The problem with reunion tours: Before you hit the road, you have to deal with the kinda-dim interviewers who weren’t prepped on your current activities, a lack of planning that only serves to accentuate how socially awkward they are when they have to go off-script. Exhibit A being New Kids On The Block’s appearance on Today, during which the dippy interviewer asked them what they’d been up to, then demanded that they dance in the rain for her, in such a way that it was abundantly clear that she was on the Guns N’ Roses side of the great late-’80s middle school debate back in the day. (My favorite part of the clip, of course, is when two of my current interests–Jon Knight and the popping housing bubble–come together when he talks about how his fame isn’t really helping move inventory in his real-estate business.) [Video HT to Jezebel]

Last night, Tyra Banks commanded the stringbean drones populating this season of America’s Next Top Model (seriously, when they run to Tyra’s glaring portrait to read their new assignment off the ticker–out loud, in unison, shrieking–I half expect it to read “DRINK THIS KOOL-AID”) to become the living embodiments of America’s most memorable music genres: R&B, metal, emo, pop, country, folk, punk, house and… grunge! I normally would leave all ANTM analysis to animated-GIF maestro Rich Juzwiak, but when am I ever going to get to riff on glamorous trash like this again. Click the photos to see how each model represented her assigned genre. [Photos via The CW]

This weekend, Vampire Weekend cemented their superstar status, joining the ranks of such timeless acts as 3-D, the Tragically Hip, the Bus Boys, Timbuk3, and the Hothouse Flowers as musical guests on Saturday Night Live! There’s been a lot of talk about whether these guys are really Columbia douchebags or just playing up an image of Columbia douchebags and while there’ve been some salient points about the precarious position of class and race, we… wait a minute, what the fuck is that guy wearing? Really? A scarf the size of a tent? Indoors? He looks like Stuart Little after he curls up for a nap inside a shirt sleeve.

Well, to be totally honest, this guy is smarter, better-looking, richer, more successful and more fun than I’ll ever be. So maybe this is what well-educated, skinny, popular kids wear when they’re somehow fooling the world that they deserve to be much more than our generation’s Camper Van Beethoven. But something doesn’t sit right with me. I’d ask one of my friends that go to Columbia, but if I had a ton of friends who went to Columbia, I probably wouldn’t be trying to pay my rent by writing 400-word blurbs on Hydra Head bands. I feel lost, confused,,,,,,,[sic--that's how little I care about an Oxford comma] and really old.

Seriously, do people wear this shit? Is there some uptown hipster keffiyeh community I’ve somehow missed? Is this some kind of Seinfeld-ian puffy shirt fiasco? Or is he trying to protect his neck from real vampires?!

Yesterday the RIAA-produced video In Trial, which covers the societal dangers of music piracy, made its way out to torrent sites, and among its contents are instructions on how to get RIAA investigators qualified as expert witnesses, a guide to identifying pirated CDs, and the above bit, about the links between people who profit from pirated music and people who deal weapons, populate terror cells, and murder their fellow man for sport. Surely I’m not the only person who thinks that this particular bit on the “kill ‘em all” impulses of miscreants dealing in fifth-generation copies of Graduation would hit home a little more effectively if it were accompanied by a bangin’ soundtrack? [Listening Post / Gizmodo]

During last night’s episode of American Idol, Carly Smithson (née Hennessy) came sorta-clean about her major-label past, talking about how her label “imploded” after her album came out–although said label, MCA, didn’t so much “implode” as “get absorbed by Geffen a few months after that Wall Street Journal piece about the piles and piles of money they spent on her came out.” And Carly’s mention of her current job highlighted another interesting detail about that story that has nothing to do with major-label excess: It reports, in its closing, Carly getting her first tattoo (“an intricate cross on the small of her back that she hopes will impress her fans”)–and now she owns a whole parlor! Crazy, right?

