David Bowie broke down in tears while recording his first and only take of 'Five Years', the opening track on 1972’s seminal album 'The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars'.

Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold has posted a new demo song online - scroll down to the bottom of the page and click to listen. The bare acoustic track, 'Olivia, In A Separate Bed', finds the singer in mournful mood, seemingly lamenting the loss of a girlfriend and apologising for his behaviour. The song seemingly corroborates a handful of Tweets recently posted by Pecknold, in which he suggested his relationship with his girlfriend had broken down due to touring and recording commitments with his band. He has since deleted the messages.

Metallica's Lars Ulrich has revealed that Lou Reed found the criticism of their 'Lulu' collaboration "difficult" to take. Veteran rocker Reed teamed up with the metal legends to release the album, which is based around German dramatist Frank Wedekind's 1913 play about the life of an abused dancer, in October last year. He later claimed that Metallica fans had threatened to shoot him because they had been so unhappy about the LP.

James Blake has said that his new album will sound "more aggressive" and "clubby". The singer, who released his self-titled debut album in February last year, told Spinner that he had started sessions on the follow-up and predicted that it would embrace a different sound.

Producer Stephen Street has said he would to love make a new album with Blur. Street, who was responsible for producing several of the band's LPs including 'Modern Life Is Rubbish', 'Parklife', 'The Great Escape' and 'Blur', said he hasn't been approached but it would be great to be asked. He also confirmed that William Orbit has produced the track 'Under The Westway' which Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon unveiled earlier this week. Scroll down and click below to hear the track.

Bobby Womack has told Uncut that Damon Albarn reminds him of 'a young Sam Cooke'.

Sinead O’Connor has revealed that she would like to do naked shoot for Playboy magazine before she dies. Speaking to Word magazine – via Digital Spy - the singer said: "There's so much I [would have] liked to do when I was younger and I was too miserable and Irish. A Playboy shoot is on my bucket list."

The lesser-known 1980s works of Jarvis Cocker...

Alabama Shakes made their UK live debut last night (February 22) at an NME Awards Show, where they were watched by Hollywood A-lister Russell Crowe. The first of three nights at north London's intimate Boston Arms saw the Athens, Alabama four-piece play a mixture of songs from their forthcoming first album 'Boys And Girls', newer songs and a thunderous encore of Led Zeppelin's 'How Many More Times'.

The songwriter and guitarist Billy Strange has died aged 81. The musician co-wrote several songs for Elvis Presley with Mac Davis, including 'A Little Less Conversation', which, while only a minor success on release in 1968, became a worldwide hit after it was heard in 2001 film 'Ocean's 11' thanks to Junkie XL's remix.