Warner Chappell failed and refused to take action based upon a conflict of interest of its own making,” says the Hall and Oates suit. “Warner Chappell publishes and/or administers the copyright interests of two of the infringers.

You see, Warner/Chappell also represents Timbaland and Nate "Danja" Hills, the composers of the Furtado track. So, basically, H&O are suing Warner/Chappell for failing to protect Warner/Chappell artists from other Warner/Chappell artists. As Beall notes, these kinds of relationships are convoluted, of questionable ethics, and par for the course. Who is protecting whose interests in this situation?

As it turns out, songwriters get kinda screwed.

Beall relates a fascinating, if unfortunately bathed in anonymity, story of two songwriters writing a hit song for a Very Big Pop Star:

Given that there were only two writers involved in the song, the initial split of the composition between the writers was an even fifty-fifty, with each writer owning one-half of the composition. So far, so good. But before the song demo was finished, the writers had decided to add a sample—with that, 20% of the song was gone.

Then, once the song was chosen as a single contender, the president of the label decided that the song needed additional production and a remix. He sent it down to his A&R Vice-President, who, not too surprisingly, decided that he should be the one to do that new production—and he did, adding a second sample in the process. Unfortunately, that sample was a bigger one, and took up 50% of the composition. Now the original two writers no longer owned 50% each of their song. Thanks to two samples, they each owned 15% of their song. It gets worse.

Not content with grabbing a production credit, the A&R person then decided that he too should have a portion of the writer’s share, for selecting the sample that would run throughout the track. That meant the writers could say goodbye to another 10%. Now each original writer owned only 10% of the song.

But of course, there was one person still left to accommodate. That Very Big Pop Star was not accustomed to singing songs in which she did not have a hand in writing. Cost? 10%. After all was said and done, the original writers of the song were left with only 5% each of the song they wrote together—a song that did become a big hit. Ouch. This is the kind of thing that can leave writers, and publishers, very bitter.

So the people who wrote the song get the smallest cut, but can they turn to their publisher for protection? Nope! You see, every single person here, from the A&R person to the songwriters to the Very Big Pop Star, were all under the rubric of that same publisher, so according to Beall, the songwriters' interest isn't really being served by the publishing company. In a sense, that's what Hall and Oates are arguing. Nobody fought for their rights because the people doing the stealing were protected by the organization supposedly protecting their publishing! You have these hegemonic publishing houses, like Eurasia, Oceania, and Eastasia in 1984, lobbing bombs at each other while keeping their own people kowtowed.

So while the two writers seem to have gotten shafted, the publisher actually came out in much the same position as when the process started. The publisher simply collected on behalf of seven or eight different writers, rather than two.

And they say the music biz is corrupt!

Trust But Verify, Part 2 [Eric Beall at Berkleemusicblogs.com]

It turns out we all thought Cornell's Scream is lousy because we haven't heard it in the form it was intended.

"This album, I think, needs to be performed from beginning to end, because on the record, once the music starts, it never stops," he explained. "So it's literally a situation where you start playing the record from the first song, and it's just an hour's worth of music that keeps going until it's done, and it's something that's difficult to present in this day and age. Everything is sound bites and one song at a time, and people sort of downloading one song at a time, and more than any album I've ever made, this is an album that's really designed to be listened to from beginning to end, in one sitting.

"I think the smartest thing for me to do is go out and perform it that way, so people get it, because people haven't really understood that yet."

Sure, that's the problem. No word, as of yet, on how the Timbaland-assisted autograph sessions fit into the overall "have people understand my weird career turn" plan, but I imagine that'll be made apparent soon enough.

Of course, as this tour hits my local venue (and Verizon Wireless store), I'll be on my first vacation in a decade or so. Fates, why do you torture me?

Chris Cornell, Timbaland Announce Dates For West Coast Tour [MTV]

When an article that's ostensibly an album review begins with four long paragraphs about the producer's background, you can tell that producer is someone special, worth noting, Frere-Jones brings out all the descriptors for Timbaland's work: "fervid, breathtaking"; "silvery, weightless"; and this stunning, yet likely accurate sentence:

When you hear a rhythm that is being played by an instrument you can’t identify but wish you owned, when you hear a song that refuses to make up its mind about its genre but compels you to move, or when you hear noises that you thought couldn’t find a comfortable place in a pop song, you are hearing Timbaland, or school thereof.

In comparison, Chris Cornell—the guy whose name is on the album—is worthy of one paragraph that doesn't mention his most recent group, Audioslave, but commends him for having the vision to collaborate with Timbaland, referring to the decision as "a smart move." But then the album is listened to, and disappointment sets in. Very little about the album pleases Frere-Jones, but one track in particular seemed to be the tipping point.

“Never Far Away” could be one of the worst songs of the year, a rock ballad with all the bombast of Soundgarden yet with none of the heft or the force. The lyrics are like Bon Jovi with the fun sucked out, and could be moonlighting for an e-greeting-card site: “You are the road that I will travel, you are the words I write. You are the ocean I will swallow, you are the wind I ride.” Timbaland rarely puts sounds together in an infelicitous way: so why the swooping synth arpeggios? What we love about Timbaland is that so much of his music evades known templates, but figuring out what is happening on “Scream” is not, in large part, a pleasant hunt.

This might not be so surprising, considering the Cornell disc seems to be the official album of 2008 for writers to kick around like an old Baden playground ball. But when Frere-Jones seems so let down by one of his musical heroes, no one wins—especially those of us who will probably have to listen to Scream, if only for research purposes.

The Timbaland Era [The New Yorker]

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: In theory, I'm fine with the idea of Timbaland producing Chris Cornell's forthcoming solo album. Timbaland has said that he wants to make Cornell "the first rock star in the club," while Cornell called their collaborations "natural, not self-conscious ... open." I mean, sure, both parties have been pretty stagnant creatively as of late, what with Cornell strenuously pissing away any Soundgarden-garnered goodwill he may still have and Timbaland ripping himself off while crawling up his own behind. But maybe the lack of self-consciousness Cornell mentioned would serve as a galvanizing force, and result in something exciting being committed to tape! Unfortunately, my optimism was torpedoed by one spin of Cornell's "comeback" single "Long Gone," which pretty much sounds like "Apologize," only without Timbo's here-and-there "ays" and with Cornell's rapidly deteriorating voice in place of Ryan Tedder's whine. Anyone want to take bets on how this is going to play with the Linkin Park fans this summer?

WHERE TO FIND IT: Music Is The Heart Of Our Soul. If you dare.

Here's the second-place finisher, Ani Lorak's "Shady Lady":

Those lighted panels are positively Scherzingerian. (As are the vapid "I'm famous, step off" lyrics.) Fellow Americans, we have so much to answer for.

And finally, the French entry, via Sebastien Tellier and his defiant English speaking:

How did this come in 19th out of 25? You can't even blame the whole east vs. west divide, just bad taste.