Art Brut is the latest band to be taken under the wing of T-Mobile’s advertising department with the above ad, which debuted during the Grammys last night and which is, I guess, supposed to serve as a testament to the band’s canniness as far as its ability to market itself. While I do think that your average non-blog-reader will be able to figure out that the Brit collective is a real band–and not just some ad exec’s caffeine-fueled “inspiration”–more easily than she was with Of Montreal’s T-Mobile spot from a few months back, part of me wonders why Art Brut’s reps didn’t fight to have the band’s name chyroned on the screen for maximum Google potential. You just know that Teyana Taylor would have her lawyers write a “my name must be on screen for at least four seconds” clause in her contract. [MySpace; warning, embedded remix of OneRepublic's "Apologize" inexplicably within^*]

^*Side note to Art Brut: You may want to defriend that dude.

This morning, Today sat down for a chat with Delilah DiCrescenzo, the young Olympic hopeful who inspired the Plain White T’s “Hey There Delilah” and who’ll be attending the Grammys next month as lead singer Tom Higginson’s date. Even though she has a boyfriend! Who, she claims in her delay-plagued chat with Meredith Vieira and Matt Lauer, is actually completely fine with her going on said date, although one wonders how much he was gritting his teeth when he reiterated that fact. DiCrescenzo is, bless her heart, saying that her Grammy appearance will be a good opportunity for her to humanize track and field before this summer’s Olympics in Beijing, although one does wonder if her definition of “humanize” means, in part, “getting a sweet correspondent’s gig if the whole running thing doesn’t work out come Olympic Trials time.”

On a drizzly night this week, Idolator videographer Alex Goldberg headed out to the corner of Bedford Ave. and N. 7th St. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to find out what the people–that is, people who weren’t too busy fiddling with the placement of their year-end lists to actually leaved the house–enjoyed listening to in 2007. What was the most popular album among the people he surveyed? Kala. What came in second as far as responses go? “I don’t really listen to music”/”I didn’t really pay attention this year.” And this is from people who are standing mere blocks away from an actual store where recorded music is sold. Perhaps we should send him to a station outside the soon-to-be-former Virgin Megastore next.

As part of their trip to New York, the spitfire chick-fronted emo outfit Paramore played a “first come, first served” acoustic set at the Helio store in SoHo yesterday. Idolator videographer Alex Goldberg hit up the line outside to see how long the band’s fans would wait in the not-really-all-that-warm November weather for the chance to see an unplugged performance by the band, find the one person in line with a Y chromosome, and deduce whether or not the mobile carrier would be able to say that this bit of cross-promotion had actually resulted in people abandoning their Sidekicks and Blackberries.

Chalk this up to my naivete, but when I found out yesterday that Rock Of Love‘s neck-tattooed runner-up Heather would be touring with a Poison tribute band, I thought to myself, “Oh, well, it’s nice that we’ve finally hit rock bottom.” But then the above video–an outtake from VH1′s upcoming show Celebrity Rehab–crossed my transom, and I had to recalibrate my definition of “basement level.” In the above clip, former Crazy Town guy Seth “Shifty Shellshock” Binzer showily fires up a crack pipe for the camera, berating his addiction the whole time. The saddest part? Right now, he’s probably more bummed out that this FoxNews.com story on the “leaked” videos didn’t even remember his name than anything.

Celebrity Rehab Outtakes: Seth Binzer Smokes Crack [LiveLeak; HT Defamer]

I’ll admit that I’m pretty much unaware of Dancing With The Stars beyond the fact that it pulls in boatloads of viewers, although this clip–in which Jennie Garth and Derek Hough do, indeed, engage in a rigorous tango to the strains of “The Take Over, The Break’s Over”–is making me think that it’s for the best.

Between the My Chemical Romance-inspired outfits, the karaoke-on-cough-syrup cover (so as to better make the dance “dramatic,” I guess, although this cover is seriously veering into “you ruined my favorite song” territory), and the fact that Garth and Hough seem to be either in “jazzhands-face mode” or trying to prevent themselves from cracking up, I was in a full-body cringe for pretty much the entire minute and 46 seconds. Is it camp? Perhaps. Or maybe it’s the new brand of camp that’s designed to get an instantaneous rise out of, uh, blogger types so as to increase “visibility” for the show. Which, of course, leads to the inevitable denouement where all of American popular culture nicks its concepts of “linearity” and “cohesion” from the 2007 Video Music Awards. Suddenly, the idea of the blipvert seems so… benign.

