BIEBERWATCH! Last we heard of the lad, Scooter Braun confirmed — after extensive hands-on palpation and scrotal Ben Wa Balling, no doubt — that Bieber's balls had dropped. Now, they're freewheeling around town all willy-nilly, and he's saying "swag" on tracks and punching photographers and shit. Rumor has it that he recently peeped a bra, and may imminently attempt to do sex on a lady. Watch this column for further genital speculation.I'm not fully down with the latest surge of BONO resentment; it's a little nauseating that his private equity firm (his private equity firm) made a killing on its Facebook stock, but that's just the fair payoff from a wise investment. Don't lose sight of the real reasons to resent Bono's wealth: resent it because he initially got filthy rich off garish arena rock tours and soulless chart-bait like "Vertigo" and "Beautiful Day"; resent it because he spends a fraction of it on designer dipshit wine-cooler-tinted shades (dude shops at Bartles & Frames).
Several news outlets implied that the profit from Elevation Partners' Facebook investment would go directly and immediately into Bono's pockets, pushing him past PAUL MCCARTNEY as the world's richest musician; Bono and Elevation's representatives deny this, saying it will go back into businessey stuff. Still, the bean counters at NME couldn't help throwing a few kicks to Bono's ribs when Facebook's stocks fell a few percent: "U2's Bono could lose $342 million after Facebook shares plummet," screamed a slightly gleeful headline — ha! That stupid broke idiot only made slightly less than two billion dollars instead of slightly more than two billion dollars!
Billboard reports that RIHANNA is set to release a third fragrance. While that sentence would sound disgusting in a non-celebrity context, we can quickly apprehend that they're talking about a perfume; it'll be called Nude, and she's promoting it with — you may have already guessed it — naked pictures of herself. So giddy was Billboard at the news that they couldn't help getting a little drunk: "The 24-year-old star is covered by her arms, ash [sic] she gives the camera a saucy stare."
The next paragraph explains the inebriated slurring: "The sure-to-be-delicious new perfume launches next year." Yes: Billboard has been drinking perfume.
In other drunken Billboard antics: the biz mag reported that the guitarist from 3 DOORS DOWN will be leaving the band; "Guitarist Chris Henderson and drummer Greg Upchuch will continue to tour." Upchuch? How would that be pronounced, exactly? I suspect this wonderful misspelling of the drummer's name could be a subtle puke reference. Get help, Billboard.
The hottest beef in the rap game isn't exactly fresh — it's been aging like a fine steak for a while now — but it's finally being served up sizzling: Clipse legend PUSHA-T has dropped a withering dis on LIL WAYNE, DRAKE, and the Young Money family, and Wayne has issued an immediate response. In case the vagaries of beef are foreign to your ear, let me Rap Genius these tracks for you really quick. In Pusha's "Exodus 23:1" (a reference to a passage that warns against bearing false witness), Pusha-T implies that Drake and Lil Wayne are being screwed in business by their pyramid-scheme label structure; he tells them that they don't have any real friends in the business; he suggests that they'd be better off selling drugs; he asserts that despite Lil Wayne's self-styled gangster image, he's never really been involved in serious crime.
