via The LupEND Blog

It was all good for Lupe Fiasco just two albums ago. By 2008, the Chicago MC, co-signed by Jay-Z and brought on the Glow In The Dark Tour by Kanye West, had released two critically acclaimed albums, Food & Liquor and The Cool, and built on a reputation as a nimble lyricist with a political bent forged by a series of excellent mixtapes by demonstrating that he could write more traditionally radio-friendly singles ("Kick, Push," "Superstar") without forsaking his essence.

But those albums were only moderate commercial successes, leading Atlantic Records and Fiasco to squabble endlessly over what would eventually become 2011's Lasers. The struggle seemed to sap Fiasco's talents (Lasers is a mess of awkward collaborations and half-hearted you-can-do-it anthems that seemed like an ungainly swing at pop, despite Fiasco passing on what would become label mate B.o.B's "Nothin' on You"; Fiasco's last widely praised project was a 22-minute mixtape, Enemy of the State, released in November 2009) and embolden him politically (Fiasco, an avowed non-voter, called President Obama "the biggest terrorist" in 2011, has allied himself with Occupy Wall Street to the point of rapping "New gang alert, hashtag Occupy," and became one of the first rappers ever to look like an idiot in a dispute with Bill O'Reilly).

But Atlantic got what it wanted in Lasers, an album Fiasco confessed to hating: a hit. It debuted at No. 1 on Billboard, spawned two top-40 singles ("The Show Goes On" and "Out of My Head"), and re-established Fiasco as a source of lucre for the label while giving him a forum for his Alex Jones-caliber conspiracy theorizing—"All Black Everything" imagines a counter-factual world in which the African slave trade did not exist but rap still somehow evolved in the same way, while "Words I Never Said" allowed Lupe to indulge his 9/11 truther fantasies ("9/11, Building 7, did they really pull it?") and self-mythologize ("I'm a part of the problem, my problem is I'm peaceful") over leaden Alex da Kid production. With "Around My Way (Freedom Ain't Free)," released Monday night, Fiasco proved that he and Atlantic understand the template for his future commercial success—rap on pop tracks and continue to vomit incoherent political screeds—but have completely lost the plot when it comes to critical respect.

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Azealia Banks, the LaGuardia alum who's made a name for herself in the hip-hop world thanks to her storming debut single "212" and her tendency to engage in real talk on Twitter (sparring partners have included Lil Kim, T.I., and Iggy Azalea), released a new single, "Jumanji," today, in advance of her EP 1991. Produced by Hudson Mohawke and Nick Hook, it's a horn-spangled, steel-drum-tinged boast, with Banks' voice taking on a harder edge that meshes well with the almost dreamlike sonics. Listen below.

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This week Madonna's 12th studio album and dive into the deep end of the EDM pool, MDNA, came out. I didn't like it very much. But what I like even less is the sexism-tinged age-baiting that the record seems to be inspiring in so many critics. Forbes was likely the worst offender of the bunch, going so far as to call MDNA "Madonna's Mighty Menopausal Comeback." (Uh, was that claim fact-checked, "straight woman half her age" who wrote that piece?)

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@MDNA2012/Twitpic

Madonna at Ultra over the weekend.

Ultra Music Festival pummeled Miami's Bayfront Park last weekend, motivating innumerable fist pumps over thirty hours of music, but it was the brief speech by a 53-year-old woman wearing a shirt emblazoned with the letters "MDNA" that has prompted disbelief within parts of the electronic dance music community. That woman is Madonna, who as part of the scorched earth roll-out for her new album MDNA introduced headliner Avicii and incited the overwhelmingly young attendees with the question: "How many people in this crowd have seen Molly?"

