Today, the once fawned-over phenom Alicia Keys released her fifth album, Girl on Fire (not a Hunger Games reference!). It's pretty good — I've never thought of her as a great provider of texture, but there's a sonic adventurousness to this album unlike that of any she's released so far. Perhaps it is compensation for her increasingly strained voice (though that sort of thing rarely bothers me — a little grit from overuse can add a lot of soul).

Dolly Parton says implants don't age: "My girls are doing pretty good." Now you know.

This bonus track from the upcoming official release of Terius Nash's 1977 album is nicely sung given his limited vocal capacity in addition to being raw as hell, but the best thing about it is its title. "Tender Tendencies." "Tender Tendencies." "Tender Tendencies!" It sounds like something you'd give your pet to keep them from gnawing your face off (aka pet treats).

Here are blessings that Nicki Minaj may or may not be thankful for, as stated on the re-release of the sequel to her first album:

As the 150 journalists and fans held captive on Rihanna's Boeing 777 return to their homes and families and try to build some semblance of a post-Rihanna Plane life, Rihanna herself remains unfazed, tweeting (threateningly?) about the space she now has on her "big ole jet."

Justin Bieber is in a cranky mood these days, which means he's either teething or ruing the day that his mother ever pushed him into a life of public scrutiny and emotional dwarfism. On Sunday's American Music Awards, he dedicated one award to his haters and, during his Artist of the Year (ha, Artist of the Year, can you imagine?) acceptance speech, he moaned, "It's hard growing up with everything going on, with everyone watching me."

A substantial portion of GQ's new interview with Frank Ocean, "Ocean-ography" (part of its Men of the Year coverage) is devoted to his infamous Tumblr letter that identified him as...well, someone who once loved a man, nothing more, nothing less. Part of the exchange goes:

The solid fifth album from people's diva, Keyshia Cole, Woman to Woman, is out this week and this song is its second single. She's singing her ass off, selling the cliché with the urgency of someone who has collection agencies on the other line. In another era, this would be a huge crossover smash — if not Cole's signature song, it would at least become her "I Have Nothing." Could still happen (anything is possible), but the chances of this going on to be a singing-competition staple are slight. Anthem ballads just don't sell like they used to. Prove me wrong, universe! Please.

"Did Chuck have AIDS?" someone off camera asks Rufus as he's storming out of frame. The setup is a candid interview, maybe for a reality show, maybe for a Maury-like talk show, and Rufus, a pastor, is refusing to answer questions about the man his wife caught him cheating with chapters and chapters ago in R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet saga.

After seven days in seven countries — seven tour stops separated by long rides on a Boeing 777 — our long national nightmare is over: the Rihanna plane has landed in New York, carrying with it the 150 beleaguered fans and journalists who'd been held captive at the whim of their Barbadian mistress. But for many, the last few hours were the hardest.

Kate Bush and Big Boi are well on their way to becoming BFFs. Which one are you more jealous of?

Jessie Ware has released a trio of remixes of Devotion's downtempo, virtually chanted "No To Love." All are excellent, giving the song a needed kick in the ass, but my favorite is this slapsticky and frenetic rerub from New Jersey house vet Todd Edwards. Who says no to this?

Our big stars are getting bigger. Half of the women who performed on last night's American Music Awards don't have bodies that live up to the perfection we supposedly want in our pop stars and what's more, they put these imperfect bodies on display: it's one thing to show up, but it's a far more brazen thing to emphasize said curves. Last night, Kelly Clarkson, Ke$ha, Nicki Minaj and Christina Aguilera all did just that, to varying degrees.

The American Music Awards aired last night. It was every bit the waste of time that you'd expect from a ceremony that, like the Billboard Music Awards, gives out trophies based on sales and presence (airplay, streaming, social networks, etc.) but fosters the illusion that it is awarding its already awarded stars based on merit (whatever that is). Notable moments included:

Christina Aguilera and Lana Del Rey both released collections of new music this week. Neither artist is a great diva in the neo-classic, pop sense of the word, but both have potential. To evaluate their diva status, I will shamelessly crib a comparative schism that Tyra Banks has routinely used on America's Next Top Model: each of them has what the other does not.

We've received word that the Rihanna plane, currently carrying over 200 journalists and fans, and also Rihanna, has landed safely in Stockholm. Sources tell us that it's "dark" and "feels weird."

For years, the world has gazed at Rihanna's tour plane from a distance — watching the mysterious and guarded vehicle from afar, hearing only small snippets of news from Rihanna-controlled media organs, relying entirely on accounts of refugees and political exiles. But in a historic display of glasnost, the Barbadian pop star has invited hundreds (literally! 200!) of journalists and fans to join her on a Boeing 777 for a seven-day, seven-country, seven-concert mini-tour, called #777Tour (pronounced: hashtag-seven-seven-seven-tour).

Ne-Yo's fifth album, R.E.D., was released last Tuesday and sold about 66,000 copies its first week in stores. That's about 40 percent less than his last album, Libra Scale, did its first week out, and that album was considered a disappointment. While it breaks no new ground, it's a shame that R.E.D. will probably go forgotten, as it's a collection of well-sung and -written R&B that surveys and attempts to perfect the genre's current trends. One of the loveliest tracks is "Should Be You," a Salaam Remi-produced bit of hip-hop soul that knocks like it's '96 and reminds me the most of Mario Winans' excellent "I Don't Wanna Know." That is manages to be great despite a guest verse from Diddy is a feat in itself.

"Ain't Nobody's Business," Rihanna's duet with her abuser Chris Brown from her upcoming Unapologetic album, has leaked. It is an excellent pop song: sublime, clear, catchy. For its chorus, it interpolates (and slightly alters) an adlb from Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel" for its chorus ("Ain't nobody's business but mine and my baby's"), but it's produced more in the style of Steve "Silk" Hurley's remix of Jackson's "Remember the Time." Produced by The-Dream and Los da Mystro, "Business" is a piano house number with a relaxed tempo and string shrieks, it manages to avoid EDM trappings (no drop anywhere to be found!), sounding classic and lovely. This will probably be massively popular, and impossible to ignore very, very soon. Rihanna and Chris Brown are reunited and it feels so cognitively dissonant.

Big Boi on Andre 3000's absence from his upcoming album: "He said he had to do some Gillette shit. No for real."