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On Thursday (December 17), MTV News took a break from breaking stories and talking to stars to celebrate the holidays with a little food, a little drink and buckets of good cheer. We were also treated to a killer set from good-time rock band All Time Low, who were celebrating the end of what has turned out to be a killer year for the Baltimore quartet. Their latest album Nothing Personal had a huge debut (it broke into the Billboard album chart in fourth place), spent time on the Warped Tour and headlined their biggest trek yet (the Glamour Kills Tour, on which they were supported by friends We the Kings, Hey Monday and the Friday Night Boys).

MTV News caught up with the band just before their set, and for them, the year's biggest highlights involved undergarments. "We kept all the bras thrown at us," guitarist Jack Barakat explained. "We ended up with over 600 bras." Their goals for the new year include more touring and more writing, but for the immediate future, they just wanted to give a good show at the MTV party.

"We want to rock the sh-- out of it," frontman Alex Gaskarth explained. Drummer Rian Dawson added, "We're really hoping everybody is drunk, because the more you drink the better band we become."

"And the better looking I get," concluded Gaskarth.

Following an introduction by Sway, the band delivered a killer set and kept the volume and the energy high during the party. After the set (which included office favorite "Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don't)"), the group hung out with the staff and toasted to the holidays.

And in case they were curious: Yes, All Time Low, you rocked the sh-- out of it (even if nobody threw any bras).

Tags all time low, Christmas, video

"'Every Rose' is a classic and one of my favorites. Bret Michaels and Poison was my very first concert and introduced me to rock and roll. It's a song that everyone knows and loves. I feel like the way the music industry is today really shelters kids and they aren't exposed to songs as honest and real as this one."

-Teenage pop star Miley Cyrus, writing on her blog about her cover of Poison's "Every Rose Has Its Thorn." Cyrus recorded the classic hair metal ballad with the assistance of Poison frontman and "Rock of Love" star Bret Michaels, and Cyrus described the collaboration as "rad." "Bret and I had a great time in the studio together, just hanging out and making music," she wrote. "It was so surreal to have him sit down with his acoustic guitar and walk me through 'Every Rose' and then give me the opportunity to add my own flare [sic] and edge to it. Bret is so passionate about music, and it shows." It's still unclear as to where the cover of "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" will show up (perhaps on the soundtrack to "The Last Song"?), but we're still endorsing the idea that she dive headlong into the hair metal archives and record some Cinderella songs.

Tags Miley Cyrus, Quote

Ever wonder where "Jersey Shore" star Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi likes to shop? What does she want for Christmas? Well, when Snooki and other "Jersey Shore" stars stopped by the MTV News offices on Thursday (December 17), a lot of the staff here had many burning questions for MTV's latest reality star.

Snooki gave advice for how to be look like her. "Go tanning more, like me. So the hair. Straighten the hair all the time. The poof, hairspray, Bebe clothes."

Wondering what to get for Christmas? That was an easy one. "An Escalade. That's what I want. Black, with rims."

Need to know what pickup line to not use on her? Done. "Honestly, I don't get pickup lines. All they do is grab my ass and I don't like that. So change your ways."

And finally, where does fashionista Snooki like to shop? "I go to Woodbury Commons [in Central Valley, New York]." What stores? "Juicy, Bebe, Armani."

It seems like we now have plans for this weekend: Poof our hair, don our best Juicy attire, put away our pickup lines and ride around in our Escalade. Does anyone have directions to Karma?

Tags Jersey Shore, video

Even though James Cameron's "Avatar" — which finally opens today at theaters nationwide — has a killer lead cast in Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver and Giovanni Ribisi, the real stars of the film are the computer-generated alien race known as the Na'vi. They're a stunning feat of technological advancement, fully realized and incredibly animated.

Also: They're really, really blue. So blue that we've had Eiffel 65's "Blue" stuck in our heads for most of the lead-up to the film's release. Considering that is unacceptable in most cultures, we decided to dig deep into the MTV archives to find out what the best "Blue" songs were.

As it turned out, there are some absolute gems. Who could forget Debbie Gibson's "Out of the Blue" or the White Stripes "Blue Orchid?" We treated ourselves to Brand New Sin's "Black and Blue" as well as Galaxie 500's "Blue Thunder." There was even a bit of seasonal magic added, as we came across Tom Keifer's "Blue Christmas."

So enjoy this "Avatar"-inspired "Blue" video playlist, which also features some killer cuts from Mewithoutyou, Orgy and the Birthday Massacre. But like any great list, it begins with Jay-Z, whose "Blue Magic" (from the rapper's soundtrack to "American Gangster") is as smooth as blue gets.

