Justin Bieber is ready to thank his fans for all their loyalty and devotion. That's why when he drops his next album, his the singer will do it in a way that celebrates them.

"For this project, we want to do things a little bit differently," Bieber's manager, Scooter Braun, told MTV News. "And there are more songs than 10 or 12, so if you have more music and you have more things you want to express, you gotta think out the box, and [think like] 'How do I get this out there in a unique way where it gets directly to my fans and I can express myself through music directly to them?' And I think that's what it's about when you have people who are incredibly creative, things happen."

If Bieber's re-thinking of the album release cycle seems like he's taking a page from the Jay-Z it's purely coincidental, having more to do with the natural progression of an ever-changing music industry and the increasing desire for artists to want to connect to fans. "I think it depends on what kind of music you're making and how you're trying to release it. But when you're giving something that's really for the fans, which is what Justin wants this to be, [then you can come up with new strategies]," the manager said.

Fans will get their first taste of the "music journal" later this year when he releases its lead single, which Braun says should silence the critics who are on a "You ...

Those irrepressible minions celebrated a Fourth of July holiday for the record books as took the #1 spot this weekend. Meanwhile, a big-budget film with an A-list star was dead on arrival and a standup comedian proved (once again) the smart box office business model of small budget.

The massive opening for "Despicable Me 2" made the most significant contribution to what became the biggest July Fourth weekend ever for movie theaters. The animated sequel, featuring the voices of Steve Carrell and Kristen Wiig, made $82.5 million from Friday to Sunday and enjoyed a five-day total of more than $142 million. "Despicable Me 2" now holds the record for biggest five-day haul for an animated movie ever, defeating "Shrek 2," which was released in May 2004.

Critics were behind "Despicable Me 2," and audiences assigned it a CinemaScore of "A."

Universal already had a summer hit on their hands with and the $75 million price tag for "Despicable Me 2" was money well spent given the fact that it's already grossed $293.1 million around the world.

Disney, on the other hand, can't be happy with the extreme underperformance of Despite playing in roughly as many locations as "Despicable Me 2" and reuniting the "Pirates of the Caribbean" team of Johnny Depp, director Gore Verbinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, the $215 million movie made just $49.9 million over its first five days. Its three-day weekend total of $29.4 million was less than the $34.4 million "Despicable Me 2" made on Wednesday alone.

"The Lone Ranger" suffered roughly the same ...

Former Jay-Z business partner Damon Dash didn't have much to celebrate over the fourth of July holiday weekend, as he was hit with a nearly $3 million tax bill by Uncle Sam.

The Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder has been battling the IRS for several years over claims that he owes millions in unpaid taxes, but according to TMZ, the bill has come due. The site reported that a $2.8 million tax lien was recently filed against Dash, claiming that he owes major taxes from the years 2005 ($2.6 million) and 2011 ($187,544).

A spokesperson for Dash could not be reached for comment at press time. TMZ additionally reported that Dash — who famously split
 with Jigga back in 2004 — has said he also owes back taxes in New York and New Jersey and that he's lost multiple properties to foreclosure as a result.

Dash has been struggling to pay off his tax debt for several years. Two years ago he confirmed that he owed 
 and that the IRS was auditing him. At the time, he said the audit was a result of his accountant's failure to itemize his expenses, explaining that the conflict comes from his re-investment in his business ventures.

"If I have an accountant that just reports I just invested $10 million in my business and he doesn't exactly itemize where every cost goes, it gives a flag to the government," he said. "They want to make sure that the reason I'm not paying taxes is because I'm reinvesting in these businesses and not ...

EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey — One Direction fans have a lot to look forward to in the coming months. After they find out what the "Best Song Ever" sounds like, they'll get to catch the boys in action when their 3-D documentary, hits theatres in August. And it seems like all the excitement has them in tears.

Last week, 1D released the trailer for the Morgan Spurlock-directed flick, and in it was everything a Directioner could have hoped for, including childhood photos, trips back to their hometowns and most importantly, a shirtless and pantless Harry Styles. MTV News recently dropped by One Direction's Take Me Home Tour stop at New Jersey's Izod Center to get their reaction on the trailer and to find out which scene tugged the hardest on their heart strings.

