Australian fitness class participants: are they listening to pop music authentic enough to get them pumped? Alas, the answer may be "no." Because in Australia—whether it's cardio-kickboxing, spinning, or some other bullshit—it's set to Britney cover tunes.

This cruel Grim Reaper of an economy has gone too far. It came for magazines. It came for books. It came for banks. But now, it has come for our Muzak.

So if someone told you that, as a memorial to a friend's dead sister, they'd recorded a mournful, twinkly cover of the entire soundtrack to the 1980's homo carnival Footloose (a movie about John Lithgow bellowing about the evils of dancing and Kevin Bacon boldly and baconly defying him), what would you think? Well, we…

Scarlett Johansson, already an actress and soon to be a director, will have her debut singing album drop in May. It's called Anywhere I Lay My Head (to which I hope many young men respond: "In my lap!") It consists of covers of 10 Tom Waits songs and one original ditty. Tom Waits! I guess her voice is a little…