Calling it the "Obama Effect," Common claims the Commander-in-Chief has helped guide rappers away from bombastic consumerism and "gangsta talk," which we thought went out the window ages ago.

I also don't find as much gangsta talk. You see the whole chain-shining-and-rim era is gone. That's like super-played out. Just to have that, I think, is part of the Obama effect.

This hypothesis, of course, supports Common's previous claims to CNN that Obama's election would bring a more positive attitude to the genre. So it's all very convenient, although it seems to us that the crippled economy and a pervasive exhaustion for ostentatious displays had more to do with this trend than Obama himself. But, still, let's all sing his praises, anyway!

By the way, Common was speaking at an arts event sponsored by Hennessy, a drink that was emblematic of the attitudes Common claims are fading away.

Like so many of her aural generation — for example, Bob Dylan — Travers got her start in the Greenwich Village cafe scene and, like Dylan, too, her politically-charged lyrics helped propel her to international fame. In honor of Travers and her message, here's another one of her and her band's most beloved songs: "Puff, the Magic Dragon."

Feel free to sing along, man.

An army of record companies filed a lawsuit against Ellen's eponymous talk show for using their beloved, popular and oh-so-profitable songs without paying the price. Motown, Atlantic, Virgin and a host of other companies claim Ellen and her producers used their products in the talk show host's "dance over" segment, which involves the comedienne dancing toward her daily guest. It's all very fun, but, according to the record companies, also illegal. And Ellen knew that!

As sophisticated consumers of music, Defendants knew full well that, regardless of the way they rolled, under the Copyright Act, and under state law for the pre-1972 recordings, they needed a license to use the sound recordings lawfully.

Humph. Here we thought the music industry was about bringing happiness into an otherwise dismal existence. Now we learn they're only about profits. The horror!

For their part, Ellen's producers apparently responded to the lawsuit by claiming they don't look into licenses because they don't "roll that way." Fair enough.

The Lady will perform on September 13 at this year's MTV Video Music Awards, and she's planning something big. In an interview with Newsweek's Ramin Setoodeh, she says: "I'm going to be performing one of the most recent singles off my album. But it's going to be a different and more dramatic interpretation. And it is most certainly rooted in New York-style performance art." Setoodeh asks — and who could blame him — "What does that mean?"

Gaga explains:

It's less of me singing the song, and more of an art installation. A performance-art piece. It's very well-designed and thought out, and we've been planning it for months and months. It is for me a very meaningful performance, [for] where I am in my career, as well as the experiences I've had, as well as the co-headlining tour I'm going on in the fall. […] I sort of have this philosophy about things: there's never a reason to do something unless it's going to be memorable, unless it's going to change things, unless it's going to inspire a movement. With the song and with the performance, I hope to say something very grave about fame and the price of it.

Does that clear anything up? Hell no. But even more cryptic is her answer to the question, "what are you going to wear?"

I would say that the fashion for the performance is a representation of the most stoic and memorable martyrs of fame in history. It's intended to be an iconic image that represents people. I think after watching the performance and maybe studying it after you watch it on YouTube, you'll see the references and the symbols come through.

And, when talking about her lighting scheme, Ms. Gaga says: "I like it to be moody. I like it to evoke an idea more than light my face. It's not about what you see. It's about what you don't see, and sometimes that vacant space can be very scary."

Perhaps you find it tiring to hear about her "philosophy," her "art," "symbols" and "meaning." Maybe it would be easier if she just said, "I'm going to dress like Joan of Arc. It's gonna be dope." But the other women topping the chart right now? Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift. Those two aren't exactly… interesting.

