HUSH. JUST. STOP.

The Queen has tweeted:

Just finished recording a monster with @TheDoctorLuke and #MaxMartin. Get ready…. -Britney

For anyone who didn’t know (and by now you damn well should), Max Martin and Dr. Luke are responsible for the biggest songs of Britney’s career, including “3,” “Circus,” “Stronger,” “If U Seek Amy,” “Oops! I Did It Again,” and a really underrated cut called “…Baby One More Time.”

As far as I know, the two have never collaborated on one track together for Britney at the same time–until now.

2011: The Year Of The Spears.

It’s been a while.

Today, Billboard posted a video clip of Dr. Luke conducting a Q&A during the Billboard Film & TV Music Conference, in which he spoke about the project that everyone wants to know about: The seventh Britney studio album, tentatively due out in spring 2011. (WATCH)

The main points were as follows:

+ On whether the producer met with Britney to work on the album yet: “Not so much with this album.”

+ On what he plans to do for this album: “I have ideas. Mainly, what I want to do is…what I’ve done that works. What we’ve done that works. I also want to make sure it sounds a little different. In some ways, I want to get harder…maybe a little more deep into electronica. Grimier.”

+ On timing: “We’re early in the process.”

I’m ever-so-slightly concerned: So she’s (seemingly) uninvolved in the process and he’s going to go with what “works”? Not that he doesn’t consistently produce smashes–he does–but are they going to be Katy Perry knock-offs from the last record? Please say no.

Then again, it’s too early to be getting all butt-hurt about this. The creative direction of an album always changes once the artist actually hits the studio, and Britney is literally humanly incapable of producing anything that isn’t 100% hot fiya.

Plus, there was that Tedder quote about “Unusual You” being the launch-pad for writers coming in for sessions on this album. I’m not too worried.

Keeping the Godney faith strong since ’98.

Kelandria Rowland may be facing her fair share of setbacks recently, but the release of “Rose Colored Glasses” is continuing on as planned.

Check out a preview of the upcoming Rankin-directed clip for her newest single (he’s certainly having a banner year what with Sky Ferreira and Kelis, isn’t he?), which will include a “heavy” fight scene, gorgeous lighting, and as with all of Rankin’s work, some truly stunning visuals.

As the singer says in the above preview, the Tedder-esque ballad was penned by MuuMuse favorite Ester Dean (“Rude Boy”; “Peacock”). It was also produced by Dr. Luke, which makes this a more star-studded affair than I’d previously realized.

Judging by what we’ve seen in this clip, the video looks gorgeous–and breaking that vase upon that man’s head? Ooh, child. I’m rooting for you, girl!

The video for “Rose Colored Glasses” will be released to VEVO on September 20.

Katy Perry is probably the only pop star I could ever feel compelled to deem a “guilty pleasure.”

In my opinion, there are two types of catchy in the world: The one with pop hooks so well-crafted you’ll want them replaying in your head until the end of time (“Umbrella,” “Just Dance”), and then there’s the obvious, derivative kind of catchy that cause you to itch and burn like an STD.

Perry’s productions are often in the latter category. In fact, they sort of like the music equivalent of herpes: Wildly contagious, annoying, and ultimately likely to lead to an intense awkwardness when revealing your condition to lovers and friends.

Take for instance one of the summer’s biggest singles, “California Gurls.” The track is little more than a direct rip of BFF Ke$ha‘s superior drunk-pop anthem, “Tik Tok,” yet it’s managed to thrive nonetheless.

It isn’t always the songs–usually the product of a suite of Swedish pop masterminds–that cause such pangs of guilt and anguish, but rather Perry herself, whose doe-eyed, potty-mouthed persona leaves much to be desired.

Perry’s shtick is obnoxious and, at times, hypocritical. Bolstered by a devoutly religious upbringing (and short-lived run as a Christian rock artist), she has the gall to criticize her fellow pop stars for being blasphemous sluts while simultaneously shooting whipped cream out of her tits and posing topless for Rolling Stone and Esquire.

For me, she’s a hard one to like–let alone to outwardly enjoy in public.

But good pop is good pop, and every now and then, Katy Perry delivers good pop.