"You just realize how far they've gone, their three-year anniversary is coming up and they were normal and they went through 'The X Factor,' " Nina Aninipot said of her reaction when she first watched the "This is Us" trailer. "And it just blows my mind." Directioner Tasina Berkey added," I cried the first time I saw it, I'm a little embarrassed, but I did. When they showed the baby pictures in the beginning of the movie, they were just so cute and precious."

And while others chose the more lighthearted moments, like Harry visiting his hometown bakery and Liam Payne fishing Harry out of the water, many were truly touched when Zayn Malik gave his family the ultimate gift: a new home.

"The part where Zayn ...

Not many fans will ever get a chance to meet Jay-Z face-to-face, but for Ellen Grossman, that was her official introduction to Hov, who just happened to sit next to her on the R train in New York City last fall. Since then, Grossman has attended Jay-Z's New Year's Eve concert at the Barclays Center and become more familiar with his music. So MTV News invited her to listen to his new album Magna Carta Holy Grail and share her thoughts.

Right off the bat, Grossman, a visual artist based in Manhattan, admitted that she might not catch every single lyric, but she did do a little research. "It sounds like he's really going deep into his heart and into fatherhood and even the meaning of fame," Grossman said of her early impressions. "[He's saying] that the money's nice, but there's life beyond that, that he's exploring. I picked that up from the papers but I felt it in the man too, when I met him. That he had a depth to him."

"I don't get all of the words but I get a lot of them and I'm really enjoying it," she added after an initial spin. "I like jazz and what's called 'new music' and I can relate to all the soundscapes, it's really innovative stuff."

We asked Grossman to listen to a select few tracks and share her thoughts.

'Holy Grail' feat. Justin Timberlake
"Even though it started out as a complaint about lovers and relationships, it was pretty mellow and you could go with it...but when Jay-Z came ...

Aside from the occasional emergency brain surgery, Mumford & Sons' daily routine remains unchanged: Wake up, don't shave, play a show somewhere, sell more records, play song Ping Pong, repeat.

And while Mumford have already made sly comments about the monotony of life on the road in their video — in that they went to great lengths to point out just how extraordinary the ordinary could be — they're doing it again in their brand new "Babel" clip, going to great lengths to show just how unending their cycle truly is. It may seem like they're rehashing old material, but, hey, these dudes are eternally on tour.

This time out, they take an artful approach: as the camera slowly pans across a gorgeous, yet dilapidated, hall — one equally filled with gilded arches and graffiti — the band perform, over and over, often times overlapping. Sure, we're wise enough to realize that this was all done in post (unless Mumford and Co. can teleport), but it's still a thrill to watch the latticework of this clip, and if one considers the treadmill this band has been on for the better part of four years now, well, it works on an entirely different level.

Because, sure, each day is essentially the same, and each performance probably doesn't vary all that much from the one that came before it, but at least Mumford & Sons are still trying to make the mundane marvelous. It would be easy for a band of their caliber, with a schedule like theirs, to ...

The feud between Jay-Z and Nas has come to be recognized as one of the greatest in hip-hop history, an inter-borough battle for rap supremacy between two talents at the top of their game, highlighted by several scathing tracks — Jay's "Takeover," Nas' epic K.O. "Ether," etc. — and an acrimony that went beyond wax ... simply put, these two guys didn't like each other.

And yet, after four years of back-and-forth jabs, in 2005 both men put bad blood aside, as Nas joined Jay onstage during his "I Declare War" concert, and HOV, acting as president of Def Jam, signing his former adversary to a deal. Since then, they've appeared on each other's songs, most recently the Magna Carta Holy Grail track "BBC," and though they probably don't exchange Christmas cards, Jay and Nas have forged a lasting peace, one built on mutual respect.

Still, in '05, their reconciliation was very big news, and when both men sat down with MTV News' Sway Calloway for a frank discussion of their feud, well, the hip-hop world paid attention ... especially when these former adversaries open up about the first time they were in the room together after being at war for nearly half a decade.

"This isn't, like, high school," Jay said. "You don't sit down with people and be like 'So, we friends now?' That's just not a reality; but anything that's shrouded in respect can grow. ... It's one of those things, at the time you would never think would happen in life, and it's happening, so it ...

