Pop Shots - Confrontation Station

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 Chris Brown’s confrontation with his mother, to Shakira’s confrontation with a sea lion, to Oprah’s confrontation with the people at Nielsen, and since it’s Pop Shots you know everything is seasoned with a little bit of attitude.

* Chris Brown continued to prove his stupidity, but this time around it was after the Grammys. The singer took home what now qualifies as a music industry paperweight and then tweeted “HATE ALL U WANT BECUZ I GOT A GRAMMY Now! That’s the ultimate F**K OFF!” Apparently his mother is none to pleased with the singer’s antics, publicly chastising his actions. It’s good to see where the line gets drawn in that family. Beating up Rihann’s OK, but don’t you dare curse on Twitter. If Brown and his mother lived together they’d be a reality TV show waiting to happen. Although something tells me Brown wouldn’t want the cameras on him all the time.

* Whitney Houston’s greatest hits album sold over 100K copies in the 24 hours following her death, sparking Ashlee Simpson to call her manager to ask how she can “get in on this whole death thing.”

* Don’t you just hate it when you’re Latin pop star minding your business on a tour in South Africa and a giant sea lion decides to make it known he’s not a fan? If you’re Shakira you know the feeling. This past week a sea lion jumped out of the water at her in South Africa, landing about a foot away from the songstress whose hips refuse to fib, roaring what probably wasn’t the words to “Whenever, Wherever.” Shakira thinks the reflection from her Blackberry is what sparked the reaction, which has inspired Apple’s latest ad campaign featuring two men, one saying, “I’m an iPhone,” and the other saying “And I just got eaten by a giant sea lion.”

* According to The Hollywood Reporter, Janet Jackson, Pink and Katy Perry are among the artists Simon Cowell would like to have fill Paula Abdul and Nicole Scherzinger’s roles on The X Factor. For those with a short memory, Pink’s “Don’t Let Me Get Me” includes a line insulting current X Factor judge L.A. Reid - “L.A. told me, you’ll be a pop star / all you have to change is everything you are.” I also think out of the three listed she’s the person most likely to punch a contestant, which is all the more reason they should have her on the show. Remember, reality TV was born with Cops and The Real World. Let’s bring it back to the essence!

* Spin magazine is becoming larger in size and will now be published bi-monthly. The magazine, unlike many of its peers, finally realized the print medium has to change if it’s going to survive. With it’s new format of long form essays, and reviews of classic albums, I think they’re on the right track. Of course, I may come to eat my words if they end up doing a 20 page retrospective on Coldplay’s favorite places to eat while in Sheboygan.

* When Oprah launched her TV network, OWN, she probably thought her army of trained housewives would tune in to support her no matter what kind of crap she threw on the schedule. Well, it turns out these housewives aren’t quite as desperate for the big O as she had hoped. Ratings for OWN are in the toilet and Oprah recently resorted to going on Twitter to beg people to tune in “especially if u have a Nielsen box.” There was one problem with that tweet, though - Nielsen doesn’t allow for such manipulation and placed an asterisk next to OWN’s ratings at the time her message was sent. Maybe the Nielsen people should run Major League Baseball. Then Barry Bonds would finally have an asterisk next to his numbers, as well.

* Tweet of the Week: @1000TimesYes Ray J is going to have the most batshit wikipedia entry

* Finally, Lights has a new video, and, as you can see, she’s still totally freakin awesome.


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