via Getty

Rihanna brought down the house at her concert at the Barclays Center on Sunday night, taking the entire neighborhood with her, according to Prospect Heights residents.

But the loud, booming bass rumblings that disrupted the neighborhood on Sunday night were nothing new for people who live in the direct vicinity of the Barclays Center. These complaints come less than a week after Barclays Center developer Forest City Ratner Companies was ordered to pay the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) a $3,200 fine for violations after a Swedish House Mafia concert in early March.

The Barclays Center has faced many noise complaints and several potential fines since it opened in September. Residents have complained of noise pollution after major concerts including Jay-Z in September, the Sensation dance concert events in October and the Swedish House Mafia concert. Until last week, the complaints were dismissed on technicalities.

According to city records, inspectors recorded a reading of 55 decibels (dB) for low noise frequency inside a nearby apartment the during the Swedish House Mafia show on Saturday, March 2. The 55 dB rate is about twice as loud as the 45 dB limit, as stipulated by the New York City Noise Code, section 24-231:

“No person shall make or cause or permit to be made any music origination form or in connection with the operation of any commercial establishment or enterprise when the level of sound attributable to such music, as measured inside any receiving property dwelling unit: … is in excess of 45 dB in any one-third octave band having a center frequency between 63 hertz and 500 hertz.”

According to the NYC DEP, noise complaints are the number one quality of life issue for New Yorkers. The agency updated the Noise Code in 2007 to “…balance the important reputation of New York as a vibrant, world-class city that never sleeps, with the needs of those who live in, work in, and visit the city.”

The Barclays Center has not yet returned The Observer’s request for comment.

The Atlantic Yards Watch, a community-based blog that reports on the neighborhood impacts of the Barclays Center and construction from the Atlantic Yards project, cited several texts and phone calls made to 311 on Sunday night reporting excessive noise during Rihanna’s concert. Prospect Heights residents were outraged that the noise pollution continues, despite the fines. The Atlantic Yards Watch provided the following transcripts from the calls:

“Rihanna is as loud as SHM or Sensations!!”

“Are you f****** kidding me, why can’t the police do something?”

“YIKES!! Why are they starting so late?”

“It woke us up!”

“Guess they haven’t done anything to minimize the noise!”

“[Past] midnight and they’re still going, when will it end?”

“Why are these noisy types of concerts allowed on Sunday nights?

Peter Krashes, who runs the Atlantic Yards Watch Blog and serves as a member of the Dean Street Block Association and secretary of the Prospect Heights Heights Neighborhood Development Council, said noise complaints have come from east, west and north of the Barclays Center, as far as a block away from the arena.

“The solution is probably structural,” Mr. Krashes told The Observer, citing the original plans for the arena, which were not anticipated to produce noise problems. The original design by architect Frank Gehry was replaced in 2009 by the design from Ellerbe Becket and SHoP Architects.

“For the short term [The Barclays Center] can put stipulations on the contracts of performers to limit noise levels, which it clearly hasn’t done,” Mr. Krashes added.

Mr. Krashes further noted that the DEP will continue to measure the noise level from the Barclays Center, and that the arena is conducting its own inspections.

“We’d like to know to what end they’re working,” Mr. Krashes said of the Barclays Center inspections. “If this was a bar or a restaurant, they could be shut down because it’s illegal.”

The Atlantic Yards Report noted last week that the fine may not be enough to solve the problem.

“For a neighborhood bar, a $3,200 fine for a noise violation can cause pocketbook pain. For an arena earning millions from concert tickets and concessions, it may be the cost of doing business, especially if they can fend off some fines with procedural arguments,” blogger Norman Oder wrote.

Rihanna will perform her second Barclays Center show tonight, around the same time the Atlantic Yards Quality of Life Committee will convene at a local YMCA to discusses quality of life issues with representatives from Forest City Ratner, the Barclays Center and Empire State Development, which is overseeing the Atlantic Yards project.

Several residential buildings will be constructed next to the Barclays Center as part of the Atlantic Yards project in the coming years.

“I think a lot of people are assuming they’re going to solve this problem by the time they build the residential buildings adjacent to the arena,” Mr. Krashes said. “But are we to wait two years for them to fix this?"

You could never tweet a picture of yourself dressed as a slutty Christmas Barbie who appears to have been left on top of the radiator for too long, but Courtney Stodden can. Maybe that's why she has so many followers than you.

