When asked about the similarity, Mr. Young said the Postal Service was never a model yet he considered the comparisons an honor. But he also wasn't too shy to note that he has profited from the other band's recent absence. "They released a record in 2003, and that was it," he said. "There was really nothing to compare it to until some one else came along and wrote the next chapter. Maybe that's this record. Maybe that's this band."

Yeah, except, the people writing the next chapter are not you, but desperate label heads and A & R guys who either need a hit or a new job, and so they take it from indie labels and manufacture the most malleable product they can into something marketable for mass consumption. UGH. Please. No.

Let's do a quick compare/contrast. The Postal Service, produced by indie label Sub Pop:

And Owl City, plucked from MySpace obscurity for a Major Label Deal:

Note that basically everything is the same, except one is overproduced. And that's how major labels get all of their hit acts, six years later. It's the difference between home-brewed sweet tea and the stuff they sell in cans at bodegas. Meanwhile, this kid should be read the riot act and met with sharpened Pitchforks. Instead, the New York Times profiles them with words like this:

"Fireflies" is pensive yet bubbly, with Mr. Young's guileless voice expressing mom-friendly sentiments like "I'd get a thousand hugs/From ten thousand lightning bugs."

Mom-friendly? Yes. Pensive?

pensive |ˈpensiv| |adjective| engaged in, involving, or reflecting deep or serious thought

Not so much.

Penned by one Mr. Ben Sisario—whose writing is typically quite wonderful—the song is broken down as such:

...roughly 50 percent rote Jay-Z chest-beating ("I'm the new Sinatra"), 30 percent tourist-friendly travelogue ("Statue of Liberty, long live the World Trade") and the rest a glorious Alicia Keys hook.

Which is true! Jay-Z goes from the Bronx to Tribeca and back; most people who live in the West Village like Jay-Z think they get nosebleeds above 14th Street and apply for visas every time they cross the East River. For all intents and purposes, Jay-Z has probably visited more locales in New York than Sinatra ever did, even goddamn Williamsburg. Sinatra was from Hoboken, Hov is from Marcy. And Jay-Z can even get the hardest reservation in New York, a tabled at famed mobster hangout Rao's (as evidenced by his D.O.A. video), something only someone like Sinatra could pull off back in the day. And Sisario makes a great point, noting that when you're Jay-Z, who do you beef with? Where do you go from here?

But there's a more basic explanation for this new rivalry: If you are the king of rap, and you've already topped all the charts, trounced all other M.C.'s, and even run a major record company, what's the next challenge? Where do you go? Answer: You start beefs with pantheon heroes, thus muscling your way into their realm. And it seems to be working pretty well: "The Blueprint 3" has sold 1.2 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and after eight weeks it is still in the Top 10.

Let's be honest: Jay-Z's stature, at this point, is a little absurd. He could've had a fighting chance against Bloomberg if he were on the ballot; he surely would've gotten a more ringing endorsement from this website than Billy Talen, for one thing. But he needs to catch paper, and he needs the mayor in his pocket to do that, and the only rapper trying to start fights with him is Beanie Siegel, who, exactly. So who does Jay-Z beef with? Sinatra. Obviously. But is Jay-Z's anthem as utilitarian as Sinatra's?

"New York, New York" is built around a handful of memorable phrases ("I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps") that resonate with a universality perfect for a baseball stadium. Ms. Keys supplies that ingredient in "Empire State of Mind," singing somewhat trite slogans ("These streets will make you feel brand new") in a huge, rousing voice. Yet like all Jay-Z songs, "Empire" is, in the end, solely about Jay-Z. And while his personality may fill Yankee Stadium more persuasively than any other pop star, would 50,000 fans ever have the timing, or the memory, to recite "Say what-up to Ty-Ty, still sippin' Mai Tais/Sittin' courtside, Knicks and Nets give me high-five"?

For better or worse, I'm willing to bet that there's a significant difference in the number of people who can rattle off four out of five members of the Rat Pick as opposed to the number of people who can tell you what a Ty-Ty is, though both groups of people definitely have no idea why they should care about Joey Bishop.

Then again, rap is crossing over into audiences who'd never listened to it before—primarily, more adults, who were once the kids that grew up on it—and was "New York, New York" ever a song of the people, or was it always a song of rich privilege? Sure, there's a peasant's, hustler's tone to it, and sure, as Sisario makes clear, Sinatra came from the 'hood, too.

