Our long national nightmare is finally over! Forget the contentious fight in the 23rd in New York, the squeaker of a Mayor's race in the big city or ripple effects of Republican victories across the country on Tuesday … LMFAO have chosen their new Polka Dot Bikini Girl!

After what I can only imagine was an exhaustive search requiring many late night YouTube screenings, multiple secret ballots and, to be sure, drinking games involving shots ("Shots! Shots! Shots!") to determine the finest candidate, the neon-loving duo announced that the lucky winner is 21-year-old Tampa, Florida native Nikole Kristine.

The enthusiastic party girl, who is about to graduate with a B.A. in fashion merchandising and marketing, explains in her online bio that she is "ready to get the Party Rock tour poppin'! I can play all day, dance all night, get it poppin' ... and get up in the morning and do it all over again," thanks to two years of modeling and runway experience.

Was it the bikini pictures that did it? The boundless enthusiasm for getting it popping? We may never know, but Sky Blu and Redfoo said they were looking for a lady with a "classy 1940s vibe" and well ... let's put it this way: Nikole is fierce in a polka dot bikini, rocks a mean homemade paper LMFAO chain, is very limber and knows how to look elegant while doing arm curls on a workout ball. Careful what you wish for fellas!

Kanye West seems to be taking the "If you don't have anything nice to say ..." stance by not coming right out and refuting the rumor from a few weeks ago that he had died in a fiery car crash in Los Angeles.

As he promised following his VMAs bum rush on Taylor Swift, 'Ye has been toning it down lately, staying out of the spotlight and the camera's glare and seemingly taking the high road by posting a series of thoughtful quotes from the legendary three-time Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali on his blog.

Kanye being Kanye, the so-far six-part cycle kicked off last week with a boast about how hard it is to be the greatest. But read in reverse order, the homage to Ali is a kind of guidebook to the perils and promise of growing up in public.

The latest quote went up Wednesday morning and it reads as follows: "Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer." It accompanies a black-and-white image of the notoriously brash Ali bowing his head in a humble gesture.

The previous day's quote was a bit more spirited: "Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even." That statement is paired with an image of the once-dominant champ staring down at a fallen opponent.

On Monday, he offered a shot of Ali in a boxing stance underwater with the Zen-like mantra, "It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out: it's the pebble in your shoe." Sunday's quote was perhaps aimed at the rapper's inner circle, intoning, "Friendship … is not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything."

Earlier on in the series, the second quote drew a clear line between Ali's notorious trash-talking poetry and Kanye's equally legendary self-confidence. "At home I am a nice guy. But I don't want the world to know. Humble people, I've found, don't get very far." And, way back last week, it all started with a comment that might have made doubters wonder whether Kanye wasn't that serious about toning things down: "When you are as great as I am it is hard to be humble."

It's kind of hard to beat a shelf that already sags under the weight of bobbleheads of Jason Vorhees, Napoleon Dynamite, Al Franken and the 40-Year-Old Virgin (complete with realistic chest hair removal patterns). But then I feasted my eyes on the piece de resistance of completely unnecessary but must-have gross-out collectibles: The GG Allin 1991 Extra Filthy Bloody Edition bobble.

Aggronautix, the same demented people who have created wobbly-necked figurines of such similarly obscure punk rock icons as Tesco Vee of the Meatmen, Milo of the Descendents and the barely-legal Dwarves, have truly gone all out for the second edition of the Allin figure, which commemorates the scat-loving punk icon in all his messy glory.

From the bloody hematoma on his forehead to the true Manchu beard-mustache combo, bloody cuts on his body and guaranteed-to-offend tattoos, this seven-inch tall likeness of the late punker best known for using the stage as a toilet, performing naked and attacking his fans is for the hardcore only. A reissue of a 1991 bobblehead, this new, 500 numbered unit version promises "copious amounts of blood and filth."

Have we mentioned that the GG figure gets a thumbs up from "The Hangover" director Todd Phillips? (Keeping in mind that his directorial debut was the Allin documentary "Hated," so maybe he’s a bit biased.)

