Her Majesty & The Wolves prove decent things do come out of Pussycat Dolls - watch 'Goodbye, Goodnight" now!

"Yo, y'all can see this scary bitch too, right?"

Once upon a time there was a thing called The Pussycat Dolls.  It was a musical group of sorts, made up of hookers or something and put together by choreographer Robin Antin to satisfy her lesbian fantasy which was less like a fantasy an actual lesbian would have and more like a fantasy that douchy straight men have about college girls with daddy issues who pretend to be lesbians at keg parties in order to get the attention they crave, and accordingly were kind of popular. 

The weird thing about the group was that for the most part they were actually talented, and as a band of singing whores they found a great deal of success worldwide.  But, as is so often the case in the music industry today, the girls' talent hasn't necessarily translated into solo success now that the brothel has broken up.

Well, one of the girls - one that isn't Nicole Scherzinger - is trying to change that, albeit in a somewhat non-conventional way.  Instead of attempting to ride the already-crowded POWERFUL AND FASHIONY POP DIVA escalator to fame and glory, former PCD member Kimberly Wyatt has opted to team up with a DJ thing and create a mildly interesting duo called Her Majesty & The Wolves, which we can all agree is the raddest name a group have deigned to give themselves in QUITE SOME TIME.

So what does this new artistic powerhouse sound like, you ask?

Well, they're a bit like if Ke$ha and The Black Eyed Peas were Eurotrash.  Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  For instance, their new track, 'Goodbye, Goodnight' is a fairly listenable tune that has lots of the now-requisite "ah-ah-ah" stuttery bits that Americans expect, but has production that sounds as if Cascada's mom came into the studio at the last minute and said, in a thick accent, "BUT IT'S NOT TACKY ENOUGH." 

So.... do with that what you will.

Watch the Backstreet Boys' comeback on Dancing With The Stars

Bukkake.

We had a choice today, ScopiSubjects.  There's a delightful new tune by a delightful new artist that sounds a bit like Miley's 'Party In The USA' but more credible, and our original plan was to write all about that in honor of it being ACTUALLY COMFORTABLE FOR HUMAN KIND in the out of doors, finally.  That song made a perfect choice for today's article - summery and fun and just indie enough to make us look like we're "in the know."  But then we saw this.  And it is terrible.

We were faced with a conundrum.  Go on and on about a cute but ultimately forgettable tune that no one will listen to, no one will care about and that will limp to number 37 in Belgium, or indulge in our favorite pasttime - snarkily throwing aging popstars under the bus for greedily pursuing their passions.

I think we all know which one we chose.

Yes there was a time (read: a week ago for about an hour or something) when we were SUPER EXCITED (read: mildly interested) by the NKOTBSB supergroup idea, not least of all because when you read out the name it actually says "New Kids On The Backstreet Boys" which is AMAZING.  Their single was actually not terrible in a throwaway midtempo ballad sort of way, and of course we never really object to looking at most of them.  But the whole point of this crazy endeavor is to sell tickets to the worldwide tour the lads will soon embark on, so we respectfully reserved judgment until we saw them all jam out with some microphones on a stage.  And last night that exact thing happened on the inexplicably popular 'Dancing With The Stars.'

Now, to be fair, this is only the Backstreet Boys portion of the supergroup - performing their RATHER BRILLIANT TUNE 'I Want It That Way.'  But, again in all fairness, they are the portion of the superband who should be the best anyway - they have been recording and performing together nearly the whole time since their heyday, while the members of New Kids have been buying up used car lots or something.  So if this is the BETTER HALF of the supergroup, we are just a bit worried.  Because this is not good.

Not good at all.

Listen to Kylie's NEW SINGLE for Japan relief!

Do you like my tight sweater

So what's the new Kylie Japan charity single like then?

Well it's a bit like Black Eyed Peas' 'Where Is The Love' but a bit more crap and also partly in a different language.  But all the proceeds from its sales will go to the relief efforts in Japan, so it's therefore better than 'Where Is The Love,' and - let's be honest here - a Kylie is better than a Fergie any day of the week.

Sure it's not going to become a HUGE SMASH CLASSIC and yeah it sounds a bit like something a couple university students on a music production course knocked together, but the great thing about charity singles is they don't have to be good to be...GOOD.

Roisin Murphy's new 'Boadicea' video with Mason is kind of wicked - watch the premiere now

Your move, Gaga.

A while ago we posted the new jam from electro-hipster goddess Roisin Murphy, and we believe we called it 'AMAZING' or 'QUITE GOOD' or something to that effect.

A few weeks on, and the track has received "THE VIDEO TREATMENT" and we are very glad to say that the clip is also AMAZING AND QUITE GOOD.

