Blender, the music magazine, is dead. Its owners folded it this morning, eliminating about 30 jobs in the process.

Did you hear about the financial crisis? Popular Canadian songsmith Neil Young did! Let us take a quick look at his reaction to this unprecedented economic situation: a song called "Cough Up the Bucks."

How to tenderize Bob Dylan's "bleak... sneering" new album, built around the song "Life is Hard?" With the title "Together Through Life" and a black-and-white, backseat gay kiss on the cover. (Click to enlarge.)

There's a new iTunes feature that lets you control someone else's iTunes library from your iPhone, while at a party or a hip, downtown blogging headquarters in Nolita. Is this a good idea? Only maybe.

Good Morning America made a big deal of landing U2 for a live show at Fordham University on Friday, but the broadcast actually lost ground in GMA's battle against NBC's Today Show.

Do you know what today is? It's the 20th anniversary of Time Warner. The massive merger that created the media behemoth happened on March 4, 1989. Time Warner was the future! And now?

Rappers have been dropping brand names in their lyrics for cash for years; it's tasteless, but widespread. But why would you turn a memorial track for your dead friend into a Coogi ad?

People magazine is reporting that bubblegum pop star/ monster Chris Brown is back together again with battered (by him) woman/ superior singer Rihanna. I see only three possibilities, concerning this story:

Why are musicians always the most hilariously touchy creatures? Foulmouthed, pocket-sized crooner Lily Allen is furious at unnamed New York Times editors for licensing photos of her to British tabloids — "cheap skanks," she says.

Finally, the Jamaican airwaves are safe for Coldplay tunes: the government there is banning music about sex, or violence, or arson, or... basically all music.

Because the Jackson Family's collective behavior apparently isn't bizarre enough on its own, Marlon Jackson is backing a slavery theme park and resort in Nigeria. Doesn't this sound fun:

Spitzer hooker Ashley Dupre showed up in the front row at Fashion Week last Friday. Sweet, right? No, it got the nice PR lady fired! But she's still good friends with Ashley, so suck it:

So Ryan Adams is now engaged to Mandy Moore. Not that you'd know it from his website; we had to read Us Weekly's report. Discretion: yet another way Moore has reformed her man.

Earlier this month we told you about rumors of serious money troubles at Vibe , said to have endangered the March issue. The company denied that. But the "money troubles" part was obviously accurate:

Following Chris Brown's alleged attack on girlfriend Rihanna, the rumors flew: Brown tried to kill her; he bit her fingers; Rihanna is in hiding. But what sparked the whole incident?

As impressive as M.I.A. was at the Grammys and on the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, the burst of attention is attracting uncomfortable questions about her purported support for a terrorist groups.

More awful details about Chris Brown's alleged attack on Rihanna: Rihanna reportedly told police her boyfriend and fellow R&B star threatened her life, then choked her to unconsciousness.

This cruel Grim Reaper of an economy has gone too far. It came for magazines. It came for books. It came for banks. But now, it has come for our Muzak.

Rasta don't work for no CIA. But Bob Marley now works for a private equity firm.

Who was that in the Grammys press area, screaming out the biggest cheers of the night? Some kind of obsessive, barely-credentialed teenaged blogger? Hardly.