YouTube and Def Leppard.com are offering a chance to see the Pyromania-cal ’80s rockers on tour this summer with Poison and Cheap Trick — and all you have to do is videotape what you do every day anyway (i.e., shut office door, crank up "Pour Some Sugar On Me," sing along like off-key banshee while pouring pilfered packets of Splenda from work coffee station down writhing body).

For contest rules and uploading instructions, click here, and if you decide to enter, you might be one of ten winners to earn two tickets, a backstage tour, and a meet-and-greet with the band. Submissions are accepted starting today, and the contest closes June 17. It can’t be that hard, right? I mean, this kid didn’t even bother to stand up, and he still works it out:

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Joe Perry talks Aerosmith tour, ‘Guitar Hero,’ and… mac ‘n’ cheese!

Mikey Way announced last night via Twitter that his brother, My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way, is now the proud father of a baby boy girl named Bandit Lee. Welcome, tiniest member of The Black Parade! Your itty-bitty majorette jacket is in the mail.

But it also leads me to wonder — unless the supermarket tabloids are somehow banned by President Schwarzenegger in the year 2022 (thanks, in part, to a bill pushed through by Senators Affleck and Clooney), and gossip blogs get swallowed by some sort of karmic smoke monster, we’ll pretty much be hearing about these kids ad nauseam for the next few decades, yes?

So who do you think will grow up to fascinate us most? Will it be little Kingston and Zuma, scions of the elaborately coiffed Gwen Stefani/Gavin Rossdale dynasty? Young Bronx Mowgli (Pete Wentz/Ashlee Simpson)? Seven Sirius (Andre 3000/Erykah Badu; she also has daughters Puma Sabti and Mars Merkaba)? Bluebell Madonna (Ginger Spice)?

Perhaps Lourdes Ciccone Leon will find peace in the Madge-less confines of a Franciscan nunnery, while Sean Preston and Jayden James Spears Federline reject all things Cheeto for life on an organic sprout farm.

But let’s ask Duncan Jones, shall we? Oh, you don’t know him? He was born Zowie Bowie, son of David, perhaps one of rock’s greatest living chameleons. At 18, he decided to undergo a transformation of his own, and has since lived a relatively normal, can’t-find-him-in-the-phonebook life. And you know what? He looks pretty happy.

Tell me, readers, where you see this generation of rock babies — carrying on their parents’ legacy, or finding the ultimate rebellion in corporate accounting firms and Amish dairy collectives across the land?

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Eminem trounces the competition in a crowded week
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In the 1986 John Hughes classic Pretty in Pink, she was an adorably scrappy alt-girl who worked at a New Wave record store and twirled to the Psychedelic Furs in thrift-shop couture. In real life, though, actress Molly Ringwald has a bona fide classic-jazz background: her father is blind jazz pianist Bob Ringwald, and at age 6, the budding actress even released a Dixieland-style album, I Wanna Be Loved By You, Molly Sings, with her dad and the Fulton Street Jazz Band.

Now, the 41-year-old star of ABC Family’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager is pulling out her pipes again for pianist/composer Peter Smith, singing on several tracks from his new collection of traditional-style mid-century jazz compositions, Here It Comes, and playing occasional gigs with him around L.A., where the show tapes.

On cdbaby.com, you can stream a few clips, and listen in on Molly’s guest vocals — very sort of sultry, MIchelle Pfeiffer-on-a-piano vibes. But you tell me, Music Mixers: is this the Molly you remember? Would you buy the CD, with or without her name attached?

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New Jonas Brothers video: It makes no sense, but their hair sure does look nice
Susan Boyle overrated? British pop star Lily Allen thinks so…
Wilco’s Jay Bennett: RIP
One Tree Hill‘s Kate Voegele on her new album, her dual identity, and the season finale

What could have been one of the coolest albums of the year — onepacked with guests like the Strokes' Julian Casablancas, the FlamingLips, Iggy Pop, the Pixies' Frank Black, and even filmmaker DavidLynch– will now likely never see the light of day.

Danger Mouse, a.k.a. Brian Burton, the mad mashup genius behind the The Grey Album and currently one-half of Gnarls Barkley, has a new album, but you won't be hearing it. Dark Night of the Soul, his collaboration with gauzy rocker Sparklehorse, was all ready to release this July — and then things with south. When EMI Music reportedlyblocked the release of the album over a contractualdispute, all plans were pulled. In the meantime, Danger Mouse has decided to release the album as a blank disc in protest. (Here are a few more details from the BBC.)

We're not ones to encourage piracy, but rumor is some leaked tracks are already floating out there in the blogosphere. And considering how far the The Grey Album — also against the wishes of EMI — got, Dark may see the light after all; just not legally. Readers, what do you think?