Back when that song "Beautiful" was all over the radio, a DJ friend of mine once said, "The devil didn't invent rock and roll for James Blunt." And I can't help but agree, as a woman raised on filthy Prince lyrics, Madonna writhing to "Like A Virgin" (at the VMAs!) and sexual innuendo in George Michael hits. Lots of people can sing. Lots of people write songs. Pop music should be more that that. Not a lot of people sing well, or write catchy songs; Lady Gaga does both. But more importantly: Lady Gaga makes it exciting. Titillating, unexpected. With Muppet coats, teacups, awful (untrue) hermaphrodite rumors and general pantslessness. Without her, pop would be a bland landscape right now. And think about it: People mocked what David Bowie and KISS wore, too. In addition, she uses her Haus of Gaga to "propel" friends and young designers into the spotlight, using her fame to further their careers.

You might think Lady Gaga is pretentious, a phony. But if she is, it's as someone once said of Holly Golightly: She's a real phony… She honestly believes all this phony junk that she believes. Asked, "How old were you when you first wanted to be famous?" Lady Gaga replies:

I think I was in my mother's womb. But it's not about fame, you see. It's about "The Fame." It's about a life of glamour. I believe in a glamorous life.

Lady Gaga Will Rock the VMAs [Newsweek]

Earlier: Questions About The High Fashion & Domestic Violence In Lady GaGa's Video
Before The Teacup & Blonde Wig, Pants Were Still A Problem
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
Lady Gaga Visits The View

The taping in front of adoring fans was part of the long-lost singer's big comeback and there were reports that Houston and her voice weren't at their greatest yesterday. "She was really damaged," said one fan. That damage, said Whitney, was from gabbing with Oprah for too long.

Whatever the true cause, our tipsters says that following the concert GMA producers and network executives at ABC furiously debated what to air. Ultimately, GMA entertainment producer Karen Rhee convinced the ABC brass in L.A. — and over the objections of the ABC News executives in New York (yes, GMA is technically a news program — to bring in a post-production team to "sweeten" Houston's voice. Says our tipster:

Standards and practices people are doing cartwheels.The company line will be "She sounded great to the crowd, so we wanted to correct technical errors that occurred in the process of recording her performance." Rather than the reality which is, "She didn't sound good, and a news broadcast is altering the performance of a guest." This is not standard, nor has this ever happened before with a music performance on GMA.

While, yes, this could be true, our childlike devotion to Ms. Houston refuses to believe this. Whitney can do no wrong. Well, except for her crackhead years and that absolutely terrible Cinderella TV movie with Brandy. Other than that, she's perfect!

Never mind 90210 actress Shenae Grimes, who, well, stinks. Drake, who was born Aubrey Drake Graham, actually has talent. For true! And, more than that, he's doing quite well.

His single "Best I Ever Had" was number one on Billboard's R&B and rap charts. And another single, "Successful," reached number three. Numbers, of course, don't make the man, so let's examine the aforementioned tracks.

First, "Best I Ever Had." Yes, this song's about how some "ho" absolutely wants Drake's bizness, but, despite the egotistical bravado, "Best" actually comes across as rather sweet: "You can have my heart or we can share it like the last slice." Awww, our cold heart's thawing!

Now, "Successful." We've included the video above. While Drake does sing about wanting hoes, money and cars, he also warns "too much will kill ya." There's no room for greed here, for modest success, he insists, quite charmingly, is far more important. Being ostentatious simply isn't for him. He's far too sensitive.
Even if you disagree with our take on this, hopefully you can agree the 22-year old far outshines his formerDegrassi castmates. This is assuming, of course, that the CW's Vampire Diaries, which stars another Degrassi actress, Nina Dobrev, will suck. Which it will.

Regardless of your opinion, there's no doubt Drake will get far in the wild world of music. He's already worked with the annoying-yet-talented Kanye, musical genius Lil Wayne, Eminem and Trey Songz. If that combination can't help him beat the competition, nothing will.

Initial reports hint at a drug overdose; anonymous sources tell both the New York Post and TMZ that drug paraphernalia was found next to Goldstein's body in his Lafayette Street apartment.