Russia wins 53rd Eurovision Song Contest [Eurovision site]
Dima Bilan - Believe (Winner Of Eurovision 2008!) [YouTube]
Sebastien Tellier - Divine (Final) [YouTube]

Available exclusively in the U.S. to Verizon Wireless' V CAST Music customers and internationally to Vodafone customers, 4 Minutes is the first single from Madonna's 11th studio album for Warner Bros. Records. HARD CANDY is scheduled for international release on April 28, 2008, with the U.S. release the following day.



In addition to Madonna's original "4 Minutes" track, co-produced by Timbaland and Justin Timberlake and Nate "Danja" Hills, and the underground mobile remix available on Verizon Wireless' V CAST Music and Vodafone, exclusive video footage of Madonna, Timbaland and Justin Timberlake's "mobile remix" recording session is now available on Verizon Wireless' V CAST Video service.

I miss when pop stars would just dance in front of Pepsi logos in Super Bowl ads and leave it at that.

Verizon Wireless debuts Underground Remix of Madonna 4 Minutes Single [I4U]

Flo Rida - Elevator [YouTube]

1. The idea of Madonna and Justin Timberlake hooking up is strangely repulsive to me, for petri-dish reasons instead of age-related ones. The whole clip dances around the idea of the world collapsing into a black hole and peoples' skin melting off if they don't—but they never kiss on screen, presumably because JT doesn't want to inherit his ex-girlfriend's curse.

2. Timbaland's rapping: Still unnecessary. Although none of the lyrics make sense overall (at least in a narrative sense—the flipping of "prima donna" into "Madonna" sounds pretty good, though), so perhaps syllable-ing along, and not singing along, is the point of this track.

3. The video is actually four minutes and six seconds long. Surely every pedant out there will point this out, but what is the significance of those extra six seconds? That the world hasn't been saved because Madge and JT have spent too much time washing up in the soon-to-be-doomed bathroom? Or that it has been? These questions will no doubt be answered in the post-apocalyptic clip for "Candy Store."

4. Madonna has gone from "collagist of bohemian subcultures" to "totally OK with ripping off ideas from Jamiroquai." Fast forward to the two-minute mark and slap your head. And anyone who says "But it's different because it's on a grocery-store checkout lane!" is fired.

5. The chorus on "4 Minutes" still reminds me of the theme to The Price Is Right. No, really; every time I hear this song it converges with the game-show theme that kept me entertained during sick days of yore. Here's a clip that uses Crystal Waters' "Come On Down"—a song that, quite awesomely, samples the theme in question—for proof. I also like this clip because the cat in it may be one of the grouchiest cats I've ever seen.

Madonna - 4 Minutes [HQ] [YouTube]
Madonna - 4 Minutes [WorldStarHipHop]
Cat Tricking [YouTube]

If you've ever been interested in Sonic Youth's collective songwriting technique, the improvisatory philosophy of jambands and jazz artists, or whether a verse got composed in a notebook or on the spur of the moment, you know that the mechanical process of making music can have an enormous effect on the end product. Artistic decions are made partially out of taste and inspiration, but in large part, songs are shaped by whatever's close at hand. That's why seeing the actual physical arrangement of Timbaland's recording setup is so interesting. He makes it really easy to throw in keyboards, electronic drums, or his own vocal ad-libs, but not so much other stuff. You see him move around the space enough to get a sense of how he puts songs together.

This isn't just for the edification of gearheads, though. The studio is on a bus sponsored by Verizon; Timbaland calls himself "the new mobile producer" (like a cell phone, geddit?). They show him recording with Keri Hilson, play the song they make, and then flash a link to buy the song. This is the Radiohead model gone pop: don't just release an album right after it's made, release individual songs as they come off the production line. In a way, it's nothing new—think of dubplates, or Elvis running his new 45 down to the radio station in Memphis. But Elvis wasn't sponsored by a cell phone company. For better or worse, this might be where things are heading.

Timbaland On The Verizon Bus [XXL]

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: The version floating around the Internet is an nth-generation radio rip with enough static to make the Timbaland-produced beat sound like it's part hurdy-gurdy, and it's dotted with a French DJ saying "ma-dun-NAH" at certain crucial points, but even through all that noise the new Madonna single packs in a bunch of fun, future-retro goofing around, and even through my tinny MacBook speakers I can tell that this track will really sound good coming out of car windows as the weather heats up. (Note to self: Buy better speakers.) Sure, the guest turns by Justin Timberlake (who provides the titular pleading to save the planet) and Timbaland (who provides his now-patented "uh"-ing and a few assorted verbal hiccups) are kinda superfluous on record, but at least they'll give radio programmers a reason to think that this song might appeal to the youth demographic. Beyond the song actually sounding good, of course.

WHERE TO FIND IT: Check the comments on this ONTD post (HT pump like thumpy).

We can reveal that in the promo Madge plays - wait for it - a pimp who rescues the planet in an impressive 240 seconds.

And it gets better...

Justin Timberlake and US producer Timbaland play her bitches.

The video has been shot over three days in a top-secret location in West London, and included a gruelling all-night shoot yesterday.
In the sexually charged video, Madge cracks the whip and gets her slaves, Justin and Timbaland, to do whatever she wants as she towers over their quivering bodies in killer heels.

Madonna "whipping" Timbaland. Well that certainly qualifies for the all-time Do Not Want list. Maybe this is karmic punishment for both JT and Tim helping to inflict the "Ayo Technology" video on the planet? But if so, why do we have to suffer too?

Queen Of Pop Madonna Cracks The Whip On Justin Timberlake And Timbaland [Mirror]

What they sort of forgot in their rush to save Nicole from her own personality void is that the song isn't very good at all; the titular screaming, which is supposedly happening at the top of someone's sexually excited lungs, actually sounds as if it's being bleated out underwater, an aesthetic choice that makes absolutely no sense to me. It sounds even worse in the two places where I've heard it the most (the radio and YouTube, both low-fidelity venues that make the song's muddiness even more noticeable), causing me, every time I stumble across it, to wonder if this was really the version that was meant to be released. Although now that I think about it "Baby Love" had a similar problem, so maybe Nicole was the "creative mind" behind the way this track turned out. Which says a lot, really.

Timbaland - Scream (feat. Nicole & Keri Hilson) HQ VIDEO [YouTube]

^* And speaking of: Her orgasming abilities are definitely > her singing abilities, but you probably figured that anyway.

The Times Union of Albany cited unnamed sources in a Sunday report that R&B music star Mary J. Blige, rap musicians 50 Cent, Timbaland and Wyclef Jean, and award-winning author and producer Tyler Perry may have received or used performance enhancing drugs.



Albany District Attorney P. David Soares launched a Albany-based investigation into steroid trafficking last year. Law enforcement officials have said evidence does not indicate that the celebrities broke the law. Officials are focusing on the doctors, pharmacists and clinics that provide the drugs.