This week sees the release of Teenage Dream, Katy Perry’s follow-up to her massively successful 2008 debut, One of The Boys. The album, like the one before, is a veritable “who’s who” of the top pop producers in the game, including Max Martin, Tricky Stewart, Greg Wells, Benny Blanco, Dr. Luke, and Stargate.

The album begins with its title track, which also happens best song of the bunch in terms of songcraft. “Teenage Dream” is not only a masterfully crafted pop tune with a smart hook, but a rare moment of tenderness for the otherwise bratty bombshell: “You think I’m pretty without any makeup on / You think I’m funny when I tell the punchline wrong,” Perry whispers on top of the song’s setting sun guitar strums.

Sure, the lyrics offer a cornucopia of only the most stereotypical lovesick vagueries, but “Teenage Dream” is still an amazing and evocative pop song. At the risk of massacring my reputation (what reputation?), it simply must be said: Listening to this song just makes you want to feel that way about someone.

“Last Friday (T.G.I.F.),” in contrast, feels entirely inauthentic. Much as with Perry’s summer smash, the song is almost a direct lift of everything you’ve already heard off of Ke$ha’s debut released earlier this year, Animal. Say what you will about Ke$ha’s aesthetic (or what she probably smells like), but any and all talk of drunken hook-ups and glitter on the floor are strictly within her domain at the moment. Any other attempt to emulate her drunk-pop revelry? Well, it just comes off sounding cheap.

The slap-happy silliness is pervasive throughout Perry’s record, including the stomping ode to the penis, “Peacock.” Scribed by one of the naughtiest names in popular songwriting at the moment, Ester Dean (“Rude Boy”; “Drop It Low”), “Peacock” is a most infectious, cheer-tastic celebration of the male member hidden behind the thinnest of veils: “Are you brave enough to let me see your peacock? / Don’t be a chicken boy, stop acting like a beeotch.” It’s the most fun offered on the record, even if the schtick wears stale after a few days.

It’s not all cotton candy and cocks, though. In interviews leading up to the release of Teenage Dream, Perry expressed her desire to fill the void of an Alanis Morrissette-like figure in today’s pop market on her next release.

“Circle the Drain” is the result of such desire, one of the album’s most impressive numbers. The song contains the best, most biting lines of the entire record: “Wanna be your lover, not your fucking mother,” Perry explodes with a vitriolic, shaking-with-anger kind of enunciation while exorcising her ex-flame’s demons.

“E.T.” and “Who Am I Living For?” follow along a similarly angst-ridden path. Still, Perry’s self-searching offerings are a bit too modern/major production (excessive instrumentation; squeaky-clean studio sounds) to be dubbed worthy of a Morrissette comparison–even if they dare to bare their teeth more than your standard Kelly Clarkson vengeance-seeking smash.

At best, Teenage Dream is a top heavy collection of party pop anthems and occasionally good, often schmaltzy slow numbers. Perhaps if she left the glitter act to Ke$ha and nixed the soggy ballads clogging up the second half of this record, Perry might have stood to offer something as tasty as her album’s cotton-candy scent. (No, really…the album smells.)

Aside from the occasional moment of sugary sweet brilliance however (“Teenage Dream”; “Firework”), the party balloons deflate rather quickly, resulting in a record that feels about as fluffy as the pink cotton candy swirled around Perry’s naughty bits on the cover.

So, this is something new and interesting.

The night before my interview with Sky Ferreira, I received a vaguely mysterious e-mail from MuuMuse reader Sam Lansky with an attachment entitled “Fame Fatale.” The e-mail suggested that the attached may assist me in preparing for my interview.

As soon as I began reading, I already knew: This had to be published immediately.

“Fame Fatale” is not only a remarkably in-depth analysis (and personal account) of Ferreira’s curious rise to fame, but a thoughtful contemplation of the manufacturing of the modern pop star and the very conventions of the music industry itself. It’s extremely well-researched, poses tough questions, and deserves your full attention.

With his permission, I’ve asked Sam to feature his article on MuuMuse. It’s an incredible piece, and I do highly recommend that all of my Muusers give it a thorough reading–even if it’s “tl;dr” territory.

I do, after all, hope to keep a literate company.

Click “Read More…” to read Sam Lansky’s “Fame Fatale: The Rise of Sky Ferreira.”

