Blur

After all the hoo-ha, huff, hysteria and hot air, here, finally, are The Rolling Stones doing what they do even better than raising the collective temperature with impertinent ticket prices, something they seem to have been doing at least since their 1969 American tour, nothing new in the Stones being accused of commercial banditry and the cynical exploitation of their fans, on whose behalf so many complaints have been indignantly voiced since the 50 And Counting dates in London and New York were announced. Why don’t they celebrate their half-centenary with, say, a free concert, the cry went up in some quarters, and let more people have a chance to see them, and for nothing too? Well, when they tried that in 1969, look where it got them: Altamont.

Beck has a new album out - Song Reader: Twenty New Songs By Beck. It is available only as sheet music. We dispatched Uncut's very own musical expert, John Lewis, to play the album, track by track, on his beloved piano. Below, you can watch the results - and let the magic of Beck's music wash over you...

The new issue of Uncut, out today, features Bruce Springsteen, The Black Keys, Bryan Ferry and the Uncut review of 2012. Bruce Springsteen is on the cover, and inside we catch up with The Boss live in Pittsburgh and tell the story of his incredible year – including Wrecking Ball, his longest ever show and that cut-off Paul McCartney duet…

Bjork has revealed that she has cured the vocal problems which have plagued her in recent years by undergoing surgery.

This is the last Uncut of 2012, rather unbelievably. It barely seems 12 months since I sat down to write the column that introduced our final issue of 2011. How much faster can time go by?

Damon Albarn has created an 'audio collage' to be simultaneously broadcast on every BBC radio station in the UK and worldwide to mark 90 years of radio. The simulcast, named Radio Reunited, will reach a potential global audience of 120 million people across every inhabited continent.

Concert promoter Live Nation is pulling out of Hyde Park after more than a decade of putting on events there. The live music company, which has hosted a raft of concerts and festivals including Hard Rock Calling, Wireless and the Bruce Springsteen concert this summer, has cited issues including noise restrictions and curfews for the decision, The Guardian reports. The company has reportedly written a formal letter of complaint to the Royal Parks Agency over the tender process for the new five-year contract for the central London site, dubbing it "flawed".

It was National Poetry Day last week, a date I’m sure you found your own ways to celebrate. I was at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, where John Cooper Clarke was in residence for the evening, headlining a show that also featured appearances by fellow poets Mike Garry and Luke Wright, a couple of sharp young wordsmiths who by the look of them may not have been capable of joined-up writing when Clarke was in his glorious early pomp and may possibly not even have been born then, Wright especially looking like he’s only just stopped being looked after by baby-sitters and cooed over in a crib.

It's now seven years since Damage, the last Blues Explosion album, a hiatus during which Jon Spencer got to indulge his psychotic rockabilly side with three albums with Heavy Trash, and also pursue a few other alternative musical endeavours with the likes of Andre Williams, Solex and Cristina Martinez. It was also a period during which the original punk-blues pioneers saw their influence put to more remunerative use not just by The White Stripes but by The Black Keys as well, as stripped-back roots riffage unaccountably became one of rock's more commercially potent modes.

Given that my last three blogs have been on Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin, I guess something resembling my tenuous underground credibility might be a bit compromised this week. A good time, then, to flag up some terrific music I’ve been enjoying these past few days that doesn’t have quite the same profile as Dylan et al.