At his New York City appearance today, Justin Bieber "decided to go outside of the store to acknowledge the fans that could not come inside to the event," ABC News reports, only to be attacked by "an unidentified man." Some lucky videographers (with NSFW mouths!) were taking in the scene from a high window across the street and even from above the tween screams were deafening. Then it got wild! If you look closely around the 21-second mark, you can make out a shift in the action as police run to rescue Bieber from the crazed "old man," as Bieber reportedly starts swinging to fight back. ABC says Bieber is okay, but "shaken up" -- human contact can be hard for a robot.

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Reba McEntire's new album, All the Women I Am, features a spirited rendition of Beyoncé's "If I Were a Boy," which you can hear above, and which got us thinking again about the tricky nature of cross-genre cover songs. McEntire remains true to the song's melody, save the addition of her country twang, but adds spare acoustic plucks and a slide guitar to make it her own. More importantly, the song's questions of gender identity lose no meaning when sung by McEntire, especially on an album about womanhood. In other words, it's not a joke. And that's usually the problem with these things: "The appeal of these experiments, if any, is primarily comedic but while it's funny to hear white people over-enunciate black slang, the gag quickly wears thin," wrote Jonah Weiner at Slate on the subject. So who else has done it right? Well, Beyoncé, for one...

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The day was bound to come. On Tuesday, November 9, 2010, Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Family hit the internet in its entirety, albeit in a clean version, disruptively edited. It arrives 13 days early, while in the interest of some perspective, West's last album, 808s and Heartbreak, appeared online 12 days before its release date. When an artist takes to the internet to complain about an album leak, they tend to not address what they have to lose financially; it's typically a plea along the lines of, We spent so long making this art and it must be heard how and when we intended. To be sure, an edited Kanye West record is not the prettiest thing. Once known for his tantrums, but now seemingly more settled, will West react publicly at all? Will he cancel GOOD Fridays? Scrap the album and start again? (Kidding.) Or will he just type so fucking hard he might break his fucking Mac book Air? There are five possible versions of Kanye West we're likely to see...

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When Conan O'Brien said goodbye to Late Night last year, his buddies The White Stripes appeared to play live and wish him well on the show's final eipsiode. So after Conan's brief sojourn to The Tonight Show, it only makes sense that his return to a comfort zone -- this time to basic cable on TBS's Conan -- would come complete with a christening appearance by White. O'Brien joined the modern day guitar god, sharing vocal duties for a rollicking duet of Eddie Cochran's classic "20 Flight Rock." Check out White's time on the couch with Conan below.

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The upcoming Michael Jackson album, Michael, will be available on December 14, just in time for the holidays. The album's lead single, "Breaking News," is out now and begins with static-infused soundbites about Jackson's controversial life and death. "Everybody wanting a piece of Michael Jackson...," it begins. Maybe the entire project is some sort of meta-commentary, because now some are claiming that the song is a sham and features vocals that were not performed by Jackson himself. Sony claims the song is legit, while Michael's nephew, sister and much of the internet think otherwise.

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This week's New York magazine features a short article entitled "Why MTV Is Bringing Back Music Videos," which it isn't exactly. What MTV is doing is using its sizable funds to pair working directors with musicians and possibly even famous actors for a music video series entitled Supervideo. The first in the series is LCD Soundsystem's "Pow Pow," directed by Training Day writer David Ayers and starring Twilight actress Anna Kendrick. And although MTV is "already planning the next few," it's hardly a comeback for music videos, mostly because they never went away.

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Jarvis Cocker's Pulp will return for a run of summer festivals in 2011, including Spain's Primavera Sound and London's Wireless Festival, the band announced Monday morning. Along with Cocker, the line-up will feature regulars Nick Banks, Candida Doyle, Steve MacKey, Russell Senior and Mark Webber. For more details, come this way...

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If you're a fan of rap music, you don't believe in promises. From release dates to teased collaborations to entire albums, you'll believe it when you see it. So for those waiting for Kanye West to slip up on his GOOD Friday promise -- a new track every week until Christmas -- last night seemed primed for a miss. It was, after all, Fashion's Night Out; West was drunk by 7 p.m. "This is the best night of my life uuuum so far," he wrote. And yet, by a few minutes after 11 p.m., the world had "Good Friday," the song. And Kanye brought the drums! Too bad Big Sean came along.

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Here we are again. As promised, Kanye West returned Friday night with another free MP3, and after a few weeks of the highest-profile collaborations (Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Swizz Beatz, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj... Bon Iver!), West goes this one alone. "Devil In A New Dress," though, is the first new Kanye song -- in this late Summer of West -- to feel like a sketch, unfinished. Which is not to say we are ungrateful!

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"Okay, first things first, I eat your brains." That's Nicki Minaj in her climactic verse on "Monster," the latest track transmitted directly from Kanye West to the internet. The song will be part of the upcoming Jay-Z and Kanye West "5 song album" entitled Watch the Throne. Here we have the most famous rappers in the world, Rick Ross 2010, West, Jay-Z and Nicki Minaj (plus Bon Iver) -- oh, and M.I.A.'s husband, Benjamin Bronfman, on "tribal voices" -- discussing: Napoleon Dynamite, weight problems, love, cannibalism and using the word sarcophagus.

There is a lot going on here.

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