Posted 2/16/12
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Posted 2/7/12 4:30 pm ET by Bradley Stern in Celebrity, Music
It's Tuesday! Time for another round of 5 Must-Hear Pop Songs of the Week!
This week's round-up includes artists from all different lanes on the pop highway: From newcomers just beginning to build buzz, to international crossover acts on the brink of breakout, to the almighty Queen of Pop herself.
Got your pom-poms on hand? Ready? OKAY! L-E-T-S G-O!

1.) Madonna featuring M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj, "Give Me All Your Luvin'"
Ladies and gentlemen: The Queen of Quite Literally Everything has finally returned. After over a three-year hiatus since 2008's Hard Candy, the almighty icon Madonna has returned to the musical forefront with "Give Me All Your Luvin'," the lead single from her forthcoming twelfth studio album, MDNA.
Filled with stadium-sized cheerleader chants ("L-U-V, Madonna!") and a rollicking synthesized drum line, the Martin Solveig-produced banger finds M snagging fellow industry rule-breakers Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. to deliver one of her most mindlessly gleeful tunes yet: "Give me all your luvin', give me your love today!" Madonna glibly bounces atop the song's spacey beats, like a 21st-century update to Toni Basil's swoon-filled cheerleading classic, "Mickey."
While the Material Girl has promised some introspection on her upcoming record, between the tongue-in-cheek silliness of the video and the pom-poms aloft revelry of her Super Bowl performance, it seems Madge is only interested in having some fun right now.
So get into the groove, dance and sing, and bow down in reverence: It is the Queen, after all. + LISTEN TO MADONNA, "GIVE ME ALL YOUR LUVIN" FEATURING M.I.A. AND NICKI MINAJ
2.) Simon Curtis, "Flesh (Vincent Did It Remix)"
The Robot Boy is back for another bite. Last May, rising pop sensation Simon Curtis released the sinfully delicious "Flesh," recalling all the naughty innuendo and breathy come-ons of Brit Brit's ex-sexin' "Inside Out." Now, in celebration of his newly relaunched website filled with new exclusives surrounding his sophomore studio album RA, the pop prince has enlisted Vincent Did It (formerly of Frankmusik fame) to mix and mash his sizzlin' sex affair.
The result? A wicked, wildly exciting mix full of throbbing synthesizers and hectic '80s-swizzled electronica: "Get undressed/Taste the flesh," Curtis demands above a beat that's guaranteed to have you breaking a sweat--whether you're working out at the gym, or, um... you know, doing whatever it is you want to do to this song. + LISTEN TO SIMON CURTIS, "FLESH (VINCENT DID IT REMIX)"
+ Listen to more Must-Hear Pop Songs Of The Week after the jump!
Posted 2/6/12 9:00 am ET by Althea Legaspi in Buzz Bites, Celebrity, Music

Nicki Minaj, Madonna and M.I.A. during the Super Bowl halftime show.
+ In case you missed it, we're here to let you know Madonna won the Super Bowl halftime. Watch Madge, M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj slay it on an awesome LED stage. LMFAO and Cee Lo Green also performed. (MTV News)
+ Kelly Clarkson nailed a spot-on national anthem to launch the Super Bowl. She was backed by a children's choir and marching band. Check it out here. (MTV News)
+ Katy Perry was in Indianapolis for a pregame Super Bowl event. Peep her performances of "Teenage Dream," "Hot N Cold," "Peacock" and "E.T." (Idolator)
+ Snoop Dogg was his usual hilarious self on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" on Friday. He discussed his youth football league and recent brush with Norwegian authorities, and performed his LOL-y "Pee on the Tree" touchdown dance. (Rap-Up)
+ Grammy nominated Bon Iver will not perform at the Grammys next week, but you can still watch frontman Justin Vernon and his band's live renditions of "Holocene" and "Beth/Rest" from "Saturday Night Live" over the weekend. (Neon Limelight)
+ "Saturday Night Live" also took a poke at themselves while humorously defending their booking of Lana Del Rey. Watch Kristin Wiig's Lana Del Rey spoof during the "Weekend Update" segment. (Neon Limelight)
+ The Twister game is reportedly releasing a dance edition. Britney Spears has teamed up with the game maker, which will offer a remix of "Till The World Ends" with the game. "I think kids will love rocking the spots... as much as me and my boys do," she said. (Idolator)
Credit: Getty Images
Posted 2/5/12 10:15 pm ET by Sam Lansky in Celebrity, Music
Hey, fellow Madonna fans! (That encompasses pretty much everyone, right? Or at least it should!) I'm Sam Lansky, pop thinker, and you're used to reading my regular column, Pop Think, where I write things that I think about pop music. Got it? Good.
But this week I'm bringing an extra-special post-Super Bowl dose of Pop Think that should probably be called Pop Feel, because rather than being kinda serious and cerebral like usual, I'm just letting myself be a total train wreck. Because, you guys, Madonna performed at the Super Bowl XLVI Halftime Show. And it made me feel a lot of feelings. So here I am, sharing them with y'all. Really, I'm just a boy standing in front of the internet, asking it to be OK with how he feels about Madonna.
You ready? L-U-V, let's go!

