In September of 2010, the world (well, the UK) watched as a jittery Worcestershire-born girl named Cher Lloyd strolled across the stage–suited in a a fitted black jacket and shredded white jeans–to audition for the X Factor. After a brief grilling by the judges regarding her name and age (“You look more!” Louis Walsh exclaimed after learning she was only 16 years old), Lloyd announced she’d be performing (Keri Hilson‘s cover of) Soulja Boy‘s “Turn My Swag On.”

And then she opened her mouth to sing.

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Havana Brown – “We Run The Night”

Havana Brown is a popular Australian DJ.

When she’s not serving as the opening act for some of MuuMuse’s top pop acts during their Australian leg of their tours–including Rihanna (Good Girl Gone Bad Tour), the Pussycat Dolls (Doll Domination Tour) and the Legendary Miss Brit Brit (The Circus Tour: Starring Britney Spears)–she’s busy mixing tracks for her successful compilation series, Crave.

Earlier this year, the flawless disc jockey released her first-ever single: “We Run The Night,” an off the charts, bomb-dot-com explosion of pulsating synths and gigantic beat breakdowns co-written and produced by Aussie singer Cassie Davis and producer Snob Scrilla. The massive club stormer (and one of the best dance tracks of the year) went on to go double platinum and earn Brown a #5 spot on the ARIA Singles Chart.

Due to her single’s major success overseas, Brown revealed to fans on her Facebook last week that the song was being prepped for stateside release. YAY! So what did the label heads over at Universal Music decide to do before shipping out to precious American ears? Why, hire Gaga hit-maker RedOne to slap on some extra beats and a verse by everyone’s favorite radio perv Pitbull, of course! …OH.

Havana Brown – “We Run The Night (feat. Pitbull)” (Produced by RedOne)

The newly leaked re-rub of the track is a (largely unnecessary) mix ‘n’ match of the original, including a few extra RedOne bouncy beats and a boner-killing restructure that sticks the first beat drop at the very beginning of the song–thus ruining the song’s original build-up. And as for that grating Pitbull verse? About as necessary as a cold sore. (Funnily enough, listening to any Pitbull verse usually results in the development of a cold sore.)

Now don’t get me wrong here: “We Run The Night” is still a supreme club cut, and I’m so excited to hear it blasting out in clubs stateside! This new version crafted for the States is just sort of, err…extraneous and overly commercial. Oh well!

“We Run The Night” will be released on September 27. (iTunes Australia)

Nicole Scherzinger – “I’m Gonna” (Unreleased)

Kweens, rejoice!

Blessed beauty Nicole Scherzinbehindthesehazeleyeser has just sprung a leak–and she’s serving up some serious ’90′s House RuPaul realness!

“I’m Gonna,” produced by remix aficionado Dave Aude, is but a scrap picked up from the ground of the Killer Love sessions. And while it’s easy to understand why the House-infused throwback track didn’t make the thoroughly modern RedOne tracklisting of Scherzy’s long-delayed debut, that doesn’t mean that this isn’t one of the best solo cuts Scherzy’s ever served up!

Packed to the brim with luscious piano chords and a relentless, feel-good ’90′s House beat, Nicole’s gone and made like Brit Brit on her Inner City lovin’ Femme Fatale bonus track “Up & Down” and borrowed from the past, heavily sampling Bizarre Inc.‘s #1 1992 Billboard Dance hit, “I’m Gonna Get You.”

“I’m gonna get you, baby…I’m gonna get you, yes I am!” she proudly declares atop the fresh, funky club rhythms. YASSSS!

This is some good ‘ish. This is some dance-’round-the-room ‘ish. This is that ‘ish you just know Kimberly Wyatt puts her face on to before hitting the stage at 4 A.M. to host the nightly drag revue in London (in which Carmit Bachar performs.)

WORRRRRRK, MAMA!

Well, Madonna may not be working with RedOne anytime soon…but Cher is.

The legendary entertainer took to Twitter early Thursday morning to announce an exciting “secret” she’d been waiting all of forever to tell her fans:

Just walked in from studio ! I Finished 1st track on new cd &……..”GAGA ” ” YOU ARE THE GREATEST THING TO ME “

Naturally, the general response was universal: WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN, CHER.

After a few more minutes, the icon regained consciousness/someone on Team Cher took control of the bejeweled Blackberry clenched between her hands and finished the thought:

It’s not a duet ! Who knows ? I Did Hold her “Meat Purse” haha! One can wish! It’s one of her songs & she & Redone gave it to me 4 my cd ! Wait ! I would love duet with GaGa, but She Gave Me GREAT Song & I’m beyond Grateful!!!! It’s called ” The Greatest Thing “

So there you have it: Cher has recorded a song with RedOne. Penned by Lady Gaga. And guess what? You can already hear it now.

This Lady Gaga demo–originally dubbed “The Greatest”–first leaked on the web over a year ago. And as Cher originally tweeted, the song contains the phrase “You are the greatest thing to me.”

Admittedly it does sound very post-1998 Cher, what with the overly Auto-tuned vocals and all. But…is this a good enough song for Cher? Is this real life? What is love? (Baby, don’t hurt me.) Okay, so…but…

Like Lily said: I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore.

START SCREAMING NOW.

Two of the UK’s leading boy bands, JLS and The Wanted, are about to release the lead singles from both of their upcoming studio albums this summer. Two summery club anthems. Two boy bands. AT THE SAME TIME. And to make matters even better–both songs have just premiered on UK radio!

Let’s explore, yes?

And now, Lady Gaga performing “Judas” for the first time ever.

Donning her best Britney at the 1999 VMA’s skin-tight couture (I keed, I keed), Mademoiselle Gagz and her troupe of pious prancers turned out a semi-spastic, mildly epileptic rendition of her latest RedOne-produced smash.

The Lady also sat down and spoke with Ellen prior to her performance to discuss her fans, her fashion, and “feeling like a loser” in her latest HBO special sneak peek. Oh, and her surrealist mole of course!

Watch for the “Judas” music video to premiere during next Thursday’s episode of American Idol.

“Judas” was released on April 15. (iTunes)

In what is truly shaping up to be her strongest album in almost a decade, Jennifer Lopez has just unleashed a brand new cut from her upcoming studio album, LOVE? to iTunes this weekend: “Papi.” And guess what? IT’S HOT FIYA!

“Papi” finds J. Lo working with Gaga hit-maker RedOne and his writing camp once again, the same winning team behind her massive global smash single, “On The Floor.”

Like her last hit, “Papi” borrows heavily from the same song production featured on RedOne’s (regrettably flopped) 2010 effort: Kat DeLuna‘s Inside Out. (It must be “Party O’ Clock” somewhere…right? *Balloon slowly deflating noise.*)

Featuring scorching club beats and a delicious, hair whippin’ friendly chorus (“Rock your body, rock your body…dance for your papi!”), “Papi” might just be one of Lopez’s best club commanders since “Waiting For Tonight.” You can almost see the green lasers shooting through the smoke-filled dance floors already!

Aside from the song’s already infectious beat, it’s the breakdown–which pairs Lopez’s luscious Spanish instructions (“Step up, Step up! Let your hair down!”) against a serious, stomping beat–that truly takes the track to a whole new level of amazing.

I mean, hello: A track where J. Lo yells at me in two different languages to shake it vigorously for my man? Now that’s something worth Muusing about!

Move your bah-day! Move your bah-day!

“Papi” was released on April 16. (iTunes)

Just one week before Easter weekend, Lady Gaga (not-so-accidentally) sprung a leak early this morning, resulting in the sudden rush release of “Judas,” the religion-wrought second single from Gaga’s upcoming studio album, Born This Way.

As I pointed out when the track first began to leak, “Judas” come packaged on top of a relentlessly grinding, “sledge-hammering” beat; a natural progression from the noisy, ‘everything-but-the-kitchen-sink’ production of “Born This Way,” now aided by RedOne‘s trademark repeat-heavy styling. (The song also doesn’t sound entirely different from a similarly sledge-hammering RedOne production, Nicole Scherzinger‘s “Poison.”)

As “Poker Face” is to “Bad Romance,” so too is “Bad Romance” to “Judas.” The song follows in a nearly identical structure to “Bad Romance,” from the same soaring chorus down to the “whoa-oh-oh!” follow-up. Instead of “ra-ra, ah-ah-ah!”, we have “Ju-da, Ju-da-ah!” (Not exactly the most daring show of creativity, to be sure.)

“Judas” is also quite similar in theme, as Gaga treads lightly across a sprinkling of biblical references (oh hay, Jesus!) and demonic undertones to weave a tale of–well, a bad romance: “I learned love is like a brick, you can / Build a house or sink a dead body,” Gaga speak-sings. It’s not quite blasphemous enough to incite fury amongst bible-thumpers, but still enough to keep the Illuminati fear-mongers pointing their trembling fingers for weeks.

About three minutes into the chaos, the song gives way to an utterly insane, tribal-meets-Bollywood electronic breakdown. “But in the cultural sense, I just speak in future tense / Judas kiss me if offenced, or wear an ear condom next time!” Gaga cries. As it turns out, a nonsensical chant about fame hookers vomiting their mind works well enough when masked by a mile-a-minute mixture of electro-tribal beats. But in writing? It’s one of Gaga’s most embarrassing, cringe-worthy moments in lyricism…ever.

Redemption comes immediately thereafter with the song’s post-tribal bridge, which strip away some of the more noise to expose a gorgeous ’90′s hi-NRG beat: “Jesus is my virtue / And Judas is the demon I cling to…I cling to!” Gaga victoriously cries, her clenched paw raised high. It’s within this brief moment of clarity that the song truly shines brightest.

In short: “Judas” is a good pop song: It’s catchy (increasingly so after each play), full of textured beats, and (mostly) danceable. But in the same breath, it’s loud, grating, entirely derivative and slightly obnoxious, thus ushering in the larger issue at hand: My complete inability to connect with the Born This Way era.

As with “Born This Way,” I’m hopelessly neither here nor there with “Judas.” The beats bang hard and the melodies are catchy, but the song’s breakneck speed, yelping caws and headache-inducing production value are all a bit too much to embrace.

Every song on The Fame and The Fame Monster (MuuMuse Review) made sense from the start: I didn’t have to play “LoveGame” a hundred and fifty times in order to discover a melody buried deep within layers of loud, noisy production–it was a single play, and an instant love affair.

But now, I have to try with Gaga–really, really try in order to love. While she’s busy proclaiming that the late Alexander McQueen penned “Born This Way” from Heaven and that her “Born This Way” face spikes are actual bones she was born with, it’s a song as underwhelming as “Judas” that truly adds weight to the most common charge from critics: That Lady Gaga is style over substance.

While “Judas” isn’t actually bad, I’ve truly had just about enough of Gaga Nouveau: “Born This Way” and “Judas” don’t even slightly hold a candle to the infectiousness of “Just Dance” or “Bad Romance,” nor the slinky beats of “Starstruck” or “So Happy I Could Die,” nor the celebratory joy of “Boys Boys Boys” and “Monster.”

I know this means I’ll have to invest in a few more ear condoms this year, but hey…I was born this way, baby.