Here it is, your weekly wrap up of everything that went down in the music world.  See you next week!

• The NYTimes pointed me to some humor about the blues.
• True Life: MTV's president get's Made into an ex-employee.  Next!
• QTrax, the DRM-free, major label approved downloading service, turned out to be nothing but an illusion. 
• Wondering who'll be playing at SXSW?  Pretty much everyone.
• This has to be a joke, right?  A Fight Club musical?
• It appears as if Ms. Winehouse will not be joining us for the Grammys this year, despite having a ton of nominations. 

And finally, to silence everyone who ever said, "Why don't these kids spend time learning real guitar instead of playing Guitar Hero?" Gametank gives us 'Guitar Rising'.  Think Guitar Hero but with a real guitar. 

Have a great weekend, everyone!

The biggest stories from the music, summed up here in incredibly insightful and clever sentences. 

• QTrax is in a whole mess of trouble. P2P still the industry's biggest foe, apparently. 
• The "Juno" soundtrack is HUGE!
• Joining the illustrious likes of Gary Larson, Roy Orbison has a bug named after him.
• Limewire discovers the source of Vampire Weekend's band name.
• RIP Tower Records   
• Could digital watermarking be the true death of DRM?
• UK rockers The Futureheads cast off their old label and up n' start their own.  Nice.

The biggest stories from the music world in one neat little list!  What more could you ask for?

• There won't be an Oscar nom for the soundtrack to There Will Be Blood. 
• The WGA won't picket the Grammy's because of similar problems faced by all creators. 
• There really is a niche social networking site for every niche now...
• Last.fm is changing business models.
• They tried to make her go to rehab, and succeeded.
• DRM-free may not be as good as we all think it might be.  

Oh, by the way, Hey There, Delilah...for real.

Let's take a look at the week's biggest musical stories, shall we?

• EMI has had some troubles, to say the least.
• Courtney Love has requested that Ryan Gosling play the late Kurt Cobain in the Nirvana movie, Heavier Than Heaven.
• The candidates might want to pay more attention to their campaign song choices. 
• Someone thinks CDs aren't dead...
• "American Idol," not off to the greatest start this year. Strange.

Music never sleeps and neither does music news.  Here is what you may or may not have missed this past week. 

• The Economist weighs in on the last year in music with regards to the label downfall.  The prognosis?  Things ain't looking great for the big four. 
• Radiohead advertises "In Rainbows" all over the place - not on Indaba though :( ...yet.
• DRM is dead!  Amazon gets Sony BMG to sign up and sell their songs DRM-free, making it the first place to get tunes from all four labels without protection. 
• MTV is about to start posting videos to a bunch of websites.  Too bad people have been posting them on YouTube for years now anyway. 
• You can finally exhale, Avril Lavigne has settled her plagiarism lawsuit.

Another week has passed and another couple million things have happened in the world of music.  However, in the interest of finishing reading this post before next week has come and gone, let's just focus on the few most relevant, shall we?  So, without further ado, this week...

• Mashable puts the RIAA on death watch for 2008 as well as speculating about the death of Napster.  At least they're not speculating about the death of famous singers, as some sites are.
• Jay-Z and Apple are starting a record label together.  This comes just after Hova stepped down as president of Def Jam records.
• Oprah stumping for Obama is old news.  The new news? Bright Eyes stumping for Obama.  He could totally drum up votes from his fans if voting weren't so corporate or whatever.
• People will do almost anything for Hannah Montana tickets.
• Universal Music Group says 'peace out' to iLike in what many of my Facebook friends are calling, "Ugh, so lame."

And finally,

GO VOTE ON OUR NEW YEARS CONTEST!

Hey guys, here are a few quick stories to digest over the weekend. 

• MTV employees are planning a walkout on Monday afternoon!  If you've always dreamed of hosting TRL this could be your chance.  Just casually walk in while everyone else is walking out, grab a mic and jump in front of the camera!  It's that easy.  In all seriousness, MTV freelancers are planning a walk out due to changes in their benefits plan it appears.  Merry Christmas?
• The Grammy nominations are out with Kanye West and AMy Winehouse leading the pack.  Give the full list a look at Grammy.com.
• The Redwalls sign up to release an album with a student-run label?  True.  When Capital records went bust The Redwalls migrated to Mad Dragon, a label run by students at Drexel University.  Strange...
• Ticket scalping is almost legal and musicians, labels and venues want in on those profits.
  
• Something happened to my favorite hip music blog, Stereogum, but I don't know exactly what.  Maybe someone with an MBA can explain it to me?