On September 19, 2008, Goldstein and former Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker were critically injured in a Learjet crash in South Carolina. Four other people, including the pilot, copilot and two passengers, died in the incident. Second- and third-degree burns to Goldstein's hands and head required three surgeries. In the weeks after the incident, Goldstein told People magazine he was coping with the trauma one day at a time.

A decade or so earlier, Goldstein had attempted suicide amid a struggle with drug addiction before entering recovery and maintaining a sober life for close to 10 years. He also struggled with obesity from a young age and eventually had gastric bypass surgery.

Press accounts have referenced DJ AM's Twitter stream, where the last entry, dated Tuesday, is a reference to a Grandmaster Flash song, reading, "New York, New York. Big city of dreams, but everything in New York ain't always what it seems."

Goldstein had an on-again, off-again relationship with singer Mandy Moore and was once engaged to reality TV star Nicole Richie.

(Pic: Goldstein in June, at the launch of the videogame DJ Hero. Getty.)

The cable channel A&E confirmed today that it will air a reality show about the Jackson brothers. Now, before we get all cynical, consider this: the network claims it always planned air the show, which follows the gang as they try to form a band. In fact, they started shooting last January.

Yet, despite having half-a-year's worth of footage of the boys, executives claim they never got around to the messy business of, you know, setting a premiere. Because why would they? But now, two-months after Jackson's death and in the midst of the media firestorm — it was homicide!! — A&E has confirmed they're airing a series following the boys' quest to form a band.

Don't get too excited, though, because they're still discussing matters with the production company, Point 7 Entertainment. So, why even bring it up? Probably just to get in on all the post-MJ publicity action. Now, before you start wagging a self-righteous family at Jermaine, Tito and the rest, Jodi Gomes, an executive producer at Point 7, insists none of the brothers are using their late brother to reclaim the long lost spotlight:

To anybody that says the family is capitalizing on Michael's death, it will be evident in the first episode that that's not true.

No, we would never, ever even think that. Although, it's odd: Jackson's death seems to have been good for all involved. Except him.

Anyway, the fact that there's no set date for this televisual grave-robbing doesn't give us much confidence in A&E's ultimate plans. Not that we had confidence in the first place.

• The event starts at 10 a.m., L.A. time. Who will be carrying it live? Everybody! Specifically, "All the major networks and a host of cable news and entertainment channels, including CNN, MSNBC, E! Entertainment, TV Guide Network and TV One."
• "More than 1.6 million people registered over the weekend for a chance at one of 17,500 free tickets to the service."
• To make things a little more lively, MJ's dead body will be in attendance! Appearing alongside the corpse: "Mariah Carey, Usher, John Mayer, Jennifer Hudson ­as well as a delegation from Motown, the label that nurtured Mr. Jackson as the child star of the Jackson 5. There are also figures from sports (Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant), politics (Al Sharpton, Martin Luther King III), movies and television (Brooke Shields) and the church (the Andrae Crouch Choir)."
• The presence of Michael himself is, of course, driving the TV anchors wild with hyperbole. As well as anyone speaking to the TV anchors. Said Ken Sunshine, PR man for the event: "Michael Jackson is the biggest figure emitting love ever." HEH.
• According to vague "experts" and "analysts," one billion people will watch this thing. Christ. Let's hope not.
• And through all of this madness, reporters won't even be given any food that they can't pay for themselves. Or phones! Sounds nice. From the official media advisory:
  

Jackson 13-minute Thriller video was the most expensive of its time; MTV's heavy rotation of Billie Jean was seen as a win for black artists; the intricately-choreographed Beat It in the 1980s seemed poised to eclipse West Side Story, on which it was based, as a cultural touchstone. The singer continued to push the envelope through his albums Bad, Dangerous and HIStory.

