In less than a year, Emblem3 have gone from relative unknowns to the next wave of pop stars.

The group — Drew Chadwick and brothers Wesley and Keaton Stromberg — won over viewers on last season's with their laidback surfer vibe, proving they had what it takes to gain commercial success. Following their fourth-place finish, the SoCal trio signed with Simon Cowell's Syco Music and Columbia Records, and released their debut album, Nothing to Lose, on Tuesday (July 30).

Teaming up with hitmakers Max Martin and One Direction songwriter Savan Kotecha, Emblem3 — who released the lead single, last month — have delivered an album made to accompany fans not only on their summer days, but on their long summer nights.

The trio stopped by MTV News to give us the breakdown on five tracks featured on Nothing to Lose, which Drew describes as "Justin Timberlake meets Sublime."

"Spaghetti"
Fun.'s Jack Antonoff helped the guys write this laidback uptempo track. Antonoff has experience writing songs about the perfect night out — his band's "We Are Young" — but "Spaghetti" encompasses everything about a perfect summer night in with friends.

"Let's ditch the party, ignore everybody/ And we'll make spaghetti, and it'd be all ready," the trio sing on the track.

"It's basically, you don't want to go to a rager, you just want to have a kick back and make spaghetti with your friends and just hang out and chill and relax, rather than go to a huge party," Keaton explained.

"XO"
Emblem3 recruited brothers Benji and Joel Madden to help pen "XO," ...

Most of us will probably never get to hop into a vintage car and cruise the streets of New York with Justin Timberlake. But on Tuesday morning (July 30), JT gave his fans a taste of what that would be like with the slow-motion reveal of the street party clip for his latest single, 


The stunt to promote the first single from his upcoming The 20/20 Experience — 2 of 2
 album required fans to tweet out a URL to help unlock a series of snapshots embedded with factoids about the "Night" shoot scattered across a map of the city. The digital scavenger hunt opened with shot of JT's classic blue 1970 Chevelle SS embedded with links allowing users to buy the single from iTunes, check out his tour dates and join the Tennessee Kids fan club.

A second photo from his recent Legends of the Summer show at Yankee Stadium
 with Jay Z included a number of fun facts about the image, including details about how some parts of the video were shot during the gig in front of 47,000 New Yorkers. That location also included some fan-shot photos of the show from the audience. By the time the car crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, we learned that the shoot took place on one of the hottest nights of the summer, when the mercury hit 99 degrees with nearly 100 percent humidity. The third stop also paid tribute to the city's Chinatown neighborhood, noting that a corner bodega was turned into a noodle shop for the video.

The ...

A week after Frank Ocean was forced to pull out of some Australian shows
 due to a torn vocal cord, his injury has caused another major cancellation. Ocean was slated to headline the first day of Drake's annual OVO Festival in Toronto along with British singer James Blake, but the vocal injury does not appear to be healing quickly enough for him to make the date.

Tickets will be refunded for the first night of the festival, which was supposed to kick off on Sunday at the Molson Canadian Amphitheatre. Blake has been shifted to the sold-out August 5 date, along with Drake and a list of as-yet-unannounced special guests.

Ocean was forced to scrap his sold-out Australian tour last week after doctors discovered a small tear in one of his vocal cords. In a statement announcing the canceled Australian dates, promoter Live Nation said, "After last night's [July 25] concert ... it was necessary to seek medical advice due to vocal issues Frank Ocean experienced during the show. It has subsequently been confirmed that Frank has suffered a small tear to one of his vocal cords and has received medical advice that he must rest his voice."

Spokespeople for Ocean, OVO and Live Nation could not be reached for further comment at press time. Ocean recently unveiled three new songs
 at a tour date in Munich, Germany, which might be headed for his in-the-works follow-up to Channel Orange.

Was it all just a dream?

After DJ Khaled's shocking marriage proposal
 to Nicki Minaj nearly broke the Internet last week, Khaled dropped a new song on Monday that (kind of) cleared things up.

"I Wanna Be With You," features his alleged intended, Nicki, alongside Future and Rick Ross on a song that's scheduled for inclusion on Khaled's upcoming album, Suffering From Success.


Khaled's now legendary proposal on MTV offered a few clues that might have tipped off listeners to the fact that the ultimate hip-hop hype machine was doing his usual thing, including his use of a phrase describing why he and Minaj were perfect for each other: "We got the same symptoms, we're both suffering from success."

Minaj finally broke her silence on Monday while talking to Funkmaster Flex, putting a pin in the whole charade. "I was shocked just like the rest of the world and I was cracking up laughing with the rest of the world 'cause Khaled is a master at what he does," Minaj said, adding that she hasn't talked to Khaled about the gag yet.

"Nobody in my real life took it seriously. Everybody just hit me like, 'LOL. Yo, Khaled is crazy.' Khaled is my brother and Khaled was not serious with that damn proposal, ya'll," she said. "Please let it go. He was kidding. He's not attracted to me, he doesn't like me. We're brother and sister."

Minaj also blew up the stunt as a promotional gag to draw attention to the album. "It was just another way for him to ...