50 Cent is understandable. (How often do you think he looked at the cover of The Massacre and wished he really had those inflatable pecs? Gangstas can have body image issues, too.) Even Wyclef we can maybe see. (Why should Lauryn have all the post-Fugees drug fun?) But Mary J? We know she kinda, uh, puts her all into her performances, but not like this! Thankfully all three have a chance to reform their quick-fix workout ways without the threat of a jail stint, as they are not part of the Albany D.A.'s "ongoing criminal probe" into Signature, an infamous Orlando-based online pharamcy handing out illegal 'roid scripts.

50 Cent, Mary J. Blige And Others Said To Be Named In Steroid Report [NY Daily News]

THE GOOD: Two Pink tracks—"Who Knew and the oft-censored "U & Ur Hand"—placed in the top 10, as did Nelly Furtado's "Say It Right." Also, Elliott Yamin wound up being the highest-charting American Idol alum of the year who wasn't Daughtry^*, with "Wait For You" (No. 19) just nosing out "Before He Cheats" (No. 20).
THE BAD: In a year that was pretty lackluster for rock-on-pop-radio to begin with, the highest-charting representative of the genre is... the limp, sub-CW-theme "The Great Escape" by Boys Like Girls, which landed at No. 8. Is it because they played the Jingle Ball? I'm seriously curious.
THE WHAAAA? At approximately 7 p.m. Monday, the Best New Artist voting (part of some listener polls that are running in conjunction with this list's airing/trying to pad the station's web stats before the year ends) was led by the moptopped Jonas Brothers, with Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana in second place. In third place? Timbaland. Hey, if he keeps it up in the polls, maybe he could get a Disney Channel show of his own!

1 Timbaland & Keri Hilson - The Way I Are
2 Timbaland & Nelly Furtado & Justin Timberlake - Give It To Me
3 Pink - U + Ur Hand
4 Justin Timberlake - What Goes Around Comes Around
5 Fergie - Big Girls Dont Cry (Personal)
6 Nelly Furtado - Say It Right
7 Pink - Who Knew
8 Boys Like Girls - The Great Escape
9 Kat DeLuna & Elephant Man - Whine Up
10 Daughtry - It's Not Over
11 Diddy & Christina Aguilera - Tell Me
12 Fall Out Boy - Thnks Fr Th Mmrs
13 Justin Timberlake - Summer Love
14 Timbaland & OneRepublic - Apologize
15 Rihanna & Jay-Z - Umbrella
16 50 Cent & Justin Timberlake - Ayo Technology
17 Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - Face Down
18 Kanye West - Stronger
19 Elliott Yamin - Wait For You
20 Carrie Underwood - Before He Cheats
21 Gwen Stefani - The Sweet Escape
22 Plain White Ts - Hey There Delilah
23 Gym Class Heroes - Cupid's Chokehold
24 Ne-Yo - Because Of You
25 Maroon 5 - Makes Me Wonder
26 Diddy & Keyshia Cole - Last Night
27 Daughtry - Home
28 T-Pain & Yung Joc - Buy U A Drank
29 Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend
30 Colbie Caillat - Bubbly
31 Justin Timberlake - Lovestoned/I Think She Knows
32 Lumidee & Tony Sunshine - She's Like The Wind
33 Fergie - Glamorous
34 Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls
35 Rihanna & Ne-Yo - Hate That I Love You
36 Good Charlotte - I Don't Wanna Be In Love
37 Alicia Keys - No One
38 Yung Berg & Junior - Sexy Lady
39 Kelly Clarkson - Never Again
40 Britney Spears - Gimme More
41 Nickelback - Rockstar
42 Akon - Dont Matter
43 Jordin Sparks - Tattoo
44 Beyonce & Shakira - Beautiful Liar
45 Ciara - Like A Boy
46 Katharine McPhee - Over It
47 Beyonce - Irreplaceable
48 My Chemical Romance - Welcome To The Black Parade
49 Rihanna - Shut Up And Drive
50 Fabolous & Ne-Yo - Make Me Better
51 Paramore - Misery Business
52 Paula DeAnda & Dey - Walk Away Remember Me
53 Avril Lavigne - When Youre Gone
54 Fergie - Clumsy
55 Akon & Snoop Dogg - I Wanna Love You
56 All-American Rejects - It Ends Tonight
57 Chris Brown - Wall To Wall
58 Daughtry - Over You
59 Hellogoodbye - Here In Your Arms
60 Omarion & Timbaland - Ice Box
61 Jonas Brothers - S.O.S.
62 Ludacris & Mary J. Blige - Runaway Love
63 Matchbox Twenty - How Far We've Come
64 Kanye West & T-Pain - Good Life
65 Nickelback - If Everyone Cared
66 Chris Brown & T-Pain - Kiss Kiss
67 Maroon 5 - Wake Up Call
68 Miley Cyrus - See You Again
69 Lloyd & Lil Wayne - You
70 Amy Winehouse - Rehab
71 Shop Boyz - Party Like A Rockstar
72 Boys Like Girls - Hero Heroine
73 Sean Kingston - Me Love
74 Avril Lavigne - Keep Holding On
75 Lloyd - Get It Shawty
76 Linkin Park - What I've Done
77 Soulja Boy - Crank That Soulja Boy
78 Fall Out Boy - I'm Like A Lawyer With The Way I'm Always Trying To Get You Off (Me & You)
79 Hilary Duff - With Love
80 Enur & Nataja - Calabria
81 Dashboard Confessional - Stolen
82 Robin Thicke - Lost Without U
83 Finger Eleven - Paralyzer
84 Chenelle & Baby Cham - I Fell In Love With The DJ
85 Rihanna - Dont Stop The Music
86 Backstreet Boys - Inconsolable
87 Fall Out Boy - This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race
88 Sean Kingston - Take You There
89 Hinder - Better Than Me
90 Celine Dion - Taking Chances
91 Mims - This Is Why I'm Hot
92 Britney Spears - Piece Of Me
93 John Mayer - Waiting On The World To Change
94 Baby Bash - Cyclone
95 Linkin Park - Shadow Of The Day
96 Jennifer Lopez - Do It Well
97 Taylor Swift - Teardrops On My Guitar
98 Natasha Bedingfield & Sean Kingston - Love Like This
99 Ashley Tisdale - He Said She Said
100 Nelly Furtado - Do It

Top 100 of 2007 [z100.com]
[Photo: Getty]

^* OK OK I initially forgot about Daughtry's Idol connection since he's, you know, actually selling records these days. Hey, did you notice that there are no Taylor Hicks songs on this countdown either?

Said performances ranged from stadium-pro competent (Fall Out Boy) to so forgettable that even detailed notes wouldn't have helped (Boys Like Girls), but the show was invariably at its weakest when the girls in the stands exuded more pep than whoever happened to be on stage at the time (Avril Lavigne, we're looking at you), with Jordin Sparks resorting to a Christmas song (because even a spunky American Idol winner knows better than to bait a packed MSG with an album cut) and soft-rocking harridan Colbie Caillat mercifully only allotted the time to nervously strum through the excreable "Bubbly." (Her "backing band," especially the guy keeping time with the egg shaker, have the sweetest gigs that a lazy session guy could ask for at the moment.)

