From the first gyration of Elvis Presley's hips on "The Milton Berle Show" (way back in the summer of 1955) to the last grab of the crotch during Adam Lambert's Sunday (November 22) night performance at the American Music Awards, musicians and live television have shared a rather contentious relationship.

Throughout the years, in attempts to shock audiences, promote albums or share their political views (or, you know, just because they were inebriated), artists have given censors fits with performances that pushed the boundaries of good taste — everything from bare butts to obscenity and potshots at the Pope. Things like that are the reason they invented the seven-second delay, after all.

So now, with Lambert already feeling the heat following his racy AMA performance, we decided it was a good time to re-visit some of the most shocking musical moments from in TV history — the ones that earned public condemnations and half-hearted apologies. Censors, get your fingers on the button.

Click here for photos from the most controversial musical television moments of all time, featuring Adam Lambert, Marilyn Manson, Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake!

Sinéad O'Connor Rips The Pope On "Saturday Night Live," 1992: Sinéad O'Connor and "Saturday Night Live" already had a rather interesting relationship before she decided to rip up a photo of the Pope in her infamous 1992 performance. Back in 1990, she backed out of a scheduled appearance on the show because she didn't want to share the stage with host Andrew Dice Clay. Two years later, after performing a moody a capella version of Bob Marley's "War," she produced a photo of Pope John Paul II, tore it to shreds and shouted "Fight the real enemy!" The audience reacted with stunned silence, and the media vilified O'Connor as an enfant terrible, and while she would later apologize for the act, she remained unrepentant.

Prince Shows Off His Assets At The VMAs, 1991: The Purple One took the stage at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards dressed in canary yellow, but it was his outfit didn't have that raised more than a few eyebrows: Read more...

Look, we all know what you're doing this weekend. You're not preparing for Thanksgiving, raking the last of your leaves before the snow arrives or indulging in this year's batch of Beaujolais Nouveau. Rather, you're going to be at your local cinema watching Taylor Lautner's perfectly-sculpted abdominal muscles in "The Twilight Saga: New Moon." And we can't blame you — it's a heck of a roller coaster ride through teenage angst and vampire mythology. But in between screenings (because you're obviously seeing it more than once), you should catch up on everything you missed this week here on the Newsroom blog.

» Last weekend saw a couple of cool-looking flash mobs in honor of Janet Jackson's Number Ones, and we had a first-person account from one of the dancers. (Be sure to catch Janet this Sunday on the American Music Awards, where she'll open the show.)

» MTV mourned the passing of comedian, TV producer and "Remote Control" host Ken Ober with classic clips and testimonials from friends.

» Rihanna premiered the hotly-anticipated video for "Russian Roulette," which really made us think about the head wound Balthazar Getty received in a David Lynch movie.

» Are you a hardcore fan of Adam Lambert, Kris Allen or Allison Iraheta? Make sure you enter our photo contest, with the winner receiving an autographed copy of the new issue of Elle magazine, which features all three!

» There was no shortage of other "American Idol" news this week. For example, we now know why Kris Allen changed his Twitter name.
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"It's gonna be sexy, I think. The wardrobe is amazing. I'm working with 10 dancers that I'm so impressed by. I was looking for a certain sensuality — five guys, five girls and they're all incredible."

-"American Idol" runner-up and For Your Entertainment mastermind Adam Lambert, telling MTV News about his upcoming performance on this Sunday night's American Music Awards broadcast, which marks the first time he'll sing in prime time since the "American Idol" finale in the spring. It'll be a big week for Lambert, as he will perform on Sunday and then drop his debut album on Monday, challenging a number of other high-profile artists (including Rihanna, Susan Boyle, Beyonc&233;, Lady Gaga and Shakira) to a Thanksgiving-week sales war. Lambert also talked about the band he brought together (the same group he just debuted online). "I auditioned a band a couple weeks ago that I've been working with," he told MTV News' Larry Carroll. "I'm so impressed by [them] and it feels really good to be part of a team situation again. It's great because I'm back in a team environment and it reminds me of my roots in musical theater." Check out Lambert — as well as the rest of the AMA performers, like Jay-Z, Rihanna, Eminem and Janet Jackson — this Sunday at 8 p.m. on ABC.