UPDATE: A staffer at NPR just emailed to tell us that the entire album can actually be streamed on their site; right now, it's the only legal way to hear it, and they say there are currently no plans to take it down. Go here to listen.

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It’s been raining pretty consistently here for the past few days, and if you believe the widget on my desktop — based on the accuracy of this particular Crappy Weather Calculator, I sadly do — it looks to be predictable London weather here in good old NYC at least until the weekend.

Naturally, like the most heartbreaking song of all time question I considered (as did many of you) a few weeks ago, it got me to thinking of what the best rainy-day song ever might be, too.

Halfway through my pondering, my pal here Leah Greenblatt randomly sent me an old song by the Fruit Bats — the very same song that appears at 1 minute 18 seconds in the trailer for the upcoming Hugh Dancy-Rose Byrne rom-com Adam, which my friend Katie coincidentally also just sent to me — and immediately it struck me that this might very well indeed be: The Best Rainy-Day Song of All Time.

Because, for me, a rainy-day song should comfort you in all the right ways when it’s a little glum outside and you might be feeling that way too inside, but also for when your little heart boat drifts a little too far out to sea.

So, listen below, and let me know if you think "When U Love Somebody" by the Fruit Bats might be the best rainy-day song of all time. And, if not, then what is?

If there’s anything that Idol wizards/pop connoisseurs Michael Slezak and Annie Barrett and I love, it’s yakking about our ridiculous obsessions (Martika songs, questionable made-for-TV products) when we’re supposed to be working, and then turning those yaks — tada! –into work.

Namely, the beyond-mondo Susan Boyle phenomenon. Our own Adam Markovitz has already posited whether some of the attention on her appearance is not, in fact, a little condescending (ohmagawd! How can a maybe-menopausal lady sing so good?!).

No doubt, Britain’s Got Talent producers sent her onstage knowing full well how Susan’s relative dowdiness would play onscreen — and are already squeezing her through the inevitable makeover machine (eyebrow-waxer powers, activate!).

To me, the loveliest thing about Boyle is her sweet lack of icky showbiz calculation — the unfortunate defining trait of nearly every other Seacrest-sidling make-me-a-star reality show contestant plying their trade today. But it also got Slezak and I wondering: how many other talented artists have been crushed — or merely failed to climb above mid-level notice — because of their looks?

He pointed to sixth-season Idol finalists Melinda Doolittle and Lakisha Jones, who placed third and fourth on the show, respectively, despite having some of the clearest natural gifts in the contestant pool. On the flipside, I give you Jessica Simpson, who looks like a Real Doll, yet continuously fails to remember the words to her own songs.

Obviously, pop music will, with a few inevitable exceptions, always be a place for pretty people — some of questionable talent, and some just genuine genetic lottery winners. (Fifty years ago, listeners may have swooned to Roy Orbison’s baritone, but Elvis had the voice and the hips.) Still, are we possibly moving towards a more democratic ideal? Zaftig, smoky-voiced Brit Adele beat out pretty little beanpoles like the Jonas Brothers and Duffy at the Grammys this year, and stars like Amy Winehouse and Lady Gaga aren’t so much conventionally attractive as seriously Working a Look.

I could ramble on all afternoon, so I turn it to you, readers: Do you feel any kind of sea change in the beauty standards of pop music, or is this all same as it ever was? Which artists you think have been held back by their looks, and which have clearly succeeded on the sole strength of the physical goods their mama gave them?

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Rascal Flatts soars, Neil Young flops on the albums chart
Zooey Deschanel sings about the touch, the feel of cotton: Hear it here

As you may have heard, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals recently asked British synth-pop duo the Pet Shop Boys to change their name to the Rescue Shelter Boys — in order, they say, to call attention to the "cramped, filthy conditions" of many breeding facilities.

The band gracefully turned them down, while acknowledging that it does "raise an issue worth thinking about." And the Music Mix agrees!

While there’s nothing really wrong with Cat Power, Fleet Foxes, or Modest Mouse (has anyone ever met a really aggressive, braggy mouse?), senior EW writer Clark Collis suggests that the chorus to Nine Inch Nails’ 1994 f-bomb anthem "Closer" could quite easily be changed to the more pro-critter "I want to make sweet, gentle love to you like an animal."

Other options? Legendary ’80s industrial outfit Skinny Puppy may have struck a more positive note as Adequately Cared For Puppy Who Just Has A Really High Metabolism. Or, as our own Aly Semigram emails, trading in Def for the more au courant Hearing Impaired Leppard (pour some Splenda on me?) would please not one, but two special interest groups.

