In the 23 years that the Alternative chart has been around, only two other songs have ever held the top spot in both the dance and the alternative charts: New Order’s “Regret” in 1993, and U2’s “Discotheque” in 1997.

If you’re wondering how a rock-based song not only made it onto but topped a dance chart, there’s a pretty simple explanation: programmers of dance stations have practically had to at least consider playing “Somebody That I Used to Know” because it’s so popular, and some remixes have come out that eliminate the xylophone bits, because let’s face it, xylophones don’t exactly fill dance floors.

They got back together to play four songs at a benefit this past January, and drummer Matt Sorum said that not only was it cool to play with Scott again, but that he and Scott “worked out some stuff backstage.”

As for whether Scott might rejoin, Matt said that they’ll see what happens, but nothing’s been discussed, so he doesn’t want to speak out of turn.

More recently, Scott revealed that the band has given him a couple of songs, that he, bassist Duff McKagan, and guitarist Dave Kushner are getting together for a songwriting session very soon, and after Slash does a bit of his own touring, Velvet Revolver will do some shows in late summer/early fall.

Scott added that everyone’s “grown a lot” and they’ve “been able to put egos and differences and old conflicts aside, which is cool.”

No one was more surprised to hear this news than Slash, who reacted by saying that “Scott’s out of his mind” and that he (Slash) has “absolutely no intention of going back to that.”

Slash’s last words on the subject were “I’m on tour all year. I’ll call Duff—but I seriously doubt it,” and “we have no intention of going backwards.”

As eager fans are well aware, the band have been taking their time recording in order to make sure it’s good enough, and frontman Chris Cornell says that they’re now “pretty much done with everything.”

As for the release date, Chris offers “I would say September, but I’m just guessing October.”

Lars wouldn’t reveal what the topic of contention was, but he did say that when he took Lou on regarding Lou’s attitude about something, Lou got “hot and bothered” and challenged Lars to a street fight.

“A daunting proposition,” as Lars puts it, since Lou’s “an expert in martial arts, and is never too far from a sword.”

How was it resolved? Well, Lars says that the good thing about him is that he “can do the hundred-metre dash faster than most 48-year-old musicians.”

No matter how badly Lou would have beaten Lars, it probably couldn’t have compared to the critical beating Lou and Metallica took once Lulu was released.

Back in 1997, two years after Mad Season released their only album and played their final shows, Mike, Barrett, and John recorded a dozen instrumental tracks. They couldn’t get Layne to sing on them because he returned to Alice in Chains, and then John died in 1999, followed by Layne in 2002, which caused Mike to rename the project “Disinformation.”

Mike now says that they’re trying to find singers of Layne’s caliber to complete the tracks, though, and he also wants to rerelease the band’s first album, Above, and to put out a live Mad Season album.

Judging by their side projects, you’d think that Pearl Jam members just aren’t busy enough with their main gig.

Rock Hall organizers told Jack that they were only inducting musicians that had played on more than one album, and Chili Peppers management said that it’s the Rock Hall’s policy, not the band’s decision… but Jack isn’t buying it.

He thinks that explanation is a politically correct way of omitting him and Dave for reasons that are probably the band’s own.

Jack says that it’s really painful to watch all this celebrating and to be excluded, and while he admits that his time in the band was difficult for everybody, he soldiered on to try to make it work, and now he feels he’s being dishonoured.

Here are a few examples of reactions from musicians in the rock world:

Radiohead vocalist Thom Yorke said that when his band was just starting out, they looked up to the Beastie Boys, and the Tibetan Freedom Concerts that Adam started back in 1996 inspired him, and the way that Adam conducted himself impressed him.

Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave said that MCA’s humour, talent, and gentle soul are just irreplaceable.

At the Red Hot Chili Peppers show in Newark on May 4th, singer Anthony Kiedis, wearing a homemade “MCA” t-shirt, said, “We lost a good man today. He left the world a lot of beauty. I hope you carry that flame. Adam was for real,” and the band used two instrumental Beastie Boys covers as song intros.

Coldplay’s set at a concert in LA included a ballad-like version of the Beasties’ “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!).”

On May 6th, Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz took to the Beastie Boys’ blog to say the following:

“as you can imagine, shit is just fkd up right now. but i wanna say thank you to all our friends and family (which are kinda one in the same) for all the love and support. i’m glad to know that all the love that Yauch has put out into the world is coming right back at him. thank you.”

Matt, who drummed for the band from 1990 to 1997, says that he’s had talks with “a couple of really big people” about writing a screenplay for a film that will tell the GN’R story, and that “the only problem with that is figuring out how to work out the music situation.”

Matt doesn’t think that rock and roll movies have ever been done right, with the exception of the 1991 movie, “The Doors,” and the 2005 Johnny Cash biopic, “Walk the Line.”

Now, the big question: what actor out there can pull off the casual yet hard rocking top hat look?

While making their last two albums, Minutes to Midnight and A Thousand Suns, they dismissed anything that had that “Linkin Park sound,” but according to vocalist Chester Bennington, they now have the skills and the tools to “take elements of that, reinvent the vibe, and make it now and fresh.”

Vocalist and co-producer Mike Shinoda has said that the new record has captured a feeling that they haven’t gone after in many years, and it takes the band back to their roots, but they didn’t get back to their old ways.

We’ll hear how Linkin Park has progressed again when Living Things comes out on June 26th.

On any given day, there are five covers or parodies or remixes of “Somebody That I Used to Know” in his inbox, and while he does like the fact that people are still discovering it, he sometimes feels like saying to people, “come on guys, there are other songs out there.”

As for whether or not he can follow up “Somebody That I used to Know” with something as successful, Gotye says that he doesn’t know whether he can or whether he wants to.