by Mark Graham (@unclegrambo)

Katy Perry Is “Wide Awake” After Her Divorce From Russell Brand

At the moment, there is no more formidable team in music than Katy Perry, Bonnie McKee, Dr. Luke and Max Martin. During the 2009-2010 writing/recording sessions for Perry’s Teenage Dream album, this group wrote four songs together — “California Gurls”, “Teenage Dream”, “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” and “Part Of Me”. All four of those songs went to #1.

So when it came time for Katy to put together Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection earlier this year, she made sure to enlist the help of her dream team when it came to writing the sole “new” track for the record, which ultimately was titled “Wide Awake.” Back in March, she told our friends over at MTV News that the team wrote and recorded the track over the course of just four days. “I can’t wait eight months to be able to put out this feeling that I’m feeling right now,” she explained. “Not only did I write the song because I needed to flush that out of my system, but I wrote it for the film as well.”

Katy debuted “Wide Awake” at the Billboard Music Awards last night, and then dropped a brand new lyric video for the emotional track after the show. There is a “real” video for the track on the way, but as a way to satiate the masses until its release, this lyric video was released. It does not refer to the lyrics of the song directly — lyrics in which Katy comes to painful grips with her recent divorce from Russell Brand — but is notable in that it’s the first video to take on the look and feel of Facebook’s new(ish) timeline feature. And hey, if you pay close enough attention, you’ll see that VH1.com even gets a shout-out in it. Look ma, we’re finally famous!
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by Kat George (@kat_george)

Adam Lambert Describes His New LP As “Nine Inch Nails Meets Saturday Night Fever

American Idol runner-up and super duper pop star supreme Adam Lambert has revealed he’s pulling out the big guns for his next album, Trespassing. Enlisting the services of A-list producers Pharrell Williams and Dr. Luke, Lambert is taking his music in a new direction, and we’ve been warned — there will be dancing.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Lambert describes his new musical direction as a bit of dubstep, a bit of electronica, and even some “Nine Inch Nails meets Saturday Night Fever” sounds mixed in there. It’s not all about partying and clubbing, though, as Lambert makes it patently clear that his album will retain his trademark depth and boundary-pushing material. “There’s party music, sex music, f****d-up-relationship S&M music,” he tells RS. “But every song explores something real.”

Although his sophomore effort has been delayed a few times now, things seem to be on track for the album to come out sometime early next year. As much as we love the holiday season, 2012 can’t get here quickly enough! After all, we love us some Glambert!

Adam Lambert Storms the Dance Floor on New LP [Rolling Stone]