Idolator

• Lots of bands decided to give it another go, including New Kids On The Block. The other reunions announced this week weren't as star-studded, but hey, not everyone can be as famous as Danny Wood.
• Meanwhile, Velvet Revolver lost its lead singer, and the remaining Revolvers' former bandmate Axl Rose visited the executive suite with some new material.
• Madonna hooked up with Justin Timberlake and tried to save the world, or at least her video-exclusivity contract with MTV.
• Perez Hilton got bitchy because Sony BMG isn't kissing his white-speckled ass.
• Live Nation threw 150 million D's at Jay-Z.
• Lil Wayne: Is he really that good?
• Green Day is hiding in plain sight on a radio near you.
• Kanye West: The new Jack Johnson, at least as far as "inescapability from summer festival lineups" goes.
• R.E.M. made everyone get nostalgic enough to actually pay money for a new album again.
• And on a sad (well, sorta-sad) note, Ramiele hitched up her high-waisted shorts and exited American Idol's contestant pool.

[Photo: AP]

• The "Chinese Democracy may actually come out during this century" chatter started up again, thanks to Dr Pepper dangling cans of soda in front of our faces and Axl Rose deciding to share managers with Weiland.
• American Idol's viewers took Kristy Lee Cook's USA-blessing bait and sent Chikezie packing.
• Andy Beta watched as Jackie Chan made cats howl.
• Why '80s bar rock needs to come back ASAP.
• Leona Lewis' Oprah blessing helped her capture the Hot 100's top spot, but Lil Wayne made the biggest move on the chart. And now his album's actually coming out! (Well, maybe.)
• Tim Finney got lost in Mungolian Jet Set's cavernous club.
• The first "best of 2008" list hashit the Web, not nine months too soon. (Don't tell anyone, but so far Panic at the Disco's Pretty. Odd. is near the top of Maura's.)
• Speaking of lists, Matos combed through some top-35 rundowns from 1990-era Spin.
• Vinyl vs. CD: does it really make a difference?
• America's Next Top Model brought grunge back to the runway.
• Finally, if you hear one song before you leave for the weekend, make it Sean Kingston's "interpolation" of Billy Joel. You'll never want to tune into a station playing "the greatest hits of the '60s, '70s, and '80s" again.

[Photo: Getty]

• Jack White tried to plug leaks and silence critics, but his plans for world domination were foiled by iTunes.
• Meanwhile, Gnarls Barkley dropped its album a little early.
• Music blogging: So easy, a caveman (with a computer) can do it?
• Chuck Eddy sought the heat with a Lonesome Thug Lady and a girl who just wants you to Google her.
• Kate had an unfortunate run-in with Tokio Hotel.
• Spin in 1990: Charmingly clueless about hip-hop. Spin in 2008: Charmingly ga-ga for R.E.M.
• We said goodbye to American Idol's skunk-haired Janis Joplin wannabe Amanda Overmyer—but we may be saying hello to her again soon.
• Jess examined the current state of pop-punk.
• Madonna gave us all something to suck on.
&bull, Finally, here's Idolator's last mention of South By Southwest... until next year, of course.

[Pic via my new favorite page on the Internet]

• The Van Halen reunion took a break, while the Dru Hill reunion didn't even crack the 15-minute mark.
• American Idol whittled its field down to 12, and lopped off Danny Noriega's purple streaks in the process.
• Usher ended our Flo Ridian nightmare.
• Chuck Eddy looked for the hottest Heatseekers.
• Madonna, Gnarls Barkley, and Portishead got leaky.
• Jess spun a couple of singles by Andrew WK, the Roots, and Wiz Khalifa.
• We want our old-school MTV.
• Perez Hilton: Are we part of the problem for even mentioning his existence?
• The world found out about Ryan Schreiber's childhood MTV habits.
• The Anono-Critic looked at the horn-throwing Revolver and the in-limbo Blender.
• And finally, don't let your weekend begin until you watch Dom DeLuise's anime extravaganza.

• Maxim apologized to the Black Crowes, earned a shrug from Nas, confused the hell out of the folks at CNN, and got one writer talking to the newspapers.
• Can we please get a break from having to write all these obituaries? It's really starting to bum us out.
• Stephin Merritt: possibly loves gum, definitely loves Ethan Frome.
• Courtney Love issued a jihad against beer and its drinkers.
• American Idol made it out of the '70s with our sanity mostly intact.
• Andrew WK had much to teach us.
• Perez Hilton got an A&R gig. Actual A&R reps decided to finally go back to college.
• Did Van Halen need to take a timeout for bad behavior?
• Enchanted got the shaft at the Oscars.
• Virgin Fest and the Sasquatch! Festival will attempt to hold multi-day "destination events" without Jack Johnson's help.

