A winning recipe for launching a pop music career? Apparently, getting a bunch of the biggest tween stars in the world to dance in the silliest way possible to the perfect pop song is a good way to go.
Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Alfredo Flores, Ashley Tisdale, the guys from Big Time Rush (?) and other huge tween stars somehow came together (after what seemed to be a fun evening) and recorded this low budget lip sync to Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe.”
There is an official music video, but it has 19 million views fewer than the tween sensations’ YouTube inspiration.
It is pretty much pop gold. You can pretend to hate it, but you’re pretending.
If you asked for an unlikely pop hit, I would probably suggest something slow, acoustic, with weird instruments, and not from an American artist. Yet, “Somebody That I Used to Know” appears to have broken all the rules and propelled Australian-Belgian singer Gotye to international stardom.
Gotye enjoyed a devoted following in Australia, but had not achieved any substantial international acclaim for his acoustic, thoughtful songs. Then, inspiration struck him in the middle of the night in his parents’ barn. He quickly penned the lyrics and laid down the track “Somebody That I Used to Know.”
After finding a female vocalist to enhance the story, the 21-year-old New Zealander Kimbra in this case, Gotye released the song as a single from his upcoming album, Making Mirrors. It took off.
At present, the song has topped the charts in fifteen countries around the world. It sits atop the American iTunes charts and lies at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Australia has been very kind to the song. It has been at #1 for 8 weeks there (2nd best all-time) and has been certified as 8X platinum. That’s nothing on Poland, though. In the Northern European country, “Somebody That I Used to Love” has been at #1 for an all-time high of 18 weeks. It’s the all-time most popular song there.
Gotye’s ballad has also topped the charts in Austria, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and Ireland among other places.
It’s also been a hit song on social media. The music video has more than 106 million views on YouTube and a cover version by Walk Off the Earth has more than 66 million views.
There’s also an incredibly popular a capella version of the song by Pentatonix.
Update 2: New sources now claim Houston was found “unresponsive” in a bathtub in her fourth floor room. Reports also claim Houston was drinking and partying heavily last evening at her hotel. Police have asked for a search warrant to search her room for evidence, including drugs.
Update: TMZ says Houston’s mother and cousin Diane Warwick spoke to the singer just minutes before she died. They said she sounded normal and their conversations were mundane. Though earlier reports suggested that R&B singer Ray-J found Houston dead, those have been discounted and multiple sources now say her bodyguard found her unresponsive. Paramedics performed CPR for nearly 30 minutes, but were unable to resuscitate the singer. Ex-husband Bobby Brown is in Memphis for a New Edition concert. Reports suggest he is “beside himself” with grief.
Video posted to YouTube appears to show the last performance of Whitney Houston, who died earlier today at the age of 48. TMZ reports that a member of Houston’s staff found her unresponsive, called for help, and paramedics unsuccessfully performed CPR. Houston was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m.
Houston was last seen on Feb. 10 for a rare public appearance ahead of the Grammys. She briefly took the stage at Tru Hollywood nightclub where she attended “Kelly Price & Friends Unplugged: For The Love Of R&B Grammy Party.” She had not been seen on the red carpet for a year.
Paparazzi captured a belligerent and bleeding Houston leaving the nightclub early in the morning of Feb. 10. Gossip sites were suggesting she needed to return to rehab. After taking a seat in the back of a waiting vehicle, Houston appeared to calm down.
Houston recently completed filming on “Sparkle,” her first movie in 15 years. The movie is due out in August 2012.
“We’re all kind of shocked, but nobody’s really surprised,” her publicist, Howard Bragman, said.
In one of the most shocking deaths to rock the music world since Michael Jackson and Amy Winehouse, superstar singer and troubled Hollywood legend Whitney Houston has died at age 48, her publicist confirmed. No information about how or where she died has been confirmed, but TMZ reports she died at the Beverly Hilton hotel this afternoon.
At her peak, Houston was one of the most dominant forces ever in the music world. She sold more than 200 million albums worldwide and starred in several hit movies.
Amazingly, every trending topic on Twitter right now is dedicated to the singer. Here is her biggest hit of all (a cover of a Dolly Parton song)— “I Will Always Love You.”
Japan has one of the oldest and quickest aging populations in the world. The country has not reached replacement rate for its population for quite some time and the population will likely decrease by a third by 2060. In spite of this rapid population decline, young people appear unwilling to help the situation, if a recent survey is to be believed.
According to the results of the survey, young people simply don’t want to have sex. More than one third of all male teens between the ages of 16-19 (36%) insist they are “indifferent or adverse” towards having sex. The numbers are even more shocking for female teens. 59 percent of female teens aged 16-19 feel the same way towards doing the nasty. Those numbers represent an increase of 19 and 12 percent, respectively, since the survey was last conducted in 2008.
Married couples didn’t do well in the survey either. Among the married couples surveyed, “vague reluctance after child birth,” “can’t be bothered,” and “fatigue from work” were cited as the top three reasons for not being intimate. Over 40 percent of married couples hadn’t had intercourse within the last month, according to the survey.
Doesn’t sound like the population crisis is going to get any better anytime soon.
Not Intent on Arriving 