Idolator

MC Hammer's attempt to be as ubiquitous as he was in the Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em days has led to him lending his new single, "I Got Gigs," to an ad for ESPN's Monday Night Football. "My approach is, even before people know about it [the forthcoming single], to pound it into their subconscious with this commercial," MC Hammer told Billboard. I guess that's why the song is featured in a dream sequence, one that even features the dreamer dressed up in an ill-fitting, business-casual version of Hammer's outfit from the "U Can't Touch This" clip while wielding a keytar. I, personally, would have gone the whole "tie-in" route differently: I'd have tried to license the football broadcast's iconic theme for sampling purposes instead. (Hey, it's working for Kid Rock, right?) [Billboard / YouTube]

A front-line act with a months-old album decides to push his most obvious hit-bound song to radio—a song heavily reliant on a prominent sample of a deathless pop hit. But, bucking the day's prevalent trend, he decides not to release the song on the most popular singles medium, forcing most customers to buy his album.

It's a risky move, because the Billboard Hot 100 is dominated by songs that scale the chart by amassing sales as well as airplay. But the song is so mindlessly catchy, the act's people figure it'll be a big chart hit anyway with radio alone.

I could be talking about M.C. Hammer's 1990 smash "U Can't Touch This," the "Superfreak"-sampling hit that made the Top 10, even as Capitol refused to issue it as a cassingle.

But I could also be talking about Kid Rock's "All Summer Long," a mashup of Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" and Lynyrd Skynrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" that debuts on the Hot 100 this week at No. 80 despite his lack of interest in releasing it digitally.

Can the erstwhile Robert Richie pull off in 2008 what one Stanley Kirk Burrell pulled 18 years ago?

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One crappy video for your candidate of choice: Understandable. You're enthusiastic, and for at least the moment, you can round up a few celebrities to talk over a eighth-rate beat. Who wouldn't do the same in your shoes? But a second video? Now you've gone too far, pal. More »

AOL Music's PopEater Blog has a dispatch from Bamboozle, the two-day, eight-stage, emo-stuffed festival that caused Sarah "Ultragrrrl" Lewitinn to denounce emo from the hilltops. Also on the bill was MC Hammer, who devoted part of his show to an antiwar protest: More »