Pop Shots - A Little Something Extra

Welcome to your weekly dose of pop world musings. Covering all things pop culture, this week Pop Shots is hitting you with thoughts on everything from Rihanna having fire and brimstone added to her live show, to Victoria Beckham, Kate Hudson and Jewel pushing out new additions to their families, to a cameo in Owl City’s new video by an Adam’s World fave (hint: she’s pictured above!), and since it’s Pop Shots you know everything is seasoned with a little bit of attitude.

* A Rihanna concert was cut short when her pyrotechnics had a bit of a glitch and the top of the stage at the American Airlines Arena caught fire. The entire crowd ended up having to be evacuated. See what happens when Auto-Tune is asked to do too much? It revolts! The robots are taking over! SkyNet is real! Run for your lives!

* If you were hoping to see Katy Perry or Taylor Swift in concert last week you’re probably a little unhappy as both caught ailments that forced them to cancel shows. Perry came down with a case of food poisoning, which caused her to have to reschedule her shows in Chicago and St. Paul, while Swift was laid up with bronchitis and followed her doctors orders to not perform for a week. In a related story, Dream weren’t at their normal subway stop singing for nickels the other day, but nobody really cared.

* Salt-n-Pepa’s “Push It” was the theme song for Victoria Beckham, aka Posh Spice, Kate Hudson, and Jewel this past weekend as they all welcomed new babies to their families. For Beckham it was her fourth, for Hudson it was her second, but her first with fiance Matt Bellamy, for Jewel is was her first after two years of trying with husband Ty Murray. Octomom was somewhere rolling her eyes mumbling something to herself about how having one at a time is “sooo inefficient.”

* Our long national nightmare is over, Vinny has returned to the Jersey Shore house to continue taping season five of the hit MTV show. Photos have surfaced of him coming back to the house with a giant bag of laundry, and rumor has it the MVP team of Mike, aka The Situation, Vinny and Pauly D went out clubbing that night. Here’s the really good news - at least one plotline for Jersey Shore won’t involve Ronnie and Sammi bitching at/about each other.

* Ryan Tedder has been busy working with the like of Beyonce, B.o.B., Cobra Starship, Colbie Caillat, Gavin DeGraw, and your mom (OK, probably not the last one), but he just announced what’s on tap for his group One Republic, which hasn’t released a new album since 2009. The good news - we’re going to get a new One Republic single at the start of 2012. The bad news - it comes attached to a new One Republic album. One Republic’s albums are usually fairly mediocre, but the lead single is always one of the best songs of the year. Hopefully he held on to a few more good ones for himself this time around.

* Synth-pop artist Owl City does something in his latest video that every kid who grew up in the 80s has wanted to do since childhood - he drive the famous time traveling DeLorean from Back to the Future. OK, he drives a replica of the car, but that’s still pretty freakin sweet, and way closer than most of us will ever come to realizing that dream. The video is for his song “Deer in the Headlights,” which is off of his latest album, All Things Bright and Beautiful. As an added bonus the video includes a cameo by Lights!


And with that, my time is up for the week, but I'll be back next week with more shots on all things pop.