Today's Pick

Bruno Mars isn't the only artist getting a post-Super Bowl sales boost. A Budweiser commercial has revived Skylar Grey's "Coming Home, Part. II" - a solo version and the remake of Diddy-Dirty Money's 2010 hit, which appears on her sadly overlooked "Don't Look Down" LP as a bonus track. The heartfelt touching commercial tells the story of an American soldier - Lieutenant Chuck Nadd - returning home to Winter Park, Florida after his tour of duty for serving in Afghanistan. Nadd was told that he would be part of a documentary, but was surprised to find that a parade was being held in his honor.
The 27-year-old five-time GRAMMY-nominated singer is such an underrated force in pop, and her dark yet infectious melodies stem from such an honest and gloomy place that is rarely seen in mainstream pop and display the true capacity of Grey's brillance. The songstress co-wrote the incredibly catchy hook with Jay-Z and also sung the intro for Diddy-Dirty Money's original "Coming Home." The tune finds Diddy doing some soul-searching as the chorus echoes his need for salvation. Her contribution was significant enough to make it listenable.
People have been crying out for her to create an extended version of "Coming Home," the same way that she did with "Love The Way You Lie"(Eminem and Rihanna), and thankfully she has seen sense by finally coming up with the goods. The chorus by Grey was the most memorable part of the song, so much so that she has just debuted her own solo acoustic version as the second part under the same name, "Coming Home Part. II," along with an accompanying new visual. Emotions run high in Grey's new music video for the piano ballad, which was directed by Peter Harding.
The heartwarming clip was featured in a Budweiser commercial during Super Bowl XLVIII that was a heartbreaking show of support for our troops, and a tribute to recent announcement from President Obama revealing nearly 34,000 U.S. troops and service members will be returning home. It's a simple affair as Grey shares intimate and performs the ballad at her piano with a couple of candles to set the mood while soldiers reunite with their families, but the no-fuss visual suits the song's stripped back sound and introspective lyrics. Watch the emotional homecoming below.

St. Vincent (also known as Annie Clark) strikes out against conformity in her dystopian new video for "Digital Witness," the second single from her forthcoming self-titled fourth album, arrives on February 25th and the same day she kicks off an extensive U.S. tour at New York's Terminal 5. "The video shows St. Vincent commanding a surreal and futuristic world in which action is synchronized, replicated and repeated," according to a press release. It's a stylish, bizarre, cool video befitting the stylish, bizarre, cool song.
Annie Clark has always been a quirky character, so imagine what life would be like if St. Vincent were running it, and her new video offered a vaguely dystopian glimpse at just such a world. But the singer-songwriter-guitarist is another rare artist with the savvy and poise to pull such a move off. Apparently, St. Vincent likes everything nice and matchy-matchy, with flat tones and simple lines consuming the landscape and interiors. If the color scheme isn't unnerving enough, Clark's unflinching stillness and her Dr. Seuss-styled hairdo make you wonder when exactly she's going to snap.
"Digital Witness" questions the concept of identity in the selfie era. "I wanted to make a party record you could play at a funeral," Clark said last year. You'll fall in love, and you'll be staring at a screen. The brassy, dance-y track very much reflected the ample time Clark has recently spent collaborating with David Byrne. Lockstep drudgery meets bright colors in Brooklyn musician's latest video, which looks just like a window into Clark's anxious vision, all conformist synchronization and dystopian austerity. The result is a layer of optimism, in tune with the song's funky horn riffs, amid Clark's surreal future world.
Clark teamed up with director Chino Moya to update Fritz Lang's classic silent film "Metropolis." The new video builds off of that jittery anxiety with a fleshed-out narrative that positions St. Vincent as the unblinking, truth-telling, shock-haired madwoman in a land of conformity while singing over the deceptively joyous horn blasts, glossing over the song's creeping paranoia. But where Lang's world is all moody black-and-white, Clark and Moya paint a surreal, pastel-hued future soundtracked by St. Vincent's funky, horn-infused dancey track. Watch St. Vincent's gloriously coiffed "Digital Witness" dystopia below.

