REIGNING & UPSTARTS

2013 Billboard Music Nominees: One Year You’re In, The Next You’re Out

By Jacob Wittich

LAST YEAR’S BILLBOARD MUSIC AWARDS nominees included nods to usual suspects such as Adele, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry for their domination of pop music charts.

But 2013 BBMAs recognizes a new round of superstar artists vying for the Billboard throne. Taylor Swift, Maroon 5 and Fun. lead 2013’s potential winners, snaring nominations in a total of 11 categories. And both Psy and Baauer crash the party for their epic “booty poppin” hits, Gangnam Style and Harlem Shake respectively, earning nods as Top Streaming Artists.

PROVING NICE GUYS FINISH LAST

Lightning Strikes Twice For Psy As ‘Gentleman’ Racks Up YouTube Hits

By Jacob Wittich

PSY’S NEWEST SINGLE GENTLEMAN, the evil twin to Gangnam Style released just a week ago, is proving that lightning sometimes does strike twice.

Already boasting 145 million views as of post time, Gentleman hit the 100-million mark on YouTube faster than any other video since Susan Boyle’s I Dreamed A Dream.

The video features the South Korean rapper wreaking havoc and pulling cheesy pranks on young women, including undoing bra straps and pulling chairs away moments before they sit down.

GIDDY-UPPING OUR WAY TO THE END?

Come Dec. 21, Will We Be Going Out in ‘Gangnam Style’?

By Elizabeth C.

WHO KNEW THAT WHEN the world’s end arrived we’d all be Gangnam stylin’ it to our graves?

Forty-eight hours from now, Earth’s supposed to meet its demise when a planet crashes down and destroys life as we know it. So contended Jose Arguelles in the 1987 book, The Mayan Factor, which cited Dec. 21, 2012 as the end of “time as we know it.” That’s because the day is the “13th B’aktun” in the Mayan calendar, “the final morning in a precisely determined measure of 1.872 million days, written in stone 1,300 years ago near Tortuguero, Mexico,” according to the Denver Post. And sometime time between then and now prognosticators and con men have promoted a theory of the world’s demise on that day.

There’s a lot of jabber-jawing on the web as the date approaches, but none of it as amusing as the YouTube video embedded below that claims that the Korean pop star Psy’s horsey dance is actually a sign of the apocalypse allegedly predicted for that day by the Mayans — and the French seer Nostradamus:

SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY

Google’s Zeitgeist 2012 Will Convince You ‘Search’ Can Save The World

By Elizabeth C.

MY LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH GOOGLE VROOMS quickly into heart-thumping swoon as I watch the Internet God’s tribute to itself and 2012. The tech giant’s Zeitgeist 2012: Year in Review delivers flashes from the year’s most iconic events and people, the ones we’ll still be talking about or reminding ourselves of in old age.

CONTEXT IS MISSING

Psy Apologizes For His Anti-American Rants

By Elizabeth C.

INTERNATIONAL K-POP PHENOMENON PSY IS CATCHING HEAT FOR NOT ONE BUT TWO ANTI-AMERICAN PERFORMANCES HE DELIVERED IN THE EARLY DAYS OF AMERICA’S WAR WITH IRAQ.

As of 10:30pm Friday, a whopping 79 percent of respondents in an unscientific MSN survey thought that the Gangnam Style millionaire should not perform at the December 21 Christmas in Washington concert that President Obama is expected to attend.

The U.S.-educated South Korean pop star rapped incendiary lyrics about killing Americans during a 2004 anti-war protest.

CAPTIVATING THE WORLD

Gangbusters Gangnam Style Bests Bieber’s Baby On YouTube

By Elizabeth C.

THE NEWS IS REVENGE FOR THIRTYSOMETHINGS EVERYWHERE WITH A PAUNCH: Psy’s Gangnam Style has bested pop prince Justin Bieber by having the most-watched video ever on YouTube. Since being released July 15, the fantastical phantasmagoria has netted 816,175,123 million views as of 10:40 am Central time on Nov. 25.

Biebs’ Baby now officially sits in the number two spot, with 804,669,690 hits. That video was first posted back in February 2010.

But Bieber shouldn’t cry in his milk: both numbers are stratospheric and illustrate how the Internet is transforming and shrinking our world. Can you remember the last time that an 18-year-old Canadian boy and a 34-year-old South Korean starred at the same party?

THE NIGHT WAS TIGHT

Justin Bieber Master Of Ceremonies At AMA’s Liquid Party

By Elizabeth C.

NO BETTER PLACE TO BE SLINKING Sunday than the American Music Awards’ liquid party, where the music industry’s reigning names pop, locked and dropped their hottest numbers. Justin Bieber, Usher, Ke$ha, Pink, Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani, Nicki Minaj, Taylor Swift and newcomer Psy all performed for the television audience and the crowd at Los Angeles’ Nokia Theatre.

THINGS THAT GO THUMP IN THE NIGHT

This Halloween Light Display Will Make You Want To Gangnam

By Elizabeth C.

TWO POSITIVES — HALLOWEEN AND PSY’S GANGHAM STYLE— DELIVER A DARK CHARGE WHEN manifested as a holiday light display show in Leesburg, Va.

OUR COLLECTIVE SOUL

Here’s The Five Most “Liked” Music Videos, Including New Champ, Gangnam Style

By Elizabeth C.

YOU LIKE HIM! YOU REALLY, REALLY LIKE HIM!

K-Pop artist Psy whose kinetic Gangnam Style video has invaded pop culture a staggering pace has just become the world’s “most liked” music video on YouTube, toppling LMFAO from the perch, according to Guinness Records.

SEXY INDEED

Psy Brings Down Ellen’s House With Live Performance Of Gangnam Style

By Elizabeth C.

THE FEVER FOR K-POP STAR PSY’S Gangnam Style BLEW THE LID OFF Ellen DeGeneres’ television studio today.

Just a week after the Korean sensation first appeared on the talk show to give Britney Spears a quick lesson in his signature galloping dance, Psy returned today to deliver a pulse-racing live performance.