So go on, indulge in the gluttonous feast of celebrity schadenfreude/jealousy. It's a better outlet for your self-loathing and frustration than that annual passive-aggressive fight with your father, at the very least.

Rihanna, one album cycle and several hairstyles ago. (Getty Images)

Tonight at 10p.m., CBS airs the Grammy Awards Nomination Concert, a splashy special co-hosted by Taylor Swift (whose album Red, despite having come out in 2012, won't be recognized this year due to the eligibility calendar). So who will be nominated? We have a few minimally educated guesses:

Album of the Year

• Babel, Mumford and Sons
• El Camino, The Black Keys
• Kisses on the Bottom, Paul McCartney
• Take Care, Drake
• Talk That Talk, Rihanna

Mumford and Sons and the Black Keys, in varying ways, tie the Grammys into historically popular and nostalgic genres, while the kids are served by nods to Drake and Rihanna. Rihanna, whose album Loud also took what's become the pure-pop spot occupied previously by Katy Perry, seems like the safest way to honor the EDM vogue (and, yes, we know she's released an album since Talk That Talk). Drake is a young, sensitive rapper getting a nomination that could also go to young, sensitive R&B singer Frank Ocean for his risky Channel Orange, but it seems likely Mr. Ocean will get his due in the New Artist category. And, finally, you may have forgotten or never known perennial nominee Paul McCartney released an album called (ew) Kisses on the Bottom, but his Olympics performance and the fact that it's an album of standards (Grammy's favorite thing!) mean he could end up at the ceremony.

Record of the Year

• "Diamonds," Rihanna
• "I Will Wait," Mumford and Sons
• "Somebody That I Used to Know," Gotye feat. Kimbra
• "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," Taylor Swift
• "We Are Young," fun. feat. Janelle Monaé

Taylor Swift and Rihanna both scored #1 Hot 100 hits within the eligibility, and both sound pretty vanguard-y (Ms. Swift's record is as palatable for a non-country audience as anything she's ever recorded). Meanwhile, Gotye and fun. both came out of nowhere with comparable Billboard hits--inescapable through the summer months and yet seemingly more accessible to the fuddy-duddy Grammy voter than the airy (and perfectly so) "Call Me Maybe." And Mumford and Sons, given their commercial success and appeal to a traditional aesthetic that sounds nothing like EDM, will likely be the Adele of this year's Grammys once nods to Calvin Harris et al. are dispensed with. For Song of the Year, a category honoring songwriters, sub out "Diamonds" for Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain."

Best New Artist

• fun.
• Gotye
• Ellie Goulding
• Frank Ocean
• One Direction

Much as we hope the year's most forcefully debated singer, dead-eyed semiotic student Lana Del Rey, could snag a nod, this race is between fun. and Frank Ocean, with Gotye inducted for his inescapability, Ellie Goulding for her persistence (she was a "new artist" several years ago but only now getting her due), and One Direction because Justin Bieber and the Backstreet Boys were once nominated in this category, too.

-Rihanna backstage at Victoria Secret show. (Instagram)

– The best part of yesterday's Victoria Secret runway show was definitely the part where Rihanna took off her clothes and Instagrammed a picture of herself. How are these two things related? God knows.

– Here is that Lana Del Rey music video you've been asking for. Or as we like to call it, "the Lana Del Rey video that is not 'Video Games' or 10 minutes long." It's called "BEL AIR," and it is very Kate Bush, in the sense that they both love fog machines.
http://youtu.be/yq3yT8CkPzY

– We are buying a copy of Save the Assistants for Lindsay Lohan. "Gavin" refused to take the fall for the human train wreck when she told the cops that he was the one who crashed her Porsche into the back of a trailer. Now she's charged with lying to the po-po, and Gavin will have to sleep with one eye open for a while.

– Man Men’s Pete Campbell (aka Vincent Kartheiser) isn't just a hobo living in a cardboard box. He's a hobo living in a cardboard box that gets punched in the face. Like, a lot.

