Photo by Brooke Shunatona

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the weekend. Let’s be honest, you won’t be spending that down time on work you probably should. And let’s be even more honest, you won’t even get out of your pajamas one of those days. If you’re like me, you’ve been too busy to keep up on the news (except for news about the Kardashians; that stuff always finds its way to me, unfortunately). So why spend your time being productive when you can spend countless mind-numbing hours on the Internet catching up on what you’ve missed? After all, you’ve earned it.

With that said, here are the highlights of this week in music:

New album announcements

• Yoko Ono is teaming up with Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth for a collaborative album out on Sept. 25 according to SPIN.
• Brandy’s back with album Two Eleven, a nod to her birthdate and the day Whitney Houston died. And yes, there will be a duet with Monica for “The Boy is Mine” 2.0 called “It All Belongs to Me.”
• Kanye West’s crew, G.O.O.D. is set to release Cruel Summer on Aug. 7. Kanye certainly is the guy you love to hate. Or most likely, hate to love.
• For the new Animal Collective album, expect nothing like the last. If it ain’t broke, why fix it?

New song releases

• You knew it was coming. Here is the follow-up to Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe,” a collaboration with Owl City for the song “Good Time.”
• After a long seven years, the String Cheese Incident is back with the feel-good song “Can’t Wait Another Day.” Makes me hungry.
• Your favorite color and number have returned, but this time without Jagger. Maroon 5 taps into their reggae side with the new track, “One More Night.” Check out Voxmagazine.com next week for the album review!

New music videos

• Apparently Katy Perry wrote the new song “Wide Awake” for her movie (a shameless little self-promotion) set to release on July 5. But if you want to see her go crazy and punch a guy who is obviously meant to be ex-husband, Russell Brand, here you go.
• Melanie Fiona came to perform at Jesse Hall back in April, and if you missed it, well, you missed out. But don’t fret, here’s her new music video with J. Cole for the song, “This Time.”
• Don’t pretend like you didn’t watch The OC before the catastrophic fourth season. Well, Mischa Barton finally makes that big debut she was hoping for after leaving the show in this music video cameo for Noel Gallagher.
• Speaking of old TV shows, Even Stevens, anyone? Shia Labeouf sheds a lot more than his Mickey Mouse image (is there even a wholesome Disney image anymore?) in this music video for the Icelandic band Sigur Ros’ song “Fjögur Píanó.”
• In the spirit of this summer’s Olympic Games, Mark Ronson (famous for Amy Winehouse’s album, Back to Black) teamed with Katy B to create the one-of-a-kind theme song “Anywhere in the World.” No really, the background music is made of the noises of competing Olympic athletes.

Music in Columbia

• The progressive string band Punch Brothers will be performing on Oct. 9 at The Blue Note. Tickets go on sale June 22.
• American rock band Black Stone Cherry will perform on Aug. 30 at The Blue Note. Tickets go on sale June 22.
• If you ever do decide to get out of those pajamas this weekend, check out some shows on the Vox calendar.