Rock group Kings Of Leon, chart duo Rizzle Kicks and composer Ludovico Einaudi are among the latest headline acts added to this year's iTunes Festival.

For the belligerently preppy Vampire Weekend and their music, which oscillates around an idea of summer-house north-eastern America, an old cinema in the heart of London's east-end might not seem a most natural alighting point for the band’s new album.

Electric Soft Parade

Album two from the duo comprised of Malawi's Esau Mwamwaya and London-based producer Johan Hugo and it's not getting any easier to describe their sound.

NYC indie-poppers Fun may be riding high off hit single "We Are Young", but, how long can they evade the trade descriptions act? 

When Paul Simon released Graceland in 1986, who would have thought his mixture of wistful pop and African sounds would endure across generations? Harriet Walker salutes a political and cultural classic

The brief, cacophonous No Wave scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s in New York didn't bequeath us many bands with vast back catalogues.

So many negative noises have been made about Angles from critics and the band (guitarist Nick Valensi admitted "I feel like we have a better album in us"), that its actually-not-badness comes as a pleasant surprise.

In a troubled 2010, indie acts fromThe Drums to Best Coast looked to a hazier, lazier past for solace, says Gillian Orr

Vampires out of New York

The party conferences are over for another year, but were you paying attention? Our quiz sorts the political nerds from the know-nothings (answers at the bottom of the page)

It has helped a group of teenage actors become some of the hottest young stars in Hollywood, made a multi-millionaire of its author, and turned a small town near Seattle into one of America's hottest tourist destinations. Now the Twilight franchise is striking a blow for the fortunes of a cash-strapped New York hand model.

You might expect Avril Lavigne to have a fashion sideline – but Beth Ditto and Pete Doherty? It's all very wrong, says Gillian Orr