The grownups and the survivors, Alicia Keys and the warmly recieved Backstreet Boys (side note: when did AJ start looking like the emo Dave Attell?), unsurprisingly proved to be the only performers who had the biz-honed ability to command a crowd that size, but even with Timbaland interminably padding out three songs with the kind of between-song rambling that you'd expect from a pop genius with an entitlement complex bigger than his neck rolls, Jingle Ball still intermittently offered the rally-esque rush you get from the arena-sized pop show. During the hits, everyone sang. During the songs yet (or never) to be hits, everyone tapped out mash notes to the Jonas Brothers on their phones.

And at the end of the day, we were watching a Jonas Brothers show that just happened to feature some former (and current) Billboard chart-toppers as openers. There are all sorts of marketing and promotional reasons to help explain Disney's current chokehold on pop, and no svengalis will ever go broke banking on three nonthreatening, babyfaced cuties playing uptempo bubblegum. But the Jonas Brothers could have spent their set armpit-farting into their mics and the little girls still would have collapsed lungs and shredded vocal chords to show their approval. You could almost see the industry on its knees, thankful for another tweener bandage on hemorrhaging sales. There will come a point when even the well-scrubbed middle school idols can't control the bleeding, but based on Friday night's reception, the Jonas Brothers should keep the body from flatlining at least through 2008. So, um, hooray?

Jingle Ball 2007 [Z100]
[Photo: Getty]

So at Friday night's Jingle Ball, the most interminable set belonged to Timbaland, who spent most of his allotted time—I'm not sure of the exact minute count, but it seemed way longer than it was regardless—namedropping Justin Timberlake, hoisting around his son, and spinning that Scott Storch dis track in an effort to remind the audience of who he was. Well! Apparently he realized that these tactics weren't really the best way to keep the attention of a bunch of hormonally charged adolescents, so at the Philadelphia installment of the Jingle Ball he previewed the track "Four Minutes To Save The World," which is apparently going to serve as the "Ayo Technology" for Madonna's upcoming-album-that's-not-called-Licorice. If you can make it out over the guy screaming (and Timbaland), you can hear a slightly booty-shaking track that sounds kind of like Madonna instructed Timbo to update "Into The Groove" and add a little bit of Justin so as to make Lourdes' schoolmates think that she's the "cool mom" of her daughter's class. (Also: I bet you that once Duran Duran hears this they're going to be all, "Bloody hell, did we pay him his discount 'save a popstar, save the world' rate by accident?")

Timbaland concert [New Madge/JT song preview—4.M.T.S.T.W.] [YouTube]

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

2007 Jingle Ball [Z100]

For the first time in its three-month chart life, Alicia Keys' "No One" sells fewer digital singles than it did the week before. But that's no problem, as her continued radio dominance means she's still tops on Billboard's Hot 100—even as one song given up for dead starts to make a comeback.

Radio to Timba - All Apologies: At No. 2 for the second time in its chart run, "Apologize" by Timbaland and underperforming chart debutantes OneRepublic earns a belated bullet thanks to radio, which hasn't given up on the squishy ballad yet. "Apologize" set two consecutive records for total weekly plays on Top 40 radio; in the most recent week, it was spun more than 10,200 times by stations in that format. With only a few hundred totally pure Top 40 stations in the whole country, that's a buttload of airplay.

So will "Apologize" finally reach No. 1? The problem for Timba and 1R—as we've chronicled here before—is that practically no other format is playing the song (no R&B/hip-hop, no modern rock), which means "Apologize" is charting with one hand and several other limbs tied behind its back. Actually, there is one format catching on: the ever-late-blooming adult-contemporary, where the song resides just outside the Top 20. Trouble is, AC is rapidly becoming an all-holiday format right now, so the song's airplay boost is modest. The song posts a small increase in sales, which helps a bit, but ranked third among all digital sellers behind Alicia's smash and Flo Rida's "Low," "Apologize" is still down 40-50,000 copies on the competition.

Bottom line: with "Low" seeming to slow down and "Apologize" having a tough fight to go the last mile, Alicia Keys will probably be sitting pretty through much of the holiday season. Which is appropriate, in a year where the ladies mostly dominated the gents on the singles charts.

That Was the Year That Was: We've spent most of this week debating the year-end album lists that have materialized from music rags. But while most critics still have a chance over the next month to make last-minute tweaks to their ballots, as far as Billboard's concerned, 2007 has been over since around Thanksgiving.

For decades now, Billboard has defined the "chart year" differently from the calendar year: it runs from the previous December 1 to the current November 30. (That's so they can run a big year-end issue the week before Christmas, before everybody disappears from their offices for the holiday.) This weird temporal skew means a couple of things for chart geeks.

First, based on what we already know, we can start predicting what the No. 1 song of the year will be before Billboard makes it official in about three weeks.

Second, the timing means bad news for songs that peaked in the summer or later, and good news for songs that peaked as much as a year ago.

For some context, here's a list of Billboard's No. 1 song of each year for the last 20 years, followed by the date the song actually peaked on the Hot 100:

1987: Bangles, "Walk Like an Egyptian" (20 Dec 1986)
1988: George Michael, "Faith" (12 Dec 1987)
1989: Chicago, "Look Away" (10 Dec 1988)
1990: Wilson Phillips, "Hold On" (9 June 1990)
1991: Bryan Adams, "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" (27 July 1991)
1992: Boyz II Men, "End of the Road" (15 Aug 1992)
1993: Whitney Houston, "I Will Always Love You" (28 Nov 1992)
1994: Ace of Base, "The Sign" (12 Mar 1994)
1995: Coolio feat. L.V., "Gangsta's Paradise" (9 Sep 1995)
1996: Los Del Rio, "Macarena (Bayside Boys mix)" (3 Aug 1996)
1997: Elton John, "Candle in the Wind 1997"/"Something About the Way You Look Tonight" (11 Oct 1997)
1998: Next, "Too Close" (25 Apr 1998)
1999: Cher, "Believe" (13 Mar 1999)
2000: Faith Hill, "Breathe" (22 Apr 2000)
2001: Lifehouse, "Hanging by a Moment" (16 June 2001)
2002: Nickelback, "How You Remind Me" (22 Dec 2001)
2003: 50 Cent, "In da Club" (8 Mar 2003)
2004: Usher feat. Lil Jon and Ludacris, "Yeah!" (28 Feb 2004)
2005: Mariah Carey, "We Belong Together" (4 June 2005)
2006: Daniel Powter, "Bad Day" (8 Apr 2006)

Notice anything? (Besides the overwhelming suckitude. I mean, Chicago in 1989? What was up with that? Ewwwww.) Fully 60% of these year-demolishing songs peaked before June 1, the midpoint of Billboard's chart year; in fact, a sizeable minority (five, or 25%) peaked before the prior year was even over. And out of the remaining eight that peaked after June 1, half had started scaling the Hot 100 by at least late winter or early spring. (Of the outliers, three—by Bryan Adams, Boyz II Men and Coolio—exploded late and fast thanks to their inclusion in hit summer movies. The major outlier, Elton John's Princess Di-fueled 1997 monster, is an exception to chart history on so many levels it's barely worth discussing here.)

The less obvious pattern—the kind of thing nerds like me only notice after years of chart-following—is that the big year-end winners tend not to be the sudden exploders but the slow-growers. A long stay at No. 1 helps, certainly (six of the above songs stayed in the penthouse for a double-digit number of weeks). But it's not essential. Just over half of the above spent five weeks or less at the top, and two of them (by Faith Hill and Lifehouse) never went to No. 1 for even a single week.

So, combine all of the above information, and as far as 2007 is concerned, you're looking for a smash hit that: grew steadily on the way up; peaked as early in the year as possible (last December-February would be best); and dithered on its way back down. Here are the likely candidates, and they're almost all by women:

• Beyoncé, "Irreplaceable": The 800-booty gorilla. Spent 10 weeks on top of the charts, racking up not just huge sales but positively massive airplay totals. To us, this old-ass song is solidly '06 material, but to Billboard, its timing for the '07 charts was near-flawless, as it just started its long run at No. 1 by mid-December. It wasn't a longevity champ or anything, but it definitely took its time coming down. The presumptive favorite.

• Avril Lavigne, "Girlfriend": The Energizer Bunny. Materialized in the Top 10 in March and then—as Matos noted in one of his fun "Project X" family polls—stayed there for some five months, a staggering run in the winner's circle. Only spent a single week at No. 1 but was just so consistent week to week.

• Gwen Stefani feat. Akon, "The Sweet Escape": All about timing. It never went to No. 1, but it peaked at No. 2 in a long, ideally timed chart run starting in late winter, cresting in April and still holding as late as September. Amassed big sales points and consistent airplay throughout its run. And let's face it, it's your drugstore-checkout-line fungus of the year: "OOH-ooh...WHEEEEE!!-ooh..."

• Rihanna feat. Jay-Z, "Umbrella": The consensus pop song of the year. A seven-week Hot 100 champ, but more challenged than it might appear. Sales were huge and airplay was very strong, but it exploded too quickly, shooting to No. 1 from outside the Top 40 in a single week thanks almost entirely to its iTunes debut. Airplay peaked later than sales and ended up quite strong. But don't be surprised if this places lower in the year-end survey than you expect.

• T-Pain feat. Yung Joc, "Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin')": Apres moi, le deluge. For all his featured-vocal credits, the Painmeister's biggest 2007 hit was his own, and like Avril's hit, it hung around the chart's upper reaches forever. Its run up the chart was a little slower than the fall back down, but it was well-timed and fueled by both Top 40 and heavy R&B airplay.

• Plain White T's, "Hey There Delilah": The stealth bomb. Positively crawled up the list most of the winter and spring before finally emerging as a mid-summer smash, and its iTunes sales and adult-contemporary airplay can't have hurt. Big hits by earnest white boys have pulled major upsets before (Lifehouse, Nickelback), and this one has real potential to do the same.

• Fergie, "Big Girls Don't Cry": The hit that wouldn't die. Fergie's had a huge year on the Hot 100 in general, but most of her hits have been short-lived (e.g., "Glamorous," which went to No. 1 last March—I defy anyone to hum a few bars to me now). "Girls," however, with its big crossover to A/C radio, is the major exception, and its relatively slow rise and slow-back-down chart run is textbook for a year-end favorite. Only its late-spring-through-fall timing might keep it from the crown. Hell, take a look below—it's still clinging to the bottom of the Top 20 as we speak.

Stuff to Watch: Staying focused on yearly charts instead of weekly ones, here's one last, and slightly depressing, piece of advice—take a good look at what's leading the Hot 100 this week. You think you're sick of "No One" and "Apologize" now? We'll be talking about them a year hence—they'll probably be among the top Billboard hits of 2008. Talk about a meal that repeats on you...

This week's top 20, with last week's position and total weeks charted in parentheses:
1. Alicia Keys, "No One" (LW No. 1, 12 weeks)
2. Timbaland feat. OneRepublic, "Apologize" (LW No. 3, 17 weeks)
3. Chris Brown feat. T-Pain, "Kiss Kiss" (LW No. 2, 11 weeks)
4. Flo Rida feat. T-Pain, "Low" (LW No. 4, 5 weeks)
5. Soulja Boy, "Crank That (Soulja Boy), Soulja Boy Tell'em" (LW No. 6, 20 weeks)
6. Colbie Caillat, "Bubbly" (LW No. 5, 22 weeks)
7. Fergie, "Clumsy" (LW No. 8, 7 weeks)
8. Kanye West feat. T-Pain, "Good Life" (LW No. 7, 11 weeks)
9. Rihanna feat. Ne-Yo, "Hate That I Love You" (LW No. 12, 13 weeks)
10. Baby Bash feat. T-Pain, "Cyclone" (LW No. 9, 18 weeks)
11. Finger Eleven, "Paralyzer" (LW No. 11, 25 weeks)
12. Jordin Sparks, "Tattoo" (LW No. 16, 9 weeks)
13. Kanye West, "Stronger" (LW No. 10, 18 weeks)
14. Timbaland feat. Keri Hilson & D.O.E., "The Way I Are" (LW No. 13, 26 weeks)
15. matchbox twenty, "How Far We've Come" (LW No. 15, 13 weeks)
16. J. Holiday, "Bed" (LW No. 14, 19 weeks)
17. Playaz Circle feat. Lil Wayne, "Duffle Bag Boy " (LW No. 22, 10 weeks)
18. Daughtry, "Over You" (LW No. 19, 16 weeks)
19. The-Dream, "Shawty is a 10" (LW No. 18, 12 weeks)
20. Fergie, "Big Girls Don't Cry" (LW No. 17, 32 weeks)

Like planes on a runway, three fast-rising singles are lined up at the bottom of the Top Five on Billboard's Hot 100. But they've got to radio the tower and get two jumbo jets to stop hogging the tarmac: Kanye West, whose still-hot "Stronger" is at No. 2 for a fourth straight week (his sixth runner-up week overall, broken by a single week at No. 1 last month); and super-soaking chart champ Soulja Boy, now in his sixth week at No. 1 with "Crank That (Soulja Boy)." With both Soulja's and Kanye's singles seeing slowdowns in airplay and drops in digital sales of 15-20% each, this week could mark the start of their slow decline.

Does "No One" See Keys Coming? The three challengers lined up at Nos. 3 through 5 are exactly the contenders we discussed last week: "Apologize," Timbaland's teamup with the Fray II... er, OneRepublic; "No One," Alicia Keys's comeback smash; and "Bubbly," Colbie Caillat's sleepy sleeper hit, finally in the Top Five after a slow-and-steady 16-week chart run.

On its face, Timba and OneRepublic's gushy ballad remains the likeliest to take the crown. It's growing steadily in airplay, and explosively on iTunes and other buck-a-tune sites. You'd never know it from the song's meager Hot 100 move this week to No. 3 from No. 4 — or its move on the digital-sales chart from No. 3 to No. 2 — but "Apologize" had a stellar week, moving 133,000 downloads—a 16% increase, which garnered it Billboard's "Sales Gainer" prize. Another week or two like this, especially if radio catches up with sales ("Apologize" is nearing the Top 10 on Hot 100 Airplay), and OneRepublic will be popping champagne even before its debut album drops.

That is, if Keys doesn't sneak around them. Her move to No. 4 from No. 8 is the most impressive in this week's Top 10, moving past the slower-rising Caillat. On the radio side, "No One" has a massive built-in advantage: a double-shot of airplay from both Top 40 stations and R&B stations, something that Timbaland can't count on from his pop/rock crossover hit. (To digress, this is one of the many reasons why the last 10 years on the charts have found hits by white people—or, in this case, a black producer remixing a very white band's pop ballad—at a severe disadvantage.) Couple her already-Top 5 airplay with a 24% boost in digital sales (the only reason Timba won the Billboard sales award is his total increase, which was numerically bigger), and you have a formula for her return to No. 1. This could get interesting.

Corporate Rock Still Sells...and Sometimes Plays: Since the past week saw the debut of Al "GovernmentNames" Shipley's new column on the vagaries of up-the-middle rock, I thought perhaps "100 and Single" should take a look at how rock's doing on the big, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink pop chart. Simply put, is anything currently in the Modern Rock Top 10 doing any business on the Hot 100?

One song is, and it's shaping up to be an honest-to-goodness pop hit: Finger Eleven's "Paralyzer." The song topped Modern Rock literally months ago and will probably end up in that format's top two for all of 2007—alongside Linkin Park—thanks to its slow climb and slower fall (in its 35th week on Modern Rock, it's still in the Top Five). On the Hot 100, the Canucks' catchy hit is up six spots this week to No. 26, as pop fans, and the stations they listen to, finally glom onto its virtual-disco beat. That chart move doesn't even fully indicate how strongly this old, old song is crossing over: it moves into the Top 20 in digital sales (up 16%) and into the Top 40 in airplay (now getting more radio action than T-Pain's "Bartender"!).

By comparison, nothing else in the Modern Rock Top 10 has even made the pop Top 40. Only the chart's undisputed champion, Foo Fighters' "The Pretender," is making any headway on the big chart, moving a modest five spots to No. 48, and that's even while Dave Grohl's latest enters its third month at No. 1 on Modern Rock and second month on top of Mainstream Rock. The two lessons: the rock radio formats represent a small proportion of the Hot 100's total points; and to cross over with a rock hit, you really have to cross over, with teeny-bopper radio giving the kind of lift only it can provide.

Carriewatch: Briefly, it's a good week on the charts for American Idol's all-time most successful winner (yeah, fellow Clarkson fans, you heard me, and it gives me no joy). "So Small," Carrie Underwood's first single from her forthcoming album Carnival Ride, shoots 15 spaces into the Top 40 (and enters the Country chart's Top Five). Meanwhile, her ancient single's run for the record books keeps chugging, as "Before He Cheats" actually sneaks up a couple of spots to No. 42, in its 59th week on the Hot 100. "Cheats" is now in the all-time longevity Top Five, and if it hangs onto the chart's top half for two more weeks, it'll move past "Macarena."

While we're mentioning Idol, my long-held theory that Taylor Hicks' win in 2006 broke the show's business model may be gaining another data point. The show's 2007 winner, Jordin Sparks, has another tepid week with her first "official" single, "Tattoo." It's now at No. 55 after debuting two weeks ago at...No. 58. And there's nothing handicapping her: the song is up at iTunes, if selling weakly; radio airplay is building (New York's Z100 reports strong requests) but nationwide, so far, it's negligible.

Stuff to Watch: Soulja Boy's lead in total chart points is probably too huge for anyone to unseat him next week, but two weeks should do it. So start placing bets now on the Timba-vs.-Alicia fight. Further down the chart, Chris "Hey, I like to sing, too" Brown is trying to make us forget his new album's dud first single ("Wall to Wall") never happened, and thanks to T-Pain he appears to be pulling it off. Expect "Kiss Kiss" (No. 22, up from No. 35) to make the Top 10 by the middle of November, giving T-Pain a possible featured-vocal hat trick.

The top 20, with last week's position and total weeks charted in parentheses:
1. Soulja Boy, "Crank That (Soulja Boy), Soulja Boy Tell'em" (LW No. 1, 14 weeks)
2. Kanye West, "Stronger" (LW No. 2, 12 weeks)
3. Timbaland feat. OneRepublic, "Apologize" (LW No. 4, 11 weeks)
4. Alicia Keys, "No One" (LW No. 8, 6 weeks)
5. Colbie Caillat, "Bubbly" (LW No. 7, 16 weeks)
6. Britney Spears, "Gimme More" (LW No. 3, 6 weeks)
7. Timbaland feat. Keri Hilson & D.O.E., "The Way I Are" (LW No. 5, 20 weeks)
8. J. Holiday, "Bed" (LW No. 6, 13 weeks)
9. Fergie, "Big Girls Don't Cry" (LW No. 9, 26 weeks)
10. Kanye West feat. T-Pain, "Good Life" (LW No. 10, 5 weeks)
11. Baby Bash feat. T-Pain, "Cyclone" (LW No. 13, 12 weeks)
12. 50 Cent feat. Justin Timberlake & Timbaland, "Ayo Technology" (LW No. 11, 10 weeks)
13. Nickelback, "Rockstar" (LW No. 12, 36 weeks)
14. Pink, "Who Knew" (LW No. 14, 19 weeks)
15. Rihanna feat. Ne-Yo, "Hate That I Love You" (LW No. 18, 7 weeks)
16. Keyshia Cole feat. Missy Elliott & Lil Kim, "Let It Go" (LW No. 16, 17 weeks)
17. matchbox twenty, "How Far We've Come" (LW No. 15, 7 weeks)
18. Plies feat. T-Pain, "Shawty" (LW No. 17, 18 weeks)
19. Maroon 5, "Wake Up Call" (LW No. 23, 10 weeks)
20. Plain White T's, "Hey There Delilah" (LW No. 20, 29 weeks)

Are you sick of hearing Soulja Boy's insidious little steel-drum beat leak out of cars rolling down your block? Hope not, because he isn't going anywhere. "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" continues to rule Billboard's Hot 100, and it actually earns a bullet in its fifth week at No. 1. Which means it's still growing in both airplay and sales—it's radio's most-played song for a second week, and it retakes the top spot in digital sales from Britney Spears's faltering "Gimme More." She and Kanye West are probably secretly wishing for the Bush Administration to re-institute the draft so that this kid gets shipped off when he finally turns 18.