Real talk (oh yes): more people have heard "New York, New York." But what Sisario only hints at is that Sinatra's song will only be heard on one kind of radio station. Jay-Z's will be heard on at least three.

Derek Jeter, a person, walks out to Jay-Z's song. The Yankees—the rich, evil organization with an administration even Yankees fans detest—play "New York, New York" when games end. Rap like Jay-Z's is becoming more accessible to more people, while kids and adults alike aren't exactly going to be (and have never been) bumping Sinatra. Some people will call this a shame. Others will call it progress. I call it a win-win situation.

[Photo via Getty Images]

Providing context for this kind of thing is akin to shooting fish in something smaller than a barrel—one without water—so I'll just leave you to enjoy this on your own. Though, there are highlights: Jay-Z signed Bill O'Reilly's book, telling him to step off. Also, Beck's "tired of the race thing" and he also doesn't "think the race thing works anymore," so, if you didn't know, now you know: Glenn Beck doesn't see color. Anyway, the bar set by Statler and Waldorf has officially been moved up.

Now, the following list is definitely some of the best, but it's by no means definitive, or comprehensive: surely, there're far more examples out there that we encourage you to throw in the comments. We've put screengrabs of each example in this gallery, and videos will be on individual threads in the comments for us to break down and discuss together! Maybe President Obama, Gates, and his arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley, can make cute references to each of these examples when they have a beer together later this week. Or maybe they can actually discuss some of the realities of racial profiling in America, which pop culture can sometimes get right, and sometimes: absolutely mangle.

The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air: In the episode "Mistaken Identity," Will and Carlton - on their way up to Palm Springs - get pulled over in a family friend's Mercedes Benz while going 2MPH looking for a freeway entrance. Because they're black, they're assumed by a cop to have stolen the car. Will tries to stonewall the cop while Carlton tries to reason with him, and of course, they end up in jail. Some singing and dancing later, Aunt Viv and Uncle Phil bail them out. The episode ends with Will castigating Carlton for not knowing better.
White Guilt Factor: 5. Funny whiteguy Andy Borowitz was the show's creator, but it had a predominately African American cast.
Black Anger Factor: 7, but it's subdued: After Carlton asks Uncle Phil if he would've pulled them over, Uncle Phil reminds him: "I wondered the same thing the first time I was pulled over." Not your typical Fresh Prince ending: Carlton sits alone in silence to ruminate with his newfound disquiet as the credits fade to black.
Accuracy: 6. Black guys in nice cars are red flags for suburban cops, but really, who would mistake Carlton for a criminal? [Answer: Who would mistake Henry Gates for a home invader?].

99 Problems by Jay-Z: The song - from his I'm Retiring-Before-I-UnRetire Black Album - was produced by Def Jam founder Rick Rubin, and one of the prominent verses is about being pulled over by police for a Jim Crow-esque speeding offense. Observe: "I...pull over to the side of the road/I heard "Son do you know why I'm stoppin' you for?"/Cause I'm young and I'm black and my hat's real low?/Do I look like a mind reader sir? I don't know../Am I under arrest or should I guess some mo'?/"Well you was doin fifty-five in a fifty-fo' "/"License and registration and step out of the car"/"Are you carryin' a weapon on you I know a lot of you are." The Mark Romanek-directed video - which showed Hov and Rubin being searched by cops - was a source of much controversy on MTV, where they ran it with a warning. It won three VMAs that year. Wikipedia-sourced trivia: Jay-Z performed the song for the White House Staff Ball, and tweaked the lyrics: "I've got 99 Problems, but a Bush ain't one."
White Guilt Factor: 3. Rick Rubin might be white, but he's about as white as anybody who looks like this can possibly be.
Black Anger Factor: 8. How many times do you think this kind of shit happened to Jay-Z in his 20s? He still keeps a pretty cool head about it.
Accuracy: 9. Rappers in nice cars getting pulled over and searched for weapons? Never.

Crash: Paul Haggis directed and co-wrote the 2004 drama about racism in modern-day L.A. with another white dude, Bobby Moresco. There're a variety of situations in the movie showing all of us exactly how racist we are, which many complained were incredibly heavy-handed and overreaching. One in specific: a prominent African American director and his wife get pulled (Terrance Howard and Thandie Newton) get pulled over by two white cops (Matt Dillion and Ryan Phillipe). Matt Dillion's character ends up molesting Thandie Newton's character and they almost shoot Terrance Howard's character dead. Via an ensemble cast and a strong campaign, the drama beat the odds and won the Best Picture Oscar in 2004, beating out Brokeback Mountain in what's widely considered to (A) prove that Hollywood would rather talk about racism than sexual orientation because there's no such thing as a gay male megastar (B) prove the Oscar voting committee to subscribe to this idea, and (C) total "bullshit."
White Guilt Factor: 9. The film was written, directed, and produced by white guys (the sole exception being Don Cheadle's producing credit). Again, the racism depicted in Crash is seen by many as way overreaching.
Black Anger Factor: 7. Has a pretty split cast, and the portrayal of said racism-in-action scenarios is, while sometimes outlandish, not impossible.
Accuracy: 8. At least some of the shit in Crash has happened somewhere, at some point. Not all of it - people don't have magical epiphanies at what utter racist dicks they've been at then end of an episode of racism when karma's reached all the way around - but definitely some of it.

"The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. The 1982 rap song is often considered one of the greatest, and while there's no specific reference to racial profiling in the song, the video caused some controversy when it explicitly played it out: Flash and Posse are walking down a street when two white cops pull up to them, stop, get out, and throw them in the car. Bummer.
White Guilt Factor: Eh. 6 for the people at MTV showing it.
Black Anger Factor: 6.5, if only because they could've really had the cops rough the kids up, or have the kids do something like volunteering when the cops picked them up.
Accuracy: 5. Well, the roundup at the end of the video takes, like, fifteen seconds. I think it'd take two cops a little longer to do that. Also, I'm not sure if anything as explicit as that happened in 1981 - probably, would be my guess - but it gets docked on speed alone.

The West Wing: In the first season of Aaron Sorkin's dialogue-porn show about the inner-workings of White House staffers, a Democratic administration is trying to get an activist Latino judge - "Robert Mendoza," played by Edward James Olmos, who you might remember from Stand & Deliver - confirmed to the supreme court. Judge Mendoza goes antiquing in the northeast, and driving back down to Washington D.C., he gets pulled over for "erratic driving," asked to take a breathalizer test, and when they encounter hostility, taken to jail in front of his wife and child. The White House communications director and his deputy (played by Richard Schiff and Rob Lowe) have to go retrieve Mendoza - who has yet to tell the cops that he's a Supreme Court nominee - from police custody. Mendoza wants to make a statement of it by taking this to trial, and the White House won't let him. Mendoza ends up leaving peacefully, but not before warning Toby: "They pulled me over because I look like my name is Roberto Mendoza, and I'm coming to rob your house...and all (my son's) gonna remember from this is his Dad being handcuffed, and America's got another pissed off guy with dark skin."
White Guilt Factor: 8. It's Aaron Sorkin. You need to know anything else? Docked two White Guilt points for being consistently grandstand-y.
Black Hispanic Anger Factor: 8. Give it to Sorkin: he knew how to write this one, and Olmos delivered the lines.
Accuracy: 7. This probably hasn't happened to someone of a Supreme Court nominee's stature, while they're in the middle of being confirmed. Also, the cops escorted Mendoza back to his hotel and apologized to his kids. Psh.

Chamillionare's "Ridin'" The worst-named rapper maybe ever - or the most incredibly-named, depending on which side you fall on, here - had a slammin' hit single the summer of 2006 that more or less tore up charts. It's explicitly about racial profiling: the act of "riding dirty" would be "driving a car with something illicit in it" and those "trying to catch him (riding dirty)" would be police. Sample lyric: "Thinkin they'll catch me on the wrong well keep tryin'/Cause they denyin is racial profiling/Houston, TX/ you can check my tags/Pull me over try to check my slab/Glove compartment gotta get my cash/Cause the crooked cops try to come up fast."
White Guilt Factor: 0. Maybe 1? Honesty, I thought the song was about a sexual act for the longest time before I realized it was about racial profiling. Goes to show how much I was listening. I just thought the chorus was great.
Black Anger Factor: 6. Does Chamillionare sound that pissed? Krazie Bone - who raps the second verse of the song - also admits to having ridden "dirty" previously: "Doin a hundred while I puff on the blunt/And rollin another one up, we livin like we ain't givin a fuck/I got a revolver in my right hand, 40 oz on my lap freezing my balls.." Well, come to think of it, yes, having a 40 Oz. in your lap while driving would be difficult, if only for the discomfort it might cause to one's genitalia. Never thought of that before. Hm.
Accuracy: 10. Well, sometimes, you ride dirty, you get busted. Other times, you're not riding dirty, you don't get busted. Other times, you swerve, you get pulled over, and you get searched, but, come on, you were swerving. Other times, you don't ride dirty, but you get pulled over, because you look a certain way, and you get hassled. And that's racial profiling!

