@avrillavigne/Young love! By which I mean this picture was taken back in February.

I try to stay away from the celebrity gossip angle of music, but you guys, the news that perpetually "punk" tween Avril Lavigne is going to get married to fellow Canadian and Nickelback lead singer Chad Kroeger is too good to resist, particularly since every person in my Twitter feed felt like they had to weigh in on it immediately after it broke. Canada jokes! Nickelback defenses! Debates over whether calling the pairing "Chavril" makes them sound like a fancy herb! Musings about the reaction by Avril's ex-husband, Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley! It made waiting in the bathroom line at Jones Beach Theater during last night's Kelly Clarkson/The Fray show a lot more entertaining, that's for sure. For your workday enjoyment, here are some of the most chuckle-groan-worthy jokes I came across; feel free to add your own.

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Tom Donoghue/donoghuephotography.com

Just in the nick of time—i.e., right before "Girls, Girls, Girls" dipped below the "20% of all music played in strip clubs everywhere" threshold—the Déjà Vu chain of strip clubs brought Motley Crue's Vince Neil on board to rebrand one of their Las Vegas locations as Vince Neil's Girls, Girls, Girls, boasting rock music and tattooed women. For those lucky enough to be in Las Vegas, the club celebrates its grand reopening on the extremely rock and roll date of Friday, April 13.

If you haven't been to a strip club in real Amurica and have only seen tattoo-free dancers swaying to house and techno, the idea might seem like a fresh concept. But if you've been to a strip club outside of Vegas or Manhattan—say, to Devils Point in Portland, the Cheetah in L.A., or Lollipops in Daytona Beach—Girls, Girls, Girls just looks like a regular strip club with a really, really tan manager. There are other musicians who would make more entertaining proprietors, and they all have strip-club classics in their catalogs to boot.

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How many gift guides have you read that started off by reminding you that "the holiday season is fast approaching"? Probably too many by this point. If you're like me, you just get stressed out and close the tab before even realizing that some of them have awesome suggestions. Don't do that here: Although some of the following suggestions might require a little elbow grease and an understanding of simple wiring systems, any of these would be gifts that a music fan would be happy to receive. You're welcome.

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via Facebook

During the Nickelback brouhaha that took over parts of the Internet earlier this month, one of the common refrains against having the Canadian band perform at the halftime show of the Thanksgiving Day showdown between the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions involved the selection's implicit slap in the face to Detroit. The city, after all, has been the birthplace of so much great music, particularly that which emanated from Motown—and to honor that legacy with a performance by Canadian arena-rockers seemed like a slap in the face. NYC-based pianist Scott Bradlee got Solomonic and decided to split the difference, reworking Nickelback's signature hit into a soul barnburner and releasing the end result, "A Motown Tribute To Nickelback," in time for Thursday's halftime show. It's not too surprising, since he's also masterminded a gypsy-jazz rework of Weezer's "Hash Pipe" and retrofitted Rebecca Black's "Friday" into an old-time weekend lament—but the end product did raise the eyebrows of people who had assumed that Nickelback's sanctioned crappiness meant that all their songs were completely without merit as well. We emailed with him about his inspiration for the cover, his thoughts on the song, and whether or not five words can actually scream, "Are we having fun yet?"

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via Fox

No word on how many petition signers were in this section of the crowd.

Thursday was not only a day for Americans to get together and indulge in pie and for Lady Gaga to indulge in some ego-stroking; it was the culmination of the Great Anti-Nickelback Movement that gripped the country this month, the day that the embattled band of Canadian brothers would unite as one on the Ford Field gridiron during halftime at the game between the Green Bay Packers and the hometown Detroit Lions. They'd finally, after so many days of sniping and LOLing, face down all those people who sneered at them and signed petitions against them and clicked "dislike" on their YouTube videos in a show of anti-yarling sentiment. So how'd they do? Well, the band may have been tepidly received at first, but all in all they did better than the Lions that afternoon. (Perhaps the home team could have used some interpretive dancers to bolster their on-field performance? At the very least, they might have calmed down Ndamukong Suh a bit!)

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Why do people hate Nickelback enough to craft petitions inveighing against their inclusion in the halftime entertainment of a regular-season NFL game? (Even the Black Eyed Peas' Super Bowl appearance didn't inspire such e-ire!) I tried to figure this out two weeks ago and maybe sorta did, at least a little, although the argument put forth also inspired more arguing. (On the bright side, one commenter who had been confusing them with Creed all this time got to have the scales fall from his eyes. Congratulations, dude!) In a video produced by Funny Or Die, the bandmembers themselves try to figure out why they're so despised, and they get an assist from a badly bewigged Paul Scheer (playing one of those slimy music-biz exec types who still exist as a credible archetype even though we're not exactly living in the go-go Phil Collins metavideo era anymore) and, eventually, a bunch of Detroit-themed costumes. Clip below.

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People are in a bit of an uproar over this week's announcement that Nickelback—the Canadian post-grungers whose seventh album, Here And Now, comes out later this month—would be the halftime entertainment during the Thanksgiving Day NFL tilt between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers, which will be played at Ford Field in Detroit and which is one of the two NFL games beamed all over the country on Turkey Day.

There have been numerous blog posts. There's a petition, which has engendered even more blog posts and actual news stories. Nobody from the band's camp has commented yet, but I'm sure they're wondering what I am: Why are Chad Kroeger and his rock comrades pilloried, when, say, bands with similar aesthetics like Seether and Staind are still around, too? It's not just the sort of misplaced patriotism that recoils at the idea of a Canadian band serving as the centerpiece of televised entertainment on the most American of holidays.

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A king of hip-hop, retaking the penthouse of the album chart with his latest blockbuster.

A middle-of-the-road rock band, reviving a turn-of-the-'90s "alternative" sound that's now squarely mainstream.

A sexagenarian legend who debuted in the '60s and who still captures Boomers' hearts and CD-buying dollars.

And a younger, big-lunged diva, looking to continue her pop dominance after a notable MTV appearance and a blitz of multimedia omnipresence.

I could be describing some of the current inhabitants of the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 album chart. If I were, they would be, respectively: rap king Lil Wayne, who debuted at No. 1 this week with nearly a million in sales; aging alt-funksters the Red Hot Chili Peppers, debuting right behind Wayne at No. 2; '60s ingénue turned veteran diva Barbra Streisand, at No. 9 in her third week in the winners' circle; and vocal powerhouse Adele, hanging in at No. 3 after a commanding MTV Video Music Awards performance that, just this week, sends her ballad "Someone Like You" to No. 1 on the Hot 100.

But I could also be describing four acts who, on this day a decade ago, dropped new, Top 10-destined albums: hip-hop king Jay-Z; lite-grunge revivalists Nickelback; reluctant '60s-generation spokesman Bob Dylan; and pop/MTV queen turned ill-fated actress Mariah Carey.

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