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.

The American Music Awards are rarely a high-profile event, but that changes this weekend. Sunday night's show features a handful of high-profile performances by Janet Jackson (who will open the show with an eight-minute presentation), Adam Lambert, Rihanna, Jay-Z, Shakira, Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga and Eminem (among others). Jennifer Lopez will also be performing (she'll roll out her new single "Louboutins" from her forthcoming new album Love?), and she spent yesterday on stage in Los Angeles rehearsing for the show. Based on the photos, the Lopez performance features a guest appearance by Michael Buffer (the "Let's get ready to rumble!" guy) and will have Lopez climbing all over her backup dancers and making a handful of leaps and jumps. It promises to be one of the big highlights in a show that should have no shortage of epic moments.

The American Music Awards air this Sunday at 8 p.m. on ABC. Be sure to stay tuned to MTV News for the latest updates and coverage of the big show. In the meantime, click here for the entire "Spotted!" archive, which features over 350 candid shots of stars like Britney Spears, Madonna, Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift, the Jonas Brothers, Mariah Carey, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Chris Brown, Pete Wentz and John Mayer!

During his tenure on "American Idol," Adam Lambert always showed signs of a glam rocker buried deep beneath the network television-friendly exterior. Now that he is dictating his career, the floodgates have opened. Last week, we saw the first photos from the video shoot for "For Your Entertainment," which appears to be set at an S&M club in the "Mad Max" universe. Yesterday, Lambert hopped on Twitter and revealed the first photo of his band to the universe. The five person combo keeps the theme going, combining Rihanna's taste for bondage with the end-of-humanity styling in John Carpenter's "Escape from New York."

The band will be appearing in the "For Your Entertainment" video and will also perform on stage with Lambert when he plays the American Music Awards, which air live this Sunday, Novmeber 22 on ABC and will also feature Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston and Jay-Z.

One striking thing about the photo of Lambert's band: In those costumes, they sort of look like goth New Wave futurists Orgy. This is an excellent development, as Orgy were a perpetually underrated band that were strangely lumped in with nü metal (being on Korn's record label probably didn't help) but actually dealt in glammy, pulsating futurist rock that featured healthy doses of Bowie and the Cure. Of course, we already have a sense of what For Your Entertainment is going to sound like, and it's nothing like Orgy, but it's refreshing to have a group that deals in such interesting aesthetic choices. For Your Entertainment is less than a week away, and it promises to be a huge juggernaut.

To celebrate the release of Janet Jackson's new compilation album, Number Ones, fans gathered Saturday for three Flash Mobs that took place in various locations in Los Angeles to dance and pay tribute to some of the veteran diva's best dance moves and songs. The events were produced by Flash Mob America, who posted the locations of the mobs on its Twitter page throughout the day. Hundreds of people gathered to watch, but it was the second Flash Mob stop that grabbed headlines. Soon after launching into their performance at Los Angeles shopping center the Grove, the performers realized that Janet herself was watching the mob from a balcony above the fray.

Joleen Nordstrom was one of those dancers, and she shared her story with the Newsroom:

The first Flash Mob went off flawlessly. The screeching noise at the beginning of the song started, and the Grove shoppers wondered, "What is going on, and why isn't someone fixing it?" The person standing next to me said, "Look at those people grabbing their heads!" I responded, "I know. Crazy!" — right before I started the Janet march and yelled the "huuhs," and we broke out into the dance.

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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.

Has anybody promoted his debut album better than Justin Bieber? The precocious 15-year-old posted some footage of him singing on the Internet, inspired a bidding war between Justin Timberlake and Usher (the latter won), amassed a ton of Twitter followers and Facebook friends, dropped a series of catchy singles (including the latest one, "Favorite Girl") and appeared on just about every television show available to musicians. Bieber's debut album My World hits the streets tomorrow, and Bieber kept up his push up on Sunday (November 15) with an appearance on "Good Morning America." He performed his first single "One Time" live on the show, and then when the cameras stopped rolling he sang a pair of Ne-Yo songs: "Because of You" and the new "Never Knew I Needed" (which is from the upcoming Disney animated film "The Princess and the Frog"). He won over yet another crowd (both live in the studio and on television), which bodes well for the debut of Bieber's album.