"The Lone Ranger" opened nationwide on Wednesday, offering audiences a terrific leading role for up-and-comer Armie Hammer and another classically weird performance from Hollywood's favorite oddball, Johnny Depp. But now that the duo has saved the day, gotten the girl and ridden off into the sunset, what's next on the horizon for Hammer, Depp and their collaborators?

Armie Hammer
Since making his breakthrough as twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in David Fincher's "The Social Network," Hammer has steadily watched his profile rise in a number of big-league projects including Tarsem Singh's "Mirror, Mirror," and Clint Eastwood's "J. Edgar." The handsome leading man will next appear onscreen in "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." for "Sherlock Holmes" director Guy Ritchie, starring opposite . He's also scheduled to star in the film "2:22," about an air traffic controller who discovers that a light he investigates in the sky may be responsible for larger forces controlling various aspects of his life.

Johnny Depp
With box office moxie to spare, Depp continues to rule as a leading man, no matter how weird his performances get. Among the projects up next for the star is another "Pirates of the Caribbean" film, the fifth in the series, where he will once again play Captain Jack Sparrow. Before then, however, he stars in cinematographer-turned-director Wally Pfister's sci-fi feature debut, "Transcendence," opposite Kate Mara and Morgan Freeman. And for his "Pirates 4" director Rob Marshall, Depp is set to star as The Wolf in "Into The Woods," about a witch who conspires to teach lessons to a group of characters ...

Jay-Z cemented his legacy in rap long ago, but the Brooklyn MC has slowly been making his mark in the sports world. Hov threw down the gauntlet on his latest album Magna Carta Holy Grail and took aim at a big-time baseball agent.

"Scott Boras, you over baby/ Robinson Cano, you coming with me," Jay spit on , referencing his signing of the all-star Yankee second baseman.

Cano left Boras to sign with Jigga's Roc Nation Sports and CAA in April in a highly publicized deal. "We all know what kind of man he is and what he's all about," the Dominican Republic-born slugger told MTV News on June 17 when he walked the red carpet at the 40/40 Club in NYC to celebrate the club's 10th anniversary. "It's always good to be around people like him and share those good moments that he's into and get some good advice."

Boras may not be the biggest rap fan, but the jab didn't go unnoticed. "My music taste? I love jazz. I'm a huge Bernie Williams fan," he told Yahoo! Sports on July 3, referencing his former client, the four-time World Series champion and jazz musician.

The sports agent who was responsible for negotiating Alex Rodriguez's unbelievable quarter-of-a-billion-dollar baseball contract in 2001 also spoke to CBS Sports. In the interview he offered some key differentiation between he and Jay-Z when it comes to sports agency.

"Baseball has given us everything we have, so we give baseball everything we have, all of the time. We believe that this is the best ...

Justin Timberlake is doing more than just "bringing sexy back" with his racy new video for "Tunnel Vision," a seven-minute epic featuring legions of undulating, nude models (that has already been compared to Robin Thicke's similarly sexy "Blurred Lines").

However, while Thicke's video was pulled from YouTube, available only directly on VEVO, Timberlake's equally flesh-filled clip remains on the video-sharing platform, despite rumors to the contrary.

"While our Guidelines generally prohibit nudity, we make exceptions when it is presented in an educational, documentary or artistic context, and take care to add appropriate warnings and age-restrictions," a Google rep said Friday (July 5) with regard to why Timberlake's video remained on the site.

Currently, when users click through to JT's video on YouTube, they'll be faced with an explicit content warning and asked to click through to watch via Timberlake's VEVO channel. Thicke's video, in contrast, cannot be found in its unrated version on YouTube proper. It can, however, be found on VEVO.

"Tunnel Vision" features Timberlake dancing languidly, as well as a bevy of nude models projected onto his face. It premiered on July 2 on Timberlake's Myspace page and hit YouTube on July 3, where it has racked up more than a million views.

In essence, "Tunnel Vision" contains just as much nudity as "Blurred Lines," which YouTube pulled down back in March, but the Google rep wouldn't comment further on why Timberlake's video proved the exception to the rule.

David Bowie's "The Next Day" video — starring Gary Oldman and Marion Cotillard — was also pulled from ...