Better Than: The opening act.

Poor P!nk. Back in 2001, she was the pop star who wasn't, dissing L.A. and Britney and singing songs for all the missundazstood suburbanites teenpop theoretically ignored. Ten years later, it looked like P!nk was moving away from pop just as pop was moving more towards P!nk: The most popular artists in the world were referring to the fans as animals and monsters, even going on to offer them pre-concert group therapy, and the one who had gone gold with the confessional "Family Portrait" hadn't released a new album in three years and counting.

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How much Swiftian shock will we see tonight?

Has the live-blog been obliterated by Twitter? Let's find out on MTV's biggest night of the year, the Video Music Awards, which this year will feature Taylor Swift (in business casual on the double-decker red carpet right now), Frank Ocean, Rihanna, and Green Day, among others, as well as honors to various clips designed to big-up the biggest pop tracks of the year.

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Big news about pop music on MSNBC.com: Apparently songs like Kelly Clarkson's new track "Mr. Know It All" (above), as well as older invective-filled songs like "U + Ur Hand" and "Before He Cheats" and "the not-even-that-big-hit "According To You"—songs in which wronged women sing about the men who broke their hearts— are proof that man-bashing is a surefire key to chart success. Apparently this is all an aftereffect of the riot grrrl movement, just another example of feminism ruining things for everyone. Or something like that! The piece is pretty muddled, with evidence coming in the form of one current hit, a couple of older ones, Carly Simon's "You're So Vain," and a listicle from Vibe Vixen claiming that Ciara's gender-bendy "Like A Boy" is actually a "male-bashing anthem." (TLC's "No Scrubs" is No. 1, in case you were wondering what to put on your next man-hating iTunes playlist.)

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Clutch the pearls and cue the outrage, or at least the next round of thinkpieces about "raunch pop": The latest edition of Kidz Bop, out today, has on its track list sanitized versions of Cee Lo Green's "Fuck You" and Pink's "Fuckin' Perfect" (they're under the guises of "Forget You" and "Perfect," respectively). If you feel like hearing how awkward the lyrical switches are, feel free to head on over to iTunes for a taste. I guess "I hate your ass right now" is a bit too strong of a sentiment for the delicate ears of today's youth? Anybody want to do a Facebook spot-check and see if this is the case?

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As previously noted, the pop-house that dominated the charts in 2010 was really fucking insipid. So to see this boneheaded year off, here's an anti-poetic tribute comprised of over 30 hits, misses, and album cuts that came out (or flourished) this year about going to the club, taking shots, dancing, and generally being as mindless as possible. If things continue on like this, you may not have to use your brain whatsoever in 2011. Fingers crossed! (Click on the line for its source track.)

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