Pop Shots - Bright Ideas

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 what Madonna thinks people want from her, to T.I.’s incredibly short stay as an almost free man, to China banning a number of big name American artists, and since it’s Pop Shots you know everything is seasoned with a little bit of attitude.

* If you’ve ever wondered what stardom does to the brain, delusion is high on the list. That’s the only explanation I can come up with for Madonna thinking releasing a new album next year is a good idea. Pop music’s AARP poster girl has announced a spring 2012 release date for her next effort, which will hopefully have some exclusive deal with Walmart so Madonna can do promo for it by being a greeter, which is a much more age appropriate job for her.

* Rapper, and total freakin genius, T.I., managed to find a way to land himself back in jail as he was leaving it. In what has to be some kind of a record, when he decided to take a luxury bus from his prison cell in Arkansas to his halfway house in Atlanta, which is apparently a big no-no, T.I. was essentially told to turn that bus around and head back to jail. Now in a federal prison in Atlanta, T.I. did manage to sign a ten episode deal with VH1 that will chronicle his life once he gets out of prison and the recording of his next album. Of course, at the rate he’s going that album will be titled Do Not Pass Go.

* Even if the men of Green Day have become pop stars, lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong’s pants are still so punk rock they get kicked off of flights. This occurred after a Southwest flight attendant told Armstrong to pull his pants up higher and the singer said “don't you have better things to do than worry about that?” Armstrong was then immediately asked to leave the plane. Southwest was quick to apologize for the incident and get him on the next plane out, but I'm getting the feeling someone didn’t realize they just gave him plenty of ammo if he ever decided to pen a sequel to “American Idiot.”

* As portions of the south and east coast were left ravaged by hurricane Irene, some people being without electricity for upwards of a week, Rihanna decided it was a great time to complain about her leaky house in Beverly Hills. While hundreds of thousands of people were assessing the damage done to their communities, Ri Ri was filing a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against Prudential California Realty and the former owner of her Beverly Hills home, alleging they should have informed her of several construction defects that made the residence conducive to flooding, after rainwater pooled on her second floor balcony and seeped into numerous rooms of the house. Something tells me she didn’t text the Red Cross to help with any of the hurricane relief efforts.

* Former Spice Girl Mel B pushed out her third kid this past week. Now that she’s had three kids from three different fathers, Scary Spice has to legally change her stage name to Hood Rat Spice.

* China’s Ministry of Culture has released a hilarious list of songs that the country has banned from their websites claiming they have “endangered national cultural safety.” The list includes a lot of Lady Gaga, a little Katy Perry, some Britney Spears and Beyonce, and the Backstreet Boys. According the Reuters, the 100 songs in question were chosen because they had not been registered with, and reviewed by, the ministry, and according to ministry guidelines all imported digital music needs to be translated into Chinese and submitted to the government before online distribution is permitted. Why is this the rule in China? Because they want it that way.


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