sera Sera", Snow Patrol have yelled, "Looking forward to Spinal Tap? We are!" and Geri Halliwell has walked onstage to say, "Isn‘t it great my band are back together?" While the eight concerts around the world constitute an immense, well-intended event, the Wembley show is a thoroughly surreal mish-mash of deafening hard rock, weightless aerobic pop and celebs spouting platitudes.

Kevin Rowland digs out his records on the IOW

Nine Inch Nails lynchpin Trent Reznor is an unlikely inclusion in Time magazine's annual list of the 25 most influential Americans. "Reznor's music is filthy, brutish stuff, oozing with aberrant sex, suicidal melancholy and violent misanthropy," claims the accompanying article, "but to the depressed, his songs proffer pop's perpetual message of hope." Other entertainment figures in the list are producer Kenneth 'Babyface' Edmonds, X-Files creator Chris Carter, movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, actress and talk show host Rosie O'Donnell, and comic strip hero Dilbert.

First line-up announcements made for the US rock festival in Chicago

Madonna, Foo Fighters and Duran Duran all confirmed for Live Earth

…they’ve got über-producer Rick Rubin on board, too

And it’s filmed by their fans

The alt.country king tries his hand at rapping

Uncut's John Mulvey reports from the music world's biggest annual conference in Texas