Idolator

Surely even those of you who were but a zygote in the mid-'80s remembers the Rubik's Cube, the twisty spatial-relations puzzle that also doubled as a weapon against aggressive siblings and classmates. To capitalize on the no-doubt-coming-soon I Love The Eighties IV: Whatever Happened To That Dolph Lundgren Dude, Anyway?, the people who own the Rubik's trademark have launched the Rubiks Revolution, a battery-powered version of the cube that brings its iconic design together with the skills that you once used to play Simon. (No, really; the cube's six games seem to all involve touching the cube's lights as quickly as possible, and not much else.) And who better to promote this dumbed-down version of the game—as well as its online version—than the dudes in Rascal Flatts? More »

As many of you already know, American television is going entirely high-definition^* digital in 2009, which now means the opening half of this sentence has nothing to do with the technology of high-definition TV's promising us a world where we'll be able to count the nose hairs on our favorite stars in real time and without the aid of gossip blog paparazzi snaps. Maura recently converted to HD herself, and though certain music videos (she cites Justice's "D.A.N.C.E." as an example) look totally rad, the drawbacks of this industry-wise format change are already becoming apparent to music fans. It's all good when it's a luminous Rihanna strutting across that expensive plasma flat screen, but what about being confronted with Rascal Flatts at a resolution the human psyche was not intended to process? As we await our blemish-filled immediate future, please help us decide which musician will prove to be the least HD-friendly when the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31. More »

Country music is not known for odes to burying your face in a big pile of illegal stimulants. Hence, the following blind item piqued our interest: "At a CMA after party, this award winning group had a drinking contest. Kind of boring huh? Maybe this fact will change your mind. When they were playing quarters, if someone got the quarter in the glass, the other members of the group had to do a line of coke. Kind of surprising considering they aren't the slimmest bunch of people." Since when did country stars start having their after parties at MisShapes? So who's been hiding ten gallons of blow under their hat? More »

Rascal Flatts topped this week's SoundScan chart, with their latest album Still Feels Good selling 547,000 copies; the country-pop outfit's last album Me & My Gang sold 722,000 copies in its first week a year ago, and this week it actually moved up to No. 38 on the charts, with 18,000 people deciding that they had to own that "Life Is A Highway" cover. More »