We don't know about you, but this time of year makes us want to strap on a pair of sparkly gold stilettos, squeeze into something that's possibly too tight given how much we ate over Thanksgiving, and get our ho-ho-holiday on — on the dancefloor, of course. Thankfully, many of our favorite pop stars seem to feel the same way, obliging us with festive dance pop originals and clubby remakes of the classics, all decked out with killer beats and groovable hooks. To get you in the holiday spirit, we've assembled this little guide to the brightest lights on the holiday pop tree, from the Biebster's naughty, brand-spanking-new Under the Mistletoe to Destiny's Child's ode to Rudolph. It's Christmas — with a beat you can dance to. 'Tis the season to get your booty wiggling!Click here for a playlist:
Christmas on the Dance Floor
Justin BieberUnder the Mistletoe
The Biebster + the holidays? Why didn't someone think of this sooner?! The boy wonder knows how to get you in the festive mood. And we do mean mood: things get downright naughty on "Christmas Eve." The classics are craftily reworked (Santa comes to town with hip-hop swagger; the drummer boy goes clubbing), and the originals are finely tuned to show off Bieber's surprising range, from dubby coffee-shop pop to soulful country. Plus, a bunch of fabulous guests stop by, including Usher, Boyz II Men and, yes, Mariah Carey. Mistletoe is no Mimi holiday album. But it's one heck of a holiday party. [Rachel Devitt]
The holiday season is upon us. And if you're like us, and you can't help but thrill to the yuletide aural exploits of Charlie Brown, Phil Spector, Bing Crosby, James Brown, Mariah Carey, Celia Cruz, The Muppets, King Diamond and all the rest, then here's our gift to you: an absolute enormous guide to the holiday music available on Rhapsody, from soul jams to Latin favorites to deep-cut crooner epics, from new 2011 favorites (Justin Bieber!) to our 10 favorite classic rockers who look like Santa (Rick Rubin!), from the tasteful lilt of John Fahey to the seedier exploits of St. Nick himself. We've got an in-depth guide to A Charlie Brown Christmas, an ultimate holiday-party playlist, and capping it all off, our 30 favorite Xmas albums of all time. Enjoy, and have a jovial holiday season.
The thing about Christmas music is you either love it or hate it. There isn't usually much middle ground. For those of us who love it, the warble of Alvin & The Chipmunks' "Christmas (Don't Be Late)" and Bobby Helms' rockabilly-ing "Jingle Bell Rock" are welcome at least the first 10,000 times we'll hear them—in the car, in the supermarket, in our sleep—between now and December 25th. For those poor souls who have to spend the next month or so trying (unsuccessfully) to get that seizure-inducing "Carol of the Bells" song out of their heads, we're sorry. You have absolutely no use for the list below. But, if you're like me and you listen to Darlene Love's "White Christmas" and, especially, her "Marshmallow World" in June, well, have fun, and don't miss Ella Fitzgerald's bangin' "Jingle Bells," the made-for-Jimmy-Buffett wonder "Mele Kalikimaka" by Bing Crosby, the backup singers in Elvis' "Blue Christmas" or any of Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas.
You provide the eggnog and mistletoe (or dreidel and menorah); we'll provide the tunes. That's how holidaze work around here. Of course we've got all the eternal carols and trusty standbys about winter wonderlands, sleigh rides, jingle bells, frosty snowmen, drummer boys, feliz navidads, Santa Claus coming to town and/or Mommy kissing him, God resting merry gentlemen, and chestnuts roasting on open fires — many of them harmonized by legendary girl groups or Motowners or recent rock/pop/R&B stars. And we've got all your favorite ubiquitous seasonal standards of less antiquated vintage, too — from 
Can you smell it in the air? It's that time again. Christmas is coming, ready or not, and while there's still hope this is the year you'll successfully avoid Grandma's probing inquiries about your still-single status and Uncle Carl's awkward full-frontal hugs, holiday music is a Christmastime inevitability. At the mall or the doctor's office, in grocery stores and elevators, on TV and the radio, from the computers of overly cheery coworkers and the mouths of misguided carolers, you can't escape it. Don't even try. The best you can hope for is to exercise some control over the seasonal sounds you consume. It's in that spirit that we present a host of brand-new holiday releases. Read on and find out which ones are worth adding to this year's holiday playlist.
Well, pop fans, it looks like Christmas came early for us this year. Or, to put it another (more accurate) way, your favorite pop stars hustled to get their big albums out in time for the holidays — but before the end-of-the-year dead zone in which no album survives. Many beloved boldface names here: Rihanna! Kelly Clarkson! Drake! Bieber! The Muppets! In fact, so many great albums came out in the last month, we couldn't find a way to limit it to just 10. So here are pop's Top 11 albums of the last month — plus honorable mentions!
