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Fight Hunger In Africa And Get Your Loved Ones Something Cool This Holiday Season With The MTV Fights Hunger Auction

Posted 12/13/11 4:19 pm EST by in Activism, Charity

Still looking for that perfect Christmas gift for that special someone in your life? Are you or that special someone socially conscious and always looking for ways to tie your gift-giving to making the world a better place? Then we – well, our friends at MTV ACT, really – have some news for you!

ACT is auctioning off a meet-and-greet with the cast of the "Jersey Shore," tickets to MTV's New Years' Eve celebration in Times Square, lunch with Sway at MTV headquarters, signed items from your favorite MTV personalities and music superstars, and much, much more to benefit the FWD Campaign, a relief effort for the Horn of Africa created by USAID and the Ad Council. Across the eastern Horn of Africa, more than 13 million people are in dire need of emergency assistance to survive. In the spirit of the season, ACT is working hard to bring as much awareness (and $$$) to the epidemic as it can.

For more information on the MTV Fights Hunger Auction, visit ACT and the ebay auction site. The auction is open now and continues through December 18. Cehck out a full list of items up for grabs after the jump. Read More...

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Happy Birthday Taylor Swift!

Posted 12/13/11 9:00 am EST by in Happy Birthday!, Taylor Swift

Today, adorable cardigan sweater enthusiast Taylor Swift turns 22! Happy birthday, Taylor. We'd buy you a drink if, you know, you were into that sort of thing.

Here on the MTV Newsroom blog, we're kind of obsessed with Taylor Swift. Not in a weird way or anything! It's more of a "we think it's kind of funny that this extraordinarily successful and talented 22-year-old beauty queen can be counted on to do the sorts of things your 45-year-old aunt Sally does" situation. We've even devoted a semi-recurring feature to it called "This Week In Taylor Swift Being Taylor Swift."

>>> This Week In Taylor Swift Being Taylor Swift: OMG CHRISTMAS!
>>> This Week In Taylor Swift Being Taylor Swift: She Named Her Cat After A 'Grey's Anatomy' Character
>>> This Week In Taylor Swift Being Taylor Swift: She Tweets Her Thanks To Famous Friends After CMA Win, Finds A Christmas Tree

We're not even being tools about it either! We think it's great that Taylor is so authentically herself in spite of whatever pressure might be coming at her from the music industry, which tries to sex up even the sweetest starlets. Taylor Swift is America's Sweetheart and wears the title proudly and responsibility and that is something to really admire.

And you know she's gotta be one of the coolest cats in the game if she was able to round up the eclectic cast of characters who joined her on stage during her massive, sold-out world tour behind Speak Now, which is the second biggest album of 2011 and was recently nominated for multiple Grammy Awards. Not just anyone can get, ahem, Nicki Minaj, T.I., Justin Timberlake, Jason Mraz, Hayley Williams, Hot Chelle Rae, Nelly, Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney on stage for a fairly impromptu duet. But Taylor Swift isn't just anybody. Happy birthday, girl!

After the jump, check out T.I. getting real with MTV News about the differences between being backstage at a Taylor Swift concert and a hip-hop show. (Hint: Both are exactly as you'd expect them to be!) Read More...

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Taylor Swift's Best Video Of 2011 (Poll)

Posted 12/13/11 7:00 am EST by in Newsroom Poll, Taylor Swift, Video

This week in the MTV Newsroom, we're celebrating some of our favorite stars of 2011 by asking you, their loyal fans, which of their videos from the last year is your favorite. Yesterday, we opened things up with Katy Perry and today, in honor of her 22nd birthday, we're taking a look back at Taylor Swift's big year.

We love Taylor Swift in the MTV Newsroom. Sure, we sometimes have a little fun at her expense with our "This Week In Taylor Swift" posts, but it's because she's so dang adorable when she takes to her Twitter to post pictures of her kitten Meredith or homemade Christmas snow globes that there's nothing else to say other than "That's so Taylor!" Her genuine niceness and innate wholesomeness stands in sharp contrast with the behavior of most of her celebrity peers and it's something we're thankful for. There are, after all, only so many Kardashian divorce posts a blogger can write before he loses his mind. So, Taylor, thank you for being so authentically you all the time. You're a breath of fresh air!

The country-pop superstar ruled the charts in 2011. Speak Now, which was actually released in late-October of last year, kept on chugging along on the strength of several hit singles (and videos) and ended 2011 as the second biggest album of the year. Swift released five video off her well-reviewed album, which we think was shafted out of nominations in some of the bigger categories for next year's Grammys, in 2011.