• We spared you the sight of Gene Simmons' bare ass, and instead wondered what the star of the latest sex tape scandal likes to play when he's knockin' boots.
• Is a Billy Joel ticket really worth almost $10k? Is anything?
• Walt Jabsco and Jello Biafra got robbed.
• Some guy tried to unload his stupid huge record collection, and actually found a buyer. Or did he?
• TVT Records shut down and Trent Reznor and his fans had something (semi-coherent) to say about it.
• Alt-country survivor No Depression will finally close up shop after its next issue.
• What we don't need more of is Jimmy Iovine's science.
• DJ Steve Aoki launched a war of words between Urb, Pitchfork, Idolator's commenters, and the city of Chicago.
• Paramore is breaking up? Not just yet.
• Spin had some things to say about some some New York combo called Vampire Weekend.

• Maura slogged through Grammys once again without losing her mind! Third time's the charm!
• She even managed to stay sane enough to offer some helpful tips for next year's broadcast.
• Meanwhile, Herbie Hancock ran away with Album Of The Year and everyone went batshit.
• Maura smacked down Aerosmith's choices when it comes to Guitar Hero.
• The ongoing saga of Lennon Murphy's attempt to trademark her first name drew a visit from "Yoko Ono" herself.
• Kate pitched in from Spain while Jess was sick and wanted to know if anything could redeem "Kokomo."
• Could one American Idol hopeful's exit be the first step on the road to Best New Music?
• Kanye's incomplete new video brought out the amateur screenwriter in us.
• Attn. Grammy producers: When Aretha is displeased, we're all displeased.
• If we're ever reduced to publishing a crypto-ironic article about "music snobs" then you have permission to euthanize the patient.
• "Stone Temple Pilots Bring The 90s Back"...hey, some of us never left.
• The Mighty Mighty Bosstones: skanking into an arena parking lot near you. (If you live in or around New Jersey.)
• We picked what should be on your playlist when you're squeezing that bun out of the oven.
• And another trip into the emo fan fiction underground sparked some... spirited debate.

• The Bonnaroo announcement led to copyeditors' oversights and conspiracy theories.
• Tom Petty played the Super Bowl, inspiring many polite nods and musings about next year's halftime headliner.
• Missy Elliott: In 3-D.
• Try to picture Pete Wentz uttering the line "You're totally Jell-O! You're lime green Jell-O and you can't even admit it." and you'll understand why we're wary of him being up for a role in Diablo Cody's next flick. Honest to blog, indeed.
• The Juno Awards and the Shortlist Prize both love Feist a lot. (We'll give the Junos a pass because of the whole Canada thing.)
• American Idol: Our long audition round nightmare is over. Next up: Hollywood!
• The Anono-Critic looked at the dueling Britney Spears covers offered up by Rolling Stone and Blender.
• Jess is going to live large as Idolator's new Editor-At-Large starting March 1, which means we're looking for some new bloggy blood.
• And finally: Our wall-to-wall coverage of the 2008 Grammys—Amy Winehouse! The Time and Jimmy Jam! The possibility of a Soulja Boy run-in!—comes to a head this Sunday at 7:30 p.m. ET, when we kick off our second annual Grammy liveblog. We're already quaking at the thought of seeing Frank Sinatra's reanimated corpse in HD.

• American Idol: this shit is exhausting already.
• Loudmouthed TV chef type thing Rachael Ray is courting indie bands for a SXSW showcase. Now let us never speak of her on a music blog again.
• Rakim and Nas and...the Cos?
• Will Tom Petty put the asses in the seats on the couches and keep Super Bowl viewers from flipping channels?
• Robyn deserves deserves better than playing remix second bananizzle.
• Lowering the flannel, Sub Pop looks to cardigans for fiscal solvency in troubled times.
• The rapid spread of the new Gnarls Barkley single across the blogosphere: marketing conspiracy or marketing conspiracy?
• A few more alt-rock radio stations fell foul of flipping formats.
• Crazed by rumors of a possible New Kids On The Block reunion that turned out to be not true (maybe?), Maura attempted to rewrite history/the New Kids hotness scale.
• The Vampire Weekend debut was released! Way to make us hate a pretty decent indie-pop album, Internet!
• The saga of "legal" P2P download system Qtrax made us "nostalgic" for the silliness of the Web 1.0 bubble. Start updating those resumes, everyone.

• We learned that Chinese Democracy has been ready since December. Only 49 Tuesdays left in 2008, guys!
• Delilah speaks! She may be the only person in the world who isn't sick of that Plain White T's song.
• American Idol got spoiled, sexless, and stupid.
• The Grammys got The Time, and they may give the world a Michael Jackson sighting.
• Spin tested the United States' anglophilia.
• Some old guy was confused by Pitchfork's newfangled ways.
• We learned that Dave Mustaine has an endless supply of bass jokes to go with his anti-UN rants.
• The people handing out the Oscar nominations love music by Alan Menken. And no one else.
• It's the middle of winter, which means that it's summer-festival-news season: Coachella brought the yawns, while Vineland bit the big one.

