When Nicki Minaj emerged from a glowing teleporter center stage at Staples Center on Monday night, to the opening hums of her ferocious track “Roman’s Revenge,” she showed her latest ambition: to be a stadium-packing touring act.

It’s the only explanation as to why the rapper, who is hip-hop's reigning it girl, would return a second time in as many months after supporting Lil Wayne on his I Am Still Music tour. For fans who saw that quick set in April, it was apparent she was moving herself into the arena touring landscape where female rappers haven’t been a presence in recent years.

Her music ranges from hardcore to pop friendly, so it's not surprising that her second trek in a year shows her supporting pop royalty Britney Spears on her Femme Fatale tour. Spears was the main dish, of course, but there was a moment at Staples when Minaj ruled the stage with razor-sharp bangs and body-hugging attire on full display.

While she played the true team player role while on the road with Wayne (he likes to bring out his Young Money family during his set), with Spears, she proved to be a serious live player with elaborate staging, a theatrical story line, choreography and costume changes.

Pop & Hiss caught up with Minaj ahead of her stop in Anaheim on Friday for a conversation about the tour so far, wardrobe malfunctions and why she isn’t 100% comfortable onstage.

Adam Levine and Christina Aguilera may bicker like teenage siblings on “The Voice,” but the two are just as capable of churning out a catchy, sure-fire hit together.

On Tuesday, the pair, along with Levine’s band Maroon 5, debuted their new single, “Moves Like Jagger,” with a performance on their hit competition show, "The Voice."

The made-for-summer pop cut leaked early Tuesday before the performance and quickly became a trending topic on Twitter, where it remained for most of the day. Currently, the performance is available on iTunes, and judging by the amount of love it's gotten online, it's sure to be an easy hit for the two.

Guess all that fighting paid off after all?

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-- Gerrick D. Kennedy
twitter.com/GerrickKennedy

A list of upcoming shows across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre

Epicenter 2011 with Limp Bizkit, Sept. 24; Kings of Leon, Sept. 8 (Saturday)

Pantages Theatre

Alicia Keys, June 24 (now)

Shrine Auditorium

Bon Iver, Sept. 19 (Friday)

Gibson Amphitheatre

Jill Scott, Aug. 10; Marc Anthony, Sept. 25 (Friday)

Greek Theatre

Thievery Corporation, Sept. 9; Fleet Foxes, Sept. 14 (Saturday)

Hollywood Palladium

Erasure, Oct. 1; Andrés Calamaro, Sept. 30 (Friday)

Club Nokia

1st Generation, July 23; Friendly Fires, Oct. 15 (now); Bruce Hornsby & the Noisemakers, Sept. 10 (Friday)

El Rey Theatre

F-Up, July 26 (now); Bilal, Aug. 26; Dark Star Orchestra, Sept. 23 (Friday); 100 Monkeys, Aug. 25 (Saturday)

The Forum

Foo Fighters, Oct. 13-14 (now)

The Music Box

James Blake, Sept. 18-19 (Thursday)

Echoplex

Ximena Sarinana, July 16; Rebirth Brass Band, Sept. 30; Gold Panda, Oct. 24 (now)

The Getty

Best Coast, July 9 (now)

The Echo

John Vanderslice, Aug. 26; Braids, Sept. 29; Cymbals Eat Guitars, Oct. 7 (now)

The Autry

The Dodos, Aug. 27 (now)

Orpheum Theatre

City & Colour, Nov. 3 (Friday)

House of Blues

STS9, Aug. 11; Motion City Soundtrack, Aug. 19-20; the Browning, Aug. 25; the Casualties, Aug. 28 (Friday)

House of Blues Anaheim

Railroad to Alaska, Aug. 12; Larry Hernandez, Sept. 9; Led Zepagain, Sept. 16; They Might Be Giants, Nov. 16 (Friday)

Fox Theater Pomona

City & Colour, Nov. 4 (Friday)

City National Grove of Anaheim

Buddy Guy, Sept. 23 (Friday)

Santa Barbara Bowl

Fleet Foxes, Sept. 13 (Saturday)

Brixton

John Waite, Aug. 5; the Wailers, Aug. 9 (now)

RELATED:

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Album review: Bon Iver's "Bon Iver"

An appreciation: Clarence Clemons

-- August Brown

Photo: Limp Bitzkit. Credit: Isaac Brekken / For the Times

Glen Campbell has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, the 75-year-old country singer, songwriter and guitarist and his wife, Kim, have told People magazine, a condition that has prompted him to describe a new album coming in August as his final recording.

