EOIN BUTLER'S guide to downloads, singles and free audiostreams

WILL.I.AM

Reach for the Stars(Mars Edition) Interscope

The machines are turning on us. Three-hundred-and-fifty- million miles from Earth, and clearly doing wonders for the planet's reputation in the Solar System, the Mars Curiosity Rover this week chose Will.i.am's latest abomination as the first piece of music to be broadcast from the surface of the Red Planet. In space, no one can hear us cringe.

BOB DYLAN

Duquesne WhistleColumbia

Dylan’s new album (almost) shares a title with Shakespeare’s final play. Therefore, speculation has abounded that the singer intends the record to be his last. The theory rests on two unlikely presumptions. Firstly, that Dylan would seek to compare his own back catalogue to that of the greatest writer in the English language. Secondly, that he would wish to reward those obsessive fans he despises by planting a giant Treasure Hunt-style clue on the spine of his latest CD. No, I suspect the old troubadour will continue along his way, with a song in his heart and a frog in his throat, just a little while longer yet.

CAT POWER

CherokeeMatador

“If I die before my time,” begs Chan Marshall on the opening track to her (supposedly) light and breezy Sun album. “Bury me upside down.” I can just imagine an undertaker’s reaction to those instructions: These artistic types, ach, so impractical . . .

GRIMES

Genesis4AD

If you’re headed to the Electric Picnic this weekend, here’s one of the artists you won’t want to miss. Claire Boucher’s bizarre new music video looks like a homage to Sean Connery’s sci-fi masterpiece Zardoz. But the singer, who directed it herself, insists it was inspired by her own Catholic upbringing. Clearly, I wasn’t paying enough attention during Catechism.