Beyonce and Miguel

Credit: Instagram

Hey, it's not just that Miguel has put out what is possibly one of the best R&B albums this year. But his hard work (and those VOCALS, oh the vocals) have caught more than just my and 64,999 other album buyers' attentions.

Miguel Tweeted and Instagrammed a photo of himself standing next to a smiling Beyonce yesterday. The two appear to be in the studio -- and considering Miguel has penned for acts like Usher before and earned Grammy nominations for his performances, dude's got the chops to work with one of the most popular female singers today.

The songwriter/producer has apparently been writing for a whole crop of Virgos this month, according to his Tweet (Beyonce's b-day was on Sept. 4): 

...woah. creating for [sic] Virgo's all weekend instagr.am/p/RbmGzxC13T/

— Miguel (@MiguelUnlimited) October 31, 2012

Beyonce is on tap to perform during the Super Bowl Halftime Show in February, and you can bet your bottom dollar that she'll be promoting something new at that time. If Ryan Tedder is to be believed, Bey's got two "projects" in the works. Now that she dropped from Clint Eastwood's "A Star Is Born" reboot, some time has been freed up for other projects, including a documentary about her own life. Diane Warren is also proclaimed to be writing tunes for the superstar.

Miguel released "Kaleidoscope Dream" in late September.

"CeeLo's Magic Moment"

Credit: Elektra/Atlantic

About a third of CeeLo Green's 14-track Christmas album is pretty solid. This includes consideration that CeeLo's overall approach to singing tends toward the heavy-handed, an attribute absolutely compatible with Christmas records. But the most unnatural elements -- the forced styles outside his comfort zone, clunky duets, uninspired excesses -- are what ultimately causes "CeeLo's Magic Moment" to stumblebum around the season with only a few perfectly packaged gifts. 

Nicki MInaj's crazy eyes in "Va Va Voom"

As evident on the original release of "Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded," Nicki Minaj can't help but to oscillate between trash-talking raps and pure, saccharine pop music for her singles, her sides and, apparently, her personalities. For the upcoming "Re-Up" of "Roman," the bonus tracks have been taking turns batting, starting with heady and bratty "The Boys" featuring Cassie, and now with this new cavity "Va Va Voom."

Of course, Minaj can't help but to play the villain sometime in this fairytale-driven narrative, but for the most part is the Queens-bred artist mugging in a variety of false lashes, with her penchant bright colors swimming all around her. I literally laughed out loud when when a dastardly Robin Hood darkens her doorway as she bakes sweets in a cottage (not making this up) and as she idles alongside a unicorn in a creek (still not making this up).

M83 at Austin City Limits

Credit: Katie Hasty

M83's video for "Steve McQueen" deals with a lot of the same themes the lyrics to the song do: there's something hopeful and mysterious springing forth from us, at times, when the secret unlocking of our greatest desires feel, for once, within reach.

The clip thusly features a kid, a wrangler of magic around some unknown plot involving his toy animals and an unorthodox use of the garden sprinkler. It's colorful and unknowable, with animations from Spike Jonze collabo Sylvain Derosne, under the direction of Derosne and Balthazar Auxietre.

It came about as part of a video contest (in partnership with Genero.tv), with the directors describing their depiction of the “power of childhood, an eagerness for life, and the kind of paradoxical energy you have when you grow up.”

I'm confused by it, but I like it.

"Steve McQueen" is the next single from M83's "Hurry Up, We're Dreaming" from last year. It will be out with multiple remixes starting on Nov. 27. M83 mastermind Anthony Gonzalez is also releasing a 12" for Record Store Day's Black Friday edition, with four remixes of that track, on Nov. 23.

.fun in "Carry On"

Credit: Fueled By Ramen

The band fun.'s "Carry On" always sounded like a drinking, transitional song from a musical. In their music video for the track, the band took the cue.

The three-piece pop-rockers take to the New York city twilight and to its pubs for shots and grinning shenanigans for the track, which is the third single from "Some Nights" (after solar eclipse "We Are Young" and the title track). The musical vibe is only helped by Nate Ruess' incessant suspender urges and everybody's textbook definition of "boyish charm." Where's the conflict for the second act?

The clip arrives in time for fun.'s tour dates announcement. The headlining stint starts Jan. 23 and runs through Feb. 16 and is a continuation of the group's fall/winter trek, many dates to which are already sold out. Tickets for the new shows -- excluding big 'uns like Radio City Music Hall -- go on sale on Oct. 26.