In no particular order, here are ten of the singer's best videos.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Thriller

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Billie Jean

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Beat It

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Debut of "Moonwalk" dance move during performance of Billie Jean during the Motown 25: Yesterday, Today and Forever TV special

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.ABC (a performance rather than a video)

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Bad

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Black or White

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The Way You Make Me Feel

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Scream

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Bonus: Smooth Criminal

This time she's working with Pete Yorn. How lucky he must feel to get this opportunity. I mean I guess you can't really blame the dude, here he has ScarJo, of all people, coming up to him like "Hey how would you like to spend weeks in the studio with me and my attractive body?" And he's like sure, okay, let's do it, hell, Pete Yorn can go do his own albums later on so why would he say no? I mean she got Tom fucking Waits, America's coolest living man, to say yes, and he certainly does not need Scarlett Johansson's help, with his songs, in any way shape or form, thank you very much, so her powers of persuasion are very real, my friends.

You can listen to the first single here, which is not bad except that ScarJo has this underlying robotic quality in her voice, which is just one of the many reasons she should not be making songs. The album comes out September 8 so be sure to boycott it.
[Pic via]

Spector's hair is obviously shorter than it used to be (compare mug shot, above, to second picture, below). It's also probably much closer to prison regulation.

Sentencing is May 29.

The genial Q TV host, Jian Ghomeshi, introduced Billy Bob as an "Oscar-winning screenwriter, actor, and director" when doing an interview with Thornton and his band The Boxmasters. And that ticked ol' Billy B. off something fierce.

He was first sullen and sulky, answering questions evasively, when he was answering them at all, but then the whole thing spun out of control. When pressed to answer a question about his musical influences, Thornton pissily, an inexplicably, compared himself to Tom Petty, then just acted like a petulant little baby. Basically because he felt that people weren't taking his precious, precious "cosmic cowboy music" seriously enough. It gets real weird and awkward about half way through.

Visitors would be able to visit a replica slave ship and walk the route their shackled ancestors walked before playing a round of golf or relaxing by a pool.

There's also Jackson Five tie-in, obviously, including a collection of band memorabilia. There are also holograms, robots and probably some kind of horribly ill-advised Captain EO-meets-Roots laser movie thing. The idea is to attract African Americans who want to trace back their roots, and white people looking for the money they were promised on email.

Historians are aghast, and one critic said the proposed development is "like dancing on the graves of dead people," which totally isn't true. It's like building a pricey, zombie-themed nightclub on the graves of dead people, complete with bottle service, and making relatives of the deceased pay an exorbitant cover charge to come visit. Then you get in and Michael Jackson is dancing with the skeleton of the Elephant Man. (Except that's something we'd actually pay to experience. Otherwise, same thing.)

The Grammy Awards performance gave the New York Times a news hook on which to hang the issue. The paper noted that the tiger icon featured in the video for M.I.A.'s 2007 hit "Bird Flu" bears a striking resemblance to the logo for Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers, described by the FBI as "among the most dangerous and deadly extremists in the world," pioneering suicide bombing techniques and killing world leaders. You can compare the logo above, from the video, with the group's logo below.

The paper also quoted Sri Lankans who say M.I.A., whatever her artistic merits, glorifies the Tigers. Her father is a leader in the Tamil separatist movement.

The thing is, M.I.A. is far from the first rapper to toy with paramilitary or violent imagery. Public Enemy had the Uzi-toting S1Ws; N.W.A.'s first mass album cover had a member of the rap group pointing a gun at the camera; Ice Cube dabbled in the Nation of Islam, incorporating some themes into his music; MC Ren did a song about ethnic cleansing in America. The cartoonish extremism mainly served to help make the music appealing to suburban white kids, but, as the cliche goes, that was before 9/11.

With terrorism perceived as a bigger threat these days, M.I.A.'s music will draw harsher scrutiny. But it will be hard to take her too seriously as a terror apologist now that she's marrying into a very rich family and is cashing big corporate checks from MTV and her record company.

(Below, find a critical cover of M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" by Sinhalese rapper DeLon.)

That's what "a source close to the investigation" is telling E!, at least. The same source said Rihanna had a black eye and hand prints on her arms when discovered by police in Brown's car Sunday night — a bit less extreme than the "bite marks" described by TMZ's sources, but still terrible.

