The months surrounding the summer 2009 release of "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" were endlessly entertaining when it came to movie journalism. The world watched with fascination, horror, giggles and gasps as director Michael Bay and star Megan Fox went at each other. The duo slammed and defended each other and threw each other under the bus only to reach under and stage a PR rescue mission.

Now, all that is behind us, as Fox has parted ways with the robot franchise, and the run-up to the release of "Transformers 3" in July 2011 promises to be significantly less titillating as a result.

We're not gonna lie — we'll miss this salacious back-and-forth between two of Hollywood's most entertaining personalities. That's why we decided to take a lighthearted look back at our favorite moments from Fox and Bay's creative partnership.

I'm Terrible, He's Terrible
In the summer of 2007, Megan Fox was a little-known actress who had appeared in a handful of TV series and the forgettable Lindsay Lohan vehicle "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen." A year later, as "Transformers" stomped into theaters on its way to a $700 million worldwide gross, Fox was a superstar.

You'd have thought she'd be pretty pleased about her breakout turn. Not so much. "I'm terrible in it," she told Entertainment Weekly. "It's my first real movie, and it's not honest and not realistic. The movie wasn't bad, I just wasn't proud about what I did. ... But unless you're a seasoned veteran, working with Michael Bay is not about an acting experience."

She'd go on to compare Bay to Napoleon and Hitler, call him a "nightmare to work for" and declare that he has "no social skills at all."

I Made You, I Can Unmake You
Unsurprisingly, such statements didn't sit well with Bay. The guy has made six movies that have grossed more than $100 million. Clearly, he knows what he's doing. And he knows when his actors push things just a bit