Jesse McCartney Celebrates New LP, Future David Cook Collabo

Jesse McCartney is known for being a child actor, pop dreamboat and consistently the most celebrated person at the Kids Choice Awards. But he's also half the brains behind last year's highest-grossing song in the U.K., Leona Lewis' sultry ballad "Bleeding Love," and the owner of two Number One singles, a platinum record and a rack of Radio Disney trophies that would make Miley Cyrus jealous. Not bad for a dude who started out balancing soap opera roles with a tap-dancing boy band (Wiki search: Dream Street. Hilarious.) Rock Daily stopped by McCartney's release party for Departure at New York's Marquee last night and learned McCartney has good reason to be psyched that David Cook won American Idol. "Ryan [Tedder of OneRepublic] and I are planning to write some songs with him for his album," he said. So does he have any regrets about giving "Bleeding Love" (which he also penned with Tedder) away? "No, no," he said. "I'm so happy for Leona. She deserves it. There are really no bad feelings."

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Song Stories

“Time to Pretend”

MGMT | 2008

Listening to MGMT’s breakthrough song, one might interpret it as being about the excesses of rock stardom, but it’s actually about the duo’s pet praying mantis. Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden told Rolling Stone they got the idea from the insect's jerky movements. The mantis died, but the two bandmates kept the egg sack and allowed the hundreds of eggs to hatch. “We tried to name them all, but they died after a day,” said Goldwasser, with VanWyngarden chiming in, “But the praying mantis dance inspired us.”

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