Mark Linkous, also known as Sparklehorse, shot himself in the heart on Saturday in Knoxville, Tennessee, taking his own life.

Linkous recently collaborated with Danger Mouse on Dark Night of the Soul, one of the best records of last year. Above, the bittersweet “Don’t Take My Sunshine Away” sort of takes on a new meaning - from one of my favorite albums of the last decade, 2006’s Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain. Linkous struggled with depression and drug addiction, two factors that delayed that record for many years. He was 47.

R.I.P. Mark. Your talent will be missed.

According to Drizzy (last name: Ever, first name: Greatest) Drake’s official blog, he will be dropping the new single entitled “Over” tonight at midnight from his upcoming major label debut, Thank Me Later. Keep an eye on October’s Very Own and be sure to check back tomorrow for the download on My Poproks. This is the end of the blog post.

Behold, MGMT’s cover art for their upcoming sophomore album, Congratulations. Some thoughts on this? Here are the facts:

-It’s colorful
-it’s retro?
-it was done by this guy
-[insert 90's video game reference here]
-Dude has, I dunno, 8 eye balls?

This cover…well, It’s hideous, but It’s MGMT. What did you expect? The internets seems pretty up in arms about this, but really, it’s not much weirder than those outfits on the Oracular Spectacular cover. As Andrew Vanwyngarden told SPIN last month, the biggest influences for this record were psychedelic drugs and surfing. So, no surprises here.

MGMT claim to not be releasing any singles for the album (huh?), and are offering up limited edition scratch off covers and custom metal coins (huh??!). Whatever, guys. If it’s half as good as the debut, I don’t care.

Congratulations is due April 13.

Radiohead is officially [certified and verified accountness] on Twitter. 15,513 followers in one day. 1 Tweet: Testing the Twitter. I will be Tweeting @Radiohead daily.

San Diego’s The Soft Pack (formally The Muslims/formally a Poproks Songoftheday post) are celebrating the release of their first official full length with a string of 10 shows in the Los Angeles area tomorrow (I have my eye on 8pm @ Vacation Vinyl). The self titled record (due February 2) was recorded in NYC with Eli Janney of Girls Vs. Boys, and features 10 new tracks (except 2008’s “Parasites”). The video for the albums first single, “Answer For Yourself,” is above.

Visit their site for the locations of the 10 stops on tomorrow’s record release celebration.

Secret Beach Show = fun.

Some footage of Wyclef Jean in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, calling the situation on the ground there “apocalyptic,” and urging people to text 501501 to automatically donate $5 to his foundation, Yele Haiti. His voice is a bit shaky, and this is a little hard to watch, but as the reporter noted, this is equivalent to Bruce Springsteen picking up bodies in the US. It’s pretty incredible.

As of a few hours ago, they were up to $2 million in donations.

R.I.P. Jay Reatard.

Above, the cover art for Nas and Damian Marley’s Distant Relatives collaboration, due in early March 2010. This does, indeed, look epic. Tracklisting at OS.

Kanye, if any other invention ever wins a Best Invention Award, I give you permission to jump on stage and rip that sh*t right out of their hands.

Above, Snoop Dogg offers his voice to GPS, “adding some flavor” to the driving directions tool. Guessing this is a “Rated G” version, as there is also an uncensored one that has “tons of swearing and is hardly understandable” (according to JustJared). I want that one. You can download the Snoop voice at www.VoiceSkins.com for TomTom GPS systems.

Make a right. Yeah, just like that.

Four albums in, Athlete (or as I have often referred to them, the poor man’s Coldplay) have announced a ‘Best of’ compilation for March 2010 entitled, Wires: The Best of Athlete. I’m amused by the title, as the track “Wires” from 2005’s Tourist is by far the ‘best of Athlete.’ I never did come around to any of the band’s other records (truth be told, I gave up after Beyond the Neighbourhood), but I’m intrigued to say hi to the best of their discography as listed below.

“Wires,” written about the premature birth of lead singer Joel Pott’s daughter, would have definitely appeared on my Best of 2000’s list if it had been a top 100. Sorry, I <3 sappy, sentimental British rock anthems.

Wires: The Best of Athlete
1. El Salvador
2. Beautiful
3. You Got The Style
4. Wires
5. Half Light
6. Westside
7. Vehicles And Animals
8. Tourist
9. Hurricane
10. Outsiders, The
11. Stand In The Sun
12. Twenty Four Hours
13. I Love
14. Tokyo
15. Best Not To Think About It
16. Plain English