– A Ukrainian singer/possible mail-order bride Aza claims that Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" is a total rip-off of her song "Hunky Santa." Says the pop star(?): "I'm shocked and surprised that these people wanted to sample my lyrics on their song." I mean, she's right. They are totally identical.
http://youtu.be/w0mIgS2yi3k
http://youtu.be/fWNaR-rxAic

Anne Hathaway (Getty Images)

Saturday Night Live, which kept airing planned episodes in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, won't be stopped by a hurricane. The show has announced two upcoming episodes: Anne Hathaway will appear on the November 10 episode (the first after the election) with musical guest Rihanna, while Jeremy Renner and Maroon 5 will appear November 17.

Ms. Hathaway will be promoting her upcoming turn in Les Miserables, while Mr. Renner, who played Jason Bourne over the summer, does not have a new project out until the new year.

This weekend, melancholy comedian Louis C.K. and band Fun. are to appear on the show.

Chris Brown and Rihanna: Back on track?

- Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj have caused producers to suspend American Idol auditions because the two new judges just can't get along. (Ms. Minaj said she'd knock the Glitter star "out.") Keith Urban is apparently staying out of this one.

- In addition to guest star Donald Glover, Girls creator Lena Dunham told Reuters that the second season of her HBO show will feature more women of color. "All I want to do is make women feel excited and included by the show," she said.

Chris Brown, pre-neck tat. (Getty Images)

Chris Brown is either going through an insane period of self-flagellation, or this is the worst September's Fools Day prank ever. New photos of the rapper emerged earlier today showing new neck ink that looks suspiciously like the 2009 photo of a badly-beaten Rihanna that was leaked to TMZ.

Is this the star's way of giving himself a scarlet letter for life?

While Mr. Brown is denying that the woman on his neck has any relation to his ex-girlfriend--whom he was convicted of committing felony assault against, forcing him to comply with a restraining order that was dropped in 2011--the new tattoo is fairly damming evidence to the contrary. Rihanna recently appeared on OWN for a sit-down conversation with Oprah, during which she opened up about her love for Chris Brown, saying:

"It was a weird, confusing space to be in. Because as angry as I was, as angry and hurt and betrayed, I just felt like he made that mistake because he needed help and who's going to help him? Nobody's going to say he needs help. Everybody's going to say he's a monster without looking at the source, and I was more concerned about him."

While Rihanna may have forgiven Mr. Brown, it may be that the singer has yet to forgive himself. Then again, can we pass any more judgement on him than he's passing on himself with permanent branding?

One Direction. (Getty Images)

Last night was the 2012 MTV Music Awards, for anyone who didn't spend the evening celebrating Fashion's Night Out or glued to Fox News, CNN or MSNBC. And it seemed like a lot of people tuned in ... at least half of our Twitter feed was dominated by messages about Kevin Hart, Pink, One Direction and, yes, Frank Ocean.

In a move that stunned audiences even more than her (apparent) love of Mitt Romney, Nicki Minaj cursed at Rihanna, telling the 25-year-old singer to "sit the fuck down" when RiRi tried to hug her. (Ms. Minaj's video "Starships" won Best Female Video of the year, beating out Rihanna's own "We Found Love.")

But what really set the Twitter tongues wagging--and competing with the DNC for most tweets per minute--was Odd Future's Frank Ocean. The now-solo artist performed "Thinkin' Bout You" from his new Channel Orange album, leading even Lady Gaga to mention how much she loved the rapper on Twitter.

Meanwhile KatyPerry  and One Direction made the tweens scream in adoration ... especially when Ms. Perry shared a chaste smooch with two of the boy band's members after they tweeted their appreciation for the pop star.

And who said Twitter didn't bring people together?

Simpler times: Madonna in 1984.

Even as Madonna brings her world tour to Yankee Stadium for shows on September 6 and 8, longtime fans will have a sneaking suspicion that she’s already sung her swan song.

It happened in 2001, at the opening of the Grammy Awards. Performing a recent single, the unimaginatively named “Music,” the long-reigning Queen of Pop writhed on top of a car while a screen behind her projected legitimately iconic images from her career thus far—more writhing, in a wedding gown at the Video Music Awards; aping Marilyn in the “Material Girl” video; that whole Sex period. By the time she stripped off her black leather jacket to reveal a T-shirt printed with “Material Girl,” the game was up. It was the end of history for Madonna. Having stolen from New York’s drag queens, the nation of Argentina, Björk and the infinitely patient Camille Paglia, there was no one left to rob but herself. The snake had found its own tail and wasn’t letting go. “Music” was her last number-one single in America.

