There are a handful of new albums available today, including the latest psychedelic freakout from the Flaming Lips and Bob Dylan's Christmas album. But the one new release that guarantees a party is the latest from Bowling for Soup. Sorry for Partyin' features 14 tracks worth of good-time riffs, drink-along choruses and cheeky lyrics about beer and girls. And though the title of the album suggests that they've got a bit of regret, they want to reassure fans that they shouldn't take it seriously.

"It's more of a sarcastic thing," frontman Jaret Reddick told MTV News. "We're not actually sorry."

Indeed, the Grammy-nominated (for "Girl All the Bad Guys Want") group is unapologetic about most things. Take the video for "Wena," for example, which features one of Reddick's Facebook friends dressed as a giant phallus. "That song could be about a girl named Wena, or it could be about a dog," Reddick said. "[The girl in the costume] was a trooper, because it was 114 degrees in Texas that day, and we shot most of the video outside."

The band recently completed a promotional tour for Sorry for Partyin' that was sponsored by 7-Eleven. Though it kept prices down (all tickets were just $7.11), it didn't allow for the right kind of synergistic opportunities. "What would the Bowling for Soup Slurpee taste like?" Reddick wondered.

"Probably beer," offered bassist Chris Burney. "I've definitely mixed the Coke Slurpee with Jack Daniel's. Rum is good, too. It all has to do with booze, doesn't it?"

But despite their positive, anything-goes attitude, you'll never catch Bowling for Soup kicking back and starting a jam. "The other day, we were rehearsing and we ended up just messing around with this silly riff for five minutes," Reddick said. "We all stopped at the same time and said, 'Let's never do that again. That was miserable!'"

Next up for the band is another video (this time for "No Hablo Inglés") and a tour of the U.K. that kicks off this Saturday in Glasgow, Scotland. All the while, they'll keep partying. "We've perfected the beer float — that's vanilla ice cream and Miller Lite," explained Burney. "It's delicious."

There are only 13 days left until this year's "Gathering of the Juggalos," the annual festival thrown by horrorcore Detroit rappers Insane Clown Posse. This year's four day version begins on August 6 in Cave In Rock, Illinois, and features hours of music, DJ battles, professional wrestling, motocross, seminars and carnival rides. For those going (or for anybody contemplating attending this year), the group has unleashed a helpful 15 minute infomercial that runs through the highlights of the whole weekend.

As the video shows, this year's lineup has a few eyebrow-raisers. Obviously, the weekend is headlined by festival godfathers ICP, along with brothers-in-arms Twiztid, but the lineup is fleshed out by a who's who of "WTF?" guests: Coolio, Vanilla Ice, GWAR and Eminem cohort Bizarre will all be performing. (Bizarre is an especially strange case, considering the history that ICP has had with Slim Shady.) The comedy tent features sets from former MTV personality Pauly Shore, pro wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and "Good Times" star Jimmy "JJ" Walker.

But the one guest that really makes heads spin is Ice Cube. While Cube is no stranger to pandering (after all, he did make "Are We There Yet?"), it seems extremely odd that Cube would attach himself to ICP. While they've had a long, controversial career, they've never been considered members of the hip-hop community (which may be a reason they built their own scene that exists entirely outside of anything close to mainstream rap), and it's been suggested more than once that what they do is little more than hip-hop minstrelsy. Take a look at the Ice Cube from the early '90s and you'll see a guy not only hellbent on raging against whatever system dared to try to hold him down, but also railing to protect hip-hop (which is why he made the loudest, angriest music he could). Would the guy who cut "Bop Gun" want to hang with Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J? Difficult to call. (That being said, Cube isn't the first mainstream rapper to appear at the Gathering — he joins a list that includes Ice-T, Mack 10, Too $hort, Ying Yang Twins and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, among others.)

The craziest thing about that infomercial? The fact that it juxtaposes hardcore wrestling and violent rap music with stuff like waterslides and helicopter rides, proving that no matter how hardcore they are, sometimes clowns just want to have fun.

It's a relatively quiet week for new releases. There's Regina Spektor's follow-up to her breakout, a new album from the Mars Volta and the latest from Pete Yorn. But today also sees the release of A Casual Affair: The Best of Tonic.

This begs the question: Huh?

For anybody who didn't come of age in the Clinton years, Tonic had a big radio hit in 1996 with a tune called "If You Could Only See." After that, they basically fell off the map (save for a few appearances on various soundtracks to the "American Pie" movies). The set contains that single plus a bunch of other songs that never quite got there. Even if you allow that "You Wanted More" and "Open Up Your Eyes" were "hits," that's still only three tunes on a 15-track album. Three songs is an EP, not a $15 album.

But this isn't the most egregious example of a greatest-hits album given to an undeserving artist. What are the 10 that top it? Glad you asked! Check out the most inessential greatest-hits albums of all time, and enjoy the accompanying video playlist — chock full of useless goodness!

Painting the Corners: The Best of Fastball
Tracks: 16
Actual Band Hits: One definite ("The Way"), two or three depending on whether you think "Fire Escape" and "Out of my Head" were big enough.
Analysis: Here's an unfortunate case, as Fastball are actually a great band. But outside of their debut album (which spawned the three songs mentioned above), they never had much of an impact. Plus, Painting the Corners only covers two studio albums.

The Best of Blind Melon
Tracks: 19
Actual Band Hits: One ("No Rain")
Anlysis: Blind Melon certainly had potential as a band, as their follow-up album to the mega-hit "No Rain" remains underrated to this day. But the death of singer Shannon Hoon derailed whatever momentum they might have gotten by soldiering on.

Sweet Ride: The Best of Belly
Tracks: 18
Actual Band Hits: One ("Feed the Tree")
Analysis: Strike One: Even Belly's one hit (the semi-ubiquitous "Feed the Tree") is a bit of a stretch. Strike Two: The band only released two proper albums. Strike Three: Sweet Ride doesn't even contain the original version of the hit — "Feed the Tree" is a remix.
Read more...

On September 17, 1991, Guns N' Roses released Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, their last albums of original material to date (we're not counting 1993's The Spaghetti Incident? because it was a covers album ... and also because it's kind of lousy). There is a pretty good chance that you did not read early reviews of either Illusion album on a blog, because the World Wide Web was only one month old at the time. You probably didn't send your friend a text about how awesome "November Rain" was, because the first person-to-person SMS message wouldn't be made for more than two years. And you most certainly didn't import either album onto your iPod, because MP3 encoding was still nearly three years away (and the iPod another 10).

Suffice to say, the last time we had W. Axl Rose in our lives, the world was a very different place. Read more...

Former Death Row boss Suge Knight has a well-established reputation as a tough guy. From his supposed over-the-balcony, by-the-ankles dangling of Vanilla Ice to a beatdown he allegedly dealt in a hotel lobby the night Tupac Shakur was gunned down, the former UNLV defensive end always gave off a manly vibe. Why, then, is the gangsta-rap guru suing Kanye West over the "loss of use and enjoyment" of a 15-carat diamond stud earring?

Read the whole story of Suge Knight's lawsuit against Kanye West here.

· New Kids on the Block have just added a slew of new North American dates. Joey!!!

· Portland, Oregon, officials have banned shaving lines into your eyebrows -- as inspired by the always (read: never) classy Soulja Boy -- because of alleged gang associations.

· Vanilla Ice won’t be charged with domestic battery after all: his wife took it back and said there was no physical confrontation.

· Remember how we told you Mya was going to make her sort of dubious Broadway debut in “Chicago”? Guess not: poor girl broke her foot.

· The Rihanna-Chris Brown rumors refuse to die.

· Vanilla Ice is in jail on charges of domestic violence.

· This concert is actually happening.

· A beauty queen is suing the Miss USA pageant for favoring more “anglo-looking” contestants.

· Could a Britney Spears reality show be in the works? Gack.