Comparing the discussion around Lana Del Rey to those around Paris Hilton's 2006 album.

On Rihanna possibly working with Chris Brown.

‘Human feelings are much more complicated than the narratives we try to fit them into. If we’re willing to allow pop stars to thrill us with unpredictable art, we have to grant them the right to make their own artistic decisions—provided they don’t directly hurt anyone else, of course—and react accordingly. We have to understand that though they are public figures who may figure into the aspirations of countless others, they are also human beings, and the most important response to their actions is careful deliberation about the issues raised, not instantaneous (and condescending) condemnation that eliminates their perspective altogether.’

‘Once upon a time, dance pop was about self-affirmation, and the thing being affirmed was usually some sort of identity—ethnicity, gender, sometimes class, and maybe even sexuality. The Nicki generation seizes a whole new subject for pop: not who you are and how you made it, but the meaning and experience of celebrity once you have it. In place of identity, these prima donnas are performing fame. And doing it with what you might even call “taste”: an idiosyncratic aesthetic vision for everyday life, one that has nothing to do with where they’ve been and everything to do with synthetic aspiration. Minaj isn’t being inauthentic about celebrity—celebrity is the most authentic thing about her.’

“My argument: doesn’t someone have to act like this? Like film villains, isn’t it best when those people are over there entertaining us, letting us use them as a dartboard for our own anxieties and antipathies in exchange for our attention and money?”

“Both albums are like brainwashing, insular symphonies to a painfully reactive public awareness. The music doesn’t drive outward but, instead, falls inward, bouncing along the various fractured feelings of its singer and his mates. While ‘The National Anthem’ may suggest that ‘everyone is so near/everyone has got the fear’, the reality is that Yorke feels like a misidentified Pied Piper, the ‘rats and kids follow me out of town’ tenets of the Kid A title track pleading his case to be set free. This could be the main reason why the reaction to its release was so incredibly strong. Newness and novelty can help, but there is more to it than a differing direction. Kid A sounds like the start of a surreal psychological dissertation. Amnesiac occasionally comes across as whining.”

Humanizing and well-written. Spoiler: she doesn't have a penis.

Did you know? Fifth of nine children, owns a bunch of baseball teams, and has no agent, no business manager, no lawyer. He also travels without an entourage and has a temper. Yay, celebrities!