A "secret Britney video" is making the rounds on the Interwebs in advance of the pop star's appearance on this weekend's VMAs. In the clip, an enthusiastic Brit rehearses a dance routine to a previously unreleased song. Publicity stunt or genuine covert ops? You be the judge.

In great anticipation of this year's New York City Comic-Con, we at Spinner would like to celebrate the perpetually strengthening bridge between music and comics. From Kiss and Danzig to Ryan Adams and Belle and Sebastian, find out the curious connections between the increasingly above-ground world of graphic novels and the equally colorful musicians who adore them ... and whom we love because of it, really.

Flip through our gallery of musicians and discover their involvement with the comic book universe after the jump.

On 'Lost,' little is known about Michael Emerson's sphinxlike character, Benjamin Linus. Once simply the ruthless and manipulative leader of the island's Others, viewers now aren't sure what to think of the man who warns against this season's impending rescue. Villian? Hero? Victim? Prophet? Only time will tell.

What we do know about Emerson is that he is an urbane, music-loving New Yorker who prefers the crossword to the surfboard while he's on location in Hawaii. "I'm like Woody Allen in the jungle," he told Jimmy Kimmel.

Spinner's spies have spotted him at a few rock shows around town including last summer's Television reunion at Central Park. Most recently, we spotted him at Town Hall, enjoying the lovely melodies and stage banter from the Magnetic Fields alongside wife and fellow actress Carrie Preston, who also played his mother on 'Lost' -- a situation he called a "Freudian nightmare."

Though guitar-like instruments can be traced back as far as 2000 B.C., it was the advent of George Beauchamp's electric guitar in 1936 that changed the face of rock 'n' roll. Nowadays, it's the individual models and the people who play them that are making news.

Blender recently compiled a list of the 28 Most Recognizable Guitars, which includes Dave Grohl's lucite model, Michael Anthony's homage to Jack Daniels, Ace Frehley's laser-shooting six-string and B.B. King's "Lucille" among others.

The list runs the gamut of rock musicians and their trusty instruments, and will appeal to everyone from the classically trained to those who are simply attached to their virtual 'Guitar Hero' Flying V.

As obsessed, cumpulsive music freaks, we at the DL can respect the "more is more" mentality of music portability. You never know when you'll need that one song to perfectly match your mood. But have we gone too far? Seriously, 80 gigs of music? Do we even know that the hell is on our iPods at this point? Say we stopped you on the street and played a song at random on your iPod. Could you name the song? The artist? The album? The DL posse hit the streets of L.A. to find out.

Former 'American Idol' contestants Carrie Underwood and Chris Daughtry, with his band, Daughtry, were the big winners at Sunday night's American Music Awards, each walking away with three awards. Among the evening's other winners were Beyonce, T.I., Justin Timberlake, Rascal Flatts, Tim McGraw and Rihanna, who beat out 'Idol' winner Fantasia to win the award for Favorite Female Soul/R&B Artist.

Relive the night's best and worst moments, fashion and appearances with our American Music Awards photo gallery, after the jump.

Two of music's most outspoken women just keep on throwing punches at each other. Courtney Love vehemently denies Sharon Osbourne's claims that she introduced Osbourne's son, Jack, to OxyContin. "I never did that. I would never give drugs to a teenager. F--- you, Sharon -- as if I would ever give drugs to a teenager," Love said last week in London.

Today, Osbourne fired back, telling the New York Daily News, "I'm glad she doesn't like me. I only pity her. She's a virus. I don't want her anywhere near people I love. The cold, hard fact is she's a has-been."

In September, Osbourne told Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper, "I will never have time for Courtney Love. She was the first person to give my son Jack the prescription drug OxyContin. There's not a shadow of doubt in my mind about that."

Britain's sharp suited art rockers Art Brut will make their second ever appearance on the late night American television circuit on 'Late Night With Conan O'Brien,' tonight. The band, fronted by the tall and speedy speaker (when he's not performing) Eddie Argos, will tackle one of the cuts from their second album, 'It's a Bit Complicated,' rather confidently, thanks to their one and only previous U.S. network run.

"I was really scared at 'Jimmy Kimmel,'" Argos tells Spinner of that first stateside TV gig, over a year ago. "I don't know why. That was good practice though, so ['Conan'] should be good."

Two of the songs from the group's latest release they might tackle on 'Conan' are 'I Will Survive' or 'Pump Up the Volume.' Readers shouldn't be fooled though. Despite their familiar titles, they are Art Brut originals. "It was accidental with 'I Will Survive,'" Argos says of the tune's name. "My manager called me up and said, 'You do realize you've just written a song called 'I Will Survive!' I'd forgotten about the Gloria Gaynor one."

In the final episode ever, Tony Soprano advised Paulie Walnuts (and, by proxy, us) to "enjoy the music" emanating from their car radio. And while many fans have been left scratching their heads due to the ambiguous ending of this ultimate episode of 'The Sopranos,' what it withheld in the script it revealed in spades musically.

As in the entire 86-episode run of the series, the series finale's songs were strategically placed to set scenes, offer commentary and even serve as misdirection or comic relief -- from a tense Tony and Paulie enjoying the music of Randy and the Rainbows' 1963 oldie 'Denise' in the aforementioned scene, to Paulie being spooked by the crew's new feline mascot to the tune of 'Pretty Little Angel Eyes' by Curtis Lee. The recently politicized youngsters A.J. and Rhiannon discover Bob Dylan -- as well as each other -- while listening to his 'It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding' before their SUV goes up in flames.

HBO's 'The Sopranos' was whacked into television history on the June 10 series finale. Little Steven Van Zandt's character, Silvio Dante, took a 50 Cent-worthy number of bullets from a rival New York mob hitman in the second-to-last episode, and in the controversial finale, Tony said his goodbyes to his comatose consigliere.

"I'm going to miss 'The Sopranos,'" he tells Spinner. "It's really been a wonderful meditation for me to be somebody else a couple of days a week. It's very, very rewarding that way."