It's never too early to start your holiday shopping, so grab one of these and cross mom off of your list!

When I was a kid, my mom would make birthday cakes that looked like trains, or zoo cages. One time there was a really, really scary clown. There are psychic scars, to be sure, but they're likely nothing compared to poor Ireland Basinger-Baldwin, 14, daughter of battling ex's Kim Basinger and Alex Baldwin.

The teen — who, you might recall, was on the wrong end of a really nasty voicemail from her pops two years ago — reportedly got a frighteningly accurate specialty birthday cake last week in the shape of Lil Wayne's head, complete with licorice dreads, chocolate sunglasses and iced out icing grill. We have no idea if this story is true (since the image from Los Angeles ace cake shop Rosebud Cakes has since been removed from its Flickr account), but any way you slice it, that is the most WTF?-tastic cake we've ever seen.

Congratulations Kim and Alex, you may have outdone that dad who reportedly advertised on Craigslist for a Lil Wayne impersonator for his blind 16-year-old's birthday party. "Here is the kicker my son is blind so you do not need to look like the rapper just sound like him. I understand he grunts and mumbles a lot. I don't care if you are 67 and Jewish if you can sing the songs you're hired," the Craigslist ad read. "Money is not an issue." We can't confirm if that dad ended up getting the cake he wanted, but we hear it looked a bit like Whoopi Goldberg.

There are so many reasons that Heath Ledger's death from an accidental drug overdose in 2008 at age 28 was a tragic loss for his fans. But in addition to the legendarily intense Australian star's Academy Award-winning on-screen performances, his posthumously-revealed skill as a director has provided proof that Ledger had vision beyond his thespian chops.

Minds were already blown earlier this year when Modest Mouse let loose the animated clip for "King Rat" directed and conceived by Ledger as a not-so-subtle ecological parable about our destruction of the oceans. And his posthumously-released 2007 video for the Nick Drake song "Black Eyed Dog" — a movingly dark black-and-white clip that ends with Ledger drowning himself in a bathtub — provided another dim chapter in the brooding actor's singular profile.

On Thursday, yet another Ledger-directed video, this one for his childhood friend rapper N'fa Forster-Jones, was released and it showed yet another side of the actor's multifaceted personality.

The video for the song "Cause An Effect," shot in 2006, features the Australian rapper in a kind of White Stripes-like alternate reality, wearing stark black and white and red and white face paint against zebra-striped backgrounds that create a kaleidoscopic effect and reveal Ledger's sharp eye for visual aesthetics.

In a video accompanying the clip, Forster-Jones describes how it was shot in one day the garage of Ledger's beachside apartment. "He gave me a call one morning, as he often did at crazy hours, and he's like, 'N'fa, I've got this idea for a video,'" the rapper explains. "He was basically running around directing me each shot … It was a really cool day … Every day I count my blessings that I got to have him direct this piece of art." According to the Associated Press, the video debuted earlier this month as part of a collection of Ledger's work shown at the Rome Film Festival.

It's been a long time since Mickey Avalon was passing out demos at Hollywood nightclubs and scrambling to secure a deal with MySpace Records. If you slept on his self-titled 2006 debut — an insanely profane, gutter-hugging punk rap manifesto featuring the classics "Jane Fonda" and "So Rich, So Pretty" — might I suggest you boost a copy from the cut-out bin of your local used record store? (It's what the old Mickey might have done.)

A few years removed from his more sordid days of street chaos, Avalon has been grinding away on his second album for the past few years, recording more than 70 tracks with a bevy of bold-faced names and a couple of unlikely hotshot producers. Calling in from Los Angeles on Thursday (don't worry, Governator — Mickey's mom was driving the car), Avalon gave a preview of what fans can expect from the tentatively titled Electric Gigolo, which is penciled in for release in the first quarter of 2010 on Interscope Records.

