August 12, 2013: A day that will live in pop music infamy.

First, at the stroke of midnight, Katy Perry premiered And now, exactly 13 hours later, Lady Gaga has rush-released her comeback single "Applause." It may not be the a-POP-calypse, but it certainly makes for a very busy Monday.

Gaga announced she was putting out the track in a series of ALL CAPS announcements ("DUE TO HACKERS AN ABUNDANCE OF LOW/HIGH QUALITY LEAKS...WE ISSUE THIS POP MUSIC EMERGENCY...MONSTERS SPREAD THE WORD") and that urgency is readily apparent in her new song, too. With its staccato'ed synth stabs, starry electronic bursts and thumping low end, "Applause" most certainly isn't subtle; instead, it represents a return to Gaga's club-friendly Fame era. Simply put, this one sounds massive, the kind of banger custom-made for massive soundsystems and dance-floor excesses.

And, with lyrics like "Pop culture was in art/Now art's in Pop culture/in me," the song definitely seems like the opening lines of her ARTPOP manifesto; and given the shots she takes at those who attempt to analyze her work ("I stand here waiting for you to bang the going/To crash the critic saying 'Is it right or is it wrong?") well, it seems like she's not about to apologize for whatever comes next. And there's that chorus: "I live for the applause," which seems to suggest that whatever noise you're making about her, she'll not only take it ... but use it to make her stronger.

Of course, even though both Perry and Gaga spent the weekend downplaying rumors of ...

Pharrell's monster year continues with the release of Earl Sweatshirt's Doris single "Burgundy," the beat for which the super producer knocked out in just 20 minutes.

Earl linked up with The Neptunes and Chicago producers Christian Rich for a studio session that resulted in two new tracks, one of which became "Burgundy."

"It was tight," Earl told MTV News of working with Pharrell. "We did one song before ['Burgundy'] that one that was whatever — it was cool working with Pharrell but I wasn't obsessed with it. And then we did that one the next day and it was amazing. He's too good. He did that sh-- in like 20 minutes."

Christian Rich revealed that Pharrell was actually splitting his time between two sessions that day, the other turned out to be the recording session for Robin Thicke's smash hit "Blurred Lines," and P didn't even break a sweat working on both.

"Pharrell was in the next room making 'Blurred Lines' with Robin Thicke [although] we didn't know it was 'Blurred Lines' back then," Christian Rich's Taiwo explained. "He came in and was like, 'This is the slowest beat I ever did, it's like 60 BPM — here. He literally walked out for 20 minutes and came back in."

"Cha was there too, it was a Neptunes session and he just came in with the beat and we were like holy sh--, that's it. Pharrell is having a great year.

"Burgundy" will appear on Doris, due out August 20. Earl told MTV News that he hopes his album will shift ...

was clearly in tune with the Teen Choice Awards, as the a cappella comedy took home four surfboards — including Choice Movie - Comedy — during Sunday's ceremony. But there's no need to pitchslap yourself if you missed the festivities, as an encore performance is already in the works.

Universal Pictures announced in April that a sequel to "Pitch Perfect" had been greenlit and would bow sometime in 2015. So when we caught up with the movie's stars on the TCA carpet, we had to ask what they knew about the follow-up.

"There's been talks of a sequel. I have read them just like everyone else has read them," Skylar Astin, who played Anna Kendrick's love interest Jesse, said. "All I know is that it's supposed to come out in, like, two years, so I better hear something else soon. I don't know. I think they're writing the script now, so they don't want to tell us. Hopefully, I made the cut."

As for his sequel wishes, Astin is eyeing an international shoot.

"I want everyone to go abroad. I want the whole thing to be international just so we can film in a really cool location, but also, I think it would be really cool to see different countries' perspective on a cappella," he said. " I think that would be really awesome. Because what do you do after you win nationals? You go international. That's my pitch."

Co-star Adam DeVine, who played Treblemaker leader Bumper, disappeared at the end of "Pitch Perfect," defecting from the group to sing back ...

When the time came to shoot the video for The Wanted knew the only way to perfectly encapsulate the feel-good vibe of the party track was to head to the pub and drink the night away.

The video follows the guys on a night out as they flirt, carouse and laugh. And that's exactly the kind of music video this boy band likes to make.

"We shot it in London, we just hired out a pub and got a load of friends and lot of people that we know and had a lot of fun that day. We like to have fun on our videos," Nathan Sykes told MTV News about the video. "We don't like doing videos that are boring."

And while they exchange kisses with a few lucky young ladies, Max George also shared a liplock with an older partygoer, much to his surprise.

"This video we really just wanted to go back being The Wanted and have a video along the lines of 'Glad You Came,' which is all about have a lot of fun with a load of good-looking girls, which is awesome," Sykes said. "And we wanted to make it like the local pub. We've got this lady there... I think she was 72 and she liked snogged Max at one point. So it's a real fun video. We all worked really hard to make sure it's a video we wanted and I think we've got it. It's a lot of fun."

Sykes continued, "No one even told her too and maybe got slightly carried away and ...

