#1 CRUSH

March 9, 2012 – In the March/April issue of SPIN, David Bevan ventured to Korea to explore the country's fruitful system for producing top-flight pop stars. He'll be writing additional K-pop stories right here at #1 Crush. "I got off the plane, and there was a different scent in the air." That's how Jay Park remembers his first seconds in Seoul, in January of 2005, just months before he graduated from high school back home in suburban Seattle.

March 8, 2012 – Justin Bieber's favorite pet/fashion accessory/double entendre Johnson the Snake, is no longer slithering around the pop star's house in fear of getting stepped on by Selena Gomez. TMZ reports that the most famous rock snake since Slash's is now maxing and relaxing in a Minnesota zoo. After someone won the snake at a post-VMA auction, he kindly donated the snake to something appropriately called the RAD Zoo in Owatonna, Minnesota.

March 2, 2012 – This week, Nicki Minaj dropped the cover to her long-awaited sophomore album Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, a neon splatter of paint and make-up like Flock of Seagulls got in a knife fight in a Toys R Us. SPIN editors wracked our brains trying to figure out what inspired this Technicolor massacre. Duran Duran's Rio cover?: It's got the same love of sharp angles, steely glares and heavy make-up.

March 1, 2012 – In honor of a Twitter milestone (3 million followers reached after some mild begging) and her 25th birthday (which is right now!), Ke$ha posted a photo indicating her transformation into one of those pseudo-punk belts sold on St. Mark's Place and malls worldwide is around 4 percent complete. If she continues to bedazzle her head, she'll give Will.i.am something to worry about.

February 21, 2012 – What if Rihanna threw not one, but two birthday parties with Chris Brown … and both were really, really boring? The Barbadian pop singer, who turned 24 yesterday, has reunited with the R&B smoothie on a remix of her Talk That Talk cut "Birthday Cake" along with a remix of his new "Turn Up the Music" single.

February 16, 2012 – Cassie has been teasing her new single for so long, and it's been so long since she first won us over, it was easy to overlook just how sublime "King of Hearts" really is. A trailer for the song has been floating around online since last last year, but the whole thing has only been on the radio since last week, and Cassie finally unveiled the steamy video on Valentine's Day.