Hit count: Within you without you

Chris Brown, "With You" (#2 US): How many times can Stargate get away with recycling "Irreplaceable"? Artistically: none so far, since neither Rihanna nor Chris Brown have half Beyonce's charisma, let alone her chops. Still, at least ballads tend to be faster when they're built around guitars -- and they're harder to oversing: good news for upcoming Stargate project Mariah.

KAT-TUN, "LIPS" (#1 Japan): Japanese TV themes are better than U.S. ones because they're faster and louder. Japanese TV shows are better than U.S. ones because they're more likely to be centred around boxer-nun relationships.

Maroon 5, "Won't Go Home Without You" (US #48): It's "Every Breath You Take" with the stalker guy made sweet. Their best single (until they release "Nothing Lasts Forever"), which of course means it's been comparatively unsuccessful.

Yael Naim, "New Soul" (#2 France, #7 US): Now that I've borrowed a friend's iPod shuffle for my road trip next week, will it be the start of a slippery slope -- and not just in my taste in music? Whatever "New Soul" means in the Old World, here it plays as a disposable song for people with disposable income, people who like to see themselves as babes in the woods, as if guilelessness implies guiltlessness. You guys are pushing 30. Britney realised she was toxic at 22 -- and at 18, that she wasn't that innocent.

Bonus track: Nigga, "Te Quiero" (#1 Mexico for 14 weeks): This clingy-as-fluff piece of Jafakery ("romantic style in da world") features the worst singer (hear him in his pre-pitch corrected days) to have a hit of this magnitude since Victoria Beckham, and at least Posh knew her limits. Also, his name is Nigga.

Exclusive: The ending of the director's cut of There Will Be Blood

Plainview:

"I'm finished!"

Paul Whiteman-style jazz starts playing. The entire cast enters the bowling alley, forming a chorus line. Paul Dano gets up, with blood coming out of his ears, and starts singing:

"I'm sorry that my acting sucked,
My sucking's undisputed;
If you saw 'Sunshine', you would know
I should've played the mute kid;"

Daniel Day-Lewis:

"I'm sorry that I hammed it up,
That three hours it did cost ya,
But I'd have played the role for free
To get my second Oscar;"

Paul Thomas Anderson enters:

"I'm sorry that the ending sucked,
Took hours to think it up;
Still, I could piss down critics' throats
And they would drink it up;"

Daniel Day-Lewis:

"Like a milkshake!"

All:

"We're sorry that the ending sucked
But imagine you had been us:
It's so much harder to make art
Than to pass off nonsense...
As genius!"

Cheering, fireworks, etc.