Posted by Katherine St Asaph on 01/30/2012 at 3:49 PM News

The Popdust Files: britney spears, hashtags, upcoming albums, will.i.am, willpower

Will.i.am’s album Willpower is not actually rendered like that. Instead, it’s got a hashtag, a fact I am deliberately rebelling against. It’s also got collaborators Jennifer Lopez and Mick Jagger on “T.H.E. (The Hardest Ever),” which exists and can no longer be rebelled against; on first glance, you’d think Will picked them with a random number generator, but they’re actually both pretty canny choices–J. Lo for her career revival, Mick Jagger for his own swagger-rhyme-enabled revival.

That’s the thing about will.i.am: he generally knows what he’s doing, even when what he’s doing looks absolutely ludicrous. So while Britney Spears, Alicia Keys and Shakira might seem to have little in common except poppiness, femaleness and general popularity time frame, they all pretty much make sense as Willpower collaborators. The full list, as told to Capital FM, is below, and since Will’s already essentially described them with snappy hashtags (“pretty grand,” “really crazy,” “thebomb.com/isthatnicole?”), we’ve taken the liberty of concocting our own. This is definitely some next-level blogging shit. OK, fine, it just amused us. But we hope Will’d approve anyway.

Britney Spears: #femmefataleouttake #thehumanoidestever
Swizz Beats and Busta Rhymes: #fastrappityrapping #betterthanmegaupload
Alicia Keys and Swedish House Mafia: #conspicuousclassiness #stadiumdubsteprave
Shakira: #crossoverattempt #couldbebatshit
LMFAO and Eva Simons: #inevitable #probablytakeovercontrol
Nicole Scherzinger, in classical-music form: #nicoledidphantom #butseriouslywtf