If you missed the American Music Awards performance by Disney Channel stars-in-waiting the Jonas Brothers, not only did you miss the one moment of the show where the audience seemed excited to be watching–thanks to a truckload of hormonal preteens being shuttled in for the duration of the Brothers’ spunky “S.O.S.”–you missed its one spontaneous moment, which was brought to you by Joe “The Middle One” Jonas tripping and falling on the shattered glass that heralded his and his brothers’ arrival onstage. Not only should Joe be proud of his pretty much instantaneous recovery–he didn’t even have to drop his tambourine to spring up!–he should be very, very thankful that his brother’s lyrics didn’t compare his bad relationships to walking into a pit of poisonous snakes.

When Of Montreal’s ad for T-Mobile came on during last night’s American Music Awards, my initial reaction was along the lines of, “What music-blogger hell did this crawl out of?” And it still stands. I mean, reunion-show jokes? Band meetings that are conducted in fancy-ass hotel rooms while Kevin Barnes and Co. are in full stage makeup? I’m going to hazard a guess that most of the Daughtry fans watching the show didn’t realize that Of Montreal is, you know, an actual working band with records out, especially with the feather-flying celebration at the ad’s end.

In any case, Barnes penned a colorful defense of his band appearing in this ad–and that Outback spot a few months ago–for Stereogum, in which he throws down the generational gauntlet and says that punk rock basically screwed up everyone’s idea of what the “right” way to make a living is. And while I can see his point as far as getting paid–those six seconds of “Gronlandic Edit” will probably make more money for him and his bandmates than any show–I have to wonder whether or not this commercial will do anything for him and his band as far as awareness goes. (I’ve also wondered the same thing every time one of those Wilco VW ads has come on, because while they sound really great in the context of crappy sports-broadcast commercial breaks, there’s almost no identifying of the song itself.) Or has the shattering of the mass music market made crossover impossible for anyone who isn’t borne from the American Idol stable, a new truth that’s further proven by last night’s American Music Awards results?

of Montreal Talk T-Mobile: “Selling Out Isn’t Possible” [Stereogum]

Last night on Late Show With David Letterman, Slash stopped by to plug his new book and clear the air with Axl Rose, although maybe doing so by talking about how Axl kicked his grandma off her perch on the couch so he could crash out until mid-afternoon–and how Axl responded to being rebuked for his couch-ganking by jumping out of a moving car–wasn’t the best plan of action for doing so, given his, uh, temperament. Guess we’ll be seeing another Velvet Revolver album in the next few years!

While cleaning out his archives, Gawker’s Jim Lehnhoff unearthed some video that he shot of the Arcade Fire all the way back on April 11, 2004, at the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia. (They were third on the bill, playing behind the Unicorns and freakin’ Chromeo, and in front of The Ponys.) Anyway, he donated it to us for “research” purposes; while Win Butler does engage in some flopping around the (teeny!) stage during this performance of “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels),” this clip is notable for the fact that the band doesn’t really need Christmas lights, mariachi bands, or Web 2.0 trickery in order to put on a pretty damn compelling show. Ah, 2004–were we all that much more innocent then?

I caught this ad for Britney Spears’ Blackout yesterday on TRL, where it’s presumably airing because “Gimme More”‘s off-the-chart status has resulted in only a seven-second clip of its chorus being played on the show, as opposed to a thirty-second clip that includes a verse. The ad is not only notable for the way it recuts the “Gimme More” video into something even more incoherent, but because buried within its 30 seconds are a bunch of statements that could be seen as coded messages from Britney’s label, Jive, to the album’s intended audience:

“The legendary Miss Britney Spears”
We’re guessing that you don’t remember that this phrase is actually part of “Gimme More,” since the ungrateful shits at MTV don’t play the video in full at any hour that isn’t ungodly. And we’ve given them so much over the years!

