It's Pop Week here at MTV News, and that means we're catching up with and getting to know everyone who's going to make a splash in pop music and culture over the next 12 months. Whether they're just arriving on the scene or are already the name on everyone's lips, these are the artists we expect big things from in 2009.

It's a new year and you, Female Pop MVP Katy Perry, have so much going on for you (tour, Grammys, etc.) — especially now that you're a single pop star. Read more...

The new year is already a bummer, and not just because I missed out on a four-team parlay by taking the Vikings yesterday. (Thanks, Tarvaris Jackson!) No, the reason 2009 is starting on such a bad note is that my favorite couple of 2008 has called it quits. That's right, Katy Perry and Gym Class Heroes frontman Travis McCoy apparently are no more.

It's difficult to say that I didn't see this one coming. After all, Perry — who first appeared as a blip on the radar with a cameo in Gym Class Heroes' "Cupid's Chokehold" video — shot to worldwide fame in '08, thanks mostly to her penchant for kissing girls (and liking it). She became a sex symbol, a lightning rod for criticism and, uh, a doll. McCoy, on the other hand, released an album that got a fairly underwhelming response. Oh, and he got tattoos of Hall and Oates on his hands. Through it all, they appeared happy, but Perry had eclipsed McCoy and become the more famous of the two. She was the one people asked about in interviews — whether it was about "I Kissed a Girl" or her face-plant into a Quinceañera cake (or sometimes, both) — and McCoy was probably getting tired of it (he sure sounded that way in this blog post). Read more...

By Jordan Upmalis

Blogs have certainly leveled the playing field as far as reactions go -- if an artist doesn't like something someone has written, they can come to their own defense within minutes. Well, Gym Class Heroes' Travis McCoy has done just that in response to a Billboard report about The Quilt, his band's follow-up to 2006's As Cruel as School Children.

The article, which Billboard published on Friday, says that on the group's previous album, McCoy's lyrical "vice of choice was cocaine" and on this one "it's women," referring not only to the first single, "Cookie Jar," but two other tracks, titled "Innocent" and "Come Clean."

By Saturday, McCoy had responded on his personal blog with an entry entitled "Billboard 'REVIEW.'" In it, he calls Billboard one of "the most prominent music publications in the industry," but goes on to question their musical-interpretation abilities. "Do these people really listen to the music," he asks, "or do they just skim through it?" He admits that "Coming Clean" can be "misleading," as it refers to his "affair with music," but with the exception of "Cookie Jar" he says the theme of the record has little to nothing to do with infidelity, as Billboard speculated.

As fans await The Quilt's arrival on September 9, McCoy leaves the interpretation to them, saying, "I like to let our albums be somewhat of a 'choose your own adventure' listen."