Staffer Michele Romero also helpfully suggests that the Psychedelic Furs could become the Psychedelic Fauxs without hardly changing their tour merch, and resident Idol elf Michael Slezak offers both a nice Stray Cats alternative  — Formerly Homeless But Now Happily Adopted Cats Dozing on a Sunny Patch of Living Room Carpet? Strut that! — and, for Danger Mouse, the far more fair-minded Calculated Risk Mouse. (Our editor Rob Brunner points out that the name of Scottish rockers Dogs Die in Hot Cars is, essentially, already a public service announcement. So no dice there, PETA.)

Readers, we open up the floor to you — what other creature comforts might un-PC band names provide, with a little tweaking?

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Word comes today that perpetually mustachioed guitar god Carlos Santana has signed a multi-year deal to launch a Las Vegas residency on May 27 — and that the show, entitled Supernatural Santana: A Trip Through the Hits, will make him the "first rock and roll resident" to come to the Strip (suck it, Celine Dion!).

Granted, El Vee is no longer quite the seniors-in-spangles parade it once was; Wayne Newton and the tiger tamers now bask in the relatively youthful company of Cher, Toni Braxton, Elton John, the Beatles-based Love show, and Bette Midler. Until now, however, illusionist and occasional musician Criss Angel — bless his little Ed Hardy-wearing, Playmate-banging heart — was the closest thing the city had to a rock-star-style badass.

Santana’s people promise he’ll trot out the hits, from "Smooth" to "Evil Ways," but it’s got me wondering: who else out there, amongst the more "mature" subset of rockers, should we be seeing in the land of showgirls and slot machines? I have marvelous visions of Axl Rose at the Mirage, throwing Jack Daniels-dusted ice cubes at pranksters who shout out requests for Velvet Revolver songs, or Metallica shearing the blue rinse right out of old-lady perms with a Bellagio-glass-sculpture-shattering rendition of "Enter Sandman."

Seriously though — who would you cash in your chips to see? Zeppelin? Fleetwood Mac? The Doors, with that dude from the Cult? Spill it!

Shortly before this blog launched, I took BET to task both in the magazine and over at PopWatch for this year’s all-male roster of BET Hip-Hop Awards nominees. A few days later, I found myself in the uncomfortable position of being confronted by a defensive staffer from the network at an intimate cocktail party honoring Universal Motown Records president Sylvia Rhone, presented by the Black Women in Entertainment Law Foundation. Though cooler heads prevailed, I was no less surprised when a BET PR rep called to personally invite me to the taping of the show on Oct. 18 at the Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center. My response? Hell to the yes! Does that make me a hypocrite? Hell to the no!

Just because I think it’s wack that Estelle, M.I.A., and Jean Grae were overlooked by the nominating committee doesn’t mean frontrunners Lil’ Wayne, Kanye West, and Jay-Z don’t deserve to be celebrated for their achievements. Besides, there’s no way I’d miss the top-secret all-star tribute to women in hip-hop that BET is keeping under wraps — despite the fact that it could help diffuse some of the flack they’re catching for failing to nominate a single female rapper. Though details of the salute remain scarce, I was told by one of the participants that it will include performances by Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, and the Lady of Rage, among others.

I just confirmed my travel arrangements and I can’t wait to get down there so that I can keep you abreast of the scoop from the parties and the show. But before I pack my bags, I want to hear from you: Are you looking forward to the BET Hip-Hop Awards? Will you watch when the show airs on Oct. 23? Who are you rooting for? Are you as annoyed as I am that female rappers — few as there may be — were snubbed this year? Or is the era of female rappers dead and ovah?

“There are not enough panties on my stage tonight!”

That’s long-MIA soul singer Maxwell working the ladies in the house—including Rosie Perez and Holly Robinson Pete—during his concert at New York’s Radio City Music Hall last night. From channeling ’80s-era Prince to delivering a scorching rendition of Al Green’s “Simply Beautiful,” the Brooklyn native received a hero’s welcome at the hometown stop of his first tour in six years, featuring opening act Jazmine Sullivan, who recently dropped her buzzworthy debut CD, Fearless. In addition to dry humping the stage (!) and performing old favorites like “Fortunate” and “Lifetime,” Max previewed three seductive new cuts (“Pretty Wings,” “Bad Habits,” “Cold”) from his much-anticipated follow-up to 2001’s Now.

No release date has been announced yet, but if yesterday’s show is any indication of what to expect, his next CD is likely to be the hottest comeback album since Mariah Carey’s 2005 miracle, The Emancipation of Mimi. See for yourself when BET’s Access Granted goes behind the scenes of the tour’s kick-off show in South Africa, airing on Oct. 19 at 10PM.