Which one is the fan-favorite? Check them out ("Back to December" is above, the rest are below) and vote in our poll after the jump! Read More...

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Our Suggestions For Your 2011 Holiday Party Playlist

Posted 12/12/11 2:30 pm EST by in Best Of, Holiday, parties, Year End 2011

It's that time of year.

Whether you 're the boss of a quiet little company in Omaha, Nebraska, or you're a busy city dweller with a tight urban family and too much work piled up to travel over the river and through the woods, the holidays mean one thing: PARTY! (Actually, they mean a lot of things, like love and family and giving, but just go with it.)

That means it's time to boogie! From an official company affair to just having a bunch of friends over to swill one-too-many bottles of Three Buck Chuck, if you're hosting a shindig, you have to have a playlist that is going to get everybody up and moving.

Here are some required (not recommended, mind you) singles from the year that was that demand to be spinned at your holiday fiesta.

>>>"Till The World Ends," Britney Spears
It's Brit's biggest single in years and it's maybe one of her best. "You want a party song, call a partier," Rolling Stone said in its three-and-a-half star review. "Written by Ke$ha (with Max Martin and Dr. Luke), the second single from Femme Fatale is ginormously pumping uber-Euro uber-disco: sky-sucking synth streaks, a beat that sounds like blimps f**king and a thousand shirtless drunken sailors chanting along on the chorus." In dance music language, that's pretty much the highest possible compliment. Plus, we're about a year out from the Mayan apocalypse, so ... you know ... dance till the world ends, y'all!

>>> "We Found Love," Rihanna
It's been the No. 1 single in the country for the last SIX consecutive weeks (and counting) and pretty much everyone loves it to pieces. If you don't play "We Found Love," your friends or employees will know just how out of step with pop culture you really are.

Read on for more! Read More...

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Katy Perry's Best Video Of 2011 (Poll)

Posted 12/12/11 10:08 am EST by in Katy Perry, Newsroom Poll, Video

It's been a big year for Katy Perry. She broke long-held music industry records, scored a bunch of Grammy nominations (and is up for even more in 2012), won a boat load of awards and, very importantly, made some great music videos.

(This weekend, she also hosted "Saturday Night Live" and was pretty damn funny!)

While the video that won her the VMA for Video of the Year, "Firework," was actually released in 2010, she kept the quality level high with the three clips she released in 2011. But which one was her fans' favorite? Check 'em out below and vote in our poll after the jump!

"E.T."

Read on for "Last Friday Night (TGIF)" and "The One That Got Away" and to vote for Katy's best video of 2011. Read More...

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Look Who Paid A Visit To MTV News Today!

Posted 12/9/11 1:38 pm EST by in Movies

Here in the MTV Newsroom, we are lucky enough to have some of the biggest stars in the world swing through for a visit, but it's not often that a star lights up the room by being as down-to-earth and approachable as Charlize Theron. To say that the Oscar-winning actress was a riot is an understatement. (But noting that I'm now blind because she was the most beautiful person I've ever actually seen in real life is not.)

Dealing with the famous and fabulous can definitively be a mixed bag. For every pro who rolls in on time and ready to go, there's a star who arrives late with a list of things you're not allowed to ask them (and they're almost always the things people most care about). We're pleased to report that Theron, who is getting awards buzz for "Up in the Air" director Jason Reitman's "Young Adult," falls squarely in the earlier category. In fact, Theron got here early … so early that we didn't quite have the interview space and cameras ready to go for her "After Hours" sitdown with our very own Josh Horowitz.

So what's a major movie star to do when she has 10 or so minutes to kill? Well, she hangs out in the newsroom amongst the worker bees, of course. Theron and her team joked around, laughed and carried on in a way that made us think she'd be a blast to have a drink with. Be jealous!

Check out the trailers for Theron's next two films, "Young Adult" and "Snow White and the Huntsman," after the jump. Read More...

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Is Madonna's Kiss Her Way Of Anointing The Next Big Thing?

Posted 12/8/11 4:00 pm EST by in Britney Spears, Madonna, nicki minaj, Tweet Beat

Madonna

So everyone's going crazy because Nicki Minaj tweeted that she locked lips with the Queen of Pop, Madonna, on the set of the music video for "Give Me All Your Love," the buzzed about first single from Madonna's forthcoming 12th studio album.

