When I sat down recently with BC Jean, the cowriter of Beyoncé’s monster hit “If I Were a Boy,” she spoke about her gratitude for getting her song recorded by one of the leading players in pop music today, and about the burden it put on her to show that she’s more than a one-hit wonder.

That’s part of the reason she teamed with a variety of songwriting and producing partners -- including the Matrix, Ryan Tedder and Max Martin --  besides Toby Gad, her collaborator on “If I Were a Boy,” in crafting material for her debut album, which will be released early next year.

“After ‘If I Were A Boy,’ I felt like I needed to prove myself,” she told me during our chat at her record company offices in Beverly Hills. “I wanted to prove that it’s not just one person I can write with, or not just one person I can produce with -- I can write with everybody. As long as you know what you want, you can make that clear.”

She's getting her big test this week, when her own single, “Just a Guy,” is sent to radio stations to see which ones will put it on their play lists.

Makeba Riddick walks into Takami Sushi & Robata Restaurant in downtown Los Angeles every bit as stunning as any diva, with vibrant pink lipstick, glittering earrings, heels that reach the high heavens and luscious locks.

To the wait staff she’s just another glamizon getting lunch, but if they dialed the radio from the ambient soundscapes to a Top 40 channel they’d hear one of the scores of hits the 31-year-old has penned for divas like Rihanna, Beyonce, Mariah Carey and Toni Braxton.

This particular day Riddick is apologetic for running a tad late, though only by a few minutes. She had to fit in a vocal session with Rihanna -- who was overseas on tour. Still fresh off her fifth No. 1 single -- she penned the singer’s current hit, “Rude Boy” -- Riddick's happy to honor the request from the singer who is already hard at work crafting her next album. 

Riddick is dedicated to her work -- she once hopped on a flight to Milan after just returning to New York from a London trip to work with the superstar. The result, “Live Your Life,” a collaboration with rapper T.I., ended up being a smash.

“She’s the type of artist that, she’s on the road a lot and she’ll have an entourage that’s like family. It’s really fun, but it’s a lot of work,” Riddick later says of her frequent collaborations with Rihanna (the two have worked together on all four of Rihanna's albums). “Her schedule, my schedule, photo shoots and all of that -- and trying to meet the deadlines from the label.” 

After accepting the imposingly named BMI Icon Award on  Tuesday night, rocker John Fogerty strapped on a guitar and blazed like a bullet train through a brief sampling of the even more imposing songbook that earned him the career honor at the performing rights organization's annual dinner at the Beverly Wilshire hotel.

“I got a little scared with that ‘icon’ stuff,” the 64-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member said good-naturedly just before peeling off nearly a dozen rock classics such as “Green River,” “Travelin' Band,” “Up Around the Bend,” “Bad Moon Rising,” “Fortunate Son” and “Proud Mary,” along with a couple of newer tunes for several hundred fellow songwriters and other members of Broadcast Music Inc., the organization that collects and distributes publishing royalties to songwriters.

As this year’s Icon honoree, Fogerty joins a class of celebrated songwriters that includes Paul Simon, Brian Wilson, James Brown, Willie Nelson, Carlos Santana, the Jacksons and Dolly Parton.

Shortly before the ceremony, Fogerty told me that his interest in songwriting was spurred when he was 3, and his mother gave him a children’s recording of “Camptown Races” and “Oh! Susanna,” taking time to point out the name of the writer of those two American folk standards: Stephen Foster.

“I’ve thought about that a lot over the years,” he said. “I don’t know why she did that,  but after that I was always attracted to great songwriters, people like Irving Berlin, Hoagy Carmichael, who was one of my favorites, Cole Porter and George Gershwin. When I saw the [1946] movie ‘Night and Day’ about Cole Porter, as a kid I thought, ‘Hey, that’s pretty good -- they made a movie about this guy. He must be important.’ ” 

"Why Don't You Love Me" - Beyoncé from Beyoncé on Vimeo.

As proven on this blog and many others last week, music videos like M.I.A.'s violent tale of ginger genocide are one of the few elements of the music business that still has the power to stir conversation. In an article this week, New York Magazine tracks how the medium recovered from its early aughts slump. We'll give you a little hint: Something called YouTube is largely responsible. That, and OK Go.

It's been a long time since MTV lived up to its name. Some time along the way, music videos went from the buzz bins to the trash bins, with tireless doses of reality TV programming instead dominating the airwaves. (The members of "Jersey Shore" didn't get famous for their gel-dependent hairstyles and accents alone -- MTV simply aired it nonstop.)

But, the article posits, now the music video has found a good home on YouTube and other outlets like Vimeo, where viewers can watch the latest Lady Gaga eye candy over and over again -- her "Telephone" video currently has at least 28,650,571 views on YouTube -- without sitting through commercials for Axe body spray.

