The decision to make a Brian Eno album is in many ways the musical equivalent of a midlife crisis. Besides being a hipster band’s wet dream for hire, Eno is also a kind of Dr. Phil with a mixing console and actual worth.

Urban music has long been invested in a view of sexuality similar to that of a teenage boy, but now as rappers and R & B crooners start pushing 30, the whole hit-and-run shtick gets more than a little tired.

Hey Scarlett Johansson, music fans have a message for you in the wake of the release of your recording debut, Anywhere I Lay My Head: you can’t fucking do it.

The British headbangers still make music fast and loud as fuck without pandering to those who spent their high-school days making birdhouses and ashtrays in shop class.

The celebrity titan and pussy powerhouse has seamlessly transitioned from pop provocateur to bridging the gap between the PTA and the trend of the day.

If the tabloid press is to be believed—and it almost always is in these celebrity-obsessed times—hip-hop’s reigning power couple, Jay-Z and Beyoncé, tied the knot on April 4 in a top-secret ceremony at his Tribeca penthouse. Orchids were flown in from Thailand, the pair’s families turned up (along with Gwyneth Paltrow), and B serenaded Hov with some Natasha Bedingfield–inspired messages of affection (“I love you/I love you”).

When he finally does the world a favour and shuffles off to the rest home, Scott Weiland is going to get priority entry into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Flaming Douchebag wing.

Flipping through the idiot-box wasteland one fine evening, I came across one of those frightening, out-of-control, mega-glitzy showbiz production numbers, the kind that seem to scream like a vein-popping drill sergeant, “We are now entertaining the living hell out of you!” I think it was the Grammys. Worse yet, it was a duet, confirming something I’ve long suspected: duets kind of blow.

One of the savviest hustlers in the history of pop music—he’s given us everything from KISS caskets to comic books to his own reality–TV series—Gene Simmons has had his fingers in a lot of pies over the years. He’s also dabbled in many different business ventures, but who cares about that? As the fire-breathing, blood-spewing, greasepainted KISS bassist has made crystal clear over a 30-year run, his primary obsession is pie.

As much as it had millions of Internet pud pullers scrambling for their keyboards, talk about a massively blown opportunity. What were the editors of New York magazine thinking when they had Lindsay Lohan re-create Marilyn Monroe’s final photo shoot for their current issue? Actually, that one’s easy. As pyjama-clad perv Hugh Hefner learned long ago, there’s no better way to boost circulation than getting a high-profile celebrity to bare her knockers.

If you think the people around you don’t quite get your taste in music, just be glad you’re not a heavy-metal freak in Morocco. In 2003, 14 Casablanca metalheads, musicians and fans, were jailed for disturbing the public order and for possessing CDs and T-shirts that were supposedly anti-Islamic.

Are you ready to rock? If the answer is no, chances are it’s not your fault. Look around. Somewhere along the way, we have lost the rock song about rockin’. While we were distracted by our day-to-day crap and going about the business of life, the rock song about rockin’ simply vanished into the fog-machine mists of time. It’s a tragedy. Without it, how is anyone supposed to rock and roll all nite, let alone party every day?

A funny thing happened recently on MuchMoreMusic, a channel that occasionally shows music videos betwixt half-hour exposés on the secret life of Pam Anderson's cooter. Following Gene Simmons Family Jewels but before Listed: Top 10 Items Found in the Rectums of '80s Child Stars , viewers were treated to marathon reruns of VH1's Mission: Man Band , a show where former members of Color Me Badd, 98 Degrees, 'N Sync, and LFO come together to form a pop-vocal group.

There's really nothing these vapid piles of laundry, rocking baby's first beard or an inscrutable squeak, haven't wrecked

Before you fire off an e-flamer, consider this: the pop starlet of today have no agenda beyond "being famous is fun" and, more dangerously, "be thin and attractive at all costs". It’s not just that there’s a bad message being sent to young fans—it’s that there’s no message