Tags Debbie Gibson, Jay-Z, Orgy, the-white-stripes, video

When Snoop Dogg first scowled at the camera in Dr. Dre's "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang" video way back in 1992, could anybody have imagined how well the rapper would be able to mainstream himself 17 years later? Few artists are versatile enough to drop a killer album like Malice in Wonderland, chat with Stephen Colbert and receive praise for his pee-wee football coaching skills all in the same week, but Snoop has managed to pull it off.

His latest crossover feat may be his best — and most hilarious. Snoop is on today's episode of "The Martha Stewart Show," which will feature the rapper baking brownies with the erstwhile daytime host. During the segment, Snoop jokes about knowing his way around a kitchen because he worked at McDonald's, gets confused by the color of vanilla and, in the best moment perhaps ever captured on television, encourages Stewart to drop a special "green" ingredient into the brownie mix.

This isn't Stewart's first encounter with Snoop, as he has been on the show before to teach the host about street slang (he refers to her paring knife as "a shank"). This is also the latest in a line of otherworldly encounters with rap stars, a phenomenon that began at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards, where she presented the prize for Best Dance Video (the Spice Girls won) with the help of Busta Rhymes. She also recently hobnobbed with hip-hop's elite at Diddy's birthday party (which had a guest list that also featured Jay-Z, Young Jeezy and Rick Ross). Now that we think about it, is it stranger that Snoop is on television baking brownies or that Stewart is down with the hip-hop elite? These are strange times indeed.

Tags Busta Rhymes, Martha Stewart, Snoop-Dogg, video

Every day a multitude of stars wanders through the halls of MTV News to talk about their latest projects and goof around with our intrepid correspondents. But sometimes we catch stars elsewhere, and that's why we put together Spotted!, a daily compendium of stars in the wild.

Have you finished your Christmas shopping? The holiday is only a week away, and for many, there's still plenty to do before Santa comes down the chimney. That includes stars like Pete Wentz, who hit the chilly streets of New York to pick up some holiday cheer with his son Bronx Mowgli in tow. "Xmas shopping is done," Wentz tweeted. "Maybe a month earlier than usual." With Fall Out Boy currently on hiatus and wife Ashlee Simpson-Wentz currently starring in "Chicago" on Broadway, the bassist is on full-time daddy duty. He's also keeping busy with his comic book series "Fall Out Toy Works" and hitting up Thursday night's red carpet premiere of "Sherlock Holmes."

Wentz wasn't the only star stimulating the holiday economy yesterday, as Khloe Kardashian snacked in Beverly Hills and Jordin Sparks tried on some jewelry in Miami. Click here for these photos as well as the entire "Spotted!" archive, which features over 300 candid shots of stars like Britney Spears, Madonna, Adam Lambert, Jay-Z, the Jonas Brothers, Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, Mariah Carey, Taylor Swift, Shakira and Diddy!

Tags Fall-Out-Boy, pete-wentz, photo

After years of hype and hundreds of millions of dollars spent, "Avatar" has finally hit theaters. The early buzz has been excellent, which bodes well for James Cameron's futuristic sci-fi allegory that takes place on a distant planet called Pandora. The film stars Sam Worthington as a paraplegic marine who goes on a special mission to the planet and finds his loyalties divided between science and the military.

But when you get right down to it, the story of "Avatar" is hardly the point. Cameron spent gobs of money on the look and effects of the film, most notably the blue, dreadlocked alien race called the Na'vi. When you include the intense battle sequences and the 3-D visuals, it adds up to one of the most jaw-dropping effects-based spectacles in cinema history.

"Avatar" is one of those ground-breaking moments, an event where the technology takes a giant leap forward and the game changes forever. (It's certainly not the first time Cameron has done this, as his "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" paved the way for morphing effects and "The Abyss" also turned the corner on effects in movies.) While they work on a smaller scale, there have been a number of music videos that have similarly made great leaps forward with their visual effects. Michael Jackson's "Thriller" helped videos make the transition from simple commercials into genuine art, while clips like A-ha's "Take on Me" and Tool's "Sober" similarly pushed the envelope.

So in honor of the incredible technological achievement that is "Avatar," take a spin through our video playlist of top-shelf effects-based videos, which also includes clips from Foo Fighters, Korn, the White Stripes, Outkast and Beck. Kick things off with Madonna's surrealistic, unnerving "Bedtime Story."

