For their first performance in the States since 2008, speculation abounds that the Who will be playing the halftime show at Super Bowl ’10, to take their place among such musical elite as Paul McCartney, Tom Petty, the Rolling Stones, and, uh, Janet Jackson. (Billboard)

Peter Gabriel will be releasing a covers album this coming spring, doing renditions of songs by artists including Bon Iver, Regina Spektor, Elbow, and Lou Reed. Awesome. (CD Insight)

Oh, how we are  starting to really loathe Ticketmaster. Much like what happened with those Springsteen ticket sales some months back (they were accused of holding out tickets for their secondary seller, TicketNow), the giant corporation is being confronted with allegations that a similar situation has arisen with Taylor Swift and Keith Urban tickets. (TicketNews)

The FCC may very well be relaxing media ownership rules come 2010, like by permitting a TV station and newspaper to be under the same ownership or allowing one entity to own multiple TV stations in the same market. This could be good news for struggling media outlets. (Forbes)

Andrew Bird has been quite busy of late. He’s doing a film score, working on an art installation, and doing a track for the Muppets tribute album Muppets Revisited. (Pitchfork)

Read more news after the jump.

Neil Young is being deemed Person of the Year, and is being celebrated during the upcoming Grammy Week with a tribute show, with many, many musicians taking part in honoring him. (Daily Swarm)

The guitarist/keyboard for recently lauded band the xx has officially left the band. The group plans to carry on and tour as a trio, for now. (Strange Glue)

1970s soft-rock icons, Carole King and James Taylor, have announced an upcoming “Troubadour Reunion World Tour.” (JamBase)

Fucked Up has got some cool plans in the works, some of which involve King Khan and NOFX. (Punk News)