"I've been working this whole time, then I got an executive producer named Dr. Luke," he said, speaking of the mega-producer behind hits for Kelly Clarkson ("Since U Been Gone"), Avril Lavigne ("Girlfriend"), Katy Perry ("I Kissed a Girl"), Flo Rida ("Right Round") and Miley Cyrus ("Party in the U.S.A."). "He's been a fan of mine and I already had so much work done with [good friend, Shwayze members and Dyslexic Speedreaders band mate] Cisco [Adler] and other producers. He came in and we reworked some of the stuff I did with other producers and put his touch on them." In the meantime, Avalon has also been dropping songs like the just-released Luke-produced Billy Squier-sampling sex rap "Stroke Me" and "What Do You Say," a hop-along party rhyme that was on the soundtrack to "The Hangover."

With so much music sitting around, Avalon said he's planning on releasing a few mixtapes (or just leaking out a song or two every couple weeks) over the next couple months, while he keeps working on new songs with other producers including Benny Blanco (Britney Spears, Jordin Sparks, 3OH!3), Kool Kojak (Dirt Nasty, N.A.S.A., Ke$ha) and frequent collaborator Sunny Levine (Pete Yorn, Happy Mondays).

Avalon has some big-name guest spots he's hoping to nail down for the new album, only one of which he could talk about now. Read more...

If you're like me (and be glad you're not), you were probably a bit disappointed when you went to go see Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are" and didn't hear any Arcade Fire songs playing behind footage of the mopey nine-foot beasties wandering around in the Outback.

Not to worry. In addition to the excellent Karen O and the Kids-fueled official soundtrack to the film, skate rat Jonze has taken a cue from recent collaborator Kanye West and cooked up a street-legal mixtape of songs he has posted on his "Wild Things"-related blog, We Love You So. The site, a Kanye-style compendium of amazing things, features instructions on how to make your own Max costume, images of "Wild Things" cakes and cookies, amazing outsider art and a great "We Were Once a Fairytale" mock outtake in which Jonze slaps 'Ye for acting like a stuck-up celebrity during the shoot.

According to the post announcing the tape, it was created as a request of the "Sound Advice" crew and curated by Jonze and collaborators Dallas Clayton, Graham Kolbeins, Molly Young and Matt Rubin. The best part? It includes snippets of the version of Arcade Fire's "Wake Up" that appeared in the "Wild Things" trailer, which led many to believe that the Canadian collective would be scoring the film.

The rest of the selections are pretty much what you'd expect from the peripatetic Jonze, with plenty of selections we know and love (Girls, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Mika Miko, Jens Lekman, Times New Viking, Kurt Vile, Lee Hazelwood), and a bunch more that even we've never heard of (Pamela Blue, Mulatu Astatke, Green Bean, Mort Garson, Alaska Y Dinarama).

I'll tell you this: I had never heard of Capybara before, but "The Wimp" is totally the soundtrack to my day now. Thanks, Spike.

If you're like me, you woke up Tuesday morning (like, really, really early), stumbled down to your underground media bunker (not as sexy as it sounds) and did a triple take when you saw the phrase "Har Mar Superstar" at the very top of Google Trends. Like, above Rudolph Valentino and the hot Mormon muffins calendar.

But we were probably confused for different reasons. See, I know who Har Mar is. In fact, I'm a huge fan of the balding, tubby Minnesota hunk of white funk thunder who bears an uncanny resemblance to Jon Lovitz' character in "The Critic." The singer (who also records under the name Sean Na Na and whose given name is Sean Tillman) has been making waves the past few weeks thanks to the outrageously weird video for the first single, "Tall Boy," from his new album, Dark Touches. In case you haven't seen it, two words will suffice: Eva Mendes.

Har Mar, whom "Late Night" host Jimmy Fallon referred to as "one of the most unique performers" to emerge over the past few years, likely got the Google bump after a bigger slice of America caught wind of his unique stylings on Fallon's Monday night show. Wearing an African-themed caftan, gold lamé cocktail gloves and red pants, the diminutive funkster shimmied across the stage, whipped his ape drape around and proved for the umpteenth time that you can't judge a book by its cover.

The slinky performance of the shimmery funk tune that appears to swing both ways and which allegedly was offered to Britney Spears first, prompted Fallon to refer to Har Mar as a "legend." It also drew praise from house band drummer ?uestlove of the Roots, who tweeted, "Hahahaha told my band they weren't ready for Har Mar Superstar," and Fallon himself, who added, "Har Mar Superstar done gone and did it on tonight's show."

Here's everything else you need to know about Har Mar: he often ends up nearly nude during his shows (trust me, he gave my friend a very sweaty, intimate hug at a club show a few years ago that she will never forget), his 2004 album, The Handler has at least four absolutely classic, very nasty electro funk tunes on it ("Body Request," "Cut Me Up," "Back the Camel Up" and "Bird in the Hand”) and he made a cameo in the 2004 movie "Starsky and Hutch" as "Dancin' Rick," a disco champ who takes on Ben Stiller's David Starsky.

At this stage, a clearer picture is coming together about "Michael Jackson's This Is It." Using a combination of rehearsals, fly-on-the-wall meetings and proper performances, it shows the once-unstoppable pop star gearing up for his big career comeback using some of his most beloved hits (and sending a message about hope and humanity in the process).

A great music doc is made up of a combination of signature moments, incredible performances and an ineffable something that can give the fan sitting on the couch that same twinge of electricity you get standing three feet from a sweaty lead singer in a packed stadium, or that awkward cringe you get seeing your favorite rock star fall apart on film. In his prime, Jackson had that magic (both kinds, unfortunately) when he took the stage, and we'll find out for sure next week if he still had it near the end of his life.

In the meantime, here are some of my favorite music documentaries, all of which have one or more of the qualities that could make "Michael Jackson's This Is It" great if producers decided to pull no punches and present the King of Pop in all his complicated glory.

Three Chords And The Truth
The Ramones, "End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones"
How could I not include this bare bones 2003 movie about my favorite band? From their early days at New York's defunct punk ground zero CBGB to massive crowds in South America, this low-budget flick is like the band themselves: Raw, fast and kind of messy. Mixing concert footage, interviews, home movies and classic TV appearances, members talk about their unlikely rise from the New York underground to legendary status, even as they lament their failure to grab the commercial brass ring and make no secret of long-simmering tensions.

Sold Out, Not Sell Out
Nirvana, "Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!"
I will watch anything about Nirvana. Hell, if there was three hours of tape of Kurt Cobain tuning his guitar in a dark room, I'd get two copies on Blu-Ray. In the meantime, this 1994 live DVD will have to do, and considering it has classic takes on some of the band's best and most beloved tunes ("About a Girl," "Come as You Are," "Polly," "Lithium" and, yes, "Smells Like Teen Spirit"). This band had to be experienced live and, unfortunately, this is the closest you can currently get.

Behind The Music
Metallica, "Some Kind of Monster" Read more...

Why settle for one controversial image when a half dozen will do? That seems to be the tactic Rihanna is employing on the cover to "Russian Roulette," the first single from her upcoming album Rated R. It's got everything: the giant, gleaming blade "R" logo; the blood-dripping track title; a sinister peek-a-boo eye patch; gold corset; and, of course, her provocative barbed wire-wrapped torso.

While it's just the companion image to her single (so who knows what the actual album cover will look like?), the edgy picture has already set tongues wagging and gotten us thinking about some of our other favorite envelope-pushing album artwork.

(Click here for more controversial album covers from the likes of Prince, Nirvana, David Bowie and Bon Jovi!)

» No list would be complete without the bloody baby bodies and butcher outfits donned by the Beatles for Yesterday … and Today. The Fab Four were forced to replace the art on their 1966 album with a more benign image of them crowded around a steamer trunk. (Meanwhile, the original became a sought-after collector's item.)

» What's more disturbing? The image of a buzz saw slicing through a man's tight trousers as his bloody hands hold onto a metal codpiece, or the title Animal (F*** Like a Beast)? Whatever you think, metal band W.A.S.P. found out in 1983 that what really offended people was foul language, so a pair of stars were cloned in to cover up the offending word.
Read more...