Read More…

“When I woke up, I was like what did I do last night? Like what did I do? I fucked up… story of my life.”
Nicole “Snookums” Polizzi, Jersey Shore

Congratulations…it’s 2010! Who’s ready to drink?

That’s the lasting, ever-present theme of Animal, the long-awaited debut album from Ke$ha. (That’s kesh-uh, like ketchup, not key-shuh, like what I’ve been calling her for almost a year now.)

With a voice that can only be described as belonging to the bratty, rebellious step-sister of Katy Perry and a wardrobe identical to your annoyingly hip cousin who’s ‘over’ consumer culture and shops exclusively at American Apparel, Ke$ha has been toted for some time now as a kind of drunk electro-crap pop protege in the making.

But before we get ahead of ourselves and start praising her as the mainstream answer to Peaches or Uffie, let the record show: Ke$ha is just too squeaky-clean to be anything even close to dirrty pop. Sure, she’ll wear ripped leggings out on the town, hobble ’round drunk on stage with glitter smeared on her face and shout into a megaphone like an ass-backwards loon, but at the end of the day, she’s still a pretty face (with an interest in collaborating with Taylor Swift, as evidenced in this fairly annoying mini-interview).

However, even if she isn’t really spewing blood or punching dudes for sticking their fingers up her hoo-hah while crowd surfing, Ke$ha’s still here for the party on Animal.

With “Your Love Is My Drug” and “Tik Tok,” the “Poker Face” and “Just Dance” of the album respectively, K$ revels in the excesses of pop at its finest. Exuberant, punchy, irreverent–the two songs are the quintessential ‘dancing the night away’ moments of the album, complete with fist-pump worthy choruses and glitchy, gleeful synthesizers that merge fun, kid-friendly beats with the all-important album theme of substance abuse. (The result of which lends itself to literally dozens and dozens of uncomfortable tweenage video reinterpretations, complete with water bottle sippin’ and faux-drunk gyrating.)

Later on, with songs like “Take it Off” and “Kiss N Tell,” Ke$ha keeps the Katy Perry pronunciation guide close at hand for another round of drink-inspired jubilee. If you close your eyes and ignore the awful, skin-crawling over-enunciation of each syllable (“we’re duh-lee-ree-uss-suh, ’til the sun comes back uh-rah-ow-und”), the song’s are almost as fun as the two lead tracks, though inconsistently so: Some days they’re amazing, others simply unlistenable. It all depends on how loud and where you’re playing them.

It’s too bad that the plug gets pulled so soon.

Just as the party’s getting started, K$ takes it back to the schoolyard with a few truly dire attempts including  “Stephen,” a sloppy ode to a boy performed with an irritating, giggly schoolgirl sweetness. “I saw you in your tight ass rocker pants / You saw me too / I laughed ’cause I was completely trashed.” If the tuneless chorus isn’t enough to kill your buzz, the embarrassing ‘this is meant to be ironically immature’ lyricism will finish the job.

Later on, Ke$ha’s childish side is only further exploited with the likes of “Dinosaur,” which doubles as the worst song of 2010 thus far. The wimpy spell-out assault, meant to put the old men creeping around clubs on blast (“D-I-N-O-S-A, U-R a dinosaur!”), is so obnoxious, so incomprehensibly basic that it makes Gwen Stefani‘s “Hollaback Girl” (“This shit is bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S”) sound refined.

As songs like “Dinosaur” come to show, one of the biggest drawbacks of Animal is its snotty Kidz Bop-friendly attitude. Back during the summer, when a slew of demos from the singer first leaked, standout tracks including “Disgusting,” “Fuck Him (He’s A DJ)” and “V.I.P.,” (which has mercifully been tacked on as a bonus track overseas) provided a glimmer of hope that Ke$ha was to become our new rude-pop savior. The songs were much grimier, complete with naughty come-on’s and more genuinely clever lyrics (“He’s a stereo type / He’s got the baseball cap and he’s building the hype, as he’s feeding me this hot track / You see, we share the same God, we’ve got the same love / I never want to stop, I don’t want to give him up.”) Now? We’ve got trash like “Blah Blah Blah.”

