If, like me, you’ve never really paid much attention to Black Sabbath, now’s your chance to catch up We7.com, the music service I mentioned a few weeks back, are streaming their entire back catalogue on their website.

This is quite awesome, actually, because if you’ve ever really wanted to immerse yourself in a new band’s music, this makes it so easy. You can literally work your way through every Black Sabbath album – from Ozzy through Dio and get a real feel for them.

Just a heads up for any metal fan who’s maybe missed Sabbath. You can start chastising me now for not owning any of their albums…

I published my interview with X Factor finalist Eoghan Quigg yesterday, at the same time as the folks at PopJustice were commenting on Twitter about the quality of the album.

Now, I received my copy at the same time as they got their review copy. Up until this point, I’d maintained a stoic silence after being Eoghan’s harshest critic throughout the X Factor. At that time, I said that Simon Cowell stood to make more money from phone votes for Eoghan Quigg that he ever would in record sales.

Anyway, PopJustice released their review of the album yesterday, and it has perhaps the most perfect analysis of the song selection and production values:

Imagine the three worst reality pop albums you have ever heard. Let’s pick the Michelle McManus album, the David Sneddon album and the Journey South album. Imagine the combined badness of all those albums, then somehow imagine that ALL personality has been sucked out out. Then imagine that they kept on sucking, long after there all personality was gone, until there was a sort of personality prolapse. You are still only half way to understanding just how empty these recordings are.

Now, Unreality TV has received some criticism in our time about being so scathing about reality TV contestants. But when the quality is this poor, you can’t help but unleash the snark.

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This one’s been long-awaited: a new album from Green Day, to be called 21st Century Breakdown, and to be released sometime in May, this year!

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This is totally a storm in a teacup, I know, but since we’ve been chatting about U2 a lot this week, I thought I’d share this post from Taylor Dupree.

Dupree is a musician and designer (among many talents, I believe), and recorded an album back in 2006 with Richard Chartier. The album, specification.fifteen, uses the same Hiroshi Sugimoto photograph as U2 are using on their new album cover. Take a look:

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Kirk Hammett and James Hetfield give the inside scoop on some classic Metallica tunes in a brilliant interview with Guitar World.

I don’t know about you, but I love hearing the stories behind classic music, and this doesn’t disappoint – guitar-heads will love the chatter about hot-rodded Marshall amps, and any self-respecting Metallica fan will want to hear Hetfield talking about how they converted Dave Mustaine’s Mechanix into their classic Four Horsemen.

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Possibly the most exciting news of the New Year is a new album by U2.

The new album is to be called No Line On The Horizon, and it’s their first studio release in 5 years!

U2 usually undergo some form of musical reinvention every now and again, and that’s probably why it’s so exciting when they release new material.

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I got a breezy email from Sean Fournier the other day recommending that I check out his 6 track album, Oh My.

Normally, I approach this type of email with caution – you never know if the contents are going to be good or appalling. But Sean’s confidence and enthusiasm impressed me enough to download his free album. That last link’s a hint, by the way!

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The original Idol is returning in March with her new album, All I Ever Wanted.

It’s been a bumpy ride for Kelly Clarkson, but this is a milestone for her – the fourth album she’s released. Kelly’s fought record company boss Clive Davis for the right to write her own songs, she’s had concerts cancelled due to low ticket sales and has toyed with the idea of going Country which is selling well in the USA.

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It’s not often that a celebrity bothers to respond directly to rumors in the media, but that’s what uber-producer Timbaland did when he heard a ‘leak’ about the follow-up to his hugely successful Shock Value album.

He got in touch with MTV and cleared up the situation – which claimed he had secured Justin Timberlake, Usher and Gwen Stefani to appear on the album.

"It’s funny," Timbo said about the surprisingly detailed report, which claimed it was based on an advance preview of five tracks from the album. "I’m surprised people are watching me like that. I am recording the album, but I don’t know none of them joints, none of them songs. That’s just bogus."

As for an official track listing, the production wizard was mum — and he didn’t confirm or deny whether any of the artists listed in the report will appear on the album. He did speak generally about the album’s direction, however.

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The much-delayed fourth studio album from 50 Cent looks set to finally be released on 3 February 2009. It was originally due to be released back in 2007, but the rapper took the decision to release Curtis (the album) first.

Some people think I changed the title of my album from "Before I Self Destruct" to "Curtis", but what I did was, I changed albums. I had Before I Self Destruct, I recorded twelve songs under that actual topic, and then I created the material that is under Curtis, and I felt like this album should come out right now and Before I Self Destruct is gonna be my follow-up record, so I’m probably like three or four records away from completing my next album at this point.

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