The great American pastime of reading musicians' touring demands now encompasses the current crop of electronic producer/DJs under the stylistic umbrella of "EDM." The blog EDMsnob has leaked a host of riders from the likes of David Guetta, Afrojack, Paul Van Dyk, DJ Pauly D and current Rolling Stone cover mask-wearer deadmau5. Some of these are years old, and most of them are not unreasonable at all, but there are amusing tidbits to be gleaned. Here are a few:

It's been 10 years since Tweet's hit masturbation ode "Oops (Oh My)," with little chart activity in between ("Call Me" went Top 40, so she isn't technically a one-hit wonder, but still...). In another era, there would be no Tweet to speak of a decade later, but thanks to the magic of the Internet, she remains a presence who's taken to releasing a series of barely commercial R&B songs accompanied by the #TweetTuesdays hashtag. These kicked off with an impressively sung remake of Aretha Franklin's "Day Dreaming." The third in the series, "C 4eva," is below. Beatless but propelled by rhythmic cricket sounds, the song finds Tweet oozing delicately over an acoustic guitar. It's equal parts Deniece Williams and Aaliyah. It's so ethereal, it's practically ambient. It sounds like it blew right past the shackles of pop aspiration.

By the time Lana del Rey released her album Born to Die in January, the discourse around her had swirled hard enough that critics merely had to push back for an angle. Many of the reviews served as backlash to the backlash regarding her persona, her inadequacy as a performer, and her deeply frivolous lyrics. Some of the best (/-paid) thinkers about pop music responded to her antagonist, the Internet, to say that it didn't matter if she changed her name from Lizzy Grant and obscured the real her with "gangster Nancy Sinatra" posturing. The biggest sham in question wasn't del Rey but the entire notion of "authenticity."

Iggy Azalea almost wasn't Internet-famous. Last summer, the native Australian was living in Los Angeles, and after what was supposed to be two weeks in Miami at age 16 had turned into five years spent in four cities throughout the states, she was down to the last of her savings. She had one shot left, and so she used that money to film the music video for "PU$$Y," a song off her first mixtape.

On next week's Billboard Hot 100, dated June 23, Carly Rae Jepsen's diabolical ear candy "Call Me Maybe" at last assumes the No. 1 position. The song was practically preordained as the song of the summer, and wouldn't you know, it happens hit No. 1 on the first chart of summer proper. Everything is going according to the universe's plan.

There should be a name for the kind of crisis that occurs between the status-anxious quarter-life type and the desperately youth-reclaiming midlife variety. That male, mid-30's freak out that masquerades as a nonstop party is an Atlantic trend piece waiting to happen, full of quotes from single-ish men who are too immature to know better or men that do know better and consciously flaunt their remaining immaturity.

When Jay-Z and Kanye West released Watch the Throne last year, they did so, at least in part, to glorify things. Thing-glorification is a pursuit with a rich and not wholly invalid history in mainstream rap music. And from its opulent golden cover to its braggadocio about cars, clothes, jewelry, and women, Watch the Throne makes sense in the way that Paula Deen using whole tubs of butter makes sense—Jay-Z and Kanye West are rich men who like to revel in rich things.

Sorry, everyone, but you'll never escape this song this summer, so you might as well force yourself to watch every single goddamn daily cover released of Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe," because at least it changes things up a bit.

One of my favorite things that Malcolm X ever did was admit that he was wrong. His hajj to Mecca expanded his worldview and in an epiphanic letter home, he advocated his new-found belief in racial unity, explaining, "on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions."

Today, Prince turns 54 and his air-lick of a single "Gett Off," turns 21. It was on his 33rd birthday that he delivered this song to clubs, launching his Diamonds & Pearls album, which either marked the end of the second act of his career (megastardom) or the beginning of the third (tapering off). I can't really decide which. I do know that this is the song that converted me into a disciple, and I still adore "Gett Off" as much as I did in sixth grade. I admire its impossible sleaze (23 positions is so many to fit into a one-night stand) and ability to be utterly sexual and uptempo. Prince has portrayed a lot of different kinds of sex atop a lot of different kinds of music, but his best sex is rigorous. "Gett Off" is the best of the best.

E! News reported Wednesday evening that recently-engaged youth Miley Cyrus will release an album before her wedding to fiancé Liam Hemsworth, who has one of the greatest Wikipedia page pictures it will ever be your pleasure to see.

The good news about Sheryl Crow's brain tumor is that it's benign. The bad news is that it might be affecting her memory.

At last night's Queen's Jubilee concert in London, the 64-year-old Grace Jones showed the world who the real queen is. Bow down.

Did you know that in addition to hosting Family Feud and starring in shows like Hogan's Heroes and movies like The Running Man, the late Richard Dawson released a 1967 psychedelic single?

Twenty-five years ago today, George Michael kicked off his solo superstardom proper with "I Want Your Sex," the first single from his Faith album, which would follow in the fall. Notorious and shocking in its day (it was banned from the BBC), "I Want Your Sex" has aged hilariously. When I was 9 and didn't know anything about anything, "I want your sex," seemed like a plausible thing that one naughty adult might say to another. Now that I have conveyed that sentiment a variety of ways that span all the colors of the rainbow flag, I can say for sure that I never, ever, ever have uttered the words, "I want your sex" and meant them (and I am a straight shooter), nor have I heard anyone at any time do the same. Not to me, not to anyone. This song is a fantasy of expression.

The last thing I wanted to do on Memorial Day was think about soldiers. As Chris Hayes discovered, there are no good outcomes to examining American soldiery with more than one opinion: Awesome!

Last time we heard from lite '90s crooner Brian McKnight, he dropped an X-rated slow jam for his conceived (still forthcoming, I hope) adult mixtape that proclaimed, "Let me show you how your pussy works / Betcha didn't know that it could squirt." Now, as so many men do, he's moved onto the butthole. In a song he wrote for user-generated smut site YouPorn, he seduces the masses with: "You wanna see some fucking anal? I can get you close enough to smell."

Sometimes, the gods — otherwise known as music label execs — smile down upon us, and we're blessed with a great moment in pop. I don't know if our current moment is one for the ages, but it is really fucking enjoyable. In the U.S., Gotye's weirdo Sting/Zombies mash-up earworm, "Somebody That I Used to Know" is No. 1 for the sixth week. We love that song. Carly Rae Jespen's "Call Me Maybe" is at No. 2, poised to take over the top position whenever Gotye falls. That's another song we love. And Adam Lambert is the first out artist to hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Trespassing, his sophomore effort, is yet another thing we love. (Update: Lambert falls to No. 12 on next week's chart. But let's live in the moment?)

Mustachioed aspic Tom Friedman has written a thousand words in today's New York Times about Paul Simon. The point of the column seems to be, basically, that there's a new documentary about Simon's album Graceland, and also Paul Simon is Tom Friedman's friend.

When people respond to modern dance music, chances are they are responding to drops. A drop happens when the beat comes back after temporarily exiting the sound design. In drop-fueled dance music, this happens every few minutes — the beat asserts itself, people freak out, their interest wanes, the song breaks down, the beat dissolves and then drops back in, asserting itself all over again, making people freak out all over again. And over and over and over again.