Not all of the girly girl tracks are worth the hate, though: The strut-worthy prowl of “Boots and Boys” and the deliciously bitchy “Backstabber” are both redeemable bouts of escapist delight.

The time when Ke$ha truly, legitimately shines best is when she drops the baby routine and acts her own age: “Hungover,” “Dancing With Tears in My Eyes,” and “Animal” are all miles ahead of the pack, featuring anthemic pop hooks and devastating choruses. The most successful of all of the grown-up numbers is “Blind,” which ties a minimal, plodding synthesized beat together with one hell of a Clarkson-worthy chorus: “I’m sick and tired of the mess you made me / Never gonna catch me cry / You must be blind if you can’t see / You’ll miss me ’til the day you die.”

The bleary-eyed, post-party numbers are much smarter than the surrounding material, and far more representative of Ke$ha’s ability to be more than just a one bottle wonder–which makes duds like “Party at a Rich Dude’s House” all the more difficult to swallow.

Much a fuss has been made about tween superstar Miley Cyrus‘ latest single, “Party in the USA,” which joins the ranks of other Cyrus classics as “Fly on the Wall,” “7 Things,” and even “See You Again.” Let us now explore whether or not this new song is or isn’t the greatest piece of recorded material ever created in our nation’s history:

Is it an up-tempo? More of a mid-tempo really, but yes.

Does it include a bit about nodding your head? Yeah.

How about a bit about swinging your hips like yeah? Yeah.

Does it mention Britney Spears at least once? Three times, actually.

Would it sound nice with a Hi-NRG beat attached in the clubs? My guess is no, though I haven’t actually verified that yet.

Is it good-but-bad in that sort of “can’t play this in front of respectable company” way, but so-bad-it’s-good in that “let’s play this full blast on the highway with our friends while singing in an ironic, high-pitched manner” kind of way? Oh, yes.

Is it produced by legendary Swedish pop producer/mastermind, Max Martin? It is not–however, it is produced by frequent Max Martin collaborator, Dr. Luke, which is by most accounts nearly the same thing.

Does it belong in the sad disco genre? …No, it most certainly does not.

As a result, we can now deduce that Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA” is not the greatest song of all time. Thank you for your attention, and good night.

As you know, we here at MuuMuse appreciate all types of music: Throw us any genre, any styling, and chances are there’s at least something nice to say about a song. But perhaps nothing is more beloved ’round these parts as the incomparable genre hereby dubbed as trash musique: Khia, Tila Tequila, and now…Ke$ha.

Ke$ha (here on in to be referred to as ‘Kesha’) is the voice behind Flo Rida‘s relentlessly obnoxious “Right Round,” as well as the background voice on Britney‘s “Lace And Leather.” (Weird, right?)

As you may gather from her seizure-inducing MySpace, Kesha doesn’t ‘give a shit.’ Her music is pure, unfiltered fizzy drunk pop, combining the auto-tune abuse and electro-gangsta “Ready To Uff” appeal of Uffie, coupled with the chops of Katy Perry and the fearless flow of Robyn.

Admittedly, I’d written her off as a bit of a talentless whore back when “Right Round” premiered months ago. However, upon hearing what’s expected to be her official debut single, “P. Diddy,” along with a 2-CD set of recently leaked demos, my thoughts have changed entirely.

From throwing up in Paris Hilton‘s closet to fucking the DJ (hay gurl hay!), the thrust of the Kesha collection is right up my alley. And the funny thing is, the songs don’t even suck. Like, at all. In fact–they’re DAMN good. Didn’t entirely dig “Diddy”? Then try “Backstabber,” an electro-fueled bitch fest slighting the bitches and hos trying to pull a fast one on K$.

What’s more is that her upcoming debut album appears to have been granted the Midas touch: The producer’s list currently boasts the heaviest of hitters, including Dr. Luke, Max Martin, Benny Blanco, and Fernando Garibay.

Oh, and as for that upcoming album? Ke$ha wants you to become the album cover! You m-u-s-t check out this video to find out how. (Hint: It involves crackheads.)

Joyous rapture, blessed be…I’ve found a new drunk-pop sensation! Now let’s pray she makes it to her album’s debut before the cirrhosis kicks in.

DL: Kesha – (Fuck Him) He’s A DJ