Tags Avatar, Korn, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Peter Gabriel, smashing pumpkins, video

Rihanna looks hot in her new music video for her song "Hard." She's scantily-clad running around the desert bossing her own private military around. Guerilla warfare never looked so good.

However, aside from the explosions, the multiple costume changes and that giant pink tank she's straddling, one particular moment will leave its lasting stamp on the world of pop culture. And that moment is (drum roll, please) ... the blogger.

Not sure what I mean? Allow me to explain. Rihanna is finally giving bloggers the love and attention they so deserve by giving them a little shout out in the song. Towards the end of it, Rihanna sings, "Where dem bloggers at?/ Where dem bloggers at? /Where they at, where they at, where they at?" And she, being the tastemaker that she is, actually institutes the best new dance craze: air typing.

Yes, Rihanna air types in the video. Is it odd? Yes. Is it wacky? Totally. Do we kind of love it? Undoubtedly. (Bloggers, by nature, are self-involved and love any form of recognition.) And yes, I know this isn't the latest dance craze yet, but I think that you'll eventually make your way into the coolest nightclubs and just start seeing hip people doing the blogger. I'm fine with this.

Where dem bloggers at? Right here, Rihanna. Right here. And, we don't just air type, we actually type. That's pretty hardcore, right?

Tags Rihanna, video

Somebody please give a cake with 29 candles on it to Christina Aguilera, who celebrates her birthday today. Aguilera has certain crammed a lot into a career for somebody who hasn't yet turned 30 years old. Like contemporaries Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, Aguilera got her start on "The New Mickey Mouse Club" when she was only 12 years old. Pop stardom came calling in 1999 when she dropped her self-titled debut, which featured the chart-topping smash "Genie in a Bottle." From the beginning, Aguilera separated herself from the teen-pop pack with an incredibly technically proficient voice and a super-sexualized look.

More hits followed, like "What a Girl Wants," "Come on Over Baby (All I Want Is You)" and "I Turn to You." After a Spanish-language album and a Christmas record, Aguilera returned with the amped-up Stripped in 2002, which featured a more varied, grittier sound on tracks like "Dirrty" and "Fighter." She got some heat for appearing scantily-clad just about everywhere (that sounds familiar), but it only made her a bigger star. But Aguilera has wisely kept herself out of the spotlight for most of her career, putting fame away for a while to have a kid (her son Max Liron Bratman, with husband Jordan Bratman). Her albums have been consistently excellent but sporadic — there are only three proper Christina Aguilera albums, whereas Spears has twice as many in the same time period). Still, one of those albums, 2006's Back to Basics, was a double-disc affair, and she also had no trouble filling 2008's greatest hits collection Keeps Gettin' Better: A Decade of Hits.

Aguilera will be back in 2010 with a new album supposedly called Light & Darkness, which means that she'll produce new music videos. For now, we'll just have to live with the technicolor throwback "Candyman."

Tags Christina Aguilera, video

When you work in the MTV Newsroom, it's easy to get a little jaded. After all, there's an unspoken agreement that everybody is going to play it cool at all times, even when some of the biggest stars in entertainment walk through the door. So even when big-time musicians, actors and athletes show up, there is typically very little ballyhoo upon their arrival. They show up, they sit down with the interview crew, and they slip out undetected.

But on Thursday (December 17), that idea was completely thrown out the window, because the cast of "Jersey Shore" was in the building. There was an unprecedented buzz for most of the morning, and everybody was contemplating questions that don't normally crop up around other stars. Would the Situation flash hit abs? How are we supposed to pronounce all the consonants in "J-Wowww"? Just how short is Snooki? These are the sort of conversations that don't come up when, say, Justin Bieber is coming in for a chat. The "Jersey Shore" interviews were fast becoming the most hotly-anticipated in recent memory.

The crowd that gathered around to watch MTV News' Tim Kash chat up the cast of "Jersey Shore" was unprecedented. It helped that the interviews were happening concurrently with the MTV holiday party (which featured a surprise set from All Time Low — more on that later today), so people from all over the building were wandering in to get a glimpse of MTV's newest reality stars. In fact, the crowd got to be so intense that producer Nick Neofitidis started lining up staff members to sit down and ask questions of Snooki. (This was just after she gave MTV staffer Ashley Mastronardi's hair "the poof" — more on that later as well.) When you combine the buzz over the show with the fact that people weren't expected to work and most had consumed an adult beverage or two, it made for a high-energy, almost raucous experience — not unlike the scene at Karma on "Jersey Shore."

Tags Jersey Shore