"Glen is still an awesome guitar player and singer," Kim said in the interview. "But if he flubs a lyric or gets confused onstage, I wouldn’t want people to think, 'What's the matter with him? Is he drunk?' "

Campbell is planning a series of concerts this fall in support of the album, “Ghost on the Canvas,” due Aug. 30. He is working again with producer Julian Raymond, who helped rejuvenate Campbell’s career in 2008 on “Meet Glen Campbell,” a collection of surprising song choices including Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life),” the Velvet Underground’s “Jesus,”  Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ “Walls” and the Replacements'  “Sadly Beautiful.”

Shortly after that album was released, Campbell told The Times: "I'd like to see it go up the charts, go platinum and win the Grammy," he said. "Then I'd retire."

Instead, he returned to the studio with Raymond, who again applies Campbell’s signature homespun vocals and guitar work to songs by the Replacements’ Paul Westerberg, Jakob Dylan, Teddy Thompson and Robert Pollard as well as to some original material that Campbell and Raymond wrote together.

Dylan, in fact, cited Campbell as the catalyst for his latest album, “Women + Country,” produced by T Bone Burnett, because when Burnett asked him to hear some of his new songs, the only thing he had to offer was “Nothing But the Whole Wide World,”  which he had written, at Raymond’s request, with Campbell in mind. “That’s how it began, so thank you, Glen Campbell,” Dylan told The Times last year.

The list of musical guests on "Ghosts on the Canvas" includes Chris Isaak, Dick Dale, Billy Corgan, Brian Setzer, Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen and the Dandy Warhols.

The singer plans to undertake what he’s calling the Glen Campbell Goodbye Tour upon the album’s release. The itinerary is still to be announced.

Campbell’s career stretches over five decades from his early years as a session guitarist in Los Angeles when he played on recordings by Phil Spector, the Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and many others, to his success as a solo artist with such hits as “Gentle on My Mind," “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Galveston” and “Rhinestone Cowboy,” to his years hosting the CBS-TV show “The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour” and a side career as an actor in the original film version of “True Grit,” in which he appeared alongside star John Wayne. His personal life took a downturn in 2004, when he spent 10 days in jail in Arizona for extreme drunken driving.

“I still love making music,” Campbell told People. “And I still love performing for my fans.  I’d like to thank them for sticking with me through thick and thin.”

RELATED:

Campbell gives Green Day a go

'True Grit' memories from Kim Darby and Glen Campbell

Crisis not gentle on his pride

-- Randy Lewis

Photo of Glen Campbell in 2004. Credit: Sherrie Busby / For The Times.

The New York sky was heavy with summer rain clouds about to burst. But on the corner of 34th and Broadway, a different storm was about to hit: Bieber-fever.

A veritable tween mob scene formed Wednesday outside Macy's , where Justin Bieber's new fragrance, Someday, officially launched on Monday. More than 300 Bieber fans -- mostly teen girls in cutoff shorts, ponytails and braces -- eagerly lined up outside the store's south entrance. Bieber is scheduled to stop by Thursday afternoon to greet the first 350 fans to purchase his VIP gift set ($135), which includes a photo with the pop star.

Whereas earlier Wednesday morning the scene was a little more mellow -- fans huddled in small groups chanting lyrics to Bieber hits like "One Time" and high-fiving passersby -- the chaos grew to be more organized. As if at a football game, the front half of the line screamed in unison: "SOME!" The back half of the line followed: "DAY!"

"These are pretty extreme fans," said Macy's spokeswoman Robin Reibel. A lot of these girls camped out in tents last night."

The rap on "hipsters" is that they don't like rap. Ostensibly, they're zeitgeist carpetbaggers hopping onto whatever is the hot trend du jour. When Pitchfork and the Fader told them to worship Lil Wayne, Clipse, and Cam'ron, they did, only to distance themselves from the genre when dubstep or chillwave or witch house or chillstep* became the next big thing.

No one told this to Adam Weiss (no relation) or DJ Stereotype, the mustache-wielding and occasionally mullet-clad pair behind the Hipsters Who Heart Hip Hop nights that have gone down over the last year in Echo Park. Granted, their "Swag It Out" nights at the Short Stop spin for Gucci Mane, Lil B, and Soulja Boy with a fervor that would turn Ice-T apoplectic. But they display a deep love of hip-hop that goes far beyond a gimmicky dance or an ephemeral trend.

Though many critics smirk at their record collections from a decade past, Hipsters Who Heart Hip Hop have made it their mission to promote often overlooked or unsung artists, including the Machina Muerte crew and the Shapeshifters as well as the rappers who congregate at the Low End Theory. For all the censure that their name may inspire among hip-hop purists, the Hipsters' approach is one that commands respect and goes beyond ideology or contemporary taste.

They really do love hip-hop, and in a media environment that prizes the temporal and the shiny, it's comforting to know that they promote those whom they like, regardless of popularity and without caprice.  And for their first-anniversary show at the Echoplex on Thursday night, they've wrangled a lineup worth braving the unwashed bearded masses for. Performers include Low End Theory beat junkies Free the Robots and Dark Horsemen (the team-up of Dibia$e and Jonwayne), plus just announced suprise guests Ras G and Ninjasonik. Tucson funkster Zackey Force Funk rounds out the beat slate.

On the rap side, they've recruited Labwaste (made up of scene vets Thavius Beck and Subtitle) and Nocando, who has been having a quietly great 2011, officially remixing El-P, being named a Hip Hop DX Next, releasing Mike Eagle's "Rappers Will Die of Natural Causes" on his Hellfyre Club imprint, and unveiling the first leak from his Flash Bang Grenada project with Busdriver.

In honor of the event, DJ Stereotype has compiled a mixtape featuring all the artists on the bill. It's one of the best things that hipsters have done since last year's Twin Shadow record. Admission is $12 at the door, but they may give you a discount if you were at the first Can show in Cologne, Germany.

Download: V/A - Hipsters Who Heart Hip Hop Mix for Pop & Hiss (Left-Click) [MP3] 

* I invented "chillstep" Tuesday, but if we keep saying the word, it will become a legitimate genre by fall. I assure you.

Tracklist after the jump. 

 
Are you the next Deadmau5? Turntable.fm lets users find out by unleashing their inner DJ.

Here's how it works: Five friends take turns being a DJ, each playing one song. Other people in the room vote on whether the song is "lame" or "awesome." Too many lame votes and the song is skipped. Awesome votes give the DJ points they can use to level up their avatar. Spectators can see how popular the current song is by watching a meter. But the avatars in the room also give a hint -- the ones with their heads moving side to side like the song.

The entry-level avatars look like cute cartoon kids. The higher up they go, the less human the appearance. A top-level avatar, for example, looks like a giant mouse.  

Turntable hooks into users' Facebook accounts, using the Facebook Connect feature. That way, users can easily recruit friends via Facebook invites to open a "room" and start spinning tunes. 

Often, it's difficult to get friends to be on the same schedule, so the service is designed to let loners drift through and still have fun. Some rooms have themes. The "Coders" room, for example, had hundreds of people listening in last Saturday night.

Many of them were actively using the public chat that sits on the right rail of the screen. Some were talking about the music, but often not. Some listeners in the Coders room, for example, were exchanging Web programming tips.

The service started this spring and has caught on like wildfire. But one potential issue can douse the flames -- copyrights. As Peter Kafka of All Things D pointed out, Turntable does not have licenses from the major record labels for the rights to play songs on-demand. Instead, the company is relying on an exception in the law under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which lets webcasters offer noninteractive playlists.

Under DMCA, users can suggest songs, but the service has to randomize what it plays back. That's why Pandora plays songs that are similar to the ones its users "like."

Legal disclaimers aside, Turntable.fm is getting raves for combining music with social networking and game elements in a fresh, easy and fun way.

"It's the rare service which is truly lovable and addicting," said Ian Rogers, chief executive of Topspin, a Santa Monica technology company that helps bands market and sell products online. "This is exactly what the music business needs right now."

Rogers suggested that labels and rightsholding organizations such as SoundExchange give Turntable a 12-month "pass" to see where the business goes instead of insisting that the start-up obtain licenses to continue.

They "should give them a 12-month low-cost license to build their business without having to worry about building revenues," Rogers said. "Once they have a critical mass of users, there are multiple ways to make money here. But they should have runway to get the product right. Let it grow organically!"

-- Alex Pham

Twitter: @AlexPham

  
In the video interludes between songs on Britney Spears’ Femme Fatale tour, which landed at Staples Center on Monday night, she’s under surveillance by a creepy Bond-villain type with a curious habit. He’s constantly sucking on bright red lollipops.

The candy quirk was a weird and funny flashback to a more innocent time in Spears’ career, back when she wore pigtails and cardigans and dominated the teen-pop spectrum of the late ‘90s and early 2000s.

There was something Freudian to it as well: Pop culture had made a safari sport of Britney-hunting, and spent most of 2007 watching a beloved young female pop star’s life and family (and, as some speculated, her health) unravel in spectacularly public fashion.

In another twist to the video, she eventually slinks in, binds and gags the villain in a way that he might not have been wholly displeased with.

Lady Gaga and philospher Slavoj Žižek are walking down an avenue, and there's a giant puddle. He takes off his jacket and spreads it over the water for her.

Lady Gaga and Slavoj Žižek are at an Italian restaurant, sharing a big bowl of pasta. They each start chewing on a strand of spaghetti, only to discover that it's the same one, and they meet in the middle and totally kiss!

Lady Gaga and Slavjo Žižek are watching the sunset together when Gaga says, "You know what I think of cinema?" "That it's the ultimate perverse art?" Žižek offers. She tenderly nods at him. "You always know just what I'm thinking."

OK, so we don't know whether any of this is actually happening, but our friends at Jacket Copy report, based on the New York Post, that the fiesty philosopher and theorist who often rakes through pop culture for his latest ideas has struck up a friendship with the singing and dancing doyenne of outfits that call to mind both a nun's habit and a condom.

Here's what the New York Post says about their budding comradeship:

Sources say Gaga and Slovenian-born Zizek -- who like Salman Rushdie seems to be intellectual catnip to beautiful women and who was once married to Argentine model Analia Hounie -- spent time together discussing feminism and collective human creativity. The pop star also agreed to support Zizek at a March rally in London when the lecturers' union UCU was on strike.

In a recent blog post titled "Communism Knows No Monster," Zizek called Gaga "my good friend" and said, "There is a certain performance of theory in her costumes, videos and even (some of) her music." He says her infamous meat dress is a reference to "the consistent linking in the oppressive imaginary of the patriarchy of the female body and meat, of animality and the feminine."

Loss, its myriad manifestations and emotional after-effects form the heart of the latest from veteran singer-songwriter-guitarist Dave Alvin, who’s experienced plenty firsthand in recent years.

The premature deaths of close friends and musical cohorts Chris Gaffney and Amy Farris figure directly into the sinuous Bo Diddley beat-based “Run Conejo Run” and the hauntingly gorgeous ballad “Black Rose of Texas,” respectively.

As usual with the ever-insightful Alvin, the specifics of his raw material are the means to broader truths rather than an end in themselves. Alvin’s more interested in how we handle the losses life inevitably doles out, and the choice between letting them be a source of defeat or a sharpened commitment to embracing all of life’s facets.

Defeat seems to triumph at times, but Alvin closes on a hopeful note — an almost Hope-and-Crosby note, in fact — in “Two Lucky Bums,” a duet with the woefully underappreciated Gaffney recorded shortly before he died of cancer in 2009: “Been chasing the same old dreams/ Down a road that never ends/ And given the chance, old friend/ I know we’d do it again.”

It’s no coincidence a wordsmith like Alvin chose to end that thought with a word that marries “a gain,” knowing and fully accepting the fact that it’s the inescapable flip side of the coin of loss.

Dave Alvin

“Eleven Eleven”

Yep Roc

Three and ½ stars (Out of four)

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— Randy Lewis