Week in Music: Queen of Pop is Crowned

Gaga. Britney. Beyoncé. Katy. Rihanna. Over the past decade, numerous women have climbed their way up the charts with hit after hit after hit. But who’s been the most successful? Who’s the best? Who is the Queen of Pop?  We crunched the numbers – sales, reviews, awards and more from 2009 to 2011 – to determine the winner of our first Rolling Stone Queen of Pop Index. The winner may surprise you!

Hottest Live Photos of the Week

NBC's new singing competion The Voice wrapped up its blockbuster first season this week. Rolling Stone interviewed all four of the shows superstar judges – Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton – and recapped the season finale, in which Javier Colon became the show's first winner. We also reviewed the contestents' final performances and provided a final set of power rankings for the season.

Photos: Rocking the Stars and Stripes

Also, Tom Petty and Katrina and the Waves demanded that presidential candidate Michele Bachmann stop using their songs in her campaign appearances, No Doubt previewed their forthcoming sixth album, Roger Daltrey addressed tensions within The Who, and we examined the dark side of celebrity charities. We also saw Alicia Keys reinvent her hits at a gig in Los Angeles and reviewed the Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas, which featured performances by David Guetta and Swedish House Mafia.

Photos: Electric Daisy Carnival's Ravers and Kandi Kids

Plus, Detroit duo Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. performed a brief acoustic set featuring a cover of the Beach Boys classic "God Only Knows" at our office, dreamy electro-pop band Little Dragon was named our latest Band to Watch, we analyzed this week's pop charts, listed off the most exciting new tour kickoffs, looked back on this week in rock history and, as always, we reviewed all the week's biggest new releases.

Rolling Stone's Guide to Vampires

On the pop culture front, Peter Travers gave Transformers: Dark of the Moon a brutal zero stars review and asked you to vote for your choice of the worst movie of 2011 so far. Also, Erica Futterman recapped the season premiere of True Blood and we talked to The Office's resident weirdo Creed Bratton about the show's change of direction following the departure of Steve Carell.

Photos: Random Notes

We also posted a gallery of your Top 10 favorite Bruce Springsteen songs, as determined by your votes on Facebook and Twitter. Since we crunched the numbers and chose our Queen of Pop, our question for you this weekend is: Who is the best pop queen of all time? You can answer on our website, on facebook.com/rollingstone or on Twitter with the #weekendrock hashtag.

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Song Stories

“Baby Got Back”

Sir Mix-a-Lot | 1992

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”

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