The Weekly Rewind: TV On The Radio takes on NPR’s Tiny Desk, a star-studded Patti Smith celebration forms

Coming at you from a chill and chilly holiday weekend, here’s the music news you need to know from this week.

TV On The Radio’s Tiny Desk Concert dives deep

“I don’t know what happened 15 years ago. I think someone missed a phone call or an email ’cause we wanted to do it!” Tunde Adebimpe used TV On The Radio’s appearance at NPR HQ as an opportunity to poke fun at the popular video series for taking so very long to book these modern rock trailblazers; he and the band also used it to show off an array of cuts from across their catalog, digging deep for cuts from their debut EP Young Liars and going all the way up to 2014’s Seeds. The band has been gigging this week at NYC’s Webster Hall. Is new TVOTR on the way? Please let it be so. (Read more at NPR Music)

Members of R.E.M., Sonic Youth and more will celebrate Patti Smith’s Horses

Normally, the big blow-out Patti Smith tribute happens in New York City on or around her birthday, December 30th. This time, though, the poet laureate of punk will be honored a few months later — in March, to mark the 50th birthday of her album Horses. Performers include Michael Stipe of R.E.M., Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and more. (Read more at Brooklyn Vegan)

Drake is busy suing people

This year, Drake — the Toronto pop star and architect of club rap faves like “Hotline Bling” and “One Dance”  — got into an ill-advised public beef with critically revered and commercially dominating Compton MC Kendrick Lamar, in which Kenny’s “Not Like Us” handily decimated him. And then what could have been a mere diss track went on to become a blockbuster hit. And then Kendrick went on to surprise drop the remarkable LP GNX earlier this month, messing with everyone’s release rollouts. (Father John Misty is also crying about this, but I digress.) Drake, for his part, has gone on the offense, suing Spotify and Universal Music Group, alleging they “conspired with and paid currently unknown parties to use ‘bots’ to artificially inflate the spread of ‘Not Like Us’ and deceive consumers into believing the song was more popular than it was in reality.” He followed up with a second suit against UMG, claiming “Not Like Us” is defamatory, particularly its very memorable bars accusing him of being a sexual predator. We won’t repeat those bars here, pending the outcome of this suit, but you certainly know what they are. And if you don’t, Genius is a good resource. (Read more at Pitchfork, The Fader)

Lana is back for 2025

Modern chanteuse Lana Del Rey announced she will release her tenth studio album, The right person will stay, on May 21st. According to her announcement, she collaborated on the project with Jack Antonoff and Drew Erickson, along with people she identifies as Luke and Zach. The Fader speculates the former is Luke Howard, who produced her father’s debut album Lost At Sea; the latter could be her regular multi-instrumental collaborator Zach Dawes of The Last Shadow Puppets. Or it could be fanboy Zach Bryan? (Read more at The Fader)

Saltburn’s Barry Keoghan is Ringo in new Beatles biopic

Director Sam Mendes has an ambitious plan for telling The Beatles’ story in biopic form; a quadrilogy, with each of the four films told from one of the Beatles’ points of view. Irish actor Barry Keoghan — of Saltburn, The Banshees of Inisherin, and recently of Fontaines D.C.’s “Bug” music video — is on deck to play Ringo “Richard Starkey” Starr. “I think it’s great,” says Ringo, per The Guardian. “I believe he’s somewhere taking drum lessons, and I hope not too many.” (Read more at The Guardian)