The subsequent 11 years have been no kinder to a pop singer who made untold profits by scandalizing the entire population all at once. In 2003, for instance, Madonna restaged the notorious VMAs “Like a Virgin” performance in which she’d mimed masturbation; it was such a sensational act back in 1984 that a worthy callback required the additional services of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, both of whom planted kisses on Mama. The stunt got ink, but felt a little derivative, unworthy.

We haven’t even gotten to the Super Bowl performance, this year, during which the chanteuse came out in a gilded barge, like Cleopatra, to intone “Vogue,” then almost fell off a set of bleachers while performing, once again, “Music.” Madonna duetted with of-the-moment hip-hop act LMFAO, gave airtime to Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. (who stole the show with a raised middle finger—proving she had learned from the best), and ceded the entire finale to reality-show judge Cee Lo Green, who belted out “Like a Prayer” while the ostensible star sang backup. Nothing here was new—not the reliance on the energy of younger pop stars (Madonna has, in the past 10 years, collaborated with everyone from Missy Elliott to Justin Timberlake and Kanye West), not the ostensibly new song she debuted (a retread of flimsy early material like “Burning Up”), and not the dopey “political” edge (her song ended with a plea for #Worldpeace).

Madonna’s ongoing world tour, following the halftime show that most of us were inclined to view charitably, has been marred by endless grabs for attention; the well-chronicled political mishmash has featured the comparison of a French politician to Hitler, the onstage brandishing of pistols, a merited-or-not mockery of Lady Gaga, and Madonna’s own fans booing her. And then there was Elton John, who declared, “Her career is over, I can tell you that” and compared her to “a fairground stripper.”

Which isn’t to say that Mr. John is the most relevant pop star of the moment, either, but he has a point.

Past Madonna tours were controversial; recall how natural she seemed in her 1991 tour documentary Truth or Dare, still discovering her power to provoke. Back in the day, the attention felt somehow earned, if often strenuously so—the Jean Paul Gaultier cone bra said a mouthful, for instance; “Papa Don’t Preach” still carries a frisson; and the apostasy of the Catholic-baiting “Like a Prayer” made up for the relative thinness of the music. It was an equal exchange—she gave us something to talk about, we bought her albums and got up to dance (for inspiration), whenever she commanded.

By comparison, Madonna’s bids for controversy these days come off as desperate, the Newsweek cover stories of Top 40 radio.

Or was it always a little troll-y? It’s possible that no public act has ever been more calculated than Madonna’s repeated cursing on Letterman—rewatching the 1994 segment today, you can see there is no spontaneity whatsoever. Madonna dropped the f-bomb because she had determined it was time to prove that she could be naughtier than we even believed possible. Her Erotica album doesn’t really sound like the work of someone who’s actually ever had sex (much less cruised the Lower East Side in a limo, hunting for hookups, or partnered with Warren Beatty, Sean Penn, JFK Jr., et al.). The Vanity Fair spread with her newborn daughter invented the current tabloid vogue for baby photos, but the earth-mother shtick felt like as much of a pose as the Hindi-inflected look she threw on at awards ceremonies around the period, or the British accent she would soon pick up. In retrospect, the British accent was when the pose overwhelmed the artist. Until then, it was easy enough to go along with Madonna’s act. Certainly it was more interesting on a semiotic level than just marveling, yet again, at the dully marvelous vocal power of contemporaries like Mariah Carey and Toni Braxton.

And yet Madonna seemed to grow rageful at the limits of the concord she’d struck with her audience. Her mid-career albums Ray of Light (1998) and Music (2000) got the first legitimately respectful reviews of her oeuvre—and the first Grammy wins aside from a 1992 music-video prize. Having proven herself as an artist and not merely a provocateur, Madonna released, in 2003, a musically interesting, politically moronic album called American Life. A video depicted her tossing a bomb at George W. Bush. This was the album on which she rapped about how dissatisfied she was with her household staff and her “soy latte” with a “double shot-té.” Rightly or wrongly, her discovery of Jewish mysticism—remember “Esther”?—came off as yet another pose, if an expensive one.

