Music festivals aren’t just about the shows themselves, silly rabbit. Zany names, crazy crowds, overpriced everything, plus they can be an excellent getaway. And the good news is live outdoor music may be one of the best ways to pull yourself out of … Read more

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You’re a big deal if you can force ‘American Idol’ to shift its schedule. Last week, the guys sang before the girls after Crystal Bowersox’s doctor kept the sick singer off the stage. It was an unprecedented shakeup for one of TV’s most reliably … Read more

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Police have arrested a 16-year-old male in connection with the break-in at Susan Boyle’s home in Scotland, BBC News is reporting. The singer got a scare when she arrived home on Jan. 26 to find the uninvited guest, who promptly made a run for it. … Read more

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By now, you’ve all seen Lady Gaga’s video for ‘Telephone,’ which features Beyonce and plenty of crazy Gaga moves and clothes.

In honor of the nearly-10 minute long musical eye candy, the Girls on Pop decided to do a dramatic reading of the lyrics … Read more

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Pop-Ed: It’s been a rough couple of years for Jessica Simpson. Each time she seems poised to take a few steps forward, something pops up and she gets knocked right back down. She’s weathered a divorce (from Nick Lachey), two consecutive high-profile … Read more

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Lady Gaga in her “Telephone” video

Photo: Interscope

As soon as Lady Gaga’s epic “Telephone” video premiered, her ultra-obsessive fans (not to mention even the most casual of pop-culture observers) began picking it apart, frame by frame. It was a pretty big job.

	‘Telephone’ Cheat Sheet Photos

Because while it’s a feast for the eyes, “Telephone” is also a sort of “all-you-can-eat” buffet for those who dine almost exclusively on popular culture, full of nods to cult films and comics, eclectic icons, underground bands and internationally famous pop legends, and even the occasional commercial (there are an awful lot of not-too-discreet product placements sprinkled throughout).

Sorting through it all is a head-spinning experience, which is why we’ve done all the dirty work for you. Here — after hours spent analyzing each second of the clip until our eyeballs frizzled in our skulls — is our pop-culture cheat sheet for Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” video, alphabetized and cross-referenced for your convenience.

“Batman”: Classic ’60s-era TV series starring Adam West — animated “Smack!” and “Wroom!” graphics call to mind the Dark Knight’s “Pow!” and “Zonk!”-assisted fight sequences.

“Caged Heat”: Prototypical chicks-in-prison flick. Gaga’s schlocky, sexually charged jailhouse is ripped right from this 1974 feast of beefed-up guards, brawling babes and naked flesh.

Captain America & Wonder Woman: Iconic crime-fighting comic book superheroes. Beyoncé’s stars-and-stripes uniform during her post-murder-spree dance-sequence riff on the Captain’s color scheme and the Woman’s silhouette.

Diet Coke: Refreshing, sugar-free carbonated beverage, dangerous when coupled with Mentos. Doubles as Gaga’s impromptu hair-curlers during video’s “catfight” sequence.

Doom: English crust-punk band that burned brightly from 1987-1990, faded away, then reformed this year. Their logo is visible on Gaga’s studded leather jacket during same sequence.

Double-Breasted Drive-Thru: Logo seen on cup in Beyoncé’s P—y Wagon. Does not actually exist, though it could be a reference to the “Double D’s Drive-Thru” made (somewhat) famous on FunnyOrDie.com.

Germanotta, Natali: Gaga’s younger sister. Looks eerily similar to pre-The Fame Gaga. Also looks eerily like a de-thawed Snooki. Appears in the video’s prison scenes.

Hermaphrodite: Rumors that Gaga was a hermaphrodite were widespread in 2009. They are jokingly referenced by one of the prison guards who, after stripping Gaga in her jail cell, remarks, “I told you she didn’t have a d—.”

“High and Dry”: Single off Radiohead’s 1995 album The Bends. Two videos were filmed for the song, one of which is set in a diner very similar to the one in “Telephone.” The fact that death (and contemplative drinking of coffee) is involved in both is also noteworthy.

Jackson, Michael: Late, great King of Pop. Gaga pays tribute to him by breaking into an MJ-esque shuffle after being bailed out of jail.

“Kill Bill”: Quentin Tarantino’s two-part martial arts epic. Uma Thurman’s garish P—y Wagon reappears as Gaga and Beyoncé’s getaway mobile.

LaChapelle, David: Photographer/director whose hyper-saturated work is clearly a touchstone for much of the video, particularly the scenes that feature Gaga wrapped in electric-yellow police tape.