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Off the top of my head, I can come up with more "controversial" stances Katy Perry has taken than I can count on one hand: "Ur So Gay" being mean, homophobic, and seemingly aimed at Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz; "I Kissed a Girl" being shock-Sapphic and heteronormative; "You / PMS / Like a bitch / I would know" in "Hot N Cold"; the Sesame Street debacle; the unparalleled mastery of the Maxim mien to optimize titillation; the use of "Last Friday Night" to hop on Rebecca Black's comet and put on nerd drag; the use of "Firework" to hop on the It Gets Better wave; the uncomfortably xenophobic "E.T.," and specifically a remix in which one of the most famous black rappers of the moment was turned into a lascivious, rape-y beast; the microwaved breakup "rage" of "Part of Me" getting timed to a) the end of a very public relationship, b) the re-release of an album, and c) the Grammys in which Adele's heartfelt kiss-offs were venerated. Her debut album was named One of the Boys; her "California Gurls" had a Snoop Dogg verse because casual misogyny and watered-down Golden State triumphalism fit, and "Gurls" because she decided to make it the least convincing Big Star tribute ever.

So why is Katy Perry not going all the way when covering "Niggas in Paris," and instead doing Karmin-style genre tourism? C'mon, Katy: We know what you're saying when you say "ninja," just like Reggie "Combat Jack" Osse did when he took the Voice's Tom Breihan to task for using "ninja" as a substitute for "nigga" in 2006. And you even admit in the opening seconds of your BBC performance that things are going to get embarrassing!

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Sledgehammer-pop duo Sleigh Bells visited the BBC recently, and as one tends to do when one visits the hallowed British broadcasting institution, they laid down a cover—of Beyoncé's breezy kiss-off "Irreplaceable." The combined moxie of Beyoncé and Sleigh Bells frontwoman Alexis Krauss should result in fireworks, right? Well, not so much; Krauss sighs her way through the song, turning her voice into a mew that sounds like she was trying to sing along with the radio while not being heard by her roommates or anyone else outside of a six-inch radius. (Also, some of the guitar chords are a bit off.) It's not Karmin-level offensive, but it's sorta disappointing. Listen below.

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Forget that the latest song to be released from Madonna's upcoming album MDNA is biting its title from a noxious DVD series run by one of the worst people ever to be hailed as a "celebrity" by American culture (a pretty impressive feat, that); never mind that it rhymes "fire" and "desire" on its prechorus, despite the peppy track being absolutely nowhere near as good as The System's sparkling "Don't Disturb This Groove" and thus failing the "does this track have enough redeeming qualities to allow me to overlook the No. 1 lyric cliché of all time?" test. No, the most glaring quality of "Girl Gone Wild," which hit the web yesterday, is the way that Madonna seems to be pretty absent from the track.

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Welcome to Musical Math, a new feature where we try to pick apart a new pop song's origins. For our first entry, we have the musical return of one of the last decade's most controversial figures, in both pop and the tabloids.

In what's either a bid for notoriety or a genuine appreciation of one of the most reviled pop records of the early 21st century, the newest song by the Denver production duo Manufactured Superstars, called "Drunk Text," features none other than mid-naughts poster girl Paris Hilton on vocals. Its musical lineage is solid enough to make you wonder if squirming through the hotel heiress's tales of sticking her phone up her friend's dresses and bitching about bottle-service schlubs might actually be worth three minutes and 47 seconds of your time. A breakdown below.

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The Converse-funded collaboration between the Damon Albarn/Jamie Hewlett futurepop collab Gorillaz, LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy, and 2011 Best Supporting Player André 3000, "DoYaThing," has leaked, and it's a goodie, a wobbly bit of futureshock pop that has Albarn laying down a verse in his blasé Gorillaz guise and André tossing off straight fire, with a verse that, amidst a ton of tongue-twisting, takes on those people who says he doesn't rap enough for both their criticisms and their inferior skills. The song will be available through the sneaker company's web site tomorrow, but a radio rip (via Listen Before You Buy) can be heard below. (And apologies for the guy asking "CAN WE GET AN OUTKAST ALBUM NOW?" over and over again at the end, trying to sound like he's part of the song, too. DJs!)

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Last night, Rihanna and Chris Brown leaked two collaborations, a remix of her dessert-fetish track "Birthday Cake" and a rework of his Generic Club Banger No. 86 "Turn Up The Music." The releases inspired much rending of garments and gnashing of teeth, but how do they fit into the pantheon of trollgaze? A subjective yet scientific analysis below.

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