• Aerosmith — with Steven Tyler — are being touted as one of the headliners of the U.K.’s Download Festival , which goes down June 11-13th at Donington Park. AC/DC and Rage Against the Machine are also on the bill.

• According to the Financial Times , EMI is looking to sell off the iconic Abbey Road studios to help raise cash for its private equity owner Terra Firma.
• Madonna has two non-musical projects on deck: She’s set to cowrite and direct a biopic about the affair between King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, Variety reports , and appear as a celebrity judge on Jerry Seinfeld new reality show The Marriage Ref , according to the AP .
• The Knack’s frontman Doug Fieger has died at age 57 after a long battle with lung cancer, Reuters reports . Fieger cowrote the band’s biggest hit “My Sharona,” which held Number One for six weeks in 1979.

• Dylan, Mellencamp Rock White House Special
• Guns n’ Roses Surprise NYC With Tiny Show
• Gwen Stefani Reports on No Doubt’s New LP
• Preview the New “We Are the World”
• Gabriel Skipping Genesis’ Rock Hall Induction
• Famous Couples on the Cover of RS
• Courtney Love Misses First Hole Gig
• Watch White Stripes’ Live “Dead Leaves”
• Ke$ha’s “TiK ToK” Busts Records
• Britney, Gaga: Battle of the “Boys”
• Weekend Rock List: V-Day Mixtape
• News Ticker: Dr. Dre, Rage, Veoh
• John Mayer Apologizes for “N-Word”
• Lady Gaga Salutes Elton John in NYC
• Rihanna Unveils “Rude Boy” Video
• Axl Rose Lashes Out Over Slash-Ban Rumors
• U2’s Mullen Jr. to Guest on Cleveland Show
• Ra Ra Riot: In the Studio
• Rock Stars in Alexander McQueen
• News Ticker: Weezer, Otis Redding
• Clapton Announces 2010 Crossroads Fest
• Who’s Townshend on Story Behind Super Bowl
• Ad Musician Apologies to White Stripes
• Wilco Cover Neil Young at Portland Show
• Michael Jackson’s Autopsy Report: New Details
• Idol ’s DioGuardi Rates Ellen’s Debut
• Breaking: Surfer Blood
• Lady Antebellum Outsells Lil Wayne
• Fiona Apple to Record Benefit Track

Scroll down for full news stories, commentary and much more in Rock Daily.

Photograph by Annie Leibovitz

Rolling Stone ’s cover has hosted dozens of famous rock couples, from John and Yoko to Pamela and Tommy. Check them out this Valentine’s Day weekend here:

• Dynamic Duos: Couples and Collaborators on the Cover of Rolling Stone

Photo: Gershoff/WireImage
When the members of Genesis reunite next month at their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, Peter Gabriel won’t be by their side. Rock Hall president Joel Peresman announced yesterday that Gabriel will not attend the event on March 15th in New York, the AP reports . The news confirms what Gabriel told Rolling Stone last month — that he was skeptical about performing with his old bandmates.

“I learned at our last reunion [in 1982] that you can’t just get up there. You have to rehearse,” Gabriel said, noting that he is also in the midst of rehearsing for his own European tour. Still, he had promised RS , “I’m trying to find a way to do it. It’s not easy. If I can work it out, I’ll go.”

The Rock Hall ceremony may be one of the last opportunities for a full Genesis reunion, as Gabriel told RS , “Phil [Collins] has had trouble with his wrists and his back, so it’s pretty unlikely” that the band will reform in the near future. For more on Genesis’ path to the Rock Hall and the rest of the Class of 2010, check out our coverage below:

• The Stooges, Genesis, ABBA Lead the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Class of 2010
• Chapter & Verse: Photos from Genesis’ Oral History
• Genesis’ Rutherford and Banks Reflect on Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction
• Peter Gabriel Says He Won’t Reunite With Genesis at Rock Hall Induction

The 25th anniversary remake of “We Are the World,” which debuts tonight during the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, features more than 70 performers including Kanye West, Brian Wilson, Pink and Celine Dion (the video is now available on the song’s official YouTube channel and on iTunes). But only one member of the choir overslept for his third-grade exam this week. Nine-year-old Ethan Bortnick, a singer and pianist from Florida and Tonight Show vet — he has credits at major philanthropic events and is about to film a PBS special concert — tells Rolling Stone ’s Austin Scaggs he rehearsed for his big moment by listening to the original tune. He even got a little networking in at the recording session. “Will.i.am called me a few days ago, because you know the Black Eyed Peas are touring, and he said, ‘So dude, are you coming?’ So we went to his concert, and it was amazing.”

Check out photos from the “We Are the World” studio.