Living in the average man's fantasy world, Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull throw a wild massive party and, of course, craziness ensues, and get positively down and dirty with scantily-clad ladies in their new eye-popping music video for the club-ready anthem "I'm a Freak,"  the third English language, and fifth overall, single featuring Pitbull from Iglesias' upcoming album "Sex + Love," scheduled for release on March 18. This time, Iglesias is getting freaky and he is not ashamed to show it.
Unlike recent teaser "El Perdedor," which saw the 38-year-old Spanish heartthrob return to his Latin pop roots, "I'm A Freak" is an unsurprisingly pure party anthem and a decent dance-pop/electro house track featuring a typically hedonistic production from The Cataracs. Despite its wave of EDM bleeps, pulsing beats and suggestive and provocative lyrics, the song is a little more melodic and a little less bombastic than recent club bangers "Turn The Night Up" and "Finally Found You." The song still oozes enough party mojo that would probably be a crowd-pleaser and get any party animal crazy on the dance floor.
"I'm A Freak," about being a sex addict, follows in the age-old music tradition of objectifying women as male performers boast about their sexual prowess. It's actually a testament to how little the basic music video format has changed at all since the 90s - it's like if Hollywood had never stopped making "Die Hard" movies. The thing is, your initial reaction to this might be that it's a terrible load of misogynistic horseshit that to any sensible onlooker accidentally demeans the song's male participants just as much as it deliberately demeans the video's female stars. And you would probably be right.
Now the pair have hooked up for the fifth time on their newest collab "I'm a Freak," and in a house filled with women partying, the Collin Tilley-directed clip pans throughout the wild and crazy pool party with the hypnotic dance beat of "I'm A Freak," as Iglesias sings and Pitbull raps about their sexual proclivities, while being surrounded by the girls, who dance, twerk to the song and try to seduce them. The end result feels a lot like 2013's "The Internship." It marks the return of a dynamic duo (Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn), being exactly where they shouldn't be, only in a scenario that somehow feels three times as bizarre and long. It's kind of a headache, but as the viewing public will likely say, "Life's a party. Crash It."

Three months after Paramore announced they'd ditched the idea and scrapped the video for their self-titled album's sixth track "Ain't It Fun," they've returned with an actual, completed clip and it's a gem. Most music superstars want to smash sales records with their songs. So it may come as no surprise to see a rock trio go on a quest to try it literally with a million LP discs. However, Hayley Williams and her gang have now returned in spectacular fashion with a four minute promo for the new song in which it looks like they had an enormous amount of fun with their antics.
Paramore try on a bunch of new styles, from new wave to pop-funk, and Williams even busts out the uke for a couple of confessional interludes. While a rock song, "Ain't It Fun" includes influences from funk, soul, new jack swing and gospel, genres that Paramore are typically not associated with. Paramore is having fun living in the real world with the song's sarcastic lyrics. "Ain't It Fun" absolutely steals the show - a perfect blend of funk, early '90s pop and swing team with an insanely catchy melody, awesome scat section and pristine production to create one of the year's best songs.
Directed by Sophia Peer, this re-shot version of "Ain't It Fun" follows Paramore as they attempt to set a series of increasingly ridiculous world records - everything from "fastest time to smash 30 clocks with guitars" and "most feathers caught in 30 seconds" to "most cartwheels in 20 seconds while wearing boots" and, of course, "fastest time to run backwards holding stuffed animals while blindfolded for 30 feet" - with the ultimate goal of breaking more records in a single music video than any other band.
Who previously held that record? Who knows? Probably no one and that's not really the point. Like its title (sarcastically) implies, "Ain't It Fun" is very much about joy, camaraderie, silliness and reckless abandon. It doesn't really matter if Paramore end up breaking the most records, or even if their record holds up in a rather brilliant interactive move, they're actively encouraging fans to make records of their own through RecordSetter.com. This one's all about inclusion. "Ain't It Fun" is blissed out and buzzy, born of a brilliant concept, and an absolute blast to watch. It may have taken a while for Paramore to get it made, but no one ever said having fun was supposed to be easy.

All those late nights filming in London have paid off for One Direction fans, as the English-Irish boy band has finally unveiled its official hilarious video for brand new single "Midnight Memories," the third single and title track off their third album, which was the UK's biggest-selling album of 2013, despite only being released at the end of November, and saw One Direction become the first band ever to have their first three albums debut at No.1 in the US Billboard chart. The video shows how the fivesome upgrades from a boring house party to adventures around London and having fun.
There's always been rock influence in One Direction's music, but it really comes to the forefront on "Midnight Memories," is an ode to the quintet's life on tour and sees the band at their most exuberant and energetic. Co-written by John Ryan, Jamie Scott, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson and Julian Bunetta and produced by Bunetta, the song reflects the band's growing maturity. Payne told Ryan Seacrest during a pre-release Q&A that this track is the most significant part of Midnight Memories. "This was the first song we wrote on the new album and it set us on course of what writing the rest of this album was going to be. It set the tone," he explained.
Bunetta told MTV News the song personifies the five guys' lifestyle. "It's the title of the album and it just happens to fall in line with Up All Night, Take Me Home, it's all references to in the evening," he said. "And midnight memories are where most of the memories of this record were made," the producer continued. "[It] was between midnight and 5 in the morning. We have so many memories of just being in the studio or being after a show or being in the back of the bus or going to one of the guys' places and hanging and writing. Or, [it's also] just when you're young and that's when you kind of have all your experiences."
The Ben Winston-directed video starts with the Brit boy-banders at a "weird cast party with a crowded kitchen," as the lyrics say. As the boys getting uncharacteristically rebuffed by boring house party guests who couldn't care less, they decide to make a quick exit from the party to beginning of a much better time as the song kicks into gear. The quintet roams around London creating havoc - from stealing a police boat to jumping restaurant counters. They even find some elderly fans in electric scooters and rock out with them as sparklers go off in the street before singing their hearts out while harnessed on top of Tower Bridge.

Jennifer Lopez go back to her roots and reminds us she's the "Same Girl" in her new nostalgic music video which was first premiered on American Idol. The new ballad will be featured in her upcoming 10th studio album rumored to be titled "The Bronx," scheduled for release this Spring. In 2002, Lopez reminded she was still 'Jenny From the Block' despite having chart-topping success and fame. That still applies over a decade later. She returns to her hometown of the Bronx, New York for her new video "Same Girl," and where she aims to prove she hasn't changed.
The songstress is not only back on American Idol, but back with new music as well! Co-written by Lopez in collaboration with Chris Brown and produced by Amadeus and Cory Rooney, the 44-year-old entertainer shared about new song: "This was just something I was doing for the fans. It's not a first single or anything like that. But the song is about getting back to your roots and remembering where you're from and I think we captured that in the video too." It's sounding like this tender ballad looking back to the star's roots on the streets of Brooklyn.
The video for "Same Girl," is an homage to the Nuyorican's roots as Lopez re-visited to her Castle Hill neighborhood in the Bronx, NY last December and filmed video with director Steven Gomillion & Dennis Leupold in the borough's Andrew Freedman Home. "I had this idea like, oh, when I do the video for [Same Girl], if I ever do a video for this, I'm gonna go back to my old neighborhood in the Bronx," Lopez said on The Tonight Show. "I'm gonna go back to Castle Hill, I'm gonna get on the train from Manhattan, I'm just gonna film the hole thing. So we did!"
Flaunting her most famous asset in tight jeans, and also wears stiletto ankle boots, a black leather jacket with a fur collar and a Yankees cap for a casual look, the judge of "American Idol" braves the rain in a deep gaze while waiting for a ride at a subway station for the 6 train, dancing in the rain underneath a subway platform and mugging in front of Bronx graffiti. And just to really make sure we see how authentic she is, Lopez sings, "'Cause I'm on the same grind, no I never changed, I'm loving everyday, I know that I'm the same Jenny from around the way now." Message received.

The Colombian stunner Shakira is back with a brand new steamy music video for the provocative "Can't Remember To Forget You," and this time the Bajan beauty Rihanna has also come along for the ride. In spite of the song's title, the Caribbean ladies get up close and personal, and make for a sizzling combination, and, naturally, it is hot and fierce! The post-breakup duet is the first single from off of the "Voice" coach's upcoming self-titled inaugural album with Sony label RCA, her first since 2010, hits shelves March 25.
Co-written by the singers with Swedish singer-songwriter Erik Hassle, "Can't Remember To Forget You,"  is an uptempo New Wave track with Ska elements, finds the two stars lamenting on their inability to forget lovers who are bad for them. "Working with Rihanna was utopia. She's the sexiest woman on the planet," the 36-year-old Colombian singer said in Glamour magazine. "And at the end of the day, we're both just basically Caribbean girls. The chemistry was so good and so real. She taught me dance moves. She was a sweet teacher."
Shakira's relationship with Spanish soccer player Gerard Pique, was definitely not an inspiration for the track. She told Ryan Seacrest: "I'm going through a completely different experience right in relation to the song. The song is about that guy that just gets under your skin and you can't leave alone. I think every woman has been through that. This song is not exactly a reflection of my personal life right now." She also noted working with Rihanna, "You know, we're both from the Caribbean so I always thought we had that common ground, but this song is pretty Reggae. I honestly thought it would never happen... She heard the record and she loved it and she said she was onboard and I was the happiest girl alive."
Shot in a Los Angeles mansion, the Joseph Kahn-directed clip begins with Shakira romping around on a bed as she sings about the mistakes she's made in love before the 25-year-old Rihanna even makes her appearance. The duo then cozy up, smoke cigars, cuddling, make smoldering facial expressions and writhe around together on a bed in revealing outfits as they sing of a post-breakup longing and their mutual addiction to a man who is no good for them, they indulge in a dance off, with a wall separating them, showing off their coordinating choreography which gets progressively raunchier. Things heat up as they return to the cabana by the pool and caress each other with Rihanna placing her hand on Shakira's pert posterior.