The other night, Chelsea Handler joked to Justin Bieber that she would help him knock John Mayer out of the way in this week’s album sales race. However, judging by Billboard’s early estimates, it’ll take a lot more than the E! host’s quips to slay Mayer’s Battle Studies. MORE »
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Charts
Justin Bieber Launches A War Of The Tweets With John Mayer
upcoming releases
Katharine McPhee Covers A Christmas Classic
Katharine McPhee premiered her blonde tresses and some new tunes a couple months back. And while the 2006 American Idol runner-up’s second album Unbroken is due out January 5, 2010, she’s hoping everyone’s in the mood for a little holiday McPheever ahead of that!
Kat’s rendition of yuletide classic “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”—which you can hear after the jump—will be made available digitally. MORE »
Comebacks
“New York Times” Spearheads Creed Rehabilitation Project
It’s often fun to play the contrarian in arts journalism, to champion the artist who might have been lost to the discount bin or the unfair corporate machination. So it was probably inevitable—hey, tickets to their concerts are going for less than a dollar with service charges—that someone would try to paint recently reunited post-grungers Creed in a sympathetic light. But would you have put money on the possibility that said rehab project would result in a full-page feature in the New York Times‘ Sunday Arts section? MORE »
Lineups
Vh1 Divas: I Do Not Think It Means What Vh1 Wants It To Mean
Tomorrow night, Vh1 continues this month’s run of MTV Networks self-cross-promotional bonanzas with the Paula Abdul-hosted special Vh1 Divas, in which current female inhabitants of the pop charts get tagged with the d-word whether it’s apt or not while singing in front of an adoring audience. This year’s lineup offers up a sort of diminishing diva returns; you’ve got Kelly Clarkson (hell yes), Adele (eh, ok), Jennifer Hudson (sure), Leona Lewis (Simon Cowell thinks so but the Idolator jury’s still out), Jordin Sparks (uh), and Miley Cyrus (oh hell no). And now all those singers have been assigned duet partners for the evening, in an effort to pass some torches and I guess reel in the demographic of people who prefer “Achy Breaky Heart” to “Party In The U.S.A.” Buddy up after the jump! MORE »
putting the pseudo in pseudo-event
Idolator Live-Blogs The 2009 Video Music Awards: Pop Goes The Post-Pop World
Welcome to Idolator’s third annual liveblog of MTV’s Video Music Awards, an annual tribute to the televisual representation of pop music that inspires waxing poetic about The Old Days and generalized bitching about the state of the channel’s programming alongside the occasional water-cooler-worthy music-related moment. Tonight we come to you from the basement of Radio City Music Hall, which was the venue for the inaugural occasion of Moonman-bestowing—hosted by Bette Midler and Dan Aykroyd, in case you want to think about how far we’ve come— and which will, tonight, play host to performances by the likes of Jay-Z, Lady GaGa, Beyoncé, Pink, Taylor Swift (pictured), and Green Day, as well as a show-opening tribute to the late Michael Jackson undertaken by his younger sister Janet. Will I be able to handle this task while not on a couch? Find out after the jump! MORE »
Conspiracy Theories
Paula Abdul To Reunite With “American Idol” On Live TV (Sort Of)
Paula Abdul will return to live-TV splendor on Sept. 17, when she hosts the Vh1 Divas telecast starring Kelly Clarkson, Jordin Sparks, Miley Cyrus, and Leona Lewis. Hmm… two American Idol winners and an X-Factor winner on the roster? I’m just saying, that’s an awful lot of Simon Cowell-related talent for a show hosted by someone who so publicly and tearfully split from his empire. (Also, it’s August. Conspiracy theories are more fun in the oppressive heat!) [Vh1 / Twitter] MORE »
idolator's american idolatry
Adam Lambert Apparently Dressing Up Like The Michelin Man For His Album Cover
The site went kerblooey before I could post this shot that was allegedly taken at the photo shoot for American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert’s album cover yesterday, so apologies for its tardiness. But really, there’s still so much to unpack, even a day later! Is this how Idol’s aesthetically challenged cover people “do” Lady GaGa? Is all this shot a peek at the campaign for Glambert’s second life as the host of the hybrid singing/cooking competition Michelin Star? And why, whenever I see the words “Swarovski crystal,” do I roll my eyes and flash back to the worst aspects of this can’t-end-fast-enough decade? [Towleroad] MORE »
listening station
Jam Of The Moment Alert: Fefe Dobson’s “I Want You”
“I Want You,” the new single from Ontario-spawned Fefe Dobson, may be the perfect track to close out this glorious summer day. “Want,” which debuted this week, is a two-minute gem of crunchy, super-straightforward pop that sounds like it should be released on colored, limited-edition vinyl; its overall message is pretty much summed up by its title. (Dobson apparently is releasing Joy, the album from which “Want” is spawned, independently; she attached the song to a show featuring one of the most noxious reality-TV-spawned personalities ever. I hope this doesn’t torpedo its chances with thinking persons, because it’s a pretty great little track!) Clip after the jump. MORE »
do you know where your children are?
Justin Bieber: The New, Adorable, Canadian Face Of Teenpop
In the half-hour leading up to my liveblog of MTV Hits, I saw a lot of young pop hopefuls dancing across the screen—the average age was so low, in fact, that Taylor Swift and Jordin Sparks came off like elder stateswomen. The star who stuck out the most to me was probably Justin Bieber, a 15-year-old Canadian who got his start on YouTube and whose covers eventually got the attention of Usher. “One Time” is a pretty adorable little slice of pop-and-B that brings together the GarageBand presets of “Love In This Club” with some cheek-pinch-worthy adorableness. (And the video even has a not-very-subtle ad for the iPhone!) Clip after the jump. MORE »
LOL WORDS
Jordin Sparks Is Not Singing About Giving Head On Her New Record (Because She’s Only 19)
Jordin Sparks’ new record Battlefield contains a cover of the Canadian singer Fefe Dobson’s “Don’t Let It Go To Your Head,” a song that Sparks fell for while toiling in the mall-store salt-mines. But what are these lyrics? “Just cause I think of you in bed / Don’t let it go to your head”? “So what if I want to kiss / From your toes up to your lips”? In bed? Full-body kissing? Could the youngest American Idol winner be singing about—gasp!—sex? No way, she says! Thanks to the miracles of lyrical interpretation, her purity ring is still intact (and so, presumably, is that other thing)! MORE »
