Idolator

It could be residual inspirational song ear-cheese from last week's American Idol finale, but on first listen I was pretty convinced that Dima Bilan's "Believe," which won the 2008 Eurovision song contest on Saturday night, was an amalgam of this country's Lite-FM staples of the past 12 years—the Enrique Iglesias opening, the bits of Lonestar's "Amazed" and Mariah Carey's various mid-'90s ballads that are strewn throughout. (Although the yoga-ish dancing is, uh, quite original.) Finding out that the recorded version of the track was produced by Timbaland was merely the icing on my "this song would not exist without the songs it is made up of" cake, and it should serve as an ominous sign that the iconic producer has moved on from simply ripping himself off to taking "inspiration" from the songs that his earliest productions provided a radio respite from. More »

So far, 30 of the 43 countries participating in next week's this spring's Eurovision Song Contest have made their song selections, and while we were going through the list one pick stood out: France is sending Sebastien Tellier, who will perform his song "Divine" (above). The track, which was produced by Daft Punk's Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo, was reportedly selected in part because of Tellier's mastery of the "French touch"; no doubt that part of that "touch" comes from his fine grasp of artistic nudity, as seen in his Marlboro-Man-gone-wild album cover: More »