Apparently, kissing Her Madgesty is oh-so good … "OH MY f'ingggg Gahhhh!!!!! MADONNA jus kissed me!!!!! On the lips!!!!!!! It felt sooooo good. Soooo soft!!!! *passes out* aaahhhhh!!!!!!!!!" Nicki tweet-screamed to all of her Brabz and Kenz late last night. She continued her swoon-athon with a series of tweets (which you can check out after the jump!) for over an hour after.

Which got us thinking about what a kiss from Madonna really means. Of course, any time Madge locks lips with another lady, our mind is immediately drawn back to the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, where the Queen and the Princesses – that's Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, for those who don't know (and how is life under that rock?) – performed a "Like A Virgin" medley that included one of the most famous lip locks of all time.

In its own weird way, a lot of people read the performance and kiss and Madonna's way of anointing Spears as her pop successor. Sure, she kissed Christina too, but that's not what anyone remembers. They remember that jaw-dropping lip lock with Spears, who was then at the height of her global fame and still a few years removed from the personal drama that nearly consumed her career (blessedly, she got the help she needed and is back and as good as ever today).

Does that mean she sees something special in Nicki too? Read More...

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Why Ryan Seacrest Is A Terrible Choice To Replace Matt Lauer On The 'Today' Show

Posted 12/8/11 10:16 am EST by in Television

News broke today that Ryan Seacrest is the top choice to replace Matt Lauer on the "Today" show. This is a terrible idea for a variety of reasons.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Seacrest met with NBC executives, including "Today" show executive producer Jim Bell, NBC News President Steve Capus and Lauren Kapp, NBC's senior vice president for marketing and communications, Tuesday evening to discuss replacing Lauer on the top-rated morning news program if the veteran anchor decides to retire from his morning post when his contract is up next year. Lauer first appeared on "Today" in 1992, filling in for former newsreader Margaret Larson when needed. He joined the program full-time as a news anchor/reporter in 1994, while also still anchoring "Today in New York" and "Live at Five," and officially assumed the co-anchor chair opposite Katie Couric in January 1997, replacing Bryant Gumble.

While Lauer said earlier this year that he has no plans to leave NBC, more recent reports have suggested he may be interested in reuniting with Couric when her ABC talk show launches in the fall of 2012. Insiders report that he has been indicating to NBC execs privately that he may leave the show.

We mean no offense to Seacrest when we say he would be a misguided replacement for Lauer. He is a charming interviewer and a dynamic host. But he is not a hard-news journalist. To successfully anchor the "Today" show you have to be all three of these things. Read More...

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Don't Forget To Vote For The Band You Think Is Going To Blow Up Big In 2012!

Posted 12/7/11 10:41 am EST by in Bands We Like, Best Of, Newsroom Poll, Year End 2011

This year we've hit upon rock bands from across the spectrum in our weekly feature Bands We Like. As some of these somewhat under the radar groups begin to take off – Other Lives will soon be the opening act for Radiohead, El Bronx fulfilled their own fantasy by appearing on Conan’s late night show and The New Regime’s Ilan Rubin is the new drummer for Tom DeLonge’s side-project, Angels & Airwaves – we're looking to you indie music fiends to see which Band We Liked is destined to will be the breakout act of 2012.

We've narrowed down five of our favorites (Fitz & the Tantrums, Other Lives, Dredg, The New Regime and Mariachi El Bronx). Now, it's your turn. To find out more about the bands we've selected, go HERE, and vote in our "Which Band We Liked Will Blow Up In 2012?" poll after the jump. Read More...

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Happy 30th Birthday, Britney Spears!

Posted 12/2/11 10:56 am EST by in Britney Spears, Happy Birthday!

Today is the big day!

Our girl Britney Spears turns 30 today and we're pretty excited! MTV News has been hosting a March Madness-style tournament, Britney Spears: 30 Videos For 30 Years, to find out which of Britney's legendary clips is her fans' favorite in the lead-up to her big birthday (we'll have the results later, stay tuned!), so it's been a pretty Britney-riffic two weeks in the MTV Newsroom. We wouldn't have it any other way – the tournament gave us all an opportunity to revisit Britney's classics and take a second look at her recent work, and I think I speak for the room when I say it was a pretty fantastic walk down memory lane.

Spears has released some of the most memorable videos of the last 12 years, songs that have provided a soundtrack for the big defining moments for a certain generation. I can remember being in high school and getting into heated debates about whether the video for "…Baby One More Time" was too sexy. (It wasn't! But that Rolling Stone cover … Woo hoo!) When I turned 21 and hit the bar/club scene for the first time, "Toxic" was the white-hot song of the moment. Read More...

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