Katy Perry went full retro tween for the artwork for her single "Roar" — plastering an image of herself with Lisa Frank-esque flair. But for the lyrics video for the single itself, she "taps" into 2013 teen culture — literally. The whole clip is composed of texts and artfully arranged emojis.

"Roar" is the first single off of Perry's upcoming album, Prism, which drops in October. The singer has been teasing the album and single for weeks — rolling a gold-plated Prism semi-truck around town, dropping a kitten-packed teaser for and throwing a funeral for her "Teenage Dream" persona after setting her "California Gurls" wig on fire. The takeaway from all this gold-plated fanfare? Apparently, the candy-coated Katy Perry of old is dead, and a new, darker iteration is set to take over.

of this new sound/persona — an "I am woman, hear me roar"/"Eye of the tiger" jam that's perfect for scoring any and all fighting montages on the cinematic horizon.

In the lyrics video, however, Perry chooses to text rather than flex. The vid features a lengthy text conversation between a passel of friends, typing out the lyrics to the song via words and emojis. A woman — seemingly Perry — wields the phone, tapping out the jam while doing mundane activities like eating, rolling in the passenger side of her best friend's ride and, um, something that 75 percent of Americans are also guilty of.

Perry dropped the video on the same day (August 12) that her Prism truck hit New ...

Has the a-POP-calypse been averted?

It seems that no matter how much the media wants to pit them against one another, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry are determined to keep things copacetic ... as they spent the weekend bonding over the leaks of their respective singles, professing their mutual admiration, and calling for an end to the sparring between their fervent fanbases.

Yes, it was basically like the Camp David Accords, only with less Jimmy Carter.

It all started when Gaga learned that a snippet of her comeback single had hit the 'net, setting off a string of ALL CAPS missives ("YOU JUST COULDNT WAIT THIS IS TOO MUCH FOR ONE SATURDAY") and threats to leakers out there. Of course, she took solace in the fact that Katy was currently suffering through a similar situation — her new single, leaked in full — and decided to extend an olive branch to her supposed foe.

Gaga also began tweeting a series of messages aimed at quelling the conflict that had been brewing between her Little Monsters and Perry's Katy Cats, pointing out that, despite their differences, both fanbases were united by their passions. And that sentiment struck a chord with Katy, who retweeted one of LG's messages to her fans.

And so far, all this reaching across the aisle seems to be working: the Monsters and the 'Cats are embracing each other, and calling for an end to their bloggy battles.

But can this fragile peace remain intact? We'll find out over the ...

Matt Damon has officially left Jason Bourne in the dust thanks to which gave the 42-year-old star his biggest opening weekend since he left the franchise following 2007's "The Bourne Ultimatum." The R-rated sci-fi flick was #1 with $30.5 million over the weekend, overcoming three widely released newcomers in the process.

defied industry expectations by beating Disney's "Planes." The R-rated marijuana-centered comedy earned $38 million since opening last Wednesday night, with $26.6 million of that made since Friday. Disney's "Cars" spinoff, featuring Dane Cook in the lead voice role, was #3 with an estimated weekend take of $22.5 million.

That left #4 to "Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters." Its $14.6 million weekend was less than half its predecessor, "The Lightning Thief," which oddly enough was less faithful to the young adult book series than the latest installment.

Original, non-sequel science fiction material can be a hard sell to moviegoers outside of that particular niche. Set in a dystopian future where the rich live in a Utopian space station while the underclass toils away below, "Elysium" didn't match the opening weekend debuts of Tom Cruise's "Oblivion" or director Guillermo del Toro's "Pacific Rim."

"Elysium" was more popular than Will Smith's critical and commercial bomb "After Earth," but it failed to live up to the opening weekend of filmmaker Neill Blomkamp's first film, "District 9." Blomkamp's freshman film opened with $37.5 million in 2009, against a $30 million production budget. It went on to earn $210 million worldwide.

Damon lavished praise on Blomkamp at San Diego Comic-Con, where he told MTV ...

Planning for a world tour is hard work — just ask Selena Gomez.

For the past two months, the "Come & Get It" singer has been perfecting every dance move, every wardrobe change and every beat of music for her Stars Dance World Tour, but now the time has come to put the finishing touches on the project, and MTV News was given an exclusive invite to witness it all.

"It's one of the last days putting it all together so it's kind of a little hectic, everyone is putting on wardrobe trying on outfits, dancing in the outfits going over the numbers nonstop," Gomez said at one of her final dress rehearsals at Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, California. "It's the last couple of days we're buckling everything down."

During rehearsal, Gomez gave us a front row seat as she belted out the words to her song, "Undercover," off her chart topping album Stars Dance.

Dressed down in black sweat pants and a white T-shirt, Gomez gracefully moves about the stage showing off her dance moves. And even though it was only rehearsal, one can tell that the Stars Dance tour takes on a much different feel then her previous 2011 tour, We Own the Night.

"I have a little more say. I'm wanting to control the show more from the content to the choreography to everybody a part of it," Gomez said. "If anything my music is escalated and I just wanted to make it bigger and better than the last one, so it's all happening."

Gomez, who is