Bortnick says he was “excited to meet Barbra Streisand, the Jonas Brothers, and a lot of other cool people” and reports that Kanye West behaved himself. “Yeah, that guy was really nice. Very,” he tells RS . (more…)

The White Stripes’ mammoth Under Great White Northern Lights limited-edition box set , which documents the duo’s trek across Canada in 2007, will be released on March 16th. The set includes a DVD of the Stripes’ 10th anniversary show, dubbed Under Nova Scotian Lights , and today Spinner debuted the set’s video of “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground.” Filmed in stark black-and-white, Under Nova Scotian Lights is exclusive to the box set, which will also feature the documentary Under Great White Northern Lights , a double LP/CD of 16 live highlights from the tour, a 208-page photo book and a 7” color vinyl.

Relive the tour with our White Stripes’ Canadian Adventure photo gallery.

The White Stripes have revealed that Under Great White Northern Lights will make its U.S. big screen premiere at the SXSW Festival on March 12th. (more…)

Photo: Morigi/WireImage
Gwen Stefani’s Fashion Week presentation Thursday at Milk Studios wasn’t just a preview of her military and punk-inspired fall line for L.A.M.B. — it was also a sneak peek of what’s brewing in the singer’s head for the next No Doubt album.

First was her choice of a DJ: Jeremy Healy from Haysi Fantayzee (of “Shiny, Shiny” fame), who had mash-up duties on her 2006 single “Wind It Up” (combining her song with “The Lonely Goatherd” from “The Sound of Music”). As the models — all identically made up in bangs and brushed out curls, smokey eyes, and dramatic red lips — strutted down a runway that was more skate ramp than catwalk, they did so to mash-ups of songs like “Warm Leatherette” and “I Eat Cannibals.”

“We just had a lot of the stuff that I like, [from the] ’80s, you know, everything I like,” Stefani said after the show’s end. Under other circumstances, that wouldn’t be noteworthy, except for the fact that No Doubt’s currently on a crash diet of one-hit wonders. Though Tony Kanal, Tom Dumont, and Adrian Young had started working on the next album while Stefani was unavailable (due to various solo album and mothering duties), now that they’ve re-teamed, they’re scrapping some of the early work and started fresh a few weeks ago. (more…)

Photo: Arnoult/WireImage
Ke$ha’s hot start hasn’t let up yet: “TiK ToK” stayed firmly planted at Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 for the eighth straight week. The Animal singer is now the first female artist since 1977 to have her debut single spend that much time consecutively atop the Hot 100, Reuters reports , with Debby Boone’s “You Light Up My Life” the last single to accomplish it. Boone’s debut single spent 10 weeks at Number One, so “TiK ToK” needs another three weeks at the top before another record is shattered.

It seems like only two tracks stand a chance of unseating “TiK ToK,” starting with Lady Antebellum’s “Need You Know,” which jumped from Number Eight to Number Three, marking the first time a country music band has made the Top Three since Lonestar’s “Amazed” in 2000. The other contender: The all-star 25th anniversary recording of “We Are the World,” which benefits Haiti relief efforts. That track, featuring Lil Wayne, Kanye West, the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson and dozens more, will debut tonight during NBC’s broadcast of the Winter Olympics’ Opening Ceremony. (more…)

Photo: Clark/WireImage
At 11:30 p.m. last night, Proud Galleries in Camden, London, was packed with nearly 1,000 primped and glittered Courtney Love fans. The venue’s club night Smash and Grab was set to host a last-minute appearance by the recently resurrected Hole, and at 12:40 a.m. Mairead Nash, one of the promoters (and Love’s longtime friend) announced that the singer would arrive shortly and was “stuck” on Park Lane due to a “squat riot” near where Love and her companions were staying.

At 1:00 a.m., Hole’s publicist showed an expectant documentary film crew a text message from a member of Love’s traveling party saying simply that they wouldn’t make it to Proud Galleries because of the riot. Nash claims Love was planning to perform Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and “Celebrity Skin.” “It would have been the perfect Valentine’s Day gift! I guess we were just unlucky tonight!” Nash told Rolling Stone . (more…)

Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, John Mellencamp, Smokey Robinson, Jennifer Hudson, Will.i.am and more artists took the stage earlier this week in Washington, DC, for a Black History Month special titled “In Performance at the White House: A Celebration of Music from the Civil Rights Movement,” which aired last night on PBS. The concert was originally scheduled to take place on February 10th, but the threat of the northeast blizzard forced the production to film one day earlier. All of the performances are streaming now on the PBS Website .
Photo: Gripas/AFP/Getty

