Pop Shots - Battlebots

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 Adam Lambert’s time spent in a Finnish jail, to a lot of rapper beef being thrown on the proverbial barbecue, to the Beach Boys not realizing time is not on their side, and since it’s Pop Shots you know everything is seasoned with a little bit of attitude.

* In an answer to Adam Lambert’s 2009 hit “Whataya Want From Me,” police officers in Finland replied - to stop going all UFC on your boyfriend. This after both Lambert and his significant other were arrested on Thursday after an altercation between them became physical (and not in the Olivia Newton John kinda way). The duo were briefly detained in jail and Chris Brown is now interested in doing a song with either of them.

* Common took a few shots at Drake on a new song and during a recent interview, claiming he doesn’t like the Canadian sensation’s proclivity for singing. This is the same Common who released Electric Circus, did a Gap commercial, and starred in Just Wright, but, to be real, compared to Drake he’s freakin Suge Knight. I’m not sure if this is a real beef, though, or if Wheelchair Jimmy just stole an acting role Common was auditioning for. Judging by the scripts Common ends up with, if that’s the case, Drake would have been doing him a favor.

* In more rapper beef news, Nicki Minaj is taking shots at Lil’ Kim again, this time on her latest single, “Stupid Hoe” (ahh, subtlety). Many of the lyrics rip on Kim, most notably the line “bitch talkin she the queen when she looking like a lab rat.” Of course, this insult was hurled by someone with pink hair and fake everything, so it’s sort of like when you were a kid and playing with your G.I. Joes, plastic vs. plastic. Can’t someone just grab a giant magnifying glass and end all of this?

* In what can only end in disappointment and tragedy, the Beach Boys are reuniting for a new album and tour in 2012. In their prime they were one of the best singing groups ever, but that was a very long time ago. At this point they’re going to have to use so much technology to make this work that Brian Wilson is going to end up sounding like T-Pain, and with those kind of vocal effects Kokomo will now have the feel of being located somewhere Beyond Thunderdome.

* Melanie Amaro may have taken home the honor of being the season one winner of the American version of The X Factor, but the big winner was Simon Cowell, who, despite ratings for the show not being what he had hoped they be, scored a $42 million deal with Sony for his company, SyCo. Just when you thought he was going to teeter on the edge of irrelevancy, Cowell proves that actually knowing what you’re doing is still a valuable commodity in the music industry. Who’da thunk?

* Tweet of the Week: @AdamsWorldBlog Rihanna vomited during a performance in Portugal, which means she finally had the same reaction to her music that I do.

FYI - Tweet of the Week is something new I’m adding to Pop Shots. It won’t be a tweet from me every week, it will be the funniest tweet I see regarding the pop culture happenings of the week that was.

* R. Kelly wants to be trapped in your closet just a little bit longer. The R&B singer who still wants to know “when you say young, how young are we talkin?” has apparently written 32 more chapters to his God-awful R&B melodrama and is currently looking for funding. I see two possible plus sides to this. 1) It would make for, quite possibly, the most hilarious Kickstarter campaign ever, and 2) it might get us another one of THESE from Weird Al:


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