Her 2005 album Confessions on a Dance Floor marked a retrenchment; the music was well-regarded precisely because it so closely mimed the spirit of the disco tunes that had initially made Madonna famous (with a bit of international house music mixed in). On tour in support of the album, Madonna ascended a glittering disco cross and wore a crown of thorns, to which the world replied with a mass eye-roll. What, precisely, was she even trying to say about the Catholic Church, 15 years after Like a Prayer? What was there left to communicate? The confessions weren’t forthcoming on Dance Floor, an album about having fun and waiting for boys to call and vaguely pushing oneself toward some undefined goal. (It’s worth noting that Confessions on a Dance Floor sold well, and that Madonna will always be able to count on an avid, if graying, fan base—in particular among gay men between 25 and 55 who grew up with her act.)

After a warmed-over hip-hop-ish album in 2008 came this year’s MDNA—a not-so-clever mash-up of her own name and the active ingredient in Ecstasy. One song features a rap bashing ex-husband Guy Ritchie; another bashes “some girls” who don’t have Madonna’s particular je ne sais quoi. There’s “Masterpiece,” a weak ballad from the Wallis Simpson bio-pic she directed. There’s a tune called “Gang Bang,” and a remix of the leadoff single “Give Me All Your Luvin’” produced by LMFAO. None of this has aged well, and the album came out in the spring.

Given Madonna’s undisciplined message, her buckshot approach to baiting controversy—if you throw every signifier out into the world, one is bound to hit—it’s perhaps no surprise that her lunch has been eaten by a crop of pop stars who absorbed her best moves and subtracted the air of breathless doggedness. Katy Perry has nailed the faux-naïf “Why are you paying attention to me?” quality. Rihanna captures the air of the profane. Nicki Minaj does the whole rapid-cycling-through-personae thing, albeit in fast-motion. And Lady Gaga, whose own popularity waxes and wanes in a Madonnavian manner, has adopted the sense of unashamed artifice, mixing in a bit more humor and perhaps a bit more heart, daring us, as Madonna once did, not to talk about her.

While Madonna performs old material and prematurely stale material and waves guns and twirls batons and invokes Godwin’s Law at Yankee Stadium, the world’s top pop acts will be in Los Angeles, at the MTV Video Music Awards. While the deal-makers who paid Madonna a reported $120 million over 10 years can count on strong attendance this one last go-round—she’s still Madonna, after all—the Madge business isn’t a growth industry. The last time Madonna performed at the VMAs was to reprise her past material and kiss Britney.

It turns out that Madonna’s 1987 album Who’s That Girl is the most appropriately titled of her career (certainly more so than Music). Some 30 years on, we’re no closer to finding out what makes this girl tick, what interests her beyond the glitter and flash of a camera. At this point, it may be time for her to take her own advice from one of her number-one singles, “Take a Bow.” “The show is over,” Madonna sang, back when the future seemed bright, or at least more full of possibility. “Say goodbye.”

Rihanna and Drake, nominated for the "Take Care" video

This morning brought MTV's announcement of its Video Music Awards nominees, with established pop artists like Rihanna and Katy Perry competing with upstarts like Gotye and girl-of-the-moment Carly Rae Jepsen. In the marquee category, Video of the Year, the nominees are:

• Drake ft. Rihanna, "Take Care"
• Gotye ft. Kimbra, "Somebody That I Used to Know"
• M.I.A., "Bad Girls"
• Katy Perry, "Wide Awake"
• Rihanna, "We Found Love"

That's two Rihanna videos (essentially), a lushly overproduced Perryish fantasy of the sort that won last year (with "Firework"), a low-fi YouTube hit, and one completely left-field choice (remember Florence + the Machine first breaching American shores in this category?).

Other notable calls:

• Katy Perry is nominated in "Best Female Video" for a different video, the paramilitary recruiting film "Part of Me" (this is more notably female than "Wide Awake" only according to Lady Macbeth's dictum "Unsex me here" as she strides into battle)
• Critical favorite Frank Ocean is up against three boy bands of varying degrees of boy-bandness and Ms. Jepsen in Best New Artist
• There's now a category for "Electronic Dance Music Video"
• As noted on Twitter, Lil Wayne's devotional ballad to a stripper "How to Love" got nominated as "Best Video With a Message."
• While Lady Gaga's nowhere to be found on the nominations list, internet punching bag Lana Del Rey's "Born to Die" got a few professional nominations. Did you know there's a cinematography category at the VMAs?