While this week’s installment of ‘Dark Wave’ on Sirius XM featured a host of all-too-usual suspects (The Cure’s ‘Other Voices,’ Public Image Ltd.’s ‘Rise,’ The Sisters of Mercy’s ‘Lucretia, My Reflection’), there were, as always, some pleasant surprises, including ‘Bird Mad Girl’ from the aforementioned Cure, a dash of the always-welcome Chameleons and even a Chris Connelly track.

The short career of enigmatic Liverpool indie-pop act The La’s will be celebrated this spring with Callin’ All, a four-disc, 91-track box set that compiles singles, b-sides, unreleased outtakes and live material — and no fewer than six versions of ‘There She Goes,’ the band’s signature tune.

Originally due out Feb. 16, the much-anticipated deluxe 3CD edition of The Cure’s 1989 masterpiece, ‘Disintegration,’ has been delayed again — this time until May.

This week’s new releases include ‘Almost Alice,’ the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ soundtrack with a rare solo track from The Cure’s Robert Smith, plus a new Bomb the Bass album and a new 2CD best-of from The Stranglers.

This latest installment of Vintage Video again comes from our old stash of VHS tapes: It’s the entire Dec. 23, 1990, episode of MTV’s ‘120 Minutes,’ hosted by Robert Smith, who offers a retrospective of The Cure’s videos to promote the release of the band’s post-’Disintegration’ remix disc ‘Mixed Up.’

To show our support for 1st Wave’s Sunday night ‘Dark Wave’ show — and the idea that Sirius XM should dig deeper all the time, not just once a week — tonight we begin posting each week’s playlist.

Molly Ringwald tells Vanity Fair that the late John Hughes started work on a script based on The Cure’s 1983 single “The Lovecats” — and even assembled a hypothetical soundtrack for the film — after finishing “The Breakfast Club.”

It’s not out until next month, but — thanks to Stereogum — you can now hear Robert Smith of The Cure covering “Very Good Advice” from Disney’s original “Alice in Wonderland,” which the iconic frontman has recorded for Tim Burton’s new live-action take on the Lewis Carroll classic.

Is Steve Jobs a big fan of The Cure? Someone at Apple apparently is, since the company used an piano-based cover of the band’s 1985 single “Inbetween Days” — which attentive Slicing Up Eyeballs readers now report is performed by Ben Folds — to soundtrack its eight-minute promo video for the just unveiled iPad tablet computer. Wonder whether Robert Smith will make a pretty penny in royalties off this one?

Last week saw the release Turn Ons, the debut album from The Hot Rats, aka Gaz Coombes and Danny Goffey of Brit pop-rockers Supergrass. We’d be remiss for not mentioning this album, since a.) Supergrass is a superb band, and, b.) the record features covers by the likes of Gang of Four, Squeeze, Elvis Costello, Roxy Music and The Cure. In the case of that last act, check out the clip above to see the Hot Rats perform a fuzzed-out version of Robert Smith and Co.’s 1983 single “The Lovecats” at last year’s Glastonbury Festival. It’s the grooviest thing.