Sunday night might be the first time that Twenty One Pilots are officially invited to the MTV Video Music Awards, but the Ohio rock duo have spent years doing their research while waiting for the big moment.

"I remember a couple of years ago I was watching the VMAs in my underwear on my couch," said lead singer Tyler Joseph of the days before his band was nominated for Artist to Watch at Sunday night's big show. "And that just tells you right there how I feel about this thing ... Going from calling [drummer] Josh [Kun] up and being like, 'Hey, you want to come over and let's watch these?' To actually being involved is one of the coolest feelings ever."

The jump from the couch to the broadcast represents the difference between having nothing to do with the VMAs to being nominated alongside other buzzed-about acts as VMA pre-show performer Austin Mahone, Iggy Azalea, the Weeknd and Zedd. "It's an honor, really," he said.

OK, you're excited, but who's your mom rooting for?
Joseph was pretty sure his mom thinks he's the best out of all the nominees. Well, probably. And he suspected Kun's mom felt the same way. Probably. "Yeah, they would both agree," said Kun, known for his acrobatic backflips
 and bone rattling live drumming.

"Or is she a big Austin Mahone fan?" Joseph wondered, second-guessing himself. "Yeah, I ... I'll have to ask her about that," a suddenly unsure Kun said. "She was saying stuff about that, I think she voted for somebody else ...

Lady Gaga has given her fans two for the price of one. Within days, she released both the lo-fi lyric video for and its trippy, surreal, over-the-top official video.

The "Applause" music video was released on Monday, the same day she confirmed her opening performance slot at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards this Sunday, August 25. Kristine Carr, who plays the Peter Pan drag king, Landon Cider, in the gave MTV News her take on the over-the-top official "Applause" video.

"I thought it was amazing. It's everything that she kind of always stands for. It's fashion. It's pop. It's culture. It's theater. She really is staying true to herself and her style. [It's] very unique, very artistically designed and [has] storytelling, lots of characters, lots of looks," she said. "You see a sincerity behind her too. I really enjoyed it."

So, how does the Inez & Vinoodh-directed clip compare to the lyric video? "She's really showcasing entertainers. She's showing many diverse styles of entertainers and how we're all doing it for the applause," Carr said.

Carr then recalled her experience of meeting Gaga in L.A. earlier this month when she filmed the lyric video at Mickey's nightclub. "She was really humble. When she joined me on stage for a little bit, she whispered that she loved me. She was sincerely enjoying the performance, interacting with all of us being really involved but as a professional knowing how to stay away," she said. "She was really nice and kind of quiet but had ...

It doesn't seem like that long ago that "Star Trek Into Darkness" was one of J.J. Abrams' trademark mysteries wrapped up in an enigma. Of course we know all about the secrets of the sci-fi sequel and who certain distinguished British actors were playing and how they might relate to previous sequels in the series.

Ok, so now we can actually say it. Benedict Cumberbatch was Khan. We can finally talk about that openly without any worry of Bad Robots descending upon us for being big fat spoilers.

To celebrate the new freedom and the release of "Star Trek Into Darkness" for digital download, we're excited to bring you an exclusive behind-the-scenes featurette about Khan and how Cumberbatch won the role of a Sikh character originally played by a Latino man.

"Originally, what we thought of was 'Who are the actors that we thought would feel as we did with the first film, in the spirit of what had come before?' Damon [Lindelof] mentioned Benedict Cumberbatch, and I watched him and he was so not the Khan I knew at all," Abrams explains in the featurette.

"On that level, I thought, 'We are definitely going to get in trouble.' Fans would say, 'Oh, he looks nothing like him. It makes no sense.' The truth is, if I think something is good, that supersedes everything. This felt like the righteous way to go because he was so damn good."

Even if he was "so damn good," Cumberbatch was kept in the dark as much as we were before agreeing to appear in the ...

It's been almost four years since Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift at the Video Music Awards, drawing the ire of world leaders, epically-maned millionaires and Michael Jackson's dad, and becoming the inspiration for a truly massive Internet meme in the process.

Yet, despite all that time, and with innumerable Internet fads coming and going since, it seems that Taylor's still making jokes about "Imma let you finish," as evidenced by her recent gift to tourmate Ed Sheeran: A jar of homemade jam she labeled with a none-too-subtle reference to Kanye's onstage rant ("this is the best JAM OF ALL TIME," she wrote).

And while we realize she's been pretty busy over the past four years, we can't help wonder: Has Taylor been near a computer at any point since the 2009 VMAs?!?

If she hasn't, well, there's been plenty she's missed, and since she's seemingly getting into canning and preserving these days, we've come up with a whole list of potential products she could make. These are Taylor Swift's homemade jams of woefully outdated Internet memes, complete with her handwritten notes.

» "Ed -- Have you seen this cat! He looks so grumpy! --T"

» "Ed -- You probably think this is Strawberry Jam, but it's really Rick Astley singing 'Never Gonna Give You Up!' -- T"

» "Ed -- I like turtles! -- T"

» "Ed -- Yesterday was Thursday, today is Friday, tomorrow is Saturday, and Sunday comes afterwards! -- T"

» "Ed -- This Snowy Owl can't believe what it just ...

Mark it on your calendars, Britney Spears has big things planned for September 17. The singer launched a countdown clock on her official website this week, leading fans to speculate that something major is about to happen.

The message on her site simply reads, "All Eyes On Me," giving no real indication of what the pop superstar might have up her sleeve. However, she has been working on her follow-up album to 2011's Femme Fatale, and over the course of the last week has teased that something big is on the horizon. So, it's possible the news is music-related.

On August 14, she tweeted, "Patient kiddies! It's coming MUCH sooner than you think ;)" and then one day later she added, "Spending some Q T in rehearsals today. 8 count after 8 count... #FeelingIt."

Earlier this month, she tweeted out a for this album release, which includes A-list help from producers and songwriters including William Orbit, Sia, Hit-Boy and will.i.am.

"We need to talk about what she's excited about in life. I gotta talk about the things that hurt her. I gotta talk about the things that make her concerned; she's a mother," will.i.am told Rolling Stone earlier this spring of working with Spears. "I gotta talk to her about all the things that her fans want to talk to her about. I gotta be the vehicle between her and her fans. We can't do another song about going on the dance floor. Really? Didn't we see a bunch of Britney doing that already? Don't we want ...

Lady Gaga is ready for you to give her your applause when she takes the stage at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards this Sunday. The Mother Monster is slated to open the VMAs with the debut performance of her lead ARTPOP single, "Applause."

With only days until the show goes live from Brooklyn's Barclays Center, Gaga told NYC radio station Z-100 on Tuesday morning (August 20) that she is taking some cues from her just-released for the performance.

"I am opening the show. Well, yes, I'm dancing and what you see in the video is where I am now with my body," she said. "I'm dancing 'til my feet bleed every day to make sure I give the fans a performance that they won't forget."

Fans gathered in Times Square on Monday to see Gaga premiere the video for "Applause." And as soon as they saw the clip, they were hoping that some of the clip's looks, such as the clamshell bikini, would make it into her performance on Sunday.

"The one thing I will tell you about the album, that I love more than anything, is I really composed it with the producers DJ White Shadow, Zedd and Madeon to be played from start to finish," she said of ARTPOP. "You can stop, of course, and you can shuffle if you like, but I designed it so the tempos really feel like you're at the nightclub."

Gaga joins an A-list lineup of performers at the VMAs, including Justin Timberlake, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, Kanye West ...