Best Breakdown (Long-form): LCD Soundsystem, "Yeah."
It started with a propulsive four-on-the-floor beat with a saucing of trademark cowbell. Then came little synthesized squiggles, Exacto-sharp guitars and an assertive disco bass line. Then James Murphy started with the lyric that became Friday's insatiable anthem: "Yeah, yeah, yeah…." It seemed an invitation to every single person in earshot, from the band to fans to the beer vendors to nearby retirement homes, to drop whatever they were doing and throw down like the world was ending. Four days later, we're still singing along.

Worst gaffe by the soundboard: At last, a reunited Pavement returns to make up for its disastrous 1999 appearance and what happens to them? Several seconds of opening number "Silence Kit" is, well, absolutely silent due to some technical fumble or another. At least the band, which merrily carried on with their nostalgia fest, didn't seem to mind -- they've always liked being the underdogs.



Best Lighting: During the final moments of Little Boots' last song, a triumphant rendition of “Stuck On Repeat,” a frantic, pointed pulse of purple, green and yellow lasers fanned across the tent seemingly penetrating the forms of every dancing body they touched. The sheer amount of Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation that Victoria Hesketh unleashed on the Gobi tent Sunday night was mind-blowing; three giant fans of red, white and blue beams refracted over every inch of the tent and made her already-giddy disco jams feel like a rave fantasia.

Best Portent: This year, we needed reminding that Coachella takes place in the desert. Past years, the temperature has typically climbed to the high '90s and low 100s, but 2010 was blessed with cool, dry weather that barely inched past 90. Hardly a misting station was in sight because no one really needed it, and the dance tents, even at their most jammed, weren't the usual unbearable pits of, um, eau du human fragrance. As a result, everyone seemed a lot more happy and chill. 



Best Competition for the Headliners: Whatever was going on at the outdoor stage. It's hard to figure out the weird science of what makes a good main stage act and what's better served by the smaller outdoor theater, but on more than a few occasions, it was clear that the bookers need to rejigger the algorithm. With massive audiences that kept piling up, Phoenix, Dead Weather and Thom Yorke's Atoms for Peace all belonged on the main stage.

These days, visuals, media saturation and listener interaction are as crucial as the notes.

When will.i.am shouted, "Welcome to the future!" as he and the rest of the Black Eyed Peas cavorted with a blur of dancers through a medley that sounded like a military cadence mixed with an ad jingle at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, he wasn't only spouting a cliche. His bulletin announced that pop music's winning game is changing, and that the only way for the music business to survive is to jump into the pandemonium.

This year's telecast and the awards it celebrated showed how the recording industry is definitively moving beyond albums, and even songs, as the basic unit by which music is both sold and affects our lives. Music is increasingly enhanced by visual or dramatic elements that deepen or even change its messages; it intersects with other art forms, like dance and fashion, to form more complex statements, and benefits profoundly from the active engagement of fans. These perennial realities have now thoroughly transcended the idea that the literary, privately absorbed version of music -- exemplified by the records that played on the gramophone that is the Grammy symbol -- matters most.

The night's performances connected to Broadway (best rock album winner Green Day's performance of "21 Guns" with the cast of the forthcoming New York musical based on their 2004 album "American Idiot"), Cirque du Soleil (Pink's gorgeous "Glitter in the Air," which featured the soulful rock star doing an aerial routine with silk ropes), opera (Mary J. Blige's duet of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" with tenor Andrea Bocelli), and the rise of social media (Bon Jovi playing a song requested by fans over the Internet.)

With the Grammy Awards only days away, most sites are offering last minute predictions about who will win in the major categories, speculating about the performances or the 3-D tribute to Michael Jackson,  even debating what Lady Gaga will wear. One site has a different take on the nominees.

Whose Voice Is That?, a blog that specializes in "the astute ability to identify voices in commercials, cartoons, voice-overs, etc." takes a comprehensive look at this year's nominees and the voice-over work they have done at various points in their careers. That includes Beyoncé's cutesy animated turn in the kid's show "Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!" and Jackson's more bizarre character work for a 2000 video game.

Here are a few of our favorites:

Before she became Fergie and dominated airwaves with the Black Eyed Peas, Stacy Ferguson spent a couple years in the 1980s providing the voice for Charlie Brown's younger sister, Sally, in the beloved "Peanuts" cartoons. She also played the cynical and ill-tempered Lucy van Pelt. Watch and listen to Fergie as Sally in a clip from "Snoopy's Getting Married, Charlie Brown" below. 

The category: Album of the year

The field at a glance: Combined, the five contenders have sold well over 13 million albums, according to Nielsen SoundScan. This is not the year of the underdog. 

