Lady Gaga Romance Rumor

It can't be easy dating Lady Gaga: When you're not picking glitter off everything you own, or trying to get the scent of bodily fluids off your clothes, you're staring at the meat in the fridge, wondering if it's dinner or designer wear. So color us unsurprised that Life & Style claims the popster's back-on romance with longtime love Luc
Carl has hit a speed bump. "Gaga and Luc are fighting a lot," says a snitch. "Their relationship has never been perfect -- it's always been tumultuous -- but now it's hanging by a thread." Click on for a less depressing romance rumor …

The Day the Music Died

Today Is the 52nd Anniversary of the Plane Crash That Killed Buddy Holly

Today is the 52nd anniversary of "the day the music died": the plane crash that killed legendary musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson. The day was immortalized by Don McLean in his 1971 hit song "American Pie"


which was then covered by Madonna for the Next Best Thing soundtrack:

But the best way to honor the men who died over half a century ago is to listen to the music they themselves created.

Here's Buddy Holly singing "Everyday":

Ritchie Valens doing "La Bamba":

And The Big Bopper performing "Chantilly Lace":

Best Songs of 2010

Once upon a time, we might have gauged the best "singles" of the year just ending, but popular music circa 2010 has shifted the conversation back to the fundamental – the song. The rules have changed with the proliferation of a la carte options for curious listeners: Conventional singles are multiplied by remixes, EP samplers, demos and alternate versions, giving MSN's contributors a vastly larger bucket of tunes to contemplate. Our top-ranked songs do include some well-known hits heard on radio or seen in videos, but our contributors' submissions tell a more tangled tale of fave musical moments.

 1. Cee-Lo Green:  "F--- You" (Elektra)
Of course, the unprintable title was the launch pad for Cee-Lo Green's overnight summer hit, its blunt message the righteous punch line to his fuming realization that finance has trumped romance. A nimble, infectious pop-soul arrangement and deft lyrics that are as witty as they are rude give Cee-Lo room to romp in a joyfully unbridled performance of comic exaggeration that inverts R&B machismo outright. The true test of the song may be its family-friendly version: It turns out that even with its expletives deleted and with a new title, "Forget You," it's delightful.

 2. Miranda Lambert: "The House That Built Me" (Sony Nashville)
Few artists have mapped out a modern country style as accessible, yet as authentic and personalized, as Miranda Lambert: The outsized persona she carves with combustible rockers never loses her Texas accent, while the take-no-prisoners ferocity of vengeful anthems such as "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," "Gunpowder & Lead" and last year's "White Liar" are matched evenly by her skill with tender, vulnerable ballads. On her CMA-winning and Grammy-nominated "The House That Built Me," she again touches on how family and community shape identity. It's an affecting meditation on innocence and a moving reassurance that she may have conquered Nashville but she's not about to go Hollywood.

3. Eminem (Featuring Rihanna): "Love the Way You Lie" (Aftermath)
Eminem's personal life and musical identity have long grappled with sexual rage erupting in cruel misogyny, giving this defining hit from his "Recovery" album undeniable power. Confronting the power struggles behind domestic violence, he turns the table on his own worst past rants. Recruiting Rihanna, whose own tabloid nightmare remains forever rooted in the issue, is both brave and brilliant, making this one of the year's most unflinching pop dramas.

4. Die Antwoord: "Enter the Ninja" (Cherrytree/Interscope)
The jury may be out for Die Antwoord's potential to launch an unexpected hip-hop variant straight outta Cape Town, but "Enter the Ninja," the breakout viral hit for this South African trio spearheaded by the self-appointed Ninja (born Watkin Tudor Jones), is a galvanic, splenetic burst of cultural references run through a blender. Together with his cryptic blonde foil Yo-Landi Vi$$er, the gaunt rapper unleashes a funny, furious and casually obscene diatribe rooted in the underdog, self-consciously vulgar Zef subculture. Die Antwoord means "The Answer" in Afrikaans, but for most Western listeners "Enter the Ninja" is more provocative for the questions it raises. As "singles" go, this one never got near Top 40 and never will.

5. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: "I Should Have Known It" (Reprise)
High Orthodox Rock fans looking for proof that the style will endure need look no further than Tom Petty, who began his career being parsed for his stylistic debts to '60s icons, then graduated to play alongside them, whether touring with the Dead or traveling with the Wilburys. After three decades, the Heartbreakers are lethally powerful players, as exploited by the mostly live performances tracked for "Mojo" and exemplified by the tight midtempo strut of this classic rocker.

6. LCD Soundsystem: "Drunk Girls" (Virgin)
LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy has made hipster ridicule a keystone in his crafty spin on rock-edged dance music, a ploy nearly perfected on the first single from this year's "This Is Happening" album. A hell-bent pace and the jubilant title chorus provide the party-hearty momentum even as Murphy captures the contradictions of a revved-up crowd and the woozy chemistry lessons of dance floor hookups.

7. Robyn: "Dancing on My Own" (Konichiwa/Interscope)
Trading early teen pop stardom for independence, Sweden's Robyn has spent the last decade forging her own kinetic dance sound as a singer, songwriter and producer with growing confidence and a willingness to collaborate. This year a series of EPs sharing the "Body Talk" title wound up yielding a potent full-length already studded with hits. None is more mesmerizing than this propulsive anthem that unfolds "under a black sky" looming over its tableau of partying abandon and abject heartbreak.

8. Broken Bells: "The High Road" (Columbia)
For ambitious contemporary musicians, multitasking and collaboration are strategic givens. In Broken Bells, Shins singer and principal songwriter James Mercer partners with producer Brian Burton, better known as Danger Mouse, to create indelible pop-rock songs as musically accessible as they are lyrically elusive. Their calling card was this hypnotic, mysterious anthem: Against an implacable midtempo march and seemingly accidental yet melodic electronic bleeps, the duo builds a vignette as puzzling as it is engaging, modulating from the menacing midnight imagery of its verses to a beautiful (but mystifying) coda. We can only guess at its meaning, but we keep hitting "play."

9. Far East Movement: "Like a G6" (Interscope)
East Los Angeles' Far East Movement broke out with this futurist tweak of club music, weaving hip-hop cadences, a shrewd Dev sample and electronic textures into a fizzy pulse that takes its title simile from a Gulfstream corporate jet. With its origins in the Korea Town community, Far East Movement augurs a next wave of pop's multicultural reinvention: "Like a G6" proved a massive hit with formidable chart credentials buoyed by digital sales.

10. Lady Antebellum: "Need You Now" (Capitol Nashville)
Their home base is Nashville, but Lady Antebellum's blueprint sounds closer to L.A. in its canny vocal partnership between Charles Kelley and Hillary Scott and the crisp acoustic decorations of multi-instrumentalist Dave Haywood. The title track of the platinum trio's second album powers its yearning after-hours confessions of unresolved passion with a surging chorus and a keening slide guitar that sounds equidistant from Laurel Canyon and Music Row, which helps explain its multiformat success and a mantel full of CMA, ACMA and CMT Awards. With four of their seven pending Grammy nominations propelled by the song, they may need a bigger mantel.