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By Alex Chapman

When we heard the news that former 98 Degrees member Jeff Timmons would be donning the celebrated Chippendales bowtie as part of a limited, er, residency, we thought the following:

1. Where do we get tickets? Do you need to get tickets to go to Chippendales? Can you get them on StubHub?

2. Why hasn't anyone done this before?

Boy-band alums from the '90s are the perfect recruits for Chippendales dancery: They are far too old to be parading around shirtless for a teenage fanbase, they're still in great shape, and they certainly can bust a move or two without busting their back. As we drooled with nostalgia over the hip-shaking hunks of yesterday, we felt it only proper to compile a list of boys-turned-men that could certainly strip with the best of 'em:

Kevin Richardson
Where he is now: Having taken a turn as Billy Flynn in Toronto, Japan and Broadway productions of "Chicago," the 39-year-old former Backstreet Boy lives with his wife, whom he met while working at Walt Disney World, and their son, Mason.

Why: Let's be real — the other guys were adorable and all, but Richardson is a tall drink of sexy and always has been. Plus, he's really got his life together! A career post-BSB, a wife, a kid — who doesn't love a man with some maturity?

Hanson
Where they are now: The talented trio are still musically alive and well and are presently playing shows across the country.

Why: The Hanson bros are the original JoBros, and what better way to remind people than with a choreographed dance to Marky Mark's "Good Vibrations"? OK, maybe that won't remind people, but wouldn't it be amazing?
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Tags 98 Degrees, boy bands, Chippendales, Jeff Timmons

It seems Beyoncé and Britney Spears have a lot more in common than you might think. Sure, they're global superstars with legions of devoted fans, but aside from those few details, but that's not all these two in-demand performers share.

Let's start with the most basic: Both their names begin with the letter "B." And that brings us to our next point: They've both used the same insignia for that aforementioned letter. B seems to be using a font on a flag in her new music video that Spears once used during a performance way back when.

Also, let's not forget that both have recorded "Telephone." Brit recorded a demo version, while Beyoncé appeared on Gaga's album version of the song, and later paid homage to "Thelma and Louise" in the over-the-top video. (Not to cause any rifts in the Spears family but Brit's little sis, Jamie Lynn, was recently spotted hanging with B's "Telephone" co-conspirator Lady Gaga.) Read more...

Tags Beyonce, britney spears

Over the next few days, MTV's Newsroom will be featuring items from the upcoming Experience Music Project special exhibit, "Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses," which opens at the Seattle museum on Saturday (April 16). Today's artifacts include the story of the first guitar broken onstage by Kurt Cobain and the first show poster billing the band as Nirvana. The commentary on these objects are provided by exhibit curator Jacob McMurray.

The Broken Guitar: "This is an extremely rare piece. This is actually the first guitar that [Kurt Cobain] ever broke. What I love about this guitar — besides the fact that it has the Mod Squad on it, the Jackson Five and a Monkees logo — is that he broke this at an Evergreen State College party on Halloween of 1998. At this party, they were basically playing to 50 people total. This isn't Jimi Hendrix or the Who at the height of their power. These guys can't even pay rent, yet he, in some fit of emotion, decides to smash his guitar in the middle of the room. What's even greater to me is that somebody at that show was so excited that they kept that guitar fragment for over a decade until we got it into our collection."
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Tags Nirvana, seattle

I've kind of given up on "American Idol" at this point. The judges have clearly decided to serve up only bland platitudes, the remaining group of singers are an uninspired mish-mash of personalities whose quirky shticks feel stronger than their voices and the judges look like they're watching the NBA playoffs under their console.

And Casey Abrams? Really? If his "Nature Boy" was as good as Jennifer Lopez claimed, I need to make a run for the urban oasis of noise that is Times Square.

Wednesday night's show was the perfect example of what's gone wrong, down to Lopez's claim that you don't have to be a pop star to win "Idol," but that you can be a Norah Jones-like jazzbo and sell 17 million albums. Guess which jazzhead has sold 17 million albums since Jones? Right, none. Guess which winning guy has sold 17 million albums to date coming off "Idol"? None, not all put together, multiplied by 10,000 and supplemented by 15 million more.

That said, Casey doesn't seem like the most likely man to finally break the season 10 drought of male eliminations. "Paul McDonald, your time has come for you to face the music," said MTV News "Idol Party Live!" host Jim Cantiello. "Your 'Old Time Rock and Roll' was fun, but it was REALLY fun on mute. This is a break-up we've known was coming for awhile. We both know that this wasn't a good fit."