Madonna climbs atop LMFAO's Redfoo at the Super Bowl Halftime Show.
Madonna's much-touted Super Bowl performance was met with a level of anticipation sort of like if bags of free money were going to be handed out on the street, or if Hilary Duff announced she was returning to music. You know, something really BIG and EXCITING. And it definitely didn't disappoint, with Madonna giving us, if not all of her luv, at least, like, 68 percent of her available energy, which is totally fine since the other 40 percent was busy being the most important pop icon in the entire world, so I'm calling that a major W-I-N.
With that in mind, here are some thoughts and feelings that I had while watching MDNA take us to all to church, kind of:
+ There were SO MANY SPORTS!
So, I was under the impression that this was the Madonna Bowl, since what's more Super than the Queen of Pop, right? Wrong! Apparently (bear with me), Madonna's performance was wedged between several hours of sports. Sports! Can you believe it? (I couldn't.) And not even a fun sport like Competitive Real Housewives-Watching or Basicball (a game I invented where you rank the chart flops of failed R&B songbirds from decades past while sitting and drinking lemonade on a baseball diamond), but football, which looks very rough and complicated. Most frustratingly, the announcers don't seem to have a particularly nuanced awareness of how embarrassingly innuendo-laden everything they say is! Announcers: Just stop with all the "gaping holes" and "double teams." You're making everyone uncomfortable.
Read more of Sam Lansky's reaction to Madonna's Super Bowl Halftime show after the jump!
Posted 2/3/12 4:00 pm ET by David Greenwald in Celebrity, Music, Videos

M.I.A. is bringing bling to the Middle East. The polarizing musician's "Bad Girls" video heads to the desert, where she ghost-rides the whip while doing her nails. E-40 would be proud. A posse of keffiyeh'd rough riders backs her up on the road, while another scene finds her body-suited backing dancers going full lamé. (Just like "Sex And The City 2," sorta!) Taking aim at patriarchal, equal rights-obstructing governments never felt so fabulous. The video comes courtesy of Romain Gavras, the director (not a type of lettuce) who also helmed M.I.A.'s controversial (and way less fun!) "Born Free" video.
+ Watch M.I.A.'s "Bad Girls" video after the jump.
Posted 2/3/12 11:28 am ET by Nicole James in Celebrity, Music