• So we put this little year-end poll thingee together, just in case you wanted to know what 452 pop critics thought about 2007.
• We also asked 33 of our bestest pals to put together awesome playlists of their favorite music of the year.
• American Idol is back! Now with even more lame scandals!
• Someone totally not named Sean "Diddy" Combs is looking for an assistant.
• Who's playing this year's Coachella festival? Everyone! Maybe.
• Project X took the Pop Critics Poll Top 10 home to meet the family.
• This East Coast festival may not be Coachella, but we have no idea who's playing this one either.
• Butler/Wentz: your ticket for change in '08
• The writer-free Grammys: soooooo not looking forward this liveblog hangover.
• Eminem's mom tries to catch him riding lardy.
• Some pop stars chose brawn before brains.

• After learning that Joe Levy would be taking over at Blender, we had the Anono-Critic look at his track record.
• Al examined how Billboard's rock charts kicked off the new year.
• We discovered that musical terror comes in all sorts of fuzzy packages.
• Radiohead, No. 1, tour dates, blah blah friggin' blah.
• Hannah Montana has beef.
• Maura wrote the first funny "-izzle" gag in years.
• Rock criticism: it will get you covered in loogies.
• Entertainment Weekly can take or leave popular music.
• Hopefully these folks resolved to find a new label in 2008.
• And we are still taking applications for the next Idolator intern.

• We revealed our dual No. 1 most awesomest songs of 2007, but not before we showed the runners-up some love.
• We crowned the (not entirely surprising) winner in our Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament.
• We consoled Vanessa Hudgens over her adventures in wank mining.
• Maura had some issues with Digg.
• Dear New York Times: No more cutesy charts. Please.
• The war between ADieHardFOBFan and fans of the Jonas Brothers continued to rage as we launched our own video volley.
• Idolator videographer Alex Goldberg witnessed the end of "ironic hipster karaoke rock." Or so he hoped.
• Led Zeppelin at Bonnaroo: will the rumormongering madness ever cease?
• We bid a fond (but only temporary!) farewell to the irreplacable intern Kate.
• And speaking of which: if you've got a little writing experience, a strong resistance to music industry hype, some moxy, and 10 to 15 hours to kill per week, we're looking for some interns.

2007 is almost in the books. Hooray! (No, seriously, get it out of our faces.) Before we go, let's squeeze in one last list with a look back at the 20 most popular posts from the last 365 days:

1. In which the term "wank mining" was brought to our attention.
2. In which we wondered if Vanessa Hudgens' nudies would result in parents protesting with their dollars.
3. In which we caused a bunch of ex-OiNK users to squeal "Oh noooo!"
4. In which Pete Wentz opened up about his back door action.
5. In which we realized that Axl Rose had, in fact, visited a recording studio in the past 10 years.
6. In which the words "naked, knocked up and facing a firing squad" took on pageview-inflating new meanings.
7. In which we got excited about the prospect of Rock Of Love 2 not starring Bret Michaels.
8. In which we canvassed the room for Guns N' Reactions.
9. In which the Butterfly Of Long Island lived every girl's dream: A Playboy cover.
10. In which we pitched ourselves as VH1 chat-show candidates. (We're still waiting for that call!)

Nos. 11-20 after the jump!

• 20,000 Googlers agree: The words "VH1's 100 Greatest Songs Of The 90s" are the new "Zac Efron."
• We felt a little '90s emo, and then wondered if we could stretch that emo feeling out over two weeks.
• We lamented two hours spent watching Akon and friends dressed up like Super Mario Bros. 2 villains when we could have just been playing Super Mario Bros. 2. (Or BurgerTime, for that matter.)
• Our Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament got eight times uglier.
• No, you're not metal enough for Slayer.
• We sent one intrepid reporter ice skating with Seal. (Well, not literally.)
• Just how useless are music bloggers?
• Lil Wayne: not as down with Zac Efron as we are. (Zac Efron!)
• We learned not to lend Dolly Parton's brother any money, because he'll just spend it on trips to Biscuit Time.
• Team coverage of Jingle Ball 2007 was nearly derailed by Kate getting bumrushed by crazed Jonas Brothers fans.
• And don't forget, if you're a music critic, you only have, like, hours left to vote in our Idolator Pop 07 poll! The deadline is midnight tonight. That's Friday, Dec. 21, on or before 11:59 p.m. Get those ballots in!

• A few old British guys got their old band back together, which seemed to please a few people.
• If there's one thing everyone loves doing, it's debating the idea of the "hottie."
• The top music of 2007: LCD Soundsystem! Arcade Fire! And ... Fergie.
• And adding to the list-making chorus, our Top 40 List Of Awesomeness ran the gamut, from an SVU guest star to LCD.
• Janet Jackson is cramping her own style.
• The Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament moved on to its aesthetically displeasing second round.
• We brought you some holiday songs that you won't hear in Rite Aid.
• Vibe took a few pages from Us Weekly.
• Lupe Fiasco: Too Cool for Jess?
• Al broke down the Grammys' love for all things Foo.