Madge's semi-impromptu throwdown involved bringing a Jackson "impersonator" (probably one of her dancers) on stage to do a few key Jackson dance moves. "Let's give it up to one of the greatest artists the world has ever known: Michael Jackson. Long live the king," she noted. It's strange, if only because of Madonna's Warriors-esque crew standing with her in freeze-pose while the dancer kicks it to a medley involving "Billy Jean" and the key "Mama Se" bridge in "Wanna Be Startin' Something" that can make even the most spatially braindead person want to engage in some kind of tribal pop-infused raindance at the whim of Jackson's song. It's true.

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Meanwhile, TMZ reports that British Airways is selling out flights at an astounding pace for Brits who're coming to L.A. for the Jackson memorial at the Staples Center, direct and indirect. Thoughts and fair warning to British travelers: if you get stuck in Denver on the way to L.A., don't say we didn't warn you. Unless your idea of a good time is a Rockies game, we suggest you properly assess the risk involved, here.

The profile details Ellis' move to L.A. and comes in the middle of his writing the "sequel" to his first book, Less Than Zero (which made him a literary superstar at the age of 20), which is tentatively titled Imperial Bedrooms. The article - which isn't avalible online - paints Ellis as kind of sad and living a very existential, somewhat disconnected life. Also, he thinks The Hills is genius. The full quote, transcribed from print:

He is, however-and on this subject, he is highly animated-a huge fan of MTV's scripted reality series of the young and the monied in L.A., THE HILLS. "I think THE HILLS is the greatest show I have ever seen in my life," he says, sincerely. "It is a modern masterpiece. I think that ADAM DeVILLO is a mad genius. He creates it and controls it perfectly." Mr. ELLIS is very specific about the way he watches THE HILLS. "I'm holding off on Season 4 right now. I started watching a bit of it, but I'm waiting until the DVD comes out because I want to see it all so beautifully mastered. Even if you download the show there is that irritating MTV logo in the corner. It doesn't work for me that way. It has to be on a big screen with the sound right up. It blows me away...I'm sorry, but whoever invented HEIDI MONTAG and SPENCER PRATT are just...nothing matches it. I've never see L.A. look more beautiful in a work of art. There are no movies that are as beautiful as that."

This is why I'm never moving to L.A. Just like The City is why you should never move to New York.

He was also, interestingly enough, called out on a social networking site on a date going out ("BRET ELLIS is not a fan of social-networking sites. He has been "caught out" by someone on a dating site, though understandable doesn't care to flesh out that story. He won't try it again.").

Thing is, this makes an interesting point that I've never really considered before. The Hills is the tame, boring drug-less version of Less Than Zero (note to Hills producers: show them doing blow, and I'll watch). A bunch of severely disaffected brats, fucking around with their parents' money, creating an awe-inspiring charade of lives inextricably tied to the celebrity culture of Hollywood. This raises the question: was Less Than Zero the predecessor to The Hills? Do we blame Ellis for Speidi? Is Paul Telegdy off the hook today?

Meanwhile, Fantastic Man, which could be a test-tube baby between Esquire and McSweeny's, is kind of a fascinating product. It's a giant, pretty magazine with nice pages and a strange sense of humor. It costs $11. And it has Bret Easton Ellis on the cover, drinking a Diet Coke. This should tell you what kind of magazine it is: at once both kind of genius and a complete waste of one's time. I love it.

For example, in one issue, there is:

- A 1,000 word essay from the Editor-In-Chief of Interview on waking up with a hangover in Paris.

- A 1,000 word treatise on the greatness that is toast.

- A designation of the word "Super" as their word of the season. This is written on their masthead.

- A selection of single meals art-world people have had recently (one of them: pervy photog Terry Richardson's meal of a vegetarian burrito from Pinche Taqueria in New York. "For dessert, he had a pack of sour Skittles, also very 'yum yum.'").

- And a cover story featuring Bret Easton Ellis with nothing to promote. Did we mention he was drinking a Diet Coke?