Lava: Majestic female Great Dane, sister of the late Rumpus. Both featured prominently in Gaga’s “Poker Face” video and Lava has since worked with Gaga in “Bad Romance.” She is visible in the diner sequences in “Telephone.”

“Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”: Guy Ritchie’s stylized take on the crime genre. The quick-cutting, sound effect-heavy diner murder scene is vintage Ritchie.

Madonna: Undisputed pop legend. Gaga has teamed with her in the past (on “Saturday Night Live”), and her short blond tresses in the prison dance sequence seem like a direct homage to Madge’s hairstyle in the “Vogue” video.

Meyer, Russ: The campy king of sexploitation cinema. Top-heavy women in lingerie, the mix of female violence and sensuality, the often shoestring-budget aesthetic — all this and more points directly at Meyer.

“Natural Born Killers”: Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis’ serial-killing satire. With the diner’s dusty locale, Gaga and Beyoncé’s gleeful massacre and the send-up of news media reportage, “NBK” has its bloody fingerprints all over “Telephone.”

Page, Bettie: Exotic pinup queen of the 1950s. Her short-banged look is mirrored by Beyoncé in the “Telephone” video (and, for that matter, the “Video Phone” clip too.)

“Pulp Fiction”: Quentin Tarantino’s Oscar-winning gangland revelation. From the diner setting to the casual “Honey” pet names that Gaga and Beyoncé exchange, Tarantino’s 1994 gun-and-drug-soaked adventure pops up again and again in this music video.

Radio KUK: Fictional station heard on the P—y Wagon’s radio. Could be an homage to the “Grand Theft Auto” franchise, or KLON radio, the station that makes an appearance on the Queens of the Stone Age’s 2007 album Songs for the Deaf. Or we may be reaching a tad.

Rodriguez, Jai: Former “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” culture expert. Makes a cameo as a TV reporter following the carnage inside the diner.

Semi Precious Weapons: Gaga’s pals and tourmates. Appear in the diner sequence, where they are poisoned.

“Thelma & Louise”: Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon’s female-empowerment road movie. As Gaga and Beyoncé clasp hands and drive off into the unknown, there can be no mistaking the allusion to this film’s speeding-car-off-a-cliff shocker of an ending.

Twain, Shania: Canadian-born pop-country star. The leopard skin outfit she wears in her “That Don’t Impress Me Much” video seems to have directly inspired Gaga’s getup towards the end of “Telephone,” when she performs in front of the P—y Wagon.

WNS News: Fictional news outlet that employs Jai Rodriguez. Perhaps a nod to New York’s famous 1010 WINS news radio station, which Gaga undoubtedly heard every time she leapt into a cab. Then again, perhaps we’re reaching here.

Well, did we miss any refererences? What do you think of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” video? Let us know in the comments below!

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Justin Timberlake

Photo: MTV News

Justin Timberlake was there when his pal Kenna decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. In fact, he encouraged him to do it, and is “bummed” that his schedule didn’t allow him to join his friend on the trek.

“Kenna and I, every winter, we find a place to go snowboarding, and we were up on a mountain somewhere, snowboarding,” Timberlake told MTV News. “We got onto the lift, and Kenna was talking about how, before, he had tried to climb Kilimanjaro.” And there, the idea for “Summit on the Summit” was hatched.

Unfortunately, due to work conflicts — the trek up Africa’s highest peak was rescheduled several times and ultimately collided with Timberlake’s filming for “The Social Network” — Justin didn’t actually get to make the climb with Kenna. Instead, the likes of Lupe Fiasco and Santigold and actors Jessica Biel, Emile Hirsch and Isabel Lucas made the climb up Kilimanjaro, but Timberlake remained close to the action, getting daily updates on the trek.

“I was getting sort of a texting diary from day to day,” Timberlake recalled. “And the one thing I heard was … the hardest part was the last day, obviously, because not only were they climbing from 16,000 to 19,000 feet, but that extra 3,000 was really brutal, because of the altitude. And on top of that, I think they woke up at 2:30 in the morning and had to climb the last 3,000 feet. I heard from all of them that the last 3,000 feet, every breath counted. Every single time you could conserve oxygen, you could feel it. It really counted. … I’m in awe that they did it. I’m really impressed.”

Timberlake did record an introduction to the film that documents the climb — and highlights the global issue of clean water — called “Summit on the Summit: Kilimanjaro.” The 90-minute doc premiered Wednesday night in New York and will air Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on MTV. And just because he didn’t actually climb the mountain this time around, don’t count him out just yet.

“I was bummed that I wasn’t able to do it, because I thought it would be a cool thing to do. Maybe one day I will,” he laughed. “But it’s really an inspiring idea and an inspiring task, and I was very proud of everyone who was involved with it. … It says a lot about all the people who were involved in the climb, that they were sort of willing to put themselves out there … to have cameras on them 24/7 and to say, ‘Well, if this has any effect on anyone who’s watching it, or creates any type of awareness, and gets from one person, well, that’s amazing.’ ”

Tune in to “Summit on the Summit: Kilimanjaro” Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on MTV. And find out what you can do to help solve the global water crisis now at the “Summit on the Summit” Web site.

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Sway and members of the World Food Programme visit a haitian home

Photo: MTV News

Haiti faces untold challenges as the Caribbean island nation tries to dig out and recover from the devastating 7.0 earthquake that leveled thousands of buildings and killed more than 200,000 in January. In addition to medical attention and shelter in advance of the rainy season, one of the most crucial needs continues to be food aid to the millions of Haitians left homeless in the wake of the disaster.

MTV News returned to the island in late February to follow the trail of some of the more than million raised during January’s “Hope for Haiti Now” telethon. We dropped in on staffers from the 50-year-old United Nations World Food Programme, which delivers life-saving food to victims of war, civil conflict and natural disasters across the globe.

Even before the quake, conditions were desperate in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, with poverty and hunger already rampant. But the destruction of so many homes, businesses and government buildings made conditions even more dire for the chronically hungry and impoverished. MTV’s Sway traveled to Haiti to document the work of the WFP, applying stickers to a few 110-pound bags of urgently needed rice to follow their path to hungry Haitians.

Surrounded by bags of food in the port of the nation’s devastated capital, Port-au-Prince, WFP’s Louis Hamann said the organization has brought in about 25,000 metric tons of food (around 55 million pounds) to date. “It just gives you an idea of how massive this operation is for us here in Haiti,” he said, noting that the million grant from “Hope for Haiti Now” has helped the organization buy, ship and distribute the food aid to those most in need, possibly for the next year.

Rice is an obvious first-choice staple to distribute because it is easy to store, cook and share and a little goes a long way. “The reason that it’s only rice right now is to make sure that we reach everybody quickly and efficiently [and] calm down the food situation in Port-au-Prince,” said Hamann, who added that the plan is to move to a “more traditional basket” of food items featuring staples of the Haitian diet in the next weeks and months.

Sway also visited a massive staging area where trucks were loaded up with bags of rice that were delivered early in the morning to the sea of refugees set up in a temporary tent city inside the Sylvio Cator Soccer Stadium near the island’s capital. As the thousands inside the stadium lined up for food aid early in the morning, they were quickly joined by thousands more looking for rice, an example of the more than 3,000 families that line up every day in just one location to haul away the heavy bags.

MTV’s crew then followed one of those families as they carried a bag back to their crumpled home, a pile of rubble and twisted metal, where the rice would be cooked over a makeshift carbon stove by widowed mother Myrthile Joseph.

“Thank you to everyone that donated for Haiti from all over the world,” said a grateful Joseph. “Thank you for the distribution that is going to the people in need.”

Learn more about what you can do to help with earthquake-relief efforts in Haiti, and for more information, see Think MTV. Visit HopeForHaitiNow.org or call (877) 99-HAITI to make a donation now.

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Jay-Z and Notorious B.I.G.

Photo: Roc-A-Fella

Leave it to Jay-Z. On Thursday, Hov was in Brooklyn at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Barclays Center, the future home of the New Jersey Nets, the NBA team he co-owns. When it was Jay’s time to speak, not only did he tell the crowd — which included Beyoncé, the Reverend Al Sharpton and the mayor and governor of New York — about the realizations of his own dreams, but Jigga also shouted out the other half of “Brooklyn’s Finest.”

“What I stand here and represent is hope for Brooklyn, New York City. I’m a son of Brooklyn, I’m from Marcy projects,” Jay said. “I think about growing up in Brooklyn in the Marcy projects and shooting jump shots, thinking I can make it to the NBA. Now I stand here as an owner of a team that’s coming back to Brooklyn. The pride in that, and bringing that dream so much closer for people, brings me so much pride I get a little nervous about it. But I’m very happy, very excited about this day. And we did it again, Brooklyn — shout-out to [Notorious] B.I.G.”

The tail end of Jay’s speech hearkened back to the 1995 Source Awards, where Biggie shouted out Brooklyn during his multiple acceptance speeches. After Jodeci presented him with Album of the Year, Big — wearing a white towel on his head — and a horde of others came onstage to address the crowd.

“I wanna give mad love to my daughter, my moms, my manager, Gucci, my wife,” he said. “We did it, Brooklyn. We did it. All them sh–. [I won] all of them [awards]. One love to all y’all mutha—-as.”

The Notorious B.I.G. was gunned down in Los Angeles 13 years ago Tuesday.

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Alex Lambert performs on “American Idol”

Photo: Frank Micelotta/ Getty Images

While Alex Lambert’s nerves got the best of him during his early “American Idol” performances, the singer seemed to be getting on the right track, choosing perfect-fit songs by Ray LaMontagne and John Legend.

Unfortunately, Lambert fell victim to Thursday’s shocking results night and didn’t quite make the top 12, along with fellow castoffs Lilly Scott, Katelyn Epperly and Todrick Hall. We caught up with him Friday (March 12) to talk about his surprise elimination, what’s next and much more.

Q: After you were eliminated, you said that you had more to show America. What did you mean by that?

A: When I said I want to break out of my shell and show America what I can do, man, honestly, every time I got up there, I couldn’t even sing my best because I was so nervous, and I have a whole series of songs that I can sing that sound so much better than singing on the show. I don’t regret anything, because it’s the beginning of my career. I have never really been onstage before, so I think I did great for not having any experience.

Q: Do you think you’ll be able to get past the nerves and have a music career?

A: I feel like I’m already past it. I feel like I just needed a few more weeks of just having a little bit more experience on that stage. … It wasn’t a nerve thing, because I would get up there and be comfortable and it felt right, but I didn’t know how to look at the camera. I didn’t know how to interact with the audience, because I had never done it before. I mean, definitely, it’s something that I’ll easily be able to get past.

Q: Did you get a chance to talk to the judges after the show?

A: They talked to me, and they pretty much told me that I need more experience. And it’s true, but I felt like, vocally, it was my time. … I didn’t have enough experience on the stage is pretty much what they were telling me. They all know I have a good voice, and they told me I had a lot of future ahead of me.

Q: The judges have made a big deal about the contestants knowing what kind of artist they want to be. Do you know?

A: I know exactly what kind of artist I want to be. I really would like to do a bunch of acoustic stuff and I would also like some R&B tracks — a whole bunch of different stuff. I know my voice and what I can and cannot do, and I know what would sound good on what, and I believe that I could sound good on not only one genre of music; I could put it on anything.

Q: What helped you through the nerves? Did the judges help or your friends or …

A: I would say it was all me. The only person who was going to help me overcome my nervousness and my stage fright was me, and it was all in my head. I could have gone up there and had a great performance, but in my head, I was thinking to nail the song vocally, and I wasn’t really worried about performing, I guess. I never thought that the show was so much of a performing show as a singing competition. I had it in my head so much, like, “I want my vocals to be so much better than everyone else’s.” And I guess that’s all. I lost track of the fact that this is a TV show.

Q: When the show came back from commercial after you were eliminated, things looked pretty emotional. What was going on?

A: A lot of people were talking to me and, yeah, it was emotional, because a lot of people weren’t expecting the people that went home to go home. There’s people in the top 12 that everyone thought was going home, and then when they found out it was me, that whole day I was nervous, and people were like, “Dude, why are you nervous? You have no reason to be nervous. You’re going to be here.” And then when I got cut, they were just like, “What?!?” And a lot of people that were upset were like, “I made it and he didn’t?”

Q: Do you think if you’d made it to the top 12 you would have been encouraged to cut off your mullet?

A: [Laughs.] The stylists have already asked me if I wanted to cut it. I mean, even if they did tell me to — yeah, they probably would want me to cut it, but I wouldn’t let them cut it. I wouldn’t ever let them cut my mullet.

Q: What did you think of Ellen’s constant banana metaphors?

A: [Laughs.] Well, I mean, I know it’s all for entertainment, but it does make sense, I guess. I mean, I probably won’t be able to look at a banana the same way.

Were you sad to see Alex go? Will you listen to his post-”Idol” music? Let us know!

Get your “Idol” fix on MTV News’ “American Idol” page, where you’ll find all the latest news, interviews and opinions.

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