Ariana Grande has a big August ahead of her. is preparing to hit the road on not one but two tours. So we don't blame her if she's been banking some gym time to build up her stamina.

First, she'll join Justin Bieber on his Believe tour for three shows on August 7, 8 and 10. She told MTV News, "I'm rehearsing a lot. I'm working out a lot, trying to get my lungs, my breath support stronger. I'm training myself to work with in-ear [monitors], which is new for me because I've never worked with in-ears. I've always liked to sing with my natural ear. I bet you anything you're gonna see me pull my in-ears out every time I'm onstage, but it's OK.

"I'm training my voice to get used to singing every day because I took a long break from singing every single day because I was filming a TV show [Nickelodeon's "Sam & Cat"] so I was sort of not singing as much for a couple weeks," she continued. "Lots of vocal rest, lots of tea, lots of getting ready."

Once she wraps up her short stint with Bieber, she'll kick off her own headlining trek, The Listening Sessions. It begins on August 13 in Silver Spring, Maryland. She'll play nine cities in the U.S. throughout August, with the jaunt ending on August 31 in Kansas City, Missouri.

Ariana Preps Colorful Music Video For "Baby I."

"I'm really excited about it. Just [getting ready with] lots of training and vocal health stuff and music talk and ...

Robin Thicke went into the summer with an instant smash on his hands thanks to his buzzed-about single and video for "Blurred Lines."

Now he's ready for people to hear the other tracks he's cooked up for the July 30 album release of the same name, even if he's feeling some last-minute anxiety about sharing it with the world.

"One minute I'm very excited, the next I'm terribly nervous. Anytime you release your music or you put something out there that you care very deeply about, you know, you're always a little scared," he told MTV News. "But for the most part, I'm always excited to give people my new music."

This album is an eclectic array of funky R&B and groovy dance tracks slathered with Thicke's silky-smooth persona. He worked with A-listers like Timbaland, will.i.am, Pharrell, T.I., Kendrick Lamar and 2 Chainz on his follow-up to 2011's Love After War.

Despite some slightly naughty lyrics, some of which reference his bedroom prowess, he insists nothing on there should be too shocking to anyone — not even his dad, "Growing Pains" star Alan Thicke, who crafted the tune "Ain't No Hat 4 That" with his son.

"Well, I don't think there's as much unexpected [stuff] as it is the different styles of music that I always try to represent. I never try to be just one thing, or do one thing. I always try to mix up all different styles of music," he said. "And so I think sometimes people get surprised, like, 'Oh, this doesn't sound like that last song.' Well, this ...

Does Katy Perry have a new album coming out? According to a shiny, all-gold semi-truck, it may quite possibly be true.

Pal Adam Lambert tweeted out a photo of the semi, which spans the length of three whole buildings. The all-caps font on the sides reads "KATY PERRY · PRISM · 10.22.13."

MTV News has reached out to Perry's record label from confirmation, but hasn't heard back by press time.

In April, Billboard reported that the singer was halfway through her follow-up to 2010's Teenage Dream. Songwriters included on the album would be Max Martin, Sia, Dr. Luke, Greg Wells and Bonnie McKee, who co-wrote the new tune "Double Rainbow" with KP.

McKee is the self-proclaimed "soulmate" of Perry and told MTV News all about her friend's upcoming LP.

"I think it's a little bit more grown up and it's really interesting," McKee said. The pair had written "California Gurls," "Teenage Dream," "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" and "Part of Me" together.

"I'm really excited for the world to hear it because she's just... she's taking a new approach," McKee continued. "And I don't want to say too much about it, but it's definitely different. It's definitely a little more mature than the 'California Gurls' of yesterday."

Katy, who is covering Elle UK September issue, had told L'Uomo Vogue in June that her album would take inspiration from her personal life, which may include her divorce from comedian Russell Brand. She also said the "darker" album would be influenced by Madonna.

"I think Madonna, especially in the beginning of her career when she was laying ...

So what do you do when your husband's having a "moment" at work? Some wives bust out their laciest lingerie; others make reservations as a congratulatory gesture. But if you're Paula Patton and your other half is Robin Thicke, you make sure his sexy summer smash is on repeat — whenever you hit the gym.

"I love 'Blurred Lines'; I listen to it when I run on the treadmill all the time," Thicke's actress wife gushed to MTV News' Josh Horowitz during promo for the crime flick "2 Guns." "It's just ... it's just great," she added, seemingly on the verge of bursting at the seams with pride.

Though we kind of assumed the photogenic couple play the Pharrell Williams-produced track on private date nights, Thicke's place on wifey's playlist clearly counts for something. And that's especially so considering he had to earn his position on Patton's musical rotation, which includes hip-hop heavyweights like 2 Chainz, who she said helped her get into the "hardcore" headspace of the character she plays opposite Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg.

Now with the early reviews of Thicke's disco-tinged July 30 album, also titled Blurred Lines, coming out in praise of the "fast and sexy" collection, Patton had her own take: "I like too many songs to keep going." But she did oblige us eventually, revealing that a few of the LP's tracks are standouts.

"I have a lot of favorites — it would be hard to say one — but he has a song called '4 the Rest of My Life,' which ...