Good news: Alesha Dixon, formerly of Strictly Come Dancing and having-a-recording-contract fame is back with a new song.

Bad news: It is for a rubbish car commercial.

Take a look at the new video from transatlantic lo-fi rock combo The Kills. If you like Garbage, Blondie, The Killers or LCD Soundsystem, you will like this.

The band are singer Alison “VV” Mosshart from Disneyland’s Florida and British guitarist Jamie “Hotel” Hince. They are quite happy to be compared to their friends the White Stripes, with whom they share a strange in-concert erotic tension.

Like the Stripes, they claim to be “just good friends”, but in 2003 the NME asked Jamie if he got jealous when groupies flirted with Alison and he went all weird.

“I don’t want to talk about it, but the answer is yes and that’s it,” he said after a scarily extended pause. Ooo-er.

The band are not to be confused with their altogether-more-popular near-namesakes The Killers. “I want to hit and punch anyone who makes that mistake,” says Alison, who also hates being called the new PJ Harvey. “She’s still alive. So I can’t be,” she notes.

So that’s the Kills. Expect more misdirected anger, sexual antics and quirky rock-with-a-drum-machine when they release their third album, Midnight Boom, in March.

After the marvellously kinky 2 Hearts, Kylie’s new video is a bafflingly imagination-free zone.

Neon lights? Dancing robots? Hasn’t she made this exact video seven times since 2001?

For those of us not in the UK, her other new video (for the Calvin Harris-produced In My Arms) is rather better. It’s like a dayglo version of Madonna’s Human Nature, with lots of people thrashing around in boxes and ms Minogue in Kanye West’s sunglasses.

The video also features Kylie’s biggest fan.

Hilarious.

Gnarls Barkley have been secreted away in a studio for the last couple of months concocting their new album, The Odd Couple.

According to Billboard, the album has been recorded with live musicians to give it a more organic feel than the million-selling St Elsewhere.

But the first taster, Run, sounds very much like the sampladelic hip-hop soul of their previous work, and it’s all the better for it (I love those playground samples). Billboard reckons it has been leaked on purpose, which makes the record company’s policy of suing the asses off anyone who downloads it even more perplexing.

Risk your savings by clicking on the following links:
:: Gnarls Barkley – Run (sharbee)
:: Gnarls Barkley – Run (zshare)

Before we watch this masterpiece of popular entertainment, let’s have a quick lesson in rock economics:

In other words, don’t build your hopes up.

Jools Holland’s perennial late-night music show recorded its 200th episode tonight, and I was lucky enough to be there. It was my first time watching the show being committed to tape (a computer), and it’s quite an interesting process.

Here’s what I learned: