Madonna has been in the game since 1983. She practically invented the game, as it currently exists for pop artists. There are literally academic programs based on her career and its messages. Madonna has no business singing things like “good girls don’t misbehave, but I’m a bad girl anyway,” not because women shouldn’t sing about sex and definitely not because older women shouldn’t (I can already picture the YouTube comments and snarking squawking heads, and they make me want to yank my brains out through my forehead), but because she’s been past this since she devised her persona. It’s like a groundbreaking female artist deciding to finger-paint Tijuana bibles of herself for no reason except that’s what the market wants, and y’know, it’s not so bad, it’s easy work.

It’s not that Chris Brown is categorically unforgivable. It’s more that he’s no longer an acceptable vehicle for corporations to use to sell products to young adults. On a human level, I’m more than willing to eventually forgive Chris Brown, once he seems genuinely remorseful and changed (which, at this point, he definitely does not). But there’s no obligation to continue supporting him as a pop star. Chris Brown would not exist without millions of dollars of production and marketing and styling and whatever else. He’s not some troubled genius that exists on his own, creating pop music in a corner. He’s just a handsome and fit guy who can dance and sing pretty well. There are plenty of other people who are more than capable of filling that role and who haven’t beat a woman into a state of unconsciousness. Why not give one of them a chance to be rich and famous instead?

Eventually, the country will have to confront the deficit we have, rather than the deficit we imagine. The one we imagine is a deficit caused by waste, fraud, abuse, foreign aid, oil industry subsidies and vague out-of-control spending. The one we have is caused by the world’s highest health costs (by far), the world’s largest military (by far), a Social Security program built when most people died by 70 — and to pay for it all, the lowest tax rates in decades.

It’s easy to look at the stream of people cursing out “The Suburbs band” and think it represents some kind of real community. When of course it’s not: It’s just a bunch of data spun to make you laugh and feel better about the music you like. But this is the power of aggregation— it puts flesh on straw men, creating imaginary communities to rail against as well as pulling together real ones.

If you’re a kid in a world like this, what’s it like? Analysts talk glibly about “digital natives,” and parents focus on the stuff that matters most to them, like predators and privacy. I’m no expert either— but my guess is that the struggle to define yourself is as much a part of school life as it ever was, and the web is a powerful weapon in this. A teenager with a Tumblr, or Formspring, or Facebook account becomes a kind of living filter, using the vast resources of the net as a way to perform a self under the peculiarly intense spotlight of adolescence, on a stage filled with real-life friends, enemies, and consequences.

With his tailored suits, gold rings, and bad-hombre mustache, he has become our most dapper weirdo, a Don Draper for people who don’t get up before sunset.

ROB SHEFFIELD: It’s sad to say, but the first week one-listen response to a record is very often the least interesting response. It’s funny because pop fans now have longer attention spans than rock fans, and longer memories! Pop fans are still getting into the Gaga and Ke$ha songs from a year ago. and pop fans have legacy artists, whether it’s Rihanna or Beyonce. But rock fans seem to be stuck in this opening-week-bonanza mindset, and that has nothing to do with how music is meant to be heard and lived with.

MATTHEW PERPETUA: I think a lot of the internet is chasing after the new shiny thing, and I get that totally, but it’s making people lazy and fickle and I hate that. The thing that aggravates me is how it seems like some people don’t even want artists to be consistent, and to keep putting out good, interesting work. They want them to make one classic, and then go away because there’s something new now. For some reason, a lot of people have a hard time finding it amazing that Spoon has made six excellent albums in a row. It’s more exciting that some kid made a demo, and you can get slightly ahead of the curve on it.
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It’s hubris to think that you just got everything going on on a few listens. That you’re so much smarter than the artist. When an artist is really good I’m always going to assume they know something I don’t. I don’t think people respect artists and writers and musicians as much as we used to. I think it’s all been devalued economically and culturally. Everything seems to be worth less now.

ROB SHEFFIELD: I wonder why.

Lately he has been receiving some criticism for his extraordinary focus or, if you like, his lack of breadth — so much that he recently threatened to quit making records. But there’s something about his persona Baudelaire might have liked: his obsession with surfaces, the endless trysting, the strings of brand names, the way he concentrates his talent in pursuit of casual pleasures, so casual he seems to barely even feel them. Not everything he makes is great, but everything he makes is modern. (Even when he’s copying Prince. Even when he’s copying R. Kelly.) His best work feels quick and intuitive.

In “Make Up Bag” you hear finger snaps on the two and four, digital bass tones with Taser voltage, a piano plinking around an A-minor chord. There’s a trite little narrative: He’s been cheating on his girlfriend and actually has lipstick on his collar. But he’s been through this before.

The chorus brings his lousy advice: “If you ever get your girlfriend mad/Don’t let your good girl go bad/Drop five stacks on a make up bag.” Gracefully he hammers it in: “The make up bag. The make up bag. The make up bag. The make up bag.”

The song’s flaw is that it’s a little confusing. He’s talking about buying a purse, not a cosmetics container, to make up for his indiscretions. Its glory is how complicated a symbol the bag becomes: wealth, treachery, shallowness, his own power and anxiety, his girlfriend’s. Somewhere in there the narrator knows how craven he is. But The-Dream knows that he’s just repeating four syllables that sound good together. That’s it, that’s all. By the time you work this out, there’s a good chance you want to hear it again.