Well, here we are — the end of another calendar year, and time to see what folks have been reading on Slicing Up Eyeballs over the past 12 months. The verdict? A lot of Nirvana, U2, Pixies, Joy Division and The Cure, each of which scored multiple headlines in the year’s Top 20 list.

Given that it’s Jim Reid’s birthday today — he’s 50 — we turn this installment of Vintage Video over to The Jesus and Mary Chain, featuring full video of the band’s infamous Sept. 9, 1985, performance at Camden’s Electric Ballroom. The Mary Chain played a 6-song, 20-minute, feedback-drenched set, then left the stage.

Morrissey this week ranked his back catalog in a list that’s topped by his last three solo records — ‘Years of Refusal,’ ‘Ringleader of the Tormentors’ and ‘You Are the Quarry’ — and that relegates three latter-day works by The Smiths to Nos. 5 through 7.

They Might Be Giants will embark on a 22-date U.S. tour early next year, a trek that includes a special 30th anniversary concert in Los Angeles next month that will find the band performing its sophomore album ‘Lincoln’ in its entirety. The band will perform the 1988 album at one other show, in Atlanta.

This week’s installment of Slicing Up Eyeballs on Strangeways Radio featured some of the best new music of 2011, with selections from Paul Weller, Wire, The Godfathers, R.E.M., The Feelies, Peter Murphy, The Cure’s Robert Smith, Duran Duran, The Primitives and more.

Beggars Archive will reissue the Cocteau Twins’ 18-track compilation ‘Stars and Topsoil: A Collection (1982-1990)’ — originally released by 4AD in 2000 and spanning 1982 debut ‘Garlands’ through 1990’s ‘Iceblink Luck’ EP — in the U.K. early next year on a 2LP set on white vinyl.

We’re back with our fourth and final installment of Rhino Records’ ‘Just Can’t Get Enough – The ’80s’ playlist on Spotify, this time featuring selections by The Cure, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, The Gun Club, Gary Numan, The Dream Syndicate, The Fall, Hoodoo Gurus, Joy Division and more.

Kraftwerk will make a rare appearance on these shores when the group joins the newly reunited New Order at the electro-centric Ultra Music Festival in Miami next March as part of the first phase of the three-day fest’s lineup, which also includes Tiesto, Justice, FatBoy Slim, M83 and David Guetta.

This week’s new releases include the new soundtrack for ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,’ courtesy of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, plus a box set of the first five Cure albums, a reissue of David Bowie’s ‘Heathen’ on vinyl and a collection of early Cramps singles.

Merry Christmas from us here at Slicing Up Eyeballs to you — wherever you may be this fine Dec. 25. And if you partake in other holidays, or none in particular, hope you’re having a wonderful day, too. We’ll leave you with this classic video featuring a tall Jewish man issuing a heartfelt plea for peace on Jesus’ birthday.

For the second straight year, The Ocean Blue has posted a free Christmas single, once again pairing the band’s David Schelzel with Don Peris of The Innocence Mission. This year, the pair recorded a cover of ‘Walking on Air,’ from the 1982 animated adaptation of the children’s book ‘The Snowman.’

The reunited New Order — featuring keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, but not bassist Peter Hook — is releasing a live recording of its full 90-minute performance two weeks ago at London’s Troxy. The concert is being released as ‘Live at The London Troxy — 10th December 2011’ in both a 2CD set and a 320kbps MP3 download.

As 2011 quickly winds to an end, we’re happy to roll out our fourth and final days’ worth of results from our second-annual Slicing Up Eyeballs Readers Poll, in which nearly 500 of you cast ballots for your favorite music of the year. Today, we bring you the big one: The best albums of 2011.