2007 has been a great year for hot chicks. Beyonce, Shakira, Nelly Furtado - they've all done their part in providing eye and ear candy worthy of our praise. But for every Fergie out there, there are dozens of little Fergalicious babes just waiting for an opportunity to blow your stereo away.

 

Here we pay tribute to 25 of the hottest chicks who deserve record contracts. Check out their tunes and download their songs. Without your support, we may never see them on Vh1, MTV, or the cover of Blender.

 

A&R men and women, are you listening looking?

 

Read/see more...

The best YouTube video I have seen in ages features Snowball, a medium-sized, sulphur-crested Eleanora cockatoo who really loves The Backstreet Boys. When exposed to the boy band she dances, sings, and bangs her head like she's at a late 1980s Anthrax concert. I love this bird, and so will you.

 

 

Of course, Snowball isn't the only animal that rocks.

 

See the videos here...

Unless you've been under a rock for the last few weeks, you've probably heard the newest phrase to permeate the American vernacular:

Andrew Meyer, the student who evoked images of the Spanish Inquisition with his forceful grilling of John "The Ketchup King" Kerry, was subsequently tasered for his disruptive questioning style. Since the event, many questions have been raised regarding civil liberties, and just how far an American is allowed to go within the confines of "free speech" before someone tasers their ass.

...and like all serious matters dealing with social justice these days, outraged parties took to the streets to protest made hilarious YouTube videos spoofing the plight of Mr. Meyer.

Integrating the majesty of song, and the immediacy of the "remix", dozens of clips have popped up around the web. We've taken the time to assemble the best of these remixes into one convenient place, ranking them based on their informative contribution to society awesomeness, awareness of the larger social issues at hand quality, and proposals for remedying the problem hilarity.

Enjoy!

Prepare to get pissed off.

On Saturday, Shoutmouth was invited to attend the live taping of MTV2's Dew Circuit Breakout 07 Finale. Mountain Dew is pretty much the coolest drink ever (next to Coke Zero, of course), so attending this shindig was a no-brainer. Also, having earned my stripes here as our former American Idol correpsondent, I couldn't resist the opportunity to witness (live!) an event where dreams come true and aspirations are crushed at the same time...all in the name of sweet rock and roll emo music!

Here are my notes from the event. Enjoy:


Pre-Taping:

5:53 - I'm squeezed in the back of the "TRL" room like a sardine. It's so much smaller than it looks on TV! Also, there are three full band platforms set up, which is crimping into my "jump around" space. There are tons of MTV-type kids are here though, which is rad I guess.

5:55 - I'm wishing my buddy didn't bail on me. Apparently early morning funerals make people un-psyched about rock competitions. I'm about 10 feet from the judges couch, which means I'm going to have a lot of Pete Wentz in my face. Personally, I will be keeping my eyes open for Ashlee and her daddy. We all know Papa Joe is the real hero!

5:58 - The three mid-pubescent girls standing in front of me are singing Spice Girls songs and discussing their exuberance over the prospects of appearing on TV. Looks like Ginger, Baby, Posh, Scary, and Sporty have doubled back for the souls of another generation. In other news, it looks like I remember the code names of all of the Spice Girls. It might be a long night ahead....

Taping?

6:01 - The intro of this programing seems to have been pre-taped. It's like I'm in a weirdo bizarro land seeing bands rocking out on the screens but standing painfully still in front of me. I wonder how long they've had to wear these same clothes...

6:05 - Pete Wentz just walked passed me. My he's tiny! Contrary to what you might have expected, my world remains unchanged.

6:07 - The smell of soon-to-be hipsters has filled my nostrils and rendered me barely able to think clearly. On the other hand, watching some of this pre-taped footage has me juiced up to hear these bands live.

6:09 - I'm going to need to invest in a sweet camera. Some press peeps took some cool pix of the judges.

6:11 - This show's about to go live.....after 3:45 of comercial break. Damn, that's a lot of advertising. Pete just warned the crowd that, no matter how excited they get about the bands, they should try not to say "F*** yeah!" when the camera's are rolling. That Pete Wentz, always lookin' out for the big guy.