Doubling Up, with a Side of Pain: The stasis in the top three belies the more interesting churn further down the chart. The top 10, in particular, sports a pair of hip-hop stars who are each credited on a pair of hits. Amazingly, neither one of them is T-Pain, but he does figure into this.

Timbaland's diversification gambit pays off, as "Apologize," his bid to expand into alt-pop balladry, overtakes his other top five hit, "The Way I Are." The two singles off Shock Value are now back-to-back at Nos. 4 and 5. Love it or hate it, "Apologize" by all rights should be credited to "featured" act OneRepublic, the Colorado five-piece that wrote and first recorded the song before letting Timba remix it for his album; they're preparing a different version for their forthcoming debut. With a massive boost of airplay this week, the sticky-sweet "Apologize" is emerging as the "Hey There Delilah" of the fall; at this rate, it'll top the chart by Thanksgiving and be widely despised by everyone you know before Christmas.

The other top 10 denizen benefiting from radio love is Kanye West, who pairs his still-hot "Stronger" at No. 2 with the revived "Good Life," which reverses last week's fall and shoots eight spots to No. 10. As we predicted last week, airplay is just now kicking in on West's second (third, if you count pre-release leak "Can't Tell Me Nothing") hit from Graduation. Actually, it's more than kicking in: Billboard reports that "Good Life" saw "an increase of 25 million audience impressions, the largest of the year." For those of you new to such industry gobbledygook, "impressions" is a measurement that (roughly) approximates a song's radio listeners by multiplying plays on each station by the number of listeners for that station, as estimated by Arbitron ratings. And 25 million impressions is a big gain, as a No. 1 hit usually garners more than 100 million or, when it's massive, 200 million impressions. Which means that "Good Life" in a single week garnered about one-eighth to one-fourth the airplay it'll need if it's destined to be a chart-topper.

The guy featured on Kanye's newest Top 10 hit adds to his ridiculously successful year. Yup, T-Pain's back, Vocodering his way through another rising hit and prolonging his improbable residency in the winner's circle. With another of T's featured spots moving toward the Top 10—Baby Bash's "Cyclone," up four places to No. 13—and Chris Brown's own T-supported track, "Kiss Kiss," leaping 20 spots into the Top 40, brace yourselves for a Painful holiday season.

We Say Let Ne-Yo Duet with Feist: Briefly, here's some other stuff we saw coming last week. Justin Timberlake's "Until the End of Time" picks up Beyoncé as a duet partner and perks up on the chart, moving 13 spaces into the Top 30. In fact, it's a good week all 'round for boudoir duets, as Rihanna's "Hate That I Love You," featuring Ne-Yo, leaps into the Top 20 from No. 26—and for the first time all year, homegirl has a chart hit bigger than "Umbrella." (In the time it's taken that spring-and-summer smash to fall to No. 26, Rihanna's been through a whole 'nother hit, the already-gone "Shut Up and Drive," which peaked at a surprisingly tepid No. 15.)

I know you folks with cool Adult Album Alternative stations in your nabes think it's a smash, but Feist's "1, 2, 3, 4" shows this week just how light on airplay and vulnerable to the vagaries of iTunes it is—it returns to almost exactly the same spot it was in two weeks ago (No. 27) after its rise to No. 8 last week. The culprit? A 48% decline in digital downloads. The song is still in iTunes' Top 10, but with no major-market Top 40, adult-contemporary or alt-rock airplay to back it up, that sizable sales drop proves fatal. Time to pitch the song to Microsoft for a Zune ad?

Ingrid Who? The latest beneficiary of Feist's TV-fueled, all-sales-no-airplay model is Ingrid Michaelson, a Staten Island-based (holla, Wu fans!) singer-songwriter whose "The Way I Am" shoots 43 places into the Top 40. Already a Top 10 iTunes track, Michaelson's hey-Timbaland-at-least-I-understand-subject-verb-agreement tune got a triple-hit of TV love this month, from Grey's Anatomy (ask the Fray how that show worked out for them), Last Call with Carson Daly and now an Old Navy commercial. No airplay to speak of yet, but if Old Navy keeps pumping that ad, digital sales should keep her afloat long enough for radio program directors to catch on.

Stuff to Watch: Next week, let us all light candles, hold hands and chant that, yea, the tyranny of Fergie will cease; the deathless "Big Girls Don't Cry" falls a big-for-her four spots to No. 9 and could finally exit the Top 10 soon. As for the top of the chart, nobody's going to stop Soulja Boy in the next seven days now that Britney has wilted. So the ladies to watch down the line are newbie Colbie Caillat, whose aptly titled "Bubbly" keeps creeping toward the top five; and relatively old lady Alicia Keys, who's back in the top 10 for the first time in nearly three years with "No One." The latter is catching on faster at R&B radio than Top 40, but if pop and A/C radio bring up the rear, and her iTunes sales keep growing (she's up 23% this week), the mass-appeal Keys could be back on top pretty soon. In the meantime, watch "Apologize"—thanks to fast gains in both sales and airplay, that song's most likely, near-term, to bring Soulja to a halt.

The top 20, with last week's position and total weeks charted in parentheses:
1. Soulja Boy, "Crank That (Soulja Boy), Soulja Boy Tell'em" (LW No. 1, 13 weeks)
2. Kanye West, "Stronger" (LW No. 2, 11 weeks)
3. Britney Spears, "Gimme More" (LW No. 3, 5 weeks)
4. Timbaland feat. OneRepublic, "Apologize" (LW No. 6, 10 weeks)
5. Timbaland feat. Keri Hilson & D.O.E., "The Way I Are" (LW No. 4, 19 weeks)
6. J. Holiday, "Bed" (LW No. 7, 12 weeks)
7. Colbie Caillat, "Bubbly" (LW No. 10, 15 weeks)
8. Alicia Keys, "No One" (LW No. 12, 5 weeks)
9. Fergie, "Big Girls Don't Cry" (LW No. 5, 25 weeks)
10. Kanye West feat. T-Pain, "Good Life" (LW No. 18, 4 weeks)
11. 50 Cent feat. Justin Timberlake & Timbaland, "Ayo Technology" (LW No. 13, 9 weeks)
12. Nickelback, "Rockstar" (LW No. 11, 35 weeks)
13. Baby Bash feat. T-Pain, "Cyclone" (LW No. 17, 11 weeks)
14. Pink, "Who Knew" (LW No. 14, 18 weeks)
15. matchbox twenty, "How Far We've Come" (LW No. 15, 6 weeks)
16. Keyshia Cole feat. Missy Elliott & Lil Kim, "Let It Go" (LW No. 9, 16 weeks)
17. Plies feat. T-Pain, "Shawty" (LW No. 16, 17 weeks)
18. Rihanna feat. Ne-Yo, "Hate That I Love You" (LW No. 26, 6 weeks)
19. Justin Timberlake, "LoveStoned" (LW No. 20, 14 weeks)
20. Plain White T's, "Hey There Delilah" (LW No. 22, 28 weeks)

"I gotta go against my daddy," he said Friday from the ABC studios in New York, where the super-producer is filming a guest spot for the soap opera "One Life to Live." "I call [Dr.] Dre my daddy. To make it be some talk, I gotta go against my big brother. He's my big brother. [Who are] the two quarterbacks? Peyton Manning and Eli? When they have to go against each other, it's like, 'Do I really wanna go against my big brother?' Dre is my mentor. That would drive people to the stores. Like, 'Oh snap, Tim and Dre!' That would be big. I asked Jay-Z who he would go against. He said, 'The only person I would go against is my other homeboy: my friend Eminem.' "

Thankfully Tim will never have to deal with the biblical (or maybe Olympian, in this case) humilation that would result from his need to "go against" his "daddy" (or his "big brother"), because of course Detox is never friggin' coming out.