Madonna teams up with M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj in 'Give Me All Your Luvin'.'
Some people might think that Madonna teaming up with Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. is like finding an Odd Future CD hidden in your mom's car -- you're terrified and confused, but also curious and intrigued. "Give Me All Your Luvin'," the first single from Madonna's upcoming 12th studio album, MDNA, is a youthful, peppy anthem, proving once again that no matter how many detours Madge might take, she's never veered off the track as the Queen of Pop.
Dressed as funky cheerleaders, Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. call out for their team captain: "L-U-V Madonna!/Y-O-U, you wanna!" Madonna busts down her house door decked in a trench and sunglasses as she pushes a baby carriage through a small-town set. Football players fall over themselves to worship her every move as Madge strips down into a two-piece and fishnets, leaving us all wondering how the hell this woman is over 50. Madge leads Nicki and M.I.A. to a party where they sport their finest '80s-inspired Madonna gear (#blondwigsFTW) as the two hip-hop stars impressively hold their own next to the icon.
+ Watch Madonna's "Give Me All Your Luvin'" video, featuring Nicki Minaj and M.I.A., after the jump.
Posted 2/1/12 9:00 am ET by Althea Legaspi in Buzz Bites, Celebrity, Music
+ Adele returns to the stage on Feb. 12 for the first time since her vocal cord surgery, which forced her to rest her voice for several months. "Ima be, Ima be singing at the Grammys. It's been so long I started to forget I was a singer!" Adele tweeted yesterday. Welcome back! (MTV News)
+ Katy Perry is in talks for a film, and better yet, it could be in 3-D! Paramount, the folks who did "Justin Bieber: Never Say Never," apparently want to take a similar approach for a Perry concert film. (Billboard)
+ Madonna revealed the cover for MDNA. Peep the artsy, vibrantly colored glam art here. (Neon Limelight)
+ Get a sneak peek of the stage setup for Madonna's (and Nicki Minaj's, M.I.A.'s, LMFAO's and maybe Cee Lo Green's) Super Bowl halftime appearance this Sunday. (Idolator)
+ LCD Soundsystem shows contain plenty of percolated beats so it stands to reason that frontman James Murphy would want to get into the coffee biz. He says he plans to make an espresso blend. "I thought it would be fun," he said. "I have beans that I like." (Billboard)
+ While Diddy hasn't made an official statement on his forthcoming music cable channel, he tells MTV News that some plans are being made, saying, "We're coming with a new energy; we're coming with something that people are going to want to tune in to see." (MTV News)
+ Seems the cast members of the "The X Factor" U.S.A. don't have the X Factor for sticking around. Mentor/judge Nicole Scherzinger departed as did host Steve Jones, and now mentor/judge Paula Abdul confirms her exit as well. (MTV News)
Posted 1/31/12 1:09 pm ET by Bradley Stern in Celebrity, Music
It's Tuesday! Time for another round of 5 Must-Hear Pop Songs of the Week!
We've got plenty of sounds to play with this week, including an angst-rock songstress on the rise, an award-winning Australian indie singer-songwriter making a serious splash Stateside and a throwback alt-pop goddess with one of the best albums of 2012. I'm on genre overload!

1.) M.I.A., "Bad Girls"
"Live fast, die young, bad girls do it well," M.I.A. declares on her anthemic new single, "Bad Girls." Originally released exactly one year ago on the U.K. MC's irresponsibly good mixtape, "Vicki Leekx," back in January 2011, the Danja-produced (Britney Spears, Timbaland) badass banga finds Miss Maya flexing her muscles, getting bossy and brag-alicious: "My chain hits my chest while I'm bangin on the radio," Maya boasts.
With its speaker-breaking bass and slick rhymes, "Bad Girls" might be M.I.A.'s most radio-friendly number since "Paper Planes." Plus, since the song's release is perfectly timed to coincide with her upcoming performance with Madonna and Nicki Minaj at the Super Bowl this Sunday (yay marketing!), M.I.A.'s new cut could become her biggest song yet. + LISTEN TO M.I.A.'S "BAD GIRLS"
2.) Gotye featuring Kimbra, "Somebody That I Used To Know"
Australian crooner Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know (feat. Kimbra)" is not a new song -- in fact, the Australian singer-songwriter's international smash tied with Savage Garden's 1997 masterpiece "Truly, Madly, Deeply" in 2011 after staying atop Australia's ARIA Charts for a record eight weeks in a row.
But like Pocky and Cheryl Cole (one day, one day...), all good things eventually cross over to America. As it stands, "Somebody" now sits in the Top 20 on iTunes and midway up on the Billboard Hot 100 -- and it's only continuing to rise each week! If you haven't yet, latch on NOW before the song gets played to death on U.S. radio. Oh, and the newly released remix by rising production duo, 4FRNT? Absolutely sickening! ("Sickening" as in "amazing," obviously.) + LISTEN TO GOTYE FEATURING KIMBRA, "SOMEBODY THAT I USED TO KNOW"
+ Listen to more Must-Hear Pop Songs Of The Week after the jump!
Posted 1/31/12 9:00 am ET by Althea Legaspi in Buzz Bites, Celebrity, Music
+ Foo Fighters' Grammy ad debuts tonight, but we have a sneak peek of their hazy gold spot. The 25-time nominated Foos are up for six awards this time, including Album of the Year and Best Rock Album for Wasting Light. The Grammys air Feb. 12. (MTV News)
+ It's official: M.I.A. will perform "Give Me All Your Luvin'" with Madonna and Nicki Minaj during the Superbowl on Sunday. She told NME, "If you're gonna go to the Superbowl, you might as well go with America's biggest female icons." #truth (Billboard)
+ Jack White will release his debut solo album, Blunderbuss, on Apr 24. The single "Love Interruption" was released last night. "I've put off making records under my own name for a long time but these songs feel like they could only be presented under my name," he said. (MTV News)
+ So what happens when Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Pharrell Williams hit the studio together? We're thinking magic. The trio worked together over the weekend. (Rap-Up)
+ Justin Bieber may host "Saturday Night Live" sometime this year. Though "SNL" network NBC has not announced his appearance, Alec Baldwin interviewed executive producer Lorne Michaels in his office, where Baldwin read Bieber's name on a confirmed host list during his podcast. (MTV News)
+ Garbage will release Not Your Kind Of People on May 15. Their first studio album in seven years, the '90s hitmakers will self release the album. (Rolling Stone)
+ OK Go are masters of the viral video and their latest vid aims to teach kids about colors. Check out their totes adorbs "Sesame Street" video for their song "3 Primary Colors Song." (EW.com)