Though the South has long been mythologized as the birthplace of the blues, country music and jazz, in the 1980s the region spawned a cluster of quirky bands — often tagged "college rock" — that would lay the foundation for alternative pop and indie rock, both of which took shape by decade's end. The sound these groups crafted was simple, but deliciously effective: a scruffy DIY fusion of post-punk's nervous energy, power-pop hooks and chiming folk-rock from the 1960s.
When 
Hopefully, the release of the five-disc 
A quarter-century after its release (feel old now?), it is somewhat amusing, amazing and perplexing to remember that, way back then, 
The most psychedelic music in 
Motown's indelible impact on pop-music history is a direct result of the talent on the Detroit-born label's roster. Berry Gordy and his team sussed out the most skilled and (equally as important) the most likable kids they could find, often plucking actual kids out of obscurity (and high school), turning them into polished, professional pop stars. But Motown's success was also undoubtedly due to the well-oiled, machine-like way the studio ran, taking ridiculously young diamonds in the rough and putting them through the label's "factory" system, which included training in everything from music and dance to, yes, fashion and manners. 
Nobody says, "Sayonara, sucker!" quite like 
Looking for your new favorite song? Your favorite pop star's got you covered, kid. The last couple weeks have seen a clutch of killer new singles dropping (apparently like it's hot, according to Alexandra Stan) from a dizzying range of pop-friendly artistes. Dive in and find your favorite with our latest edition of single-phile, which breaks down the latest and greatest singles with quickie reviews and hit-potential predictions. To hear everything featured here at once, try my 
To the uninitiated, Nashville means one thing: country music. They imagine a town filled with honkytonks and cowboy boot-wearing, pickup-drivin' good old boys. You can certainly find those things, mostly down on Lower Broadway where the tourists tend to hang. Venture a few blocks in any direction, though, and you'll discover that country makes up just a small part of the thriving Nashville music scene. 
Well, it's been an interesting month or so, pop fans. If the albums we've selected as October's Top 10 are any indication, it's been a time of risk-taking, new endeavors and career revitalizations. We've got artists from high-profile groups branching out on their own for the first time (hi, Patrick Stump of 
Back in 1997, the coffeehouse music scene managed to thrive despite the incessant barrage of grunge that was still going strong some six years after the release of 
"Latin crossover" has meant many things over the years, from pop songs featuring Spanish lyrics to Latino artists who cracked the predominantly white mainstream charts. It's a vague, loaded and problematic term. But underneath that confusing umbrella, talented artists of Hispanic heritage have added rich musical, stylistic and sometimes linguistic strains to the tapestry of American pop music. That's what we're celebrating with this Cheat Sheet on Latin Crossover Artists, compiled in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, which is observed September 15 to October 15.
Last year, a young pop-R&B upstart named 
It's easy to forget that pop stars are real people, too. After all, they're famous! And beautiful! And rich! And, well, surreal. But it's true: as real people from the (mostly) real world, they, too, have real problems. They struggle with relationships and mental health issues. They go through down times and deal with drug and alcohol addictions. In fact, sometimes it seems like they might be even more prone to such "real" issues than the rest of us.
Joel Ford and Daniel Lopatin might seem like an odd pairing. Ford's group 
In the immortal words of 
Can you believe it's already fall? Seems like just yesterday we were dusting off the old mojito mint muddler, taking the itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny yellow polka-dot bikini out of mothballs and talking about summer jams. (Though that could also be because the last edition of single-phile was literally about summer jams.) And now it's time to pack up the white pants, send the kiddies off to school and start getting primed for fall's big albums. 
Erstwhile 
Life seemed so much simpler in the '80s, and for me at least, our music and how we listened to it reflected that. The day after my senior prom, my friends and I gathered at a local beach and cranked up our boom boxes. Let me be clear: the music that came flooding out of those speakers is nothing I'm proud of. I know some of my teen counterparts were exploring edgy underground bands, but my suburban friends and I were happy not to stray too far beyond the constraints of straight-up pop and rock. We listened to what was on the radio and what the local DJs spun at school dances. We didn't know any different, and now those songs are part of our collective memories, like it or not.
The last month has been a bit slow for straight-up pop releases: albums by those artists who can only be classified under "pop." That said, the last month has also bestowed upon us a clutch of new albums that may come to us from other primary genres, but are also perfectly comfortable under pop's roof: hip-hop fueled by serious star power, rock and pop-punk that's not afraid of a hook or a dance beat, and indie music from around the world that's aesthetically as pop as 
The Video Music Awards are Sunday night! Yes, we know, MTV doesn't play videos much anymore. And chances are 
It's hard to imagine pop culture or, well, life in general without 
Like baby dolls (so easily creepified!) and nursery rhymes (so easily zombified!), fairy tales are like super-duper strong catnip (like, you could bake brownies with it) to tortured artist types. And why not? There's so much fodder there for impressing upon one's audience just how tortured and artsy you are: dark and twisty paths. Gothic architecture. Brutal morals. Childhood-perverting plots. And those are just the Disney versions. The originals, which were traditionally told as warnings to children who had to protect themselves in a less sheltered world, are even more terrifying.
When 
So first off, welcome to the '90s! Even if it still kind of feels more like the last gasp of the '80s: hair metal is almost over but doesn't know it yet, so it's still all over MTV, with songs about cherry pie (RIP 
Obits for 
Just sing, man: CeeLo does his Rock God thing. Pics by Garrett Kamps
My sister is obsessed with chickens. Like, seriously. She has a kitchen full of kitschy chicken stuff. Any time there's a call for a nickname to put on the back of a t-shirt, she goes for something poultry-related. She does a mean chicken impression (hen-pression? OK, maybe not): it's just not Christmas in my family without her clucked rendition of "
When I tell people I work in the music biz, the first question they ask is the obvious one: "What types of music do you like?" I find this akin to asking a chef their favorite food, or a pedophile their favorite Haley Joel Osment movie. I didn't gravitate toward this field because I wanted to lobby for the cultural merits of early-'80s straight-edge or West Coast cool jazz (though I would, happily, for both). I landed here because I find it endlessly fascinating that so many different types of folks choose to express themselves so differently using music, and that they do it over and over again, and have been for literally millennia. I love the mess of it all, not to mention the fact that it thrives in spite of -- at least in the last 100 or so years -- a massive capitalist machine whose inner workings are as calculating and mechanical as an auto mill's (and this is coming from someone who's part of that machine). It's pretty amazing when you think about it. I mean, like -- take that, painting.
This edition of our monthly Pop Roundup serves two purposes. First, as always, it's your exclusive guide to the hottest new pop albums — the big ones you know, but also the up-and-comers you just haven't fallen in love with yet. But this particular dispatch is also a great showcase of the breadth encompassed under that ambiguous umbrella (that's right: ambiguous umbrella) we call "pop." We've got everything from Joss Stone's increasingly blues-soaked soul-pop to The Summer Set's Bieber-meets-emo pop-rock, from Vanessa Carlton's new '70s-spun opus to dance-pop princesses like Kelly Rowland, Selena Gomez and, well, Pitbull. And, of course, there's Queen Bey.
Welcome to the final installment of 
Ah, summer. The season of beaches, bikinis and banging summer singles. A few weeks back, we gifted you with our massive mega-mix of 
Welcome back to 
Welcome to another edition of 
One of music's biggest stars has gifted us with one of this summer's biggest albums: yeah, you might say 
When we think of 
"
After three solo albums and a full tour of duty in 
Been living under a rock lately? Or perhaps just listening to too much rock? Catch up on the latest and greatest in new pop fare with our June Pop Roundup. Complete with nutshell reviews and don't-miss tracks, we break down the Top 10 releases of the last few months, from New Boyz to NKOTBSB, from newcomer Tinie Tempah to a certain Lady you may have heard a thing or two about. 
One aspect of summer that never fails to surprise is that the year is now nearly half over: we are closer to 2011's year-end critics-poll season than we are to 2010's. You've started drafting your own Top 10 list already, right? No? You haven't? Don't panic: here, Rhapsody's genre editors each pick their five favorite records of the year so far. How many will survive until November? Which ones will be replaced by Lil Wayne, by Beyoncé, by the soundtrack to Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark? Time will tell, but for now, here are our picks for the year's best, half a year early. 
Summer jams. Everyone's got one. That song that evokes instant images of sun and fun, that makes you smell the barbecue and taste the daiquiri, that just sings summer to you. But what does your summer jam of choice say about you and, more importantly, your summer personality? We've developed this handy-dandy little guide to psychoanalyzing your summer anthem —or at least finding the perfect drink to pair with it.
Ready? OK! Picture it: it's 2002-ish. You're a senior and totally, like, the hottest girl in school. Oh, and you're a cheerleader. Duh! Life is pretty sweet: you get to wear super-short skirts to school, you're dating the point guard, and Bring It On (and the sequel!) just came out, so everyone is, like, totally into cheerleaders right now. (As if they weren't already!) And? Bonus! The pop music of the day is totally awesome for killer floor routines: big, dance-pop beats (perfect for pom ripples!), and sexy (but not too sexy) lyrics performed by hot boys and girls who look like (or at least as good as) cheerleaders. (
May was Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month, a celebration of the history and contemporary contributions of Asian communities and cultures to this country. That celebration includes the roles Asian-Pacific artists have played in American popular music—contributions that have all too often been overlooked, underappreciated or restricted. The history of American pop music has often been a predominantly black-and-white (and sometimes Latino) one; Asian artists struggle to get noticed and acquire record deals in a demographics-based industry that doesn't seem to know how to market them. But even those artists who do make it often get written out of the history books: see, for instance, the Asian-American big bands who toured the country during the swing era, or even the more recent contributions of West Coast Filipino DJ culture to hip-hop.