6:22 - The band all just finished their cover performances -- the most impressive was a band called The Material, a group with a chick that sounds sorta like Paramore meets No Doubt. A bold cover of Eurythmics' "Would I lie to you?" from Them Terribles was pretty exciting too.

(At this point I entered a conversation with two of those afformentioned soon-to-be hipsters and discontinued my minute-by-minute journalistic accounting of the event. The rest is part dramatization, part recollection.)

6:29 ish - The winner is declared. "The Myriad" got all of your votes, and then proceeded to rock and roll the house down. They sound pretty sweet, but I'm distracted by how their guitar player looks like the poor man's Jared Leto.

Post- Taping

6:35 ish - As they crew prepares to film a live video for The Myriad, a fair number of people try to sneak out to the right, myself included. We're prohibited from exiting by the corporate hand of MTV. Unwilling to mess with Viacom, I accept my fate, step back, and start clappin' along to the Myriad. Wohoo!

6:40 ish - I realize that I've been standing right next to supper-blogger Maura from Idolator. It's nice to have someone to commiserate with.

6:45 ish - I'm starting to blend in now that I've mastered the "dance of the emos". It entails staring eagerly at the stage while clapping on each, and every, downbeat. If you skip a beat, you're a loser and will be ostracized accordingly.

6:47 ish - Having spent the last 12 minutes clapping along to this song, I can no longer feel the palms of my hand. I've been indoctrinated to this cult called The Myriad though, and can't wait to check out their album!

7:00 ish - The Berlin Wall of television security has crumbled and we're free to exit the building. Freedom has never tasted so sweet! I'm going to miss the house that Carson Daly built though.

I feel like I just went into a time warp... new releases from Britney Spears and The Backstreet Boys? Is it 1998?



Other than that -- Thursday returns to Victory Records, the label launching their new metal imprint today as well, Fred Mascherino spreads his wings away from Taking Back Sunday, and a bunch more comes out on this release-heavy Tuesday.

 

Click here for the list of new releases, plus quick reviews.

I understand that musicians are creative people, and as such, tend to think a bit "outside the box." And that's fine. Without this creative streak running through them, they'd not be able to write, create, and perform the music we love, and the world would be a lot less interesting, as places go. That said, perhaps when it comes to things like naming another human being, they should pause, breathe, and realize their kids will have to live with that name for the rest of their lives. What follows is a list of some of the most ridiculous names that musicians have bestowed upon their children. To give you a clue as to how bad some of these are? Nobody with the last name "Zappa" even made the cut.

The "War on File-Sharing" continues. Feds in the Netherlands and U.K. have shut down the file-sharing site OiNK, following a raid of the company's offices in Middleborough, England. OiNK's servers, which reside in Amsterdam, were also taken. A 24-year old man was arrested and will most likely face severe criminal charges., and OiNK's users will now be forced to use one of the other 8,469,843 file-sharing websites.



Authorities were quick to admit that the problem has not been solved.

Once again, the music industry has managed to do something so mind-bogglingly stupid, I barely know where to begin. This time, it's the Copyright Board of Canada stepping up to the plate, wearing a dunce hat. In an attempt to "compensate" artists for illegal downloads, they have decided to institute a 3-cent tax per single legal download, as well as a 1.5-cents per song on a legally downloaded album.



Way to go, braintrusts. "Hey, you, paying to download music! Want some incentive to find it by alternate means for free? Well, let me tell you about the new tax we've come up with...."

Today Carrie Underwood's new album comes out. Oh yeah...and she's also really hot. Hence, she's being featured here in Daily Music Hotness. Get your cowboy on and pick up a copy of Carinval Ride now, even if you think you hate country music. That is of course, unless you hate America.

Click through for more pics:

Avril is by far the most distinctive Pop/Punk/Bubblegum/Rock chick on the scene. Whose scene? The scene! In addition to being the self-proclaimed motherf***ing princess, she's also unreasonably hot. Click through for more pics: