Pop Shots - Missing In Action

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 Taylor Swift’s missing fan letters, to Chris Brown missing out on having any class whatsoever, to Vevo looking to give music television fans what they’ve been missing, and since it’s Pop Shots you know everything is seasoned with a little bit of attitude.

* Taylor Swift may be spending her nights feeling like she’s 22, but she was none to pleased last week when she heard the news that a bunch of fan letters intended for her ended up in a dumpster at a Nashville Elementary School. No one’s quite sure how the letters ended up there, but blaming One Direction seems perfectly reasonable.

* PSY is already yesterday’s news in America, but in his native South Korea he’s bigger than ever. Recently, post offices in Seoul released a series of limited edition postage stamps featuring PSY on them, and Somang is reporting that its Energy Factory line of lotions for men have skyrocketed in sales since the k-pop star became the face of the products. If an internet meme can do all that in South Korea, I think America really dropped the ball with Tay Zonday.


* Because a new album just isn’t enough for some Justin Timberlake fans, the CW Network will be airing a special on the singer on Tuesday the 19th, the day of the release of The 20/20 Experience. The special will air at 8pm EST, and rumor has it will feature footage from JT’s album release party at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles, from the night before. In addition to the live footage, the television event will also feature the debut of Timberlake’s new, eight minute long, music video, as well as a half hour radio special that will supposedly reveal the story behind the album. It will be the closest you can come to having Justin in your living room. Of course, if you’d like to have a different member of *NSync in your living room, you can probably book them to come over and watch the Justin Timberlake special with you.

* In case you missed it, relationship expert Chris Brown gave an impromptu TED Talk on love at The Emerson Theater, a trendy nightclub in LA. His words of wisdom? “You GOTTA say that one thing to her ... Don't make me have to tell you again, that's my p***y baby! ... so you better not give it away! ... So every person in this motherf**king building, if you got a bad bitch you better say that s**t to her, or she might f**k another n***a.” It’s really amazing no one’s given him his own matchmaking show.

* I want more music videos. You want more music videos. Vevo is going to give us more music videos! In what might be the most exciting news of the week, the streaming music video company launched a 24 hour online music network, Vevo TV, and is laying the groundwork so that by year’s end the network will be available through cable and satellite providers, competing with the likes of MTV, VH1, and Fuse. Vevo TV is planning on using VJs, which means the next Kennedy, or Pauly Shore could be on the way! Actually, could they just hire Kennedy and Pauly Shore? They might need the work.


* Country superstar Luke Bryan easily beat out long deceased guitar god Jimi Hendrix for the top spot on the Billboard albums chart this past week. Basically, what we learned is being country is better than being dead, but being dead is still better than being Bruno Mars, who finished third.

* Finally, when you combine Lindsey Stirling, Pentatonix, and an apocalyptic scene, you get a seriously kick ass video for their cover of Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive.” It’s something you have to hear, and see, to believe.


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