Roisin has, of late, kind of rejected the big-label model - which is exactly what one would expect an electro-hipster goddess to do, but unfortunately that means we may have to keep scrounging around the interwebs for the scraps of new material she flings about from time to time. 

But when the scraps are this good, it's TOTALLY WORTH IT, so we're not going to complain too loudly.  'Boadicea' is a terrific song, and we're glad it got a video at all even if Roisin herself doesn't appear in it.  The clip is a kind of Madonna-'What It Feels Like For A Girl'-woman-on-a-violent-rampage type of thing that is both jarring and rad, so we'll forgive Miss Murphy's absence.

This time. 

BRAND NEW BEYONCE - listen to 'Girls' and tell us how crap it is

Miss Knowles hears her single for the first time and collapses in shame

It all started as a clear, fine spring day.  The birds were chirping, the air was crisp.  A feeling of hope and renewal abounded throughout the city.

Children, skipping their way to their schoolyards, smiled and laughed, laden only with the concerns of the young and innocent.

And then this happened.

 It is the new record by an artist who usually turns out TOP NOTCH CORKERS OF THE HIGHEST CALIBER.  It is the MUCH-LAUDED lead track from her upcoming, presumably all-conquering LP.  It is the song that has been teased and previewed to within an inch of its life to drum up interest.  And it is kind of crap.

To be fair, this is apparently only a demo, and the final version has been reworked by Diplo - of Britney etc. fame.  So it may turn out to be amazing in its final form.  But RIGHT NOW IT IS NOT AND THE WORLD DESERVES TO KNOW.



"not particularly good."

George Michael recorded a song for Will and Kate's wedding so don't even TRY to have the best gift - listen now!

Marriage is DELICIOUS

Apparently there are a couple of people getting married soon or something since all we hear about is how rad it's going to be, which to be fair, it probably is, because it all sounds very lush and extravagant and apparently The Queen is going to be there.

Anyway, George Michael, blessed as he is with an UNENDING WELLSPRING OF GENEROSITY, has given the happy couple a gift for their wedding, in the form of a song which is for sale in a variety of digital formats.  With no self-serving hope that it will become the "official wedding anthem" and sell loads of copies.

None at all.

Sophie Ellis Bextor's new album is PRETTY DAMN GOOD - listen to the sampler now

Botox.

After a long run of diminishing returns, many questioned whether Sophie Ellis Bextor would even put out another album.  Rumors abounded that her studio album 'Make A Scene' had been shelved indefinitely which roughly translates to "will never come out and your career is over so you should probably get a job at the WalMart or something" in music-industry-speak.

But lo, the pop gods have smiled upon Miss E-B, and Sophie's new record actually dropped today in Russia.  And the good news doesn't stop there, either - the record will come out June 6 in the UK, just in time to become the soundtrack to a few aging gays' summer. 

The strangest thing is that the album actually is pretty good.  Usually albums are canned because of one of two reasons:  a contract dispute, or the album is shit - so we could all be forgiven for thinking that the LP would turn out to be a giant stinking turd of a record.  BUT IT IS NOT, SCOPISUBJECTS.

IT IS NOT.

Check out the album sampler:

Make A Scene (sampler) by RenzoMV

Listen to a clip of LADY GAGA'S 'JUDAS' before it premieres later today!

are you a good witch or a bad witch

Now that some time has passed, we have decided that 'Born This Way' was pretty crap and all this talk of it being a CLASSIC SONG OF EMPOWERMENT is utter bullshit propogated by the liberal media machine.  The people that love it are the same people who think 'Glee' is a quality show and don't understand why everyone hates Gwyneth Paltrow.

But, as we discussed at length when the track came out, 'Born' was less a reflection on Gaga's "new sound" than it was on her clever choice of a divisive high-impact single.  So it stands to reason that Lady's second single off her sophomore (sort of) album will much better reflect the direction the big G is taking.  Enter 'Judas,' the long-rumored second single that will properly kick off the 'Born This Way' album.

In true 2011 meta fashion, Gaga has chosen to drop hints and snippets of the song all over the damn place, and with news that the track will premiere on UK radio later this afternoon also comes a very long, very crappy clip.

AND IT IS AMAZING.

Even with tons of noise and low-quality-ness going on it is amazing.  If nothing changed from this clip between this preview and its actual release it would still be in the top 15% of all music released this year in terms of quality and fantasticness.  Think 'Bad Romance' for 2011 and if 'Bad Romance' were better.

So, AMAZING.

Lady Gaga - Judas - Snippet 5 Vidéo MrMusic sélectionnée dans Musique

Blue chucks out the video for 'I Can' - watch the Eurovisionary clip debut now!

*I* was born this way

Boyband Blue, otherwise known as "the band that has that gay guy in it who got naked" (see above) took a break a long time ago to allow everyone involved to pursue solo careers.  One of them had a couple hits, another had one sort-of hit, and the rest of them played extras in local theatre productions of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

So it was only a matter of time before they all reunited for their BIG COMEBACK just like every other boyband except N*Sync because Justin Timberlake is better than everything.  And what better way to stage a ROARING RETURN TO RELEVANCE than to cobble together a sub-par tune for the sub-par trashfest that is Eurovision and then make an actually rather alright video for it?  Well, there are lots of better ways, but they didn't go with those.

The song their people picked for some reason is called 'I Can,' and while we could go on and on at length about how they clearly CAN NOT, we just did a very similar joke with Sophie's new single title yesterday so we'll just say that 'Can' is definitely not the groundbreaking comeback tune Blue were probably hoping for.  It'll obviously lose at Eurovision and then be a "highlight" of their disappointing small-venue tour of Wales, but the boys still got to make a rather serviceable video for it and at least they'll always have that.

NO ONE CAN TAKE THAT AWAY FROM YOU, BOYS.

Sophie Ellis Bextor is back and that is a VERY GOOD THING - listen to the new song now!

Lather, rinse, repeat

Miss Sophie Ellis Bextor, of 'Murder on the Dancefloor' fame, has been missing from the music scene for a while, and from the upper reaches of the charts for quite a while longer than that.  Sure, for a bit she was bulletproof - she kept racking up top tens with no promotion, effort or even the slightest appearance of either, but then Lady Gaga happened and Ke$ha happened and we all know how that turned out for most of our perrenial pop divas.  (spoiler alert: NOT WELL.)

A good number of Sophie's fans wondered if she'd ever return to the pop career that she openly stated she never wanted (we get it, Sophie - you're really an "indie" girl at heart and pop is just a career and blah blah hipster nonsense) but apparently her kids' college funds are looking a bit anemic because a new SEB album is going to ACTUALLY HAPPEN.  It's called 'Make A Scene,' and it is looking to do just that.

In Russia.  Where it is coming out.  The only place it is coming out.

But whatever, we have some new Sophie tracks to look forward to, and the first, very good, Ellie Goulding-esque one is RIGHT HERE FOR YOU ALL TO LISTEN TO.  It's called 'Starlight' and it's about starlight.  Or something.



"Welcome back."

BRITNEY and RIHANNA sing TOGETHER on DUET - listen now

...and then the autotune machine exploded

The entire world (read: the world of teenage girls and some gays) has come crashing down today at the news that Rihanna and Britney have recorded a track together.  It's clearly a RED LETTER MOMENT IN POP HISTORY on par with the Beyonce/Gaga collab... unless it isn't.  Which it's not.

You see, the whole thing started when the Def Jam Recordings intern who tweets as Rihanna asked who RiRi's fans most wanted her to sing with.  The answer was Britney - which is good because it is the correct answer, and also because Britney + Rihanna = awesomesauce.

Apparently Britney took the news super well, cause she phoned in some vocals to Rihanna's answering machine and some producer chucked them onto a karaoke track of 'S&M' for us all to enjoy.


So yeah, not the WORLD CHANGING POWERBALLAD SLASH POPPERS-O-CLOCK-CORKER we would have liked, but whatever we'll take what we can get. 



"neat."

The New Kids on the Block/Backstreet Boys single should have been crap but is not - listen now

bukkake

This was all supposed to happen quite differently.  The debut single from the Backstreet Boys/New Kids on the Block collaboration (called, kind of amazingly, NKOTBSB) should have been some schlocky ballad with a part where the music drops out and one of them (read: the ugly one) starts talking about how he LOVES YOU, BABYGIRL.

But that didn't happen.  No.  Instead, the 9-some's handlers have thrown together a quite-serviceable pop jam a bit like a cheap version of Katy's 'Teenage Dream' but with more latent homosexual urges and shittier production.

UK fans will notice a distinct similarity to British group The Wanted's 'Lose My Mind,' which somehow landed on ScopiSat's top ten of 2010.  The boyband thing is still going strong over there across the pond, and NKOTBSB is banking on the same sound to revive the format here in the States. 

Apparently it's kind of working, since 'Don't Turn Out The Lights' is flying up the iTunes charts.  And the sad thing is, we don't mind a damn bit.

Kelly Rowland polishes a turd with her 'Motivation' video - watch now!

Yes we can.

Kelly Rowland is apparently taking a two-pronged approach to achieve complete dominance of the b-list of music celebrities.  She's won over the gays repeatedly, but with a couple good dance jams that's not hard to do.  Her 'Commander' and 'When Love Takes Over' ensured she'll be a Pride-float mainstay for years, but mainstream success has so far largely eluded her.

K-Ro is hoping her new song will change that.  It's called 'Motivation,' and it is slow and sultry and also not very good.  The first problem with the track is that it is tuneless and a bit boring, but the most damning aspect of it is that it features Lil' Wayne.

So what's a girl to do when her BIG AMERICAN COMEBACK SONG is kind of awful?  Why, make a sexy video for it, of course.  In this day and age the number of listeners a song has is pretty irrelevant to its success anyway.  So when thousands of 14 year old boys click on Rowland's Youtube link, grab their dirty sweatsocks and lock themselves in their rooms for 4 minutes, everybody wins and Kelly gets to notch up another sort-of-hit.

So what is this super-sultry video like then?  Let's take a chronological look at some key points:

1.  Boobs - good
2.  Boobs - good
3.  Boobs - good
4.  BOOBS - very good
5.  No boobs - bad
6.  Boobs - good
7.  Lil' Wayne - VERY BAD
7.  Non-stop hip-thrusting for an extended period - excellent
8.  Boobs - good

So 6 out of 8 - which translates to a solid 3 out of 4 (MATH!!) but that only applies if the volume is turned down.  Because no matter how perky or lubed up they are, no amount of boobs can make up for Lil' Wayne rapping.



"Werk."

It's the Britpocalypse in the Britney vid for 'Til The Wolrd Ends' - watch the video now!

I can't get up, y'all

Britney can't dance anymore.  She just can't.  Whatever happened when she shaved her head and popped two kids out of her Spearsness just annihilated that special spark inside her that allowed her to dance like a super talented stripper with daddy issues.  With each of her live performances, her newly acquired ineptitude at moving her body becomes more and more apparent, and we're just about to the "acceptance" stage in the timeline of THE SEVEN STAGES OF ACCEPTING THAT A POP DIVA HAS LOST HER TALENT which is approximately where we were at with Whitney before she "forgot to modulate" at her Central Park concert.

But take heart, ScopiSubjects, because we live in a world where even though your ONE ACTUAL TALENT is gone, you can still make some rather amazing records, and a few really good videos to boot.

Case in point - Brit's new preview video of 'Til The World Ends,' which is all THINGS EXPLODING and NAKED PEOPLE and DANCING NAKED PEOPLE EXPLODING and also Britney flailing about lazily like a dying fish.

It's only 30 seconds long, but this preview alone is better than half the videos that are chucked out these days.  We're sure it'll be weighed down with product-placement and probably have a point somewhere in the middle where the music stops and they let Britney speak for some reason, but in whole it will likely still be AMAZING and we are very much looking forward to it.

EDIT: IT IS GOOD.

Natalia Kills is in a 'Wonderland' - watch the premiere now!

"do I have something on my face?"

Ok so Natalia Kills is kind of useless in terms of where she fits in on the music landscape, but that doesn't mean she's not good.  Yeah she sounds like Rihanna and looks like what would happen if Katy Perry grew a penis and impregnated Lily Allen, but beneath all the similarities to every major pop act out there right now beats the heart of a pretty great performer.

Likewise, her new jam 'Wonderland' sounds like an amalgamation of a number of current or recent hits but actually boils down to what would happen if 'Disburbia' was ACTUALLY BETTER.  Which leads us to the up-until-now-unlikely conclusion that Miss Kills might pull this whole thing off after all.  And if she keeps putting out tunes like this we certainly hope she does. 

As for the video, well, just watch for yourself.  But we will say that if we ever wake up screaming in a pool of our own pee it will probably be because of those goddamned rabbit masks.



"TERRIFYING BUT ALSO GOOD"

Sky Ferreira cries '99 Tears' - watch the lyrics video premiere now!!

I whip my hair back and forth

Sky Ferreira:  Can I have some tears please?

Tear Dispensery Associate:  Yes, how many would you like?

Sky Ferreira:  Well my first few singles didn't really take off like everyone thought they would, so probably quite a few.

Tear Dispensery Associate: Oh dear.  Well how badly did they do?

Sky Ferreira:  So bad I can't even make a real video for my next single.  I have to do a "lyrics" video.  Which sucks because the song is ACTUALLY AMAZING in an 80's THROWDOWN STOMPFEST kind of way.

Tear Dispensery Associate: What is a "lyrics" video?

Sky Ferreira:  That's where the record company is super cheap and so they pay an unemployed UC Santa Barbara grad whose parents let him major in Communications because they don't love him to press some buttons on his Macbook Pro and throw together a clip that flashes the words to the song up on the screen as they are sung.

Tear Dispensery Associate:  That sounds awful.  How about 99 tears.

Sky Ferreira:   99 it is.