Taylor Swift's "Fearless," released in 2008, was the top-selling album of 2009 at 4.6 million. The country darling will compete with fashion-aggressive pop start Lady Gaga, now-veteran diva Beyoncé, longtime jam act the Dave Matthews Band and L.A.'s studio wizards the Black Eyed Peas. 

Heading into the Grammys, Swift has won top prizes at nearly every major award show, her wholesome, arena-friendly songs leading a Nashville charge into the mainstream. Not since Shania Twain in the late '90s has a country lady so dominated popular culture, and at only 20, a vote for Swift is betting on the songwriter turning into a career artist.

The Dave Matthews Band, meanwhile, has amassed a nearly 20-year career, and has zero Grammy awards for their albums to show for it. Yet voters have been drawn to "Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King," which reveals a tighter, more focused DMB. The ever-ubiquitous Black Eyed Peas trotted out multiple contenders for song of the summer, and Beyoncé's "I Am ... Sasha Fierce" was a two-disc effort that showed off the pop queen's diversity. She controlled the dance floor with "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)," and remained a master of the big-moment ballad with "Halo." 

The category: Song of the year

The field at a glance: This is starting to sound familiar, isn't it? The 15 nominations of the Grammys' top three categories -- album, record and song -- are spread among seven artists. Song of the year, which is awarded to a composer, closely mirrors the record of the year category, except studio maestros the Black Eyed Peas, despite turning "Mazel tov!" into a lyrical hook, have to sit this one out.

In the Peas' place is an exquisite R&B single from Maxwell, "Pretty Wings," a song that will be going against some of the top-charting singles of the year. Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" is packed with gambling metaphors and silly turns of phrase ("bluffin' with my muffin"), and comes from the complete opposite end of the songwriting world as Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody," a heart-on-sleeve earnest rock ballad.

Country star Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me" plays out like an effervescent look into a high school diary, and Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" is the minimalist call-and-response hit, one that's part taunt, part slap-in-the-face and part fairy tale idealism. 

The category: Record of the year

The field at a glance: Despite the runaway success of Taylor Swift, one could argue that this award was Beyoncé's to lose. Her "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" dance has become a global phenomen. The song stood out in the marketplace -- its sparse rhythm in contrast to the retro electronics favored by Lady Gaga -- and cemented Beyoncé's status as a veteran pop artist with proven staying power.

Yet the song wasn't even in the running for record of the year. Instead, "Single Ladies" was submitted only for song of the year, and the Beyoncé song nominated here is the ballad "Halo." It's nice, but it didn't define pop radio. Nor does it carry with it the elegance of last year's winner, "Please Read the Letter" from Alison Krauss and Robert Plant.

There're plenty of ubiquitous hits in consideration here. Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" was the song that launched the artist, and the Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling" was completely unavoidable all summer long. The cut even figured heavily in the Grammys' prime-time nomination concert on CBS in December. Kings of Leon's glistening arena ballad "Use Somebody" turned the once-scruffy Southern rockers into prom-friendly boys, and it's the kind of anthem that the more edgy "American Idol" candidates will be singing for years to come. 

Rounding out the field is Swift's "You Belong With Me," a showcase for the artist's country-lite, good-natured hooks. Its messages of individualism come packed with plenty of easy-to-remember lyrical details ("she's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers"), and is the kind of song that makes Swift a role model worth championing, as well as the heir to Shania Twain's country-rock throne.

Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, the Black Eyed Peas, Maxwell and Lady Antebellum, who have a collective 32 Grammy nominations for 2009 among them, will perform at the awards show, which is scheduled for Jan. 31 at Staples Center in Los Angeles.

They’re the first acts confirmed to perform during the CBS telecast, which will include a fan-participation element in which anyone can upload a clip of themselves singing along with the Peas' hit “I Gotta Feeling,” some of which will be incorporated into the group’s Grammy show performance. Deadline for submission is Jan. 15, and videos can be uploaded to either of two sites created for the contest by CBS and the Grammys.

-- Randy Lewis
 

M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" wasn't the obvious choice to be nominated for a major Grammy Award. The song, after all, uses a string of gun shots as one of its hooks. At a major award gala, one in which the Dixie Chicks were considered a surprisingly political nomination choice, it would be safe to assume that the revolutionary anthem "Paper Planes" would be sitting the kudos event out. 

Yet old man Grammy had a few surprises in store for its 2009 telecast, nominating M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" for record of the year, and embracing obscenity-per-second rapper Lil Wayne in its album of the year field. Ultimately, the more conservative choices won, but a step on the continued road to relevancy had been taken.

Can the Grammys maintain a bit of adventure when nominees are announced this Wednesday evening? Pop & Hiss has already handicapped the major album and new artist categories, and today turns the attention to the record of the year field. In a year that featured new singles from Green Day and U2, is there room for any new blood in Club Grammy? Read on.