President Barack Obama opened the concert by detailing music’s pivotal role in the civil rights movement, quoting Congressman John Lewis by saying, “For in the darkest hour, songs fed our spirits, gave us hopes.” Bob Dylan, in his debut performance at the White House, contributed an intimate rendition of “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ” (watch it up top). While Dylan’s partner-in-protest and fellow Rolling Thunder Revue singer Joan Baez was also on the bill , the two did not perform together. Instead, Baez sang the protest anthem “We Shall Overcome.” (more…)

Photo:Truscello/WireImage

• Dr. Dre is suing the resurrected Death Row Records for rereleasing The Chronic without permission and failing to pay him royalties, the AP reports . “When it came to paying artist royalties and honoring limits on Dr. Dre recordings that could be released, the ‘new’ Death Row Records, to quote our client, ‘forgot about Dre,’ ” his attorney said in a hilarious statement.

• Video-sharing Website Veoh is shutting down and blaming a legal battle with Universal Records, which Veoh ultimately won, over whether users were encouraged to upload clips featuring copyrighted music, Billboard reports .
• Rage Against the Machine have scheduled their free U.K. show — a “thank you” gig for fans who supported their Christmas Number One victory — for June 6th at London’s Finsbury Park. Fans can register to score tickets here .
• Surf-rock pioneer Richard Delvy has died at age 67 after an long illness, writes the Hollywood Reporter . Delvy started out as a drummer for the Bel-Airs and went on to do movie and TV soundtrack work. He also owned the rights to the Surfaris’ iconic “Wipe Out.”

In January 2009 at a MacWorld conference, Apple revealed that six billion songs had been downloaded on iTunes. In July 2009, that figure reached eight billion, and as Apple’s industry-leading digital music service nears another major milestone, iTunes is holding a “Countdown to 10 Billion Songs” contest, with the customer who downloads that 10 billionth track set to receive a $10,000 iTunes gift card. Apple also offered up a $10,000 iTunes gift card to the winner in the race to one billion songs; Coldplay’s “Speed of Sound” was the track that brought iTunes to ten-digit downloads.

In anticipation of their ten-billionth download, Apple has put together a special download called the “Most Downloaded iTunes Songs of All Time,” which as the name suggests compiles the 25 most downloaded tracks in its seven-year history. (more…)

Photo: Marsland/WireImage

The music world’s connection to fashion designer Alexander McQueen, who died of an apparent suicide today, run deep. The British visionary, who was 40, was responsible for putting Lady Gaga, Björk, Madonna, Rihanna, David Bowie and more stars in stunning, architectural outfits that practically made headlines themselves. Look back at some of his most iconic rock-star work:

• Stars in Alexander McQueen: Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Bjork and More Wearing the Designer’s Work

Photo: Gologursky/WireImage

U2’s Larry Mullen Jr. will lend his voice to a pair of characters in the upcoming season of the Family Guy spin-off The Cleveland Show . According to the BBC , Mullen Jr. reached out to producers about guest voicing on the show’s second season, and producers were only too happy to oblige. The drummer will voice two characters: a mobster and a bad Elvis impersonator.

Springfield Rocks: check out photos of music’s biggest stars on The Simpsons .

“He came in and we hung out for a couple of hours. We just recorded him doing a couple of different parts and he was very funny,” Mike Henry, who voices Cleveland, told the BBC. “It’s a thrill for me to do all this. U2 is my favorite band of all time and David Lynch the film director plays a part on our show.” (In other Cleveland Show news, David Lynch will also guest voice!) As for recording Mullen Jr.’s part, Henry said, “He’s got his own studio so we just record it from Dublin. You don’t have to record at a certain time. It’s an easy gig and one that people like to do. It’s very cool to have all these people from different walks of entertainment participating in what we’re doing.” (more…)

Photo: Lovekin/WireImage
“I hate the snow. We can’t do it if it snows.”

Taking inspiration from a would-be blizzard, Lady Gaga helped kick off Fashion Week at amfAR’s New York gala to honor Elton John and benefit AIDS research Wednesday night as a woman in white — white cap, white hair, white jacket, white bra, white panties, white boots, and white pearls, powder, and paint all over her ensemble and exposed skin. But once she took the stage, her new look became part of her performance.

Get a look at Lady Gaga’s wildest outfits.

Sitting still as a statue, Gaga shared the top of her custom-designed piano with a mannequin, so that at first, they looked like a pair. Then, with slow deliberate movements, she held a teacup as if to drink from it, dropped it, and spat it out — but what came out of her mouth were even more pearls. Only then was she ready to straddle the piano bench to sing a tailored rendition of “Future Love.”

“Those were real pearls,” her designer Terence Koh said. “We wanted her to seem like a 2-D sculpture, and relate it to AIDS, in a happy, beautiful sense. She’s puking out beautiful things.” (more…)