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Tags American Idol

The popcorn is popped! The 40 lb box of Junior Mints, opened! Turn off your cell phones, make a donation to the Will Rogers Institute and shush the giggly teenager behind you, because Wednesday night was "Songs of the Cinema" on "American Idol X: No Girls Allowed!"

With Pia Toscano off gallivanting with Ellen DeGeneres and record labels (so says the rumor mill!), the top eight faced even more scrutiny than usual. From viewers, that is. We all know the judges cheerleaders would give the contestants a standing ovation even if they just belched the alphabet. Unless that contestant's name rhymes with Paley Fineheart. (More on that later.)

But by the time the final note was shouted, the last "amazing" critique was uttered and the phone numbers were recapped, not one "Idol" stood out as being the next biggest thing in pop music. Nor jazz music, for that matter, regardless of the standing ovations from noted jazz critics Jennifer "Anaconda" Lopez, Randy "I Get Texts From R&B Relics" Jackson and Steven "Boca Blouse" Tyler. (More on that later, too.)

Before I go on a rant about how will.i.am should change his name to will.i.am.never.ever.leaving.this.show.can.you.blame.me.i.have.to.work.with.fergie, here's a quick programming note! My live, interactive "Idol" chat show, "Idol Party Live" is premiering at its new time, NOON EDT, right here in this very blog! Really!

My special guests this week are season six fave Melinda Doolittle and "Idol" blogger MJ Santilli of the encyclopedic MJsBigBlog.com. We'll be dishing all about Wednesday night's episode as well as predicting Thursday night's Bottom Three. Plus, Barbara Walters' Cardboard Cutout will be doing a striptease. Fun times!

And now ... to the performances! In keeping with the movie theme, all of my verdicts will be recent Oscar nominees.
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Tags American Idol

By Zack Swickey

The schedule for this weekend's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival has at last been revealed, and in typical music-fest fashion, it is forcing fans to make heart-wrenching decisions. Anyone that has ventured to a major music festival, especially one of Coachella's magnitude, knows that they will inevitably have to choose between, not one or two, but up to four or five of the newest wave of indie bands and veteran acts playing simultaneously.

Friday is going to be hardest day for the music elitists sweating in the California sun. If you want to check out the latest rap crew the music world is buzzing about, Odd Future, you will have to sacrifice seeing foul-mouthed Cee Lo and art-rock outfit Warpaint. And what would make a wicked indie-rock bill on its own is instead a touch dilemma: Noise-rock duo Sleigh Bells perform at the same time as vets Interpol and Cold War Kids. Fans of the Killers have the choice to see Brandon Flowers solo, or they can check out the finest of blues rock: the Black Keys. If you want to forgo main-stage favorites Kings of Leon, you can treat yourself to frenetic, electronic rock duo Crystal Castles. Beer guzzlers will most likely watch Flogging Molly close Friday night, while the more, shall we say, "experimental" fans will flock to see legendary electronic outfit the Chemical Brothers.

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Tags Cee-Lo, Coachella, Kanye West, Odd Future, Sleigh Bells, the-strokes, Wiz Khalifa

Over the next few days, MTV's Newsroom will be featuring items from the upcoming Experience Music Project special exhibit, "Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses," which opens at the Seattle museum on Saturday (April 16). Today's artifacts include Kurt Cobain's "The New American Gothic" painting and a letter sent to Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic about Cobain's early musical promise. The commentary on these objects are provided by exhibit curator Jacob McMurray.

"New American Gothic"
"This is Kurt Cobain's 'The New American Gothic,' a painting that he made in 1984 when he was in high school. One of the things that I think is really exciting about this is ... we know Kurt Cobain for his music, but he was a really talented artist as well. He created art throughout his career and in fact he came up with all the album cover ideas for Nevermind and In Utero and created the album art for Incesticide. We have it in this [early] section of the gallery because it really gives a flavor of that [President Ronald] Reagan-era punk rock milieu that he's growing up in. His reimagining of the "American Gothic" farming couple into these post-nuclear holocaust ancient punk rock mutants."

Check out photos from the exhibit.

The painting hangs in one of the first sections of the exhibit alongside a Reagan pencil drawing from the same era and photos of Cobain in his high school drawing class as well as an entry form from a high school art show in which he was a participant. If you look closely at it, the man in the untitled mixed-media work created in Mr. Robert Hunter's art class during Cobain's 1984-85 senior year at Aberdeen's Weatherax High School has a mohawk, is wearing wraparound black sunglasses, a single crucifix earring and a logo on his leather jacket that reads: "Nuclear Mutants of America." His companion is rocking an asymmetrical punk hairdo, a single, sword-like earring and the world-weary look of a disaffected punk. The background is an airbrushed swirl of ominous red, yellow and white toxic clouds and in addition to his signature, Cobain marked the work with a thumbprint.

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Tags kurt-cobain, Nirvana

SEATTLE — With just a few hours left before I had to catch a plane out of town, there was one more stop I had to make on my whirlwind Seattle music history tour.

Driving to a nondescript industrial zone amid anonymous warehouses, I set out to explore the Pearl Jam headquarters.

Not many bands have the kind of well-oiled machine that PJ has built over the past two decades, but their digs should be an inspiration to any kid in his basement hoping to one day rock the masses. This is what hard work, great tunes and a rabid fanbase can get you, a playground all your own where you can offer your diehards an unending supply of high-end swag, including, at the moment, lush collector's box sets of your albums, plenty of which were in evidence on pallets scattered throughout the building.

One of the conference rooms in the smartly appointed offices featured images of the band with various dignitaries, from President Obama to Bruce Springsteen. The most intriguing was a shot of Beyonce and Jay-Z walking through the bowels of Madison Square Garden and gawking at a photo of PJ singer Eddie Vedder. Right next to that was a set-up sequel of Vedder looking equally astonished at a photo of the hip-hop supercouple.

A downstairs warehouse area the size of a basketball court was packed with road cases fresh from Vedder’s recent tour of Australia and shelves of hardware that looked like a small music store. There were dozens of guitar straps, every shape and thickness of guitar strings and boxes upon boxes of harmonicas and picks labeled with the names of the band members, various masks they wear on stage and rack-upon-rack of sound gear.
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Tags pearl-jam, seattle

By Annie Reuter
One thing you can certainly say about the Foo Fighters: They're a dedicated bunch. For further proof of this, look no further than Tuesday night's "Live On Letterman" performance, which took place at the iconic Ed Sullivan Theater in New York, site of the Beatles' first U.S. performance in 1964. So, of course, the Foos felt compelled to mimic the Fab Four's famed get-ups &# black suits, white shirts, skinny ties and black dress shoes — even though, as Dave Grohl would confess midway through their set, "these f---in' suits are so hot."

They also took the opportunity to turn the performance into a defacto album-release party for their brand-new Wasting Light disc, blasting through the album in its entirety (as they've been doing these days) and then tacking on a second hour of nothing but hits. Because, really, why not?

The first 60 minutes highlighted Lights' many strengths — namely, the growling guitars, pounding drums and stalking basslines of songs like "Bridge Burning," "Rope" and, of course, "White Limo," which featured an extended display of percussive pyrotechnics from Taylor Hawkins. Tracks like "Dear Rosemary" and "I Should Have Known" also added a more solemn side to the proceedings, each starting soft and somber before growing to absolute powerhouses. Read more...

Tags david letterman, Foo-Fighters

By Vaughn Schoonmaker

A couple weeks ago, I sat down with the boys of Mindless Behavior at Radio City Music Hall to learn who they are, what their band name means, and what fans might be able to expect in the next few years of their music career. As the opening act for Janet Jackson on her Number Ones Tour, the 13-year-old boys, Prodigy, Princeton, Ray Ray, and Roc Royal, were all smiles and incredibly humbled to be a part of the show. Click on the embedded video to check out Mindless Behavior and this is their Opening Act.

I found the boys to be anything but "mindless," as far as what I understood the word to mean prior to meeting them. Rather than a lack of knowledge or self-control, they explained to me that "mindless" is a lifestyle that means being true to yourself and ignoring pressure to act otherwise.

They've opened for other big names before, including Justin Bieber and the Backstreet Boys, so I was curious about what it's like to constantly stand in front of someone else's fans. Their faces lit up as they explained how happy it makes them to see other artists' fans dance to MB music night after night, knowing that regardless of age or music genre, their songs were finding appeal across the different fan groups.

The video for their first single, "My Girl," has nearly 7 million views on their YouTube site, and in case I had any doubt about their presence in mainstream entertainment, the dozens of girls screaming for them outside of Radio City settled that.

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Tags Mindless Behavior, Opening Act