M.I.A.'s Super Bowl Bird-Flip, Earl Sweatshirt's Return and the Juno Nominations Lead This Week's News Roundup

BY Brock ThiessenPublished Feb 11, 2012

With another week of news gathering officially in the bag, we're here with our news roundup. This week we have everything from highly publicized middle fingers, to a "missing" rapper's long-awaited return, to some high-profile Canadian music awards nominations. Have a look at what went down this week below.

First off, like it or not, M.I.A. sparked a whole bunch of controversy after giving the Super Bowl the finger during the recent halftime show with Madonna and Nicki Minaj. Sure, in some ways, the whole thing seems a bit silly, but more than a few higher-ups are taking the incident mighty seriously. Even Madge herself weighed in on the whole thing, calling the act a "teenager, irrelevant thing to do."

There was also some more drama concerning the Black Sabbath reunion following Bill Ward saying that he would not likely partake in the reformation after being given a supposedly "unsignable" contract. Now many Sabbath fans are rallying behind the drummer hoping the two sides can come to terms. And at long last, after being released from a Samoan juvenile facility, long-lost Odd Future MC Earl Sweatshirt returned home to L.A., dropping a new track to prove he's truly back.

In Canadian music news, we had the Juno nominations being announced, Spencer Krug's Moonface announcing a new LP, You Say Party member Stephen O'Shea launching the new project Real Boys, and PS I Love returning with their sophomore effort.

Finally, this week also saw Nile Rodgers linking up with Daft Punk, former Smashing Pumpkin James Iha returning with a new solo effort and Lamb of God reflecting on their Resolution.

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