Bieber wasn't the only star who put in some work over the weekend, as Rihanna showed up in London to prepare for a big concert event and Janet Jackson appeared in Los Angeles to check out one of the flash mobs paying tribute to her. Click here for these photos plus the entire "Spotted!" archive, which includes over 350 candid shots of stars like Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake, Adam Lambert, Katy Perry, the Jonas Brothers and Madonna!

Lady Gaga's official Web site has been teasing a new music video for a few days now, but it has finally arrived. The clip, for the new single "Bad Romance," is vintage Gaga, featuring striking colors, bizarre costumes, stunning effects, muscular dancing and a little bit of ultra-violence. The clip is the first of two hotly-anticipated clips that Gaga will be premiering as tie-ins to her upcoming album The Fame Monster, an expanded version of her 2008 debut that includes eight brand-new tracks. (The other upcoming video is the Beyoncé-assisted "Telephone," which will appear on the expanded edition of Beyoncé's double album I Am ... Sasha Fierce.)

The video for "Bad Romance" seems to take place aboard a space station (perhaps the same one that Michael and Janet Jackson are on in "Scream") and has a vague narrative: Gaga is captured and brought to a man wearing a golden mandible, theoretically for sex. In the end, the tables are turned and Gaga once again ends the life of a suitor (in that sense, it makes "Bad Romance" a sort of spiritual sequel to "Paparazzi," which saw Gaga poison video boyfriend Alexander Skarsgard).

The key shot is one of the most striking in music videos in a long time. Clad in lingerie and a bearskin overcoat with a huge train, Gaga approaches her mandible-clad suitor and sets the bed on fire. She stands over the blaze half-triumphant, half-tragic. (The aftermath shot is even more impressive and sort of gory.) After winning Best New Artist at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, Gaga has created an early front-runner for next year's Video of the Year.

Tomorrow night, Taylor Swift will once again grace the stage at Studio 8H at Rockefeller Center when she serves as both the host and musical guest on this week's edition of "Saturday Night Live." It's familiar territory for Swift, who was last on the show back in January, making this her second appearance overall (and the second in this calendar year). Considering the cast hasn't shifted that dramatically between last season and this one, she should be comfortable and familiar with her surroundings. As her promos for this week's show — as well as the promos she cut with host Neil Patrick Harris back in January — she's perfectly comfortable with banter.

Swift wouldn't reveal very much about this weekend's show (except that nothing would be off limits), there are a few things that are almost certain to happen on Saturday night.

She'll Be In An Andy Samberg-fueled Digital Short: When the gig was announced, this was the only thing on Swift's wishlist. And she's done well in the past with experiments like this — remember her collaboration with T-Pain?
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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.

Last week, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart made their way out of Canada after wrapping up the filming of "Eclipse," which made our neighbor to the north slightly less star-studded than it was while the third installment of the "Twilight" film series was still shooting. Still, Canada got a pretty good trade-off, as they lost the "Twilight" stars but picked up Jay-Z, who visited Toronto on Halloween. He stopped by MuchMusic (with J. Cole, Pharrell and Wale in tow) and then threw down at the Air Canada Centre that night for a concert. He's probably hoping his hometown Yankees wrap up the World Series tonight, because Jigga will be on his way to London for a show on Wednesday night.

Hova wasn't the only star with an international flair over the weekend, as Green Day played a giant show at the city's Wembley Stadium on Sunday and Robert Pattinson made a trip to Japan. Click here for these photos as well as the entire "Spotted!" archive, which includes over 350 candid shots of stars like Britney Spears, Madonna, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake, the Jonas Brothers, Taylor Swift, U2, Janet Jackson and Adam Lambert!