Before Elton John revisited Yellow Brick Road with Ben Folds and others, Folds revisited The Unauthorized Biography Of Rienhold Messner with his old band. Said performance, which took place at UNC-Chapel Hill's Memorial Hall, was organized as part of MySpace Music's "Front To Back" series, so it makes sense MySpace would have really good video of the entire event.

There's been plenty of dark video documentation of Jeff Mangum's recent Holiday Surprise Tour surprise appearances, but now that these performances are no longer a surprise, it appears people are showing up with better cameras. For instance, we now have the brightest Jeff Mangum footage yet. The first clip was shot in Pontiac, Michigan on 10/20. It's Jeff and the gang doing a rendition of Circulatory System's "Forever," as is their want.

Gossip Girl's Chuck Bass (aka actor Ed Westwick) has a band called the Filthy Youth. Watch them perform "The Confidence." Pete Doherty isn't worried. (Because he's passed out right now.)

As you should be able to tell the moment you start watching this "video" for Chris Cornell's "Ground Zero," it's a commercial for something else. The "something else" in this equation is the ABC show Life On Mars (no, not Christmas On Mars). One thing that's also clear: We weren't being too harsh when we commented a few times on the shittiness of Cornell's new (Feat. Timbaland) album, Scream.

Before we kick off the bulk of this week's CMJ coverage, we're gonna look all the way back to last week's Iceland Airwaves Festival. Stereogum sent photog Abbey Braden overseas to take it all in. When not commiserating with locals about our countries' financial crises, Abbey caught dozens of sets from familiar standbys (Fuck Buttons, Mae Shi, Simian Mobile Disco) and Icelandic buzz bands (Shogun, Weapons, Ultra Mega Technobandið Stefán) alike. Vampire Weekend was there, too! There are a ton of wonderful photos (and videos) for you after the jump, along with a brief but educational report from our correspondent to set the scene.

Earlier this month we took at the tracklist for Animal Collective's next album and noticed some familiar songs. Merriweather Post Pavilion is out 1/20 on Domino but some lucky fans won't have to wait that long to hear it. Clicking around on the band's website will pop this invitation to a NYC listening party next week. If you go, tell us about it after. If it's anything like Merriweather's trippy optical illusion album cover, you're in for a mind-altering experience.

When we weighed in on the Verve's fourth album Forth we made note that "'Rather Be' doesn't do much to justify its existence, but its piano-lined gospel-tinged backup vocals have a certain appeal." Harsh? Maybe. The new video for the meandering track finds Richard Ashcroft, his crucifix necklace, and his cheekbones wandering through a forest, closing his eyes, singing, and closing his eyes some more.

Our review of Cardinology is the second most active thread on Stereogum this week. That's partly because many of you feel passionately that the Cardinals have given us the very worst album cover of the year. The music is more promising. Listen to the whole thing at iLike while you imagine what nonsense Dr. Adams would write on your Facebook wall.

Portland Filmmaker Dan Woods got a bunch of sorta-familiar indie rockers to sing "Gardenia," which is a fine backup plan when Stephen Malkmus is too much of a Jick to show up to his own video shoot. (J/K, Stevie.) Fortunately Portland is an indie rock theme park and a proven breeding round for fun name-that-cameo videos. In addition to lip-synching from Weezer's Brian Bell, Cribs' Gary Jarmin, Ratatat, and Girl Talk (always with the headphones, that one) we get an animated take on Real Emotional Trash's album cover. And spinning gardenias, obvs.