After 2010's aggressively weird Maya, M.I.A. gets back to her brassy pop roots on "Bad Girls," the first single from her upcoming fourth album. Produced by Timbaland protégé Danja, the song's packed with thumping beats, slinky grooves and genius lyrics that never fail to flaunt the singer/rapper/hell-raiser's trademark souped-up swagger.
"Bad Girls" was originally featured on "Vicki Leekx," the mixtape that M.I.A. released in December 2010. Revamped and shined up, the midtempo track boasts a sexy-sinister sample that sounds something like a snake charmer's melody. But the real hook on "Bad Girls" is M.I.A.'s repeated firing of the song's two in-your-face refrains ("Live fast, die young, bad girls do it well" and "My chain hits my chest when I'm bangin' on the dashboard/My chain hits my chest when I'm bangin' on the radio"). Just like her 2007 super-smash "Paper Planes," the song immediately takes over your brain and leaves you nothing but stoked to be under its crazy spell.
M.I.A.'s rumored to take the stage with Madonna and Nicki Minaj at the Super Bowl halftime show this Sunday. Her as-yet-untitled new record drops sometime this summer.
+ Listen M.I.A., "Bad Girls."
Posted 1/30/12 9:00 am ET by Althea Legaspi in Buzz Bites, Celebrity, Music

Credit: Getty Images
+ Confession: My two greatest loves are music and hockey. Looks like Drake and I are kindred spirits. "I grew up on the sport... this is one of the greatest honors I've ever received," he said before performing "Headlines" at the NHL All-Star game in Ottawa. (Consequence of Sound)
+ Madonna will debut a video teaser of "Give Me All Your Luvin'" on "American Idol" on Thursday. The single, which features co-writers M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj, drops on Friday. (MTV News)
+ Watch Christina Aguilera's moving rendition of Etta James' "At Last" during James' funeral on Saturday. Stevie Wonder also performed. (Idolator)
+ Katy Perry's hit the bottle (of hair dye) again. This time she emerged with light-blue locks when she attended a charity event for Givelove.org in Vegas. (MTV News)
+ Rutgers gets the value of studying Beyoncé as much as we do. Through studying her music and career, their college course discusses race, gender, feminism and sexual politics. Related: Beyoncé's Houston hometown is planning a Bey monument. (RapFix)
+ The new video for Ke$ha's "Sleazy Remix 2.0 Get Sleazier" lives up to its namesake. "Sooo funny! My friends made this video for Sleazy 2.0," she tweeted. (Just Jared)
+ Fave Album of the Week: Sharon Van Etten's forthcoming Tramp album (featuring contributions from The National, Wye Oak, Beirut and The Walkmen), comes out Feb. 7, but it's available for full stream now. #gotitonrepeat (NPR)
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