Local Natives

Credit: Bryan Sheffield

Local Natives will soon be at a locality near you. The band has completed a new effort, titled "Hummingbird," out on Jan. 29, and have dropped new song "Breakers" in celebration. It's a little like Fleet Foxes raiding all of Dirty Projectors guitar processors, which is not at all a bad thing.

"Hummingbird" was recorded in Los Angeles, Montreal and Brooklyn. In the case of the latter, the quartet hit up The National's Aaron Dessner to produce, out of his Ditmas Park, Brooklyn studio. And of the former, the band actually outfitted their own new recording space in Silverlake.

RZA in "The Man With the Iron Fists"

Only a few days away from the soundtrack release to his film “The Man With the Iron Fists,” RZA admits that -- for the most part -- he got what he wanted, even if the film itself took about seven years to come to fruition.

Quinton Aaron and Julia Stone in "Justine"

Credit: Nettwerk

"I wanted give the viewer an opportunity to experience something different to the normal images of lovers in video clips."

That's music video director Jessie Hill on her clip for Julia Stone's "Justine." In it, two, lovers flounce around the beaches of California, eating snacks, snipping drinks and kissing on the boardwalk. What makes the view into this love story somewhat unconventional is the contrast between the singer-songwriter and her beloved -- played by "The Blind Side" lead Quinton Aaron.

”I set out to make a video that depicted a heartfelt romance in a distant time...a love story in its purist state," Hill said in a statement to HitFix. "My casting agent suggested Quinton and I immediately contacted him to have a coffee. The contrast of Julia being so tiny and Quinton being a larger character was something I wanted to explore visually."

From "Ich R U"

We are becoming our computers. Our information becomes us. And nature will destroy us in retort.

That's what I'll take away from the partially animated music video to Boys Noize's "Ich R U," which I've now watched no fewer than 13 times. It's culled from the electronica act's third album "Out of the Black," which was released on Tuesday (Oct. 16).

The track is the more "put-together" of theirs, but that doesn't mean its not reflective of the whole set. It bangs and bruises with the rest.

Nicki Minaj and Cassie are like ooooo

Nicki Minaj has never looked better in a video than she does in "The Boys." Cassie, who is stunning, bares most of her, ehm, assets for the clip. The girls strut besides and inside of cars, immobile for the sake of the traditional girls-with-cars trope in hip-hop videos.

The "The Boys" of hip-hop, much of Minaj's new video will ring familiar, albeit in furious colors of magenta, aggressive greens, volcanic reds and the rapper's favorite color pink -- conveniently coordinated with their bikinis. Barbie and her hook-singing guest literally stop traffic with their look, and where else would they be headed but the salon? The leading ladies also flirt with each other throughout, Minaj even simulating going down on her comely friend.

On its face (pun intended), "The Boys" pretty much follows all the rules for a proper male gaze. Except for the part where Minaj sets a barber shop on fire, killing its inhabitants.

If you don't listen closely to the lyrics (which is somewhat impossible to do, considering the crystal-clearness of that refrain), this track takes solid aim at the boys of hip-hop, how they expect their "love" to be hand-delivered as a commodity: "They want to touch it, taste it, see it, pet it, bone it, own it." Here, Cassie and Minaj even put a bow on it.

Minaj's "revenge" to that notion is carried out in her sentencing, letting loose of her flame-thrower. She and its creators also try to mix up the genders, by putting Cassie in a suit without a shirt on underneath, for instance, or Nicki rocking denim in a princess-styled two-piece. Minaj's attack on the barber shop actually seems methodical, pre-planned, less as an actual violent act and more of a warning, that if this is how "the boys" carry on, they're gonna get burned. 

Unfortunately, though, the glossiness of this package will override any social commentary it actually brings to the table. As is evident already through Minaj's Twitter response and retweets, fans are arriving on the other side, naturally, responding "OMG bikini " and the ilk. It's disappointing, after how punk, rude and awesome the single was when it first dropped. Minaj is giving it to "the boys"... by giving them what they want, with only a whiff of danger.

But, hey, at least it's still better than "Starships."

"The Boys" is the new single off of "Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, The Re-Up," a confusingly titled repackaging of confoundingly titled "Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded," due on Nov. 19.