Timbaland Helps Out Jay-Z With Comeback Single

Meanwhile, a new sound from Ashlee is banging on the speakers, a more tribal, dangerous, seductive sound, filled with beats and synth lines. "Here, in the dark, is where I find the light," she sings, in a slow, slinky way. "I've got a monkey on my back, get it off," she then sings in a near-rap. "I get away with murder," she drawls. Travis McCoy from Gym Class Heroes sneaks in a rap about how she has "diplomatic immunity."

"This is really fun for me," Ashlee says. "I've always done guitar-based songs, and seeing what we can do with beats is so amazing."

I'm guessing it goes something like "lardy drums, trancey squiggle riff, incongruous funny noise that gets irritating by the fifth listen," but I wouldn't want to suggest Mssr. Mosley is tracing a template these days or anything. But seriously: Ashlee Simpson?? Was this common knowledge? Have the Video Music Awards destroyed my short-term memory and I already knew this? Does the man have any standards left or did the creatine rot the part of the brain that controls aesthetic discernment? Who cries for Aaliyah? And really, I'm no Furtado fan, but Nelly should be offended by the MTV article even offhandedly making the comparison.

Ashlee Lets Bad Girl Alter Ego Take Over On New LP [MTV]

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: Yes, that's the very same "Ayo Technology" that was supposed to save 50 Cent's Curtis—only this new version, credited solely to JT, slices 50 right out of the song, giving it over fully to Timberlake's chorus and Timbaland's musings about "hips" and "thighs." So what new verses does this track use to make up for the fact that 50's been edited out? None, actually! All you get are long stretches of Timbaland's "malfunctioning copy of Punch-Out!" backing track, which, now that it's so far out front on this new version, unnervingly reminds me of the 8-bit remix of my co-editor's hottttest summer jam.
WHERE TO FIND IT: It's currently up at IKevinMusic (via Blender), but it'll probably be in heavy rotation on your local rap-averse hits station within the next 24 hours. Sorry Curtis!

Yeah I got my gripes with the choices here. (No Playa? No Total?? "Pony" as the only Ginuwine song? Nothing off Deliverance? But yet there's room for a Floetry remix and non-entities like Trey Songz? Maybe I have more gripes with this selection than I thought.) Still, this is five volumes of Timbaland beats for free, and if you can really look that kind of gift horse in the mouth, well then you're Scrooge-ier than I am.

A Brief History Of Timbaland Beats [The Fly Life Via Oh Word]

"Ah, man," Tim gushed. "There's this one song, we taking it back to 'You must be my luck-eee starrrr!' ... Remember 'Ugly' by Bubba Sparxxx? I got a beat similar to that. The hook is no words. It's saying stuff named after coffee — all these different names for coffee — is the hook. ... The name of the song is 'La, La.' Pharrell did a hot one for her too called 'Candy Shop.' She's off the chain."

So...the hook is no words. Except the hook is all these different names for coffee. And names are words. I'm confused. I also have no idea what "Lucky Star" over a Bubba Sparxxx beat with a wordless hook made up of Starbucks references could possibly sound like, but Tim's certainly got me curious. He's also been working with 50 Cent, and he spoke a little about the work ethic that made the "Ayo Technology" video so special:

"We didn't do our scenes together. I was tired. I don't know what [50] was doing. I know I was tired, I know he was tired. It was fun, man. When I saw all them girls, I was like, 'Where they get all these girls from?' Then I went back to sleep."

Timbaland Discusses Details Of Madonna Collabo For The First Time [MTV]

The BET edit of the clip has a lot of pixelated-out shots of writhing women, although it's the Jerry Springer type of pixelation where any titillation said shots are supposed to supply is replaced by you wondering if it's just been added in to make the video seem "edgy." It does match up nicely with Timbaland's 8-bit-malfunction beat, though, and that's making me think that a Nintendo remix of the clip—maybe within the world of Elevator Action—would be terrific.

50 Cent - She Wants It (Ayo Technology) [OnSmash, via Nah Right]
Still Not Tired of Hypocrisy: 50 Cent feat. Justin Timberlake "Ayo Technology" [Obtusity]

A source told Britain's The Sun newspaper: "The track is an analogy for watching porn. The word 'technology' was put in as a way to replace what they really wanted to say - 'pornography'.

"It's all about being fed up with having to make do watching dirty movies and how desperate they are to have real-life stunning girls."

Yes, because Jessica Biel is apparently not hot enough for Justin. But wait, it gets better:

Justin and 50 - real name Curtis Jackson - will reportedly film the video for the song this weekend with Los Angeles director Joseph Khan. It will see the pair star as sex-obsessed Matrix style secret agents who spy on women.

Uh ... right. Anyway, the track's made its way out to the Internet, and listening to 50 and Justin trade verses is sort of like hearing a live feed from a room where everyone is straining to get a "C" on a test (Timbaland should have saved his malfunctioning-Atari beat for Shock Value). The flophouse reaction was pretty similar to Eskay's schadenfreude-tinged review at Nah Right: "This and the Robin Thicke joint are the songs Curtis is hoping will save the fiasco of an album this is shaping up to be. " Will it work?

Well, not to rain on 50's birthday parade, but: Probably not. Sure, pairing up with cutie-patootie Justin will probably thrill 50's newer, younger fanbase, as long as their parents stay blissfully unaware of what 50's actually rhyming about. But at this point, 50's "throw any guest appearance against the wall, and see if it sticks" approach to Curtis is making me wonder if he should just trash the whole thing and spend the next year making Vitamin Water ads.

(And one last aside to Justin: If you want to help out an album in limbo, may we suggest that you bring your talents to one of your former bandmates' rescue?)

Justin Timberlake and 50 Cent in porn duet [news.com.au]

Meanwhile, according to TMZ.com, Timbaland—who's touring overseas with Justin Timberlake—was arrested in Germany Sunday for allegedly assaulting a bar patron who didn't want the producer talking to his girlfriend. If the brawl was anything like Timbaland's recent live shows, it was 45 minutes long, and punctuated with random references to Aaliyah.

Timbaland feat. Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake - Laff At Em (Give It To Me Remix) [MP3, link expired]