Over the last decade, we’ve seen some curious new pathways to success or, at the very least, fame. (They are not always one and the same, you know.) The most notorious one, of course, is the sex tape. Kim Kardashian may have a gigantic empire now, but it wasn’t long ago that she was just the daughter of a defense attorney and BFF of tabloid staple Paris Hilton. Then, one day, she had a thought: “I could make a videotape of myself having sex with a guy, then leverage my friendship with Paris for maximum exposure. What’s that, honey? You want to pee on me? Yeah, whatever, as long as it makes me famous.”

Then there is the path forged by one Brian Joseph Burton, whose debut album didn’t contain a lick of original production or content. Instead, he took the rhymes from Jay-Z’s The Black Album, and put them to the instrumental tracks from the Beatles’ The Beatles (aka The White Album), and poof, The Grey Album was born. And really, once you heard about this project, was there any question which song Danger Mouse would use to back up “99 Problems”? Hell to the naw. Of course it would be “Helter Skelter,” which is still one of the most hard-rocking songs ever recorded.

Have a good pre-Christmas weekend, everyone. May your problems be fewer than 99.