Blog Posts by Caryn Ganz

Sex! Now that we've got your attention, we'd like to tell you that 92 percent of the biggest songs of 2009 were about sex. The Atlantic Wire tracked down a study published in Evolutionary Psychology that analyzed the 174 songs that hit the Top 10 on Billboard's singles chart two years ago for evidence of "reproductive messages." Such messages could be overt (references to "genitalia"), boastful (notes about "sexual prowess"), romantic (lyrics about "fidelity assurance"), bummed out ("rejection"), or literal ("parenting"). Researchers identified 18 such categories, then cued up the Kenny Chesney and Lady Gaga and started fanning themselves.

In addition to proving the somewhat obvious point -- pop songs are often about sex? Why we never! -- the study tracked a few somewhat obvious trends. Country songs mostly referenced commitment, parenting, rejection, and fidelity assurance while R&B tunes were frequently about sex appeal, resources, sex acts, and status.

The researchers also looked

The Irish farmer who told Rihanna to put some damn clothes on when she was doing a topless shoot for her "We Found Love" video on his property is now feeling the wrath of the Rihanna Navy. Alan Graham told the Sun (via NME) that irate fans have been reaching out to let him know he's a "Bible bashing maniac" (among other things), but he's unmoved by the influx of hate. "I'm taking it all in my stride, it'll soon die down," he told the paper. "To be honest, all this fuss has kept me back a bit. I've got straw to harvest that I haven't been able to finish yet." If this guy is so good with ticked-off fanatics, perhaps he'd like to write a music blog -- our door is open, Alan.

Graham also noted some folks have asked if they could purchase the ears of corn Rihanna brushed against during her time frolicking in his fields. He says he's not selling, "but maybe I'll name a type of grain after her."

[Photo: Samir Hussein/Getty Images]

The Immortal World Tour, the $57 million Cirque du Soleil spectacular featuring the music, imagery, and choreography associated with Michael Jackson, premiered this weekend in Montreal, and today the late singer's estate confirmed its soundtrack will be released in time for Black Friday. Immortal will be the third posthumous Jackson album, following This Is It, which arrived in conjunction with the documentary of the same name in 2009, and Michael, a 2010 disc of mostly unheard material cobbled together after MJ's death.

Billed as "the new album from Michael Jackson," November 21st's Immortal will not actually feature any "new" Michael Jackson songs per se -- the deluxe double disc and single disc versions of the album consist of "Immortal versions" of the star's hits arranged by Jackson's longtime collaborator Kevin Antunes, including "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," "Man in the Mirror," and "Bad." A press release boasts the album also includes "an alternate take on the Jackson 5's

Since Janet Jackson turned the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show into a peep show, the NFL has been famously conservative when hiring musical entertainment. For the following six years, the Super Bowl played it safe with so-called "heritage acts": Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Prince, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, and the Who. That's a lot of dudes over 50 -- no women, no dancing, no risks. Last year the NFL ventured back into pop music with the Black Eyed Peas, and their multimedia spectacle mostly fizzled. But according to SBNation, they're willing to give it another go for Super Bowl XLVI with the Queen of Pop herself, Madonna.

Sources tell SBNation Madonna will finally play the Super Bowl at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on February 5th after a series of previous misfires -- she was rumored to be the halftime entertainment for both Super Bowl XXXIII and XXXV, but the deals never materialized. The booking makes perfect sense since

Saturday night at New York's Beacon Theater, Sting celebrated his 60th birthday with a charity show featuring duets with Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, Rufus Wainwright, Mary J. Blige and Will.i.am. Rolling Stone has a rundown of who played what -- the artists all covered tracks from Sting's lengthy solo and Police catalogs -- but the highlights are pretty clear: Lady Gaga's rendition of "The King of Pain," Springsteen's "I Can't Stand Losing You," Mary J. Blige's "Whenever I Say Your Name," Billy Joel's "Don't Stand So Close to Me," and Stevie Wonder's "Fragile." Make a good-faith donation to the Robin Hood Foundation and pretend you were in the house when Bruce made the inevitable joke about Sting's sexual prowess after watching these clips:

[Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage.com]

Florence + the Machine's Ceremonials is due October 31st -- the same day the Flaming Lips are dropping five human skulls packed with 24 hours of music on us -- and Billboard wisely chose to focus on the former on the magazine's latest cover. So, what did we learn about Florence Welch? Listen to her newish single "What the Water Gave Me" while gaining insight into her creative process:

She almost made a Big American Pop Record, but stopped herself in the nick of time.
"I love Lady Gaga, and I love Katy Perry and R&B and rap music," she told Billboard. "I love big, American pop music. I'm a total sucker for it. So the label said, 'Do you want to go over to America to work in that scene?' And I was like, 'Yeah, OK. Maybe I could bring my own take on it.' " But when she saw the actual dates scrawled in her itinerary, she freaked out. "I looked at it and just went, 'No. No. No. No. No! I can't do that.' "

Florence's success pretty much screwed up her new album.
She was so busy touring

Each pop star perfume commercial is like a snowflake -- they are all inane in their own special unique way. In Justin Bieber's spot for Someday, he smells a young lady's neck five times while whisking her into the clouds for an airborne piggy-back ride. Britney Spears has made so many hilarious fragrance ads, it's hard to nail down which is the most fantastical (perhaps the one where she announces, "I choose my own destiny"). Now Christina Aguilera has entered the race with a 21-second advert for Secret Potion (via Idolator) where her perfume spritzer acts sort of like those cans of spray-on hair. It's magical!

The Amp decides to live blog the (kind of unpleasant) experience of listening to the full six-hour Flaming Lips song and the band responds by announcing the release of a 24-hour track -- we see where you're going with this, Wayne Coyne, and we are not gonna bite.

The day-long tune will arrive on Halloween on a hard drive tucked inside a human skull, admittedly a nice step up from the perishable gummy skulls the band has been using as a music-delivery system recently. Coyne is procuring five skulls for the occasion, and promises "nothing that we're doing is bizarre or illegal." He is, however, trying to gross us out by explaining how the skulls get so darn clean of brain matter, telling MTV's O Music Awards blog, "People heads come into this place and they have these flesh-eating beetles -- I would have tweeted a picture of it, but they don't allow it -- literally eat every molecule of flesh off of these things and you'll end up with a human skull."

Coyne has already sold the five