“The hit single ‘Gimme More’”
It may be skidding down the charts, but it’s still sorta gaining at radio, y’all! (Actually, we’re surprised that they didn’t mention that “More” was Britney’s highest-charting single in years, but maybe they saw that as too desperate.)

“The new songs everybody’s talking about”
Yes, we read Oh No They Didn’t.

“Today’s biggest star”
And TMZ, too. And Perez Hilton. And … well, let’s just say that you really don’t want to read our Google News alerts. Because they make us cry every day.

“Rush-released”
We’re pretty much expecting this record to tank, but our bean-counters decided that coming in on the charts behind the Eagles would be a lot less embarrassing than losing out to Celine Dion. (At least Blackout will sell more than that Backstreet Boys album … right? Right?)

“The new album the world has been waiting for”
If we say it enough times, it’ll be true! And maybe then her success will inspire her to finally hire a driver.

Britney Spears Blackout Spot [YouTube]

One thing we keep hearing over and over, even among the rock critics, is that no one recognizes any of the bands playing CMJ this year. So we decided to send Alex Goldberg out with a list of fake band names to see if anyone would cop to knowing about a band we had made up a few hours before. Was the joke on them or us?

Oh, and apologies in advance if any of our fake band names turn out to be someone’s real band name. Especially because you chose that as your band name. And thanks to the Knife, the fine folks at Holiday Inn, and the state of New Jersey for their inadvertent on the spot band name inspiration.

This morning, Steven Tyler and throat surgeon Dr. Steven Zeitels appeared on Today to promote their Sunday-night appearance on the National Geographic Channel’s Incredible Human Machine; if you ever wanted to know just what happens to the insides of the Aerosmith frontman’s throat when he hits that high note in “Dream On,” then this is going to be the show for you, as the program will reveal the stretching and straining that Tyler’s vocal chords undergo during the course of a show. Appetizing! I only wish they’d recreated the vocal-chord-cam live, as I’d love to see what his innards looked like when he squawked that high note at the 0:58 mark. Aspiring vocalists, remember: Warming up is very important.

You’ve heard a lot about what our correspondents thought of CMJ, but what about the everyday people? Where did they go, who did they see, what did they really enjoy? (If they enjoyed anything at all?) To find out, we sent Alex Goldberg back to the Puck Building, where he found out the secret link between William Howard Taft, menstruation, and “ska-pa-doodie-dah.” (No, we don’t know if that’s a ska band or not, either.)

To prepare for the Cleveland Indians’ playoff opener against the (sigh) Yankees this evening, the Cleveland Plain Dealer‘s Chuck Yarborough has put together a compendium of the players’ at-bat music picks, complete with YouTube/MySpace links and “funny” commentary on each song. (In response to Jhonny Peralta’s selection of Daddy Yankee’s “Impacto,” Yarborough writes: “Domo Arigato Mr. Impacto.” Don’t you just love when big media gets bloggy?)

In all seriousness, though this is one of those features that is really fun to skim through (beat writers looking for a good off-day story, take note!), if only because you get to see just how much crappy metal lives on in the planes and hotel rooms of America’s most prominent athletes. Static-X, S & M-era Metallica, and Staind serve as the introductions for Grady Sizemore, Casey Blake, and Jason Michaels, respectively; how Staind can be either rallying or intimidating is something that will bewilder me until the end of time, or at least the ALCS. There’s also the now-mandatory inclusion of “This Is Why I’m Hot” (Ryan Garko, who apparently ditched Ryan Adams for MIMS and other ringtones currently in vogue like “A Bay Bay”). The best pick song-wise is probably Eve’s slept-on “Tambourine,” which is the music of choice for Kenny Lofton, but for sheer intimidation factor I’d have to go with Travis Hafner’s selection, if only because it confused Yarborough so much that it send him into an incoherent string of Humphrey Bogart references:

Cleveland Indians’ designated hits: When Tribe players step up to bat, it’s to songs of their choosing [cleveland.com]