She has a bare backside, you guys!) Purity rings aside, they're as much industry creations as anyone American Idol has spit out.

Perhaps I'm being naïve. The music industry's role in pop music is a longstanding tradition, but never before has the mechanization been more obvious, or aimed at a younger audience. My hope, then, is for a decade full of mold-breakers like Lady Gaga, whose freak act may not be new but is still more exciting than most anything else out there. And as for those mom-approved wax figures? Let's just wish they make like Icarus and fly too close to the sun.