You had a job waitin' after your graduation — 50 thou a year would buy a lot of beer. You were doin' all right, gettin' good grades; future was so bright, you had to wear shades! A growing economy, inflation down, employment up, Reagan midway through his second term, Top Gun in theaters — triumphalism all around! The music biz's future looked slightly less certain, but there was hope in new technology: "Annual record sales continue to fall," noted a 1986 Detroit Free Press piece, "while CD sales climb faster than the industry expected." The future wasn't punk kids buying Metallica/
It's finally here. After months of careful leaks, garish videos and audacious stunts (the Grammy egg!), 
As a rule, our regular single-phile column is devoted to — OK, obsessed with — dissecting the latest and greatest in pop singles. And while our definition of pop is as varied as, well, the genre itself is, we do typically focus on English-language pop. But so many great Latin singles have dropped in the past few weeks that we had to remedy that language bias and give them some love. 
We must admit that Tuesday is our favorite day of the week here at Rhapsody: that's when new releases come out. Thankfully, the next three months of Tuesdays look absolutely glorious, full of fresh music from ukulele-brandishing rockers, electronic pioneers, strident country hit makers, unabashed pop divas, unrepentant metalheads, CCM luminaries, contenders for Best Rapper Alive honors, soul superstars and, of course, Lady Gaga. Here's the best of what's to come.
That title might sound like a crack about 
Last week, right here in this little space, we posited that there are (at least) two kinds of singers in the pop world. First, there are the belters, musical heavyweights who sing out, showing off all that those impressive instruments are capable of. We recapped the musical history of powerhouse vocals, touching on genres (like R&B and country) that have been friendly to such brassy boldness and melismatic acrobatics, as well as those in which bigger vocal figures have struggled to fit in. See our 
Beyonce! Gaga! Rihanna! Estelle! The boldface names of pop have been busy bees in the last couple weeks, dropping singles you're sure to be listening to for months to come. But don't let the big stars blind you to the up-and-comers, who are eagerly awaiting your attention — and absolutely killing it in the process. In short, single-phile is not wanting for exciting subject matter this time around. (Did we mention there's a new Beyonce single?!) So listen up as we break down your new favorite songs (and assess the likelihood that they'll succeed).
In the pop world, there are two kinds of female singers. You've got your belters, big voices capable of melismatic acrobatics that are in the business not so much of singing as of making bold, brassy vocal statements, honey. And then you've got your baby voices, ladies who can break your heart and turn you on with just one small, subtle coo. OK, so there are way more types of pop singers, but lately, it seems like the charts have been overrun with vocalists who adopt one or the other of those two singing strategies. So we decided to break them down — then pit them against each other in an Epic! Singer! Showdown!
I can't confirm this, but around Rhapsody HQ, I believe I'm known as the dude who enjoys churning out insanely sprawling playlists week after week. It's true — I possess a sense of thoroughness that borders on clinically diagnosable obsessive-compulsive disorder. Yet when it comes to certain artists, maniacal thoroughness is the only way to properly sum up their careers, sounds and myriad contributions to music. 
The world of pop music is both a monarchy and a meritocracy. On the one hand, you have your queens and kings — pop royalty who need no last name, artists like 
Today, when people talk about pop music they usually mean diva dance pop or that special mix the 
What do belching brass lines and thrashing guitar licks have in common? How about jovial Balkan wedding bands and drunken, debauched N.Y.C. punks? Well, actually, quite a lot (and not all of it has to do with Eugene Hutz, Elijah Wood or Borat). 
The American mod was very real, but he was a vastly different creature from those that spawned him. In 1965 and '66, after 
She's a survivor. Whatever else you're inclined to say about 
Gay men and female pop stars have always had a special relationship. For decades, the latter have spoken to (and sometimes for) a demographic that has endured a great deal of prejudice and abuse, providing a mainstream voice (or at least outlet) for those who historically have had none in mainstream society. To adore a particular diva has been, at times, a means of building community, articulating a dangerous desire or simply making friends. But gay men also have plenty to offer their beloved divas: long renowned as tastemakers and trendsetters, gay men have increasingly become a sought-after demographic for the pop diva, more than one of whom has the Friends of Dorothy (and, especially, their dance clubs) to thank for her latest hit or, sometimes, her entire career.
At the ripe old age of 29, 
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