andPOP - Pop Culture With Substance

Well, it’s official: Katy Perry and Russel Brand are serious.

The two were sighted looking very cozy (ie: making out and cuddling) at a party at the home of pals’ Paul McKenna and Randy Jackson this weekend.

And apparently Katy already wants her new boy toy to meet her parents, according to Perez Hilton. Meeting the family would would be a big step for Brand - who has most recently made himself famous by quite vividly sexing up Kristin Bell in Forgetting Sarah Marshall – considering Perry’s parents are serious Evangelical Christians.

Keith and Mary Hudson are pastors in Temecula, CA, even so far as having the legal right to marry couples.

Perry and Brand have been sighted all over lately - unbeknownst to me – making a particular splash in some outlandish outfits at Paris Fashion Week. Perry is set to host the MTV Europe Music Awards next month, which will be a big night for the new couple’s public image.

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As American Idol gears up for a new series this fall, its roster of judges is expanding its horizons.

Katy Perry and Avril Lavigne will be the latest stars to sit alongside Randy Jackson, Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul’s replacement Kara DioGuardi during the last round of auditions in Los Angeles.

Throughout auditions, the show has welcome Victoria Beckham, Shania Twain, Joe Jonas, Neil Patrick Harris, Mary J. Blige and Kristen Chenoweth to have their say.

Abdul abandoned the show in August in a rather abrupt move that many speculated had to do with salary. But in an interview with the New York Daily News, Abdul said the decision was more about pursuing her career (whatever’s left of it.)

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It’s been a crazy year for the New Cities. Fresh off a summer tour with Simple Plan, their single “Dead End, Countdown” has received non-stop airplay in Canada and they’re playing at Virgin Fest in Toronto later this month with Nine Inch Nails. So what are the plans for the New Cities after a great year?

A long date with the road.

“The album is already out in Japan so we’d like to go play there soon,” says New Cities keyboardist Nick Denis. “We are also looking into a lot of other territories”

This Canadian band has been heating up clubs with synth-pop dance/rock rhythms ever since their first single dropped, but most of the New Cities band members — which include lead vocalist David Brown, Christian Bergeron on guitar, bassist Julien Martre, drummer Francis Fugere and Phil LaChance on synths and Denis– actually started off in ska bands.

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It seems Katy Perry’s recent split from Gym Class Heroes front man Travis McCoy has her talking to audiences everywhere about her woes.

At New York City’s Fillmore Theater earlier this week, Perry took to the stage to ask her audience if they experienced similar girl troubles.

“How many girls have freaked out in front of their boyfriends?” she asked the clueless crowd, according to chartattack.com. “I suffer from Satan’s period. It’s a beast.”

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Aside from looking “a little bit alike,” Zooey Deschanel and Katy Perry really have nothing in common, insists Deschanel.

Although the two are both singers – Deschanel is in the musical duo She & Him – Deschanel told MTV news that she is tired of people always mistaking her for Katy Perry.

“The only similarity that we have is that we look a little bit alike,” Deschanel told MTV News. “I have met her before. She seems like a nice person. I’m happy that she’s famous enough now that she’s not going out and being mistaken for me.”

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The Matrix, a group of producers who have worked with such high profile stars as Britney Spears, Avril Lavigne and Korn, have dropped a self-titled debut album on iTunes.

Matrix member Scott Spock explained to MTV News in 2003, the group had been saving songs for themselves for years and that the then unknown-artists would soon become “very well known.”

Release dates came and gone, followed by the departing of the group’s manager. When they rejoined with their manager last year, they decided to bring up the album once more. “We said, ‘Let’s release the Matrix album, because it’s a great album,’ ” said Lauren Christy a member of the Matrx, to MTV News.

The band was given the rights to the album after Columbia Records failed to release it, so they planned on releasing it trough their own label, Let’s Hear It Records.

“We had the dates set up with iTunes … and then ‘I Kissed a Girl’ exploded,” Christy told MTV News. “I spoke to Katy about it, and she wanted to wait until the fourth single off her album was released.”

The Matrix album also features British singer Adam Longlands and includes many songs fronted by Perry.

Do you think you have what it takes to top Katy Perry’s performance of her hit song “I Kissed a Girl”?

Fans can now upload videos and have a chance to appear in the Grammy telecast singing “I Kissed a Girl” with Katy Perry through their video submissions.

“I am very excited to be a first-time Grammy nominee and new Recording Academy member this year, and even more thrilled to perform on music’s biggest stage in February,” said Perry to MTV News.

Fans can upload a video between 30 and 60 seconds long of themselves singing Perry’s song. People will later vote on the three best videos and those that win will be announced during the Grammy broadcast.

Viewers can select their favourite videos to determine the Top Fan Video in addition to the three videos that will make it to the live telecast.

Those who are interested in being considered for the live telecast as well as the CBS.com Top Fan Video Contest must have their videos submitted and uploaded by January 22 to www.cbs.com.grammys.

The videos can be uploaded to CBS.com from January 6 to February 6.

Homophobe. Sinner. And now, shameful and disgusting.

These are just some of the names Perry has been called. The latest criticism comes from the British tabloid, The Daily Mail, now reporting that her mother is reported as saying her daughter’s “I Kissed A Girl” song and rising pop stardom is “shameful and disgusting.”

But now Katy Perry is firing back at the tabloid, saying her parents were misquoted and that they are supportive of her music career.

The paper quotes Katy’s mother, Mary Hudson, an evangelical Christian preacher as saying: “”Katy knows how I feel. We are a very outspoken family, and she knows how disappointed her father and I are. I can’t even listen to that song. The first time I heard it I was in total shock. When it comes on the radio, I bow my head and pray.”

“Well, that was actually false information,” said Katy Perry in a rebuttal to MTV News during a recent stop on the MTVu VMA Tour. “They love and support me. Of course, they have their own opinions, but you can never take a tabloid seriously. If they weren’t supportive, they wouldn’t come to all the shows. People like to make games out of other people’s lives.”

Before her girl kissing days, Katy Perry was Katy Hudson, a Christian gospel singer. Perry’s faced criticism from both sides of the spectrum; from religious groups speaking out against her sinful “I Kissed A Girl” song and from the LGBT community that believe her song is using bi-curiousity and the male gaze to sell records. Perry is a polarizing pop star.

“I think everybody is entitled to their own opinion,” she said. “I don’t think you need to be one way or another to try something, and it’s a song about curiosity. Of course, some people don’t like it, but to each is own. I don’t like stuff they do.”

“And to grow up and come from something different than what you are now and to spread your wings … I think that’s a beautiful thing.”

She has a massive hit with “I Kissed a Girl,” she’s hot as hell and now she has a killer album (”One Of The Boys”) in stores.

She’s Katy Perry and she spoke with andPOP about her song “Ur So Gay,” Canadian boys and of course, cherry chapstick.