Brown, on his way home from a pre-Grammys party at Clive Davis' house, purportedly pulled his silver Lamborghini over to the side of the road during an argument with Rihanna. According to E!'s source, he became especially enraged when Rihanna grabbed his keys and threw them out the car's window.

If even half this stuff is true, Brown is a non-entity for a good long while, professionally. If it's not, then someone is doing a hell of a job smearing Chris Brown across so many publications.

“After waiting in an area with an open bar and a DJ, we walked up a driveway illuminated by fluorescent lights to a darkened room where we saw 40 nude women. Most of them were wearing strange masks made of wool. “The models stood in the middle of the room - black girls at the front and white girls at the back. Then the entire album played without any introduction or explanation.”

This is the new standard for everything. Maybe not so fun for the ladies, though.

[via LA Rag Mag. Further...art shots at Kanye's blog]

We asked Liz Rosenberg about this discrepancy between what she said earlier, and what's happening now. Her answer: "there was no pending divorce earlier this year."

So, we asked, does that mean that, for example, the Sun's report that Madonna "initially planned to move back to the US with their three children in July" is false? "yes," Rosenberg replied.

Well, how credible is Liz Rosenberg? She told the world in 2006 that Madonna was not adopting a baby in Malawi. Although, of course, Madonna did adopt a baby in Malawi.

What else do we know about Rosenberg?

• According to CityFile, she's "best known for having served as Madonna's flack for more than 20 years. Other clients have included the Pretenders, Cher, Josh Groban, Stevie Nicks, Seal, k.d. Lang, and Liza Minnelli."
• She does a good job of staying friendly with celebrity magazine editors, naturally—she's allegedly been showering the editor of People with free Madonna tickets for a decade or more.
• She knows how to play hardball—she reportedly managed to silence a good deal of potential press coverage of Madonna's brother Christopher Ciccone's book last summer, which portrayed the singer negatively.

So Rosenberg does her job. Regardless, no matter how much wheedling, pleading, bargaining, threats, or doubletalk a flack uses, they're not supposed to flat-out lie. But Rosenberg has quite a reputation for lying. Look! Some of the most vehement "Rosenberg is a liar" voices are the most fervent Madonna fans, like commenters on AbsoluteMadonna.com. It might be advantageous to court them, from a PR point of view!

Celebrity flacks are probably the only remaining category of PR people who can get away with bald-faced lies, and continue to be effective in their jobs. Corporate flacks run the risk of pissing off business reporters (or even the SEC), which would make them liabilities. Media flacks? Lord, they have to be friends with reporters. To lie is to die. Despite the vague public perception that all flacks are liars, they really can't be if they want to have a long-term career.

Unless they have a client like Madonna! Because the celebrity media will want to cover Madonna for the rest of her natural life no matter what she or her flack does. So Liz Rosenberg, yes, probably finds it expedient to just lie and now and then, without any real consequences.

But that also means you shouldn't necessarily believe anything she says.

[pic via Celebrity Wonder]

The rest of the HARD Festival performers are heavy on the penis: Pharrell and Chad's pet project N*E*R*D headlines (they have a new CD called "Seeing Sounds"); along with Kill the Noise, described as having "angry distorted synth lines," (Seriously, it's as if someone snorted a line of meth and shot themselves full with steroids before sitting down to write the copy for this festival.) Seriously tough: the Bloody Beetroots, which sounds like something from 1990 acid house, except even more fierce.

Thankfully, MSTRKRFT (Master Craft) and Baltimore boys in Spank Rock lighten the load—(the former's gotta a track that just repeats, "All I do is party!").

For those too bored to rave-on the Hard way, there's a skate park hosted by Terry Kennedy. There's exactly one lady on the bill, Kid Sister, and we send her all the luck she can get.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

• HARD Summer Music Festival [LAT]