Following last week’s musical appearance by Rihanna, Saturday Night Live enlisted Usher to bring his smooth voice and slick moves to the show’s New York stage this weekend. For Ush’s first performance, he belted out “Scream”, the latest single from upcoming LP Looking 4 Myself (due out June 12). The crooner was accompanied by a full band, two backup singers and a dazzling array of stage lights that bathed him in red, yellow and blue while he worked the crowd up with the dance-pop jam.

Usher and Justin Bieber pal around

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Later Billboard‘s current cover guy returned to the SNL stage and slowed the vibe down with synthy and sultry number “Climax”.

Usher — ”Climax” on Saturday Night Live

Altogether, this was Usher’s third appearance on Saturday Night Live. Was it his best? Let us know what you think of his performance below, or by hitting us up on Facebook and Twitter.

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We haven’t heard any new music from The Killers since last December with their charity single, but today comes a treat from the Las Vegas band — a cover of The Raspberries‘ 1972 song “Go All The Way”, which will play during Tim Burton and Johnny Depp’s Dark Shadows, which hits theaters this weekend. “Our old pal Tim Burton asked us to record a cover song for his new film #DarkShadows,” the group tweeted out. “It opens everywhere Friday. See you at the movies.”

Unfortunately the tune won’t be on the official soundtrack, but you can hear a low-quality recording below. Covers and Christmas singles aside, we can’t wait for the full monty when their fourth studio album drops later this year.

The Killers – “Go All The Way” (Raspberries cover)

[Via Consequence Of Sound]

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We always knew Justin Bieber was a mama’s boy — and now it’s as clear as ever how close he is with his mother with the release of his new song “Turn To You”. The melodic, midtempo song — with Bieber sweetly declaring, “I admire you for the strength you’ve instilled in me” — was inspired by his own mother, Pattie Mallette. The single hits iTunes tonight at midnight, and all proceeds from sales of the song benefit the Bethedsda Centre, an Ontario crisis women’s shelter that provided aid to Justin’s mom during her pregnancy. The center is in danger of closing if it doesn’t raise $1.5 million by May 31, so get to (legally) downloading, Beliebers and moms of Beliebers! Til then, listen to the track here.

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Maroon 5‘s record-breaking single “Payphone”, a depressing song stuck in a sunny melody, gets the Michael Bay treatment in their explosive new video — and we mean that literally. In the action-packed clip, which premiered this evening (May 9) on E!, Adam Levine plays a bespectacled banker whose place of business gets held up by a team of masked men. Apparently, Levine didn’t get the memo about not being a hero in this sort of situation — he nabs one of the bad guys’ guns, grabs one of his female co-workers, and high-tails it out of there, stealing Wiz Khalfia‘s convertible in the process and leading a pack of police cars (and a helicopter!) on a wild chase.

The clip is an enjoyable mini-blockbuster, but it’s still missing one important ingredient: Adam Levine without a shirt. At least we’ll always have this gallery!

adam levine: shirtless, and loving it

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Whitney Houston has been been paid tribute to several times over in the last few months (by Glee, American Idol, The Grammys, and her own family members), but there’s an even bigger one planned for the end of this year. The singer, who passed away in February, will be honored at the next VH1 Divas, to be filmed in December. “We all felt that if any show could pay tribute to Whitney’s music, it would be Divas,” VH1 president Tom Calderone tells Billboard. “December felt like enough time where it wouldn’t be sad anymore, you’d want to celebrate her music.” No performers have been announced yet for the show, but we’ll imagine quite a number of Houston’s musical contemporaries will pop up during the special.

Houston has appeared on VH1 Divas three times — in 1999, 2002 and 2003. Remember why Houston was appointed the The Greatest Diva Of All Time by watching her unmatchable performance of her iconic song “I Will Always Love You” during her first appearance on the show. Pretty amazing, no?

remembering whitney: 8 great moments in time

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Though the world probably didn’t need another televised singing competition show, we’re nonetheless excited to watch Duets, which boasts phenomenal talents like Kelly Clarkson, Robin Thicke, Jennifer Nettles and John Legend, the latter who replaced Lionel Richie on the panel. Good Morning America took a brief peek behind-the-scenes of the new singing competition, and sat down with all four judges — who also happen to be four of the show’s mentors and competitors, since they’ll be performing with the contestants each week.

kelly clarkson sings her heart out

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“Nobody guided me,” says Clarkson of her first few years as a singer. “I don’t know about ya’ll, but I was making mistakes left and right, and I didn’t know what I was doing. I think it’s really cool to give back in that sense.”

The show premieres Thursday May 24 at 8 p.m. on ABC. Watch the preview (which includes the “Stronger” star singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” with John Legend), then tell us — do Jennifer Lopez and Christina Aguilera have some major competition with Kelly as reality TV’s favorite advice-giving diva?

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fun. joined the chorus of artists saddened by the death of Beastie Boys‘ MC Adam Yauch, honoring the late music pioneer with a cover of the Beasties’ modern classic “Sabotage”. fun. will play some big stages this summer (including Lollapalooza) following the ascent of their critical and commercial smash “We Are Young”. But when Yauch died last week, they were hours from performing at Washington D.C.’s comparatively small 9:30 Club. Thus only a lucky few fans had an up-close look at the band’s pounding cover, in which the band’s Nate Ruess managed a passable impression of the real thing.

As with Coldplay’s cover of “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)”, “Sabotage” isn’t the sort of song we’d expected to hear from the band behind the anthemic, soaring “We Are Young”. Then again, fun. does cite a surprising diversity of influences (in a recent SPIN interview, Ruess shouted out Queen, alt-rock titans Smashing Pumpkins, Van Morrison and Kanye West’s acclaimed My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which of course was largely produced by Jeff Bhasker, the whiz behind fun.’s own chart-topping hit).

Fans at Friday night’s show tweeted that the band busted out the Beastie Boys tribute at the start of their encore. fun. hasn’t shied away from covering major artists — the night before Yauch died, the band rocked the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and a jokey stab at Santana’s hit “Smooth” at the same Washington D.C. venue. (You can hear them on the NPR webcast of the May 3 show).

How did fun.’s “Sabotage” cover stand up? Let us know on Facebook, Twitter or in the comments.

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Newly minted actress Rihanna was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live this week (May 5), her third time on the show. In hot pants, tall black boots, a see-through blouse, black bra and studded baseball cap, the Battleship star busted out a medley of “Birthday Cake” — minus birthday boy himself, Chris Brown — and “Talk That Talk,” without a guest verse from Jay-Z. And lest the audience miss the double-entendre laden in that first song, RiRi gyrated through the performance, patting her very own, uh, cake during the repetitive chorus.

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No Doubt‘s long-delayed, heavily anticipated follow-up to 2001′s Rock Steady finally has a release date — September 25, 2012. The band put together a video to announce the big news, and barely got through the minute-long clip without cracking themselves up. We missed these guys!

“We’ll be posting a lot of updates between now and September as we shoot the video and start rehearsing to perform the new songs live for all of you,” the band wrote on their official site. “We’ll send plenty of photos and webisodes as we go so you’re there with us.” The album, their first in nearly 11 years, was initially expected to drop in 2011, but was pushed back due to the band wanting to take their time. “This collection of songs means everything to us and our only priority right now is to make sure that it’s the best album we can possibly make,” Gwen Stefani & Co. said last September.

The SoCal band has been working on the album since 2010, and have recorded a collaboration with Major Lazer‘s Diplo and Switch. Tracks on the LP include “One More Summer”, described as a “beat-driven electro-pop track with a soaring chorus”, and “Dreaming The Same Dream”, which Stefani referred to as “a prom song”. September is a little late for a prom song, but at this point, it’s better late than never.

gwen stefani: totally stunning for ‘instyle’

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Usher graces the cover of the latest issue of Billboard, a choice that’s more than appropriate considering that the superstar is booked as one of the many performers at the Billboard Music Awards on May 20. (He’s also reminding people of his sometimes forgotten R&B talents with “Climax”.) The singer, whose album Looking 4 Myself drops next month, looks like he’s in a fighting mood in the pic taken by photographer Ben Watts — everybody better watch out, he’s wearing that hideous (and painful-looking) ring again!

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