SPOON helps Conan O'Brien out the door with "Written in Reverse."

BEACH HOUSE is advance streaming Teen Dream via NPR.

ALL SONGS CONSIDERED: Tracks from Jay Reatard, Jeff Mangum, Smith Westerns and more are featured in the current installment of the long-running series.

THE LOW ANTHEM played a Tiny Desk Concert at the offices of NPR.

KATE McGARRIGLE, the Canadian folk icon and mother to Martha and Rufus Wainwright, has died of cancer at 63. Spinner has the statement from Rufus.

THE XX dropped the video for "VCR" on P-Fork, along with a remix by Matthew Dear.

VAMPIRE WEEKEND tops the Billboard chart with Contra, which is only the 12th indie album to do so since 1991.

DEVENDRA BANHART talks to The Australian about his feminine side, surfing, and more... 

PATTERSON HOOD and his dad, David Hood (of the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio), are profiled at OnlineAthens. (Thx, LHB.)

THE BEST ALBUMS of 2009, according to Prefix readers.

TIGER WOODS was caught on camera at the sex rehab clinic, blowing PR plans for the family photo op.

CHARLIE SHEEN went to the hospital to visit wife Brooke Mueller in the ICU.

JOHN MAYER is on the cover of the Rolling Stone, where he says he isn't proud of the way things ended with Jennifer Aniston.

AMY WINEHOUSE was put on double-secret probation by a British court after pleading guilty to assault.

BRITNEY SPEARS has been baffling staff at an LA hotel by impersonating Stewie from hit TV cartoon Family Guy.

MARISA MILLER may have just placed No. 2 on AskMen.com's list for the "99 Most Desirable Women of 2010," but Page Six claims she is no longer working with Victoria's Secret.

MIRANDA KERR a Victoria's Secret Angel, is profiled by GQ with photos, just in time for Gratuitous Thursday.

THE 25 MOST STYLISH MEN in the WORLD is also running at GQ, for some equal opportunity voyeurism.

(500) DAYS OF SPIDER-MAN: Marc Webb has finalized a deal to direct Sony's "Spider-Man" reboot.

YEMEN has retracted its claim that the deputy leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was captured after a car accident in Shabwa province. Meanwhile, some American former convicts who converted to Islam in prison have moved to Yemen and a few may have joined extremist groups there, according to a new Senate report.

OUR FRIENDS, THE SAUDIS: Health authorities in Jeddah have shut down an "illegal" women's fitness center attached to a hospital, closing one of the few venues where Saudi women are able to exercise, local media said on Wednesday.

CATWEED: Let's go to the commercial.

EMO OTTER climbs tree as an act of "teenage rebellion."

OHIO turns out to be the place to get bit by a bat.

MONKEY MATH: A German team of neurobiologists has found that rhesus macaques can engage in abstract mathematical reasoning using specific brain cells dedicated to the comprehension of math rules and relationships.