3-Way (The Golden Rule) Justin Timberlake, Andy Samberg, Lady GaGa

This is so great, a review isn't necessary.

Chick Fight

In a recent interview I found on Perez Hilton from NME M.I.A. slams Lady Gaga

Do we still need record labels?
Are they even interested in making money from music anymore? Lady Gaga plugs 15 things in her new video. Dude, she even plugs a burger! That’s probably how they’re making money right now - buying up the burger joint, putting the burger in a music video and making loads of burger money.
Do you think those programmes and the internet have destroyed the mythology around popstars?
I don’t know. Again, there’s Lady Gaga - people say we’re similar, that we both mix all these things in the pot and spit them out differently, but she spits it out exactly the same! None of her music’s reflective of how weird she wants to be or thinks she is. She models herself on Grace Jones and Madonna, but the music sounds like 20-year-old Ibiza music, you know? She’s not progressive, but she’s a good mimic. She sounds more like me than I fucking do! That’s a talent and she’s got a great team behind her, but she’s the industry last stab at making itself important - saying, ‘You need our money behind you, the endorsements, the stadiums’ Respect to her, she’s keeping a hundred thousand people in work, but my belief is: Do It Yourself.
How important are image and visuals to your music?
Very. But it’s not like “Haus of Gaga” (laughs). Me blindfolded with naked men feeding me apples and shit.

Would you ever make a record for a Twilight soundtrack?
They asked me. Luckily Jimmy [Iovine, chairmen of M.I.A.’s US label Interscope] had beef with the Twilight people, so he stepped in and told them to fuck off.

I'm going to have to agree with MIA on some points, but is she just being a hater because Lady Gaga is more popular?  And what about Rihanna copying here? I'm surprised she didn't mention that  "Rude Boy" is basically a carbon copy of "Boyz."

ADvanced concepts

When I was on Yahoo this afternoon, (yes, I search on yahoo, not google. Strange, I know) I saw this article about Lady Gaga's video "Telephone" being a big ad and if this makes her a sell out. Of course its a big ad. With all the hype that video got, I would be surprised if it wasn't a commercial. You have to consider many things with this. Artists and records labels do not count on album sales as revenue as much as they use to. This is where 360 deals come in, this article does a better job at explaining it, but basically record labels are looking to make money anyway they can. Also, you have to consider how much that video must have cost. You have to cover the cost somehow. And lets be honest, the music business is fickle. Lady Gaga might be the next Avril Lavigne. Or she could be a female Elton John. Who knows, but at the end of the day, I'm sure she is wise enough to have her set up to be financially set later on when wearing telephones in your hair isn't cool anymore. So I wouldn't call her a sell out, just doing her job. Plus, having endorsements in videos is nothing new. I feel like most trends, especially technology, are some what fueled by music videos. You might hate to admit it, but the popularity of G-Shocks might have been influenced by the Bow Wow/Soulja Boy "Marco Polo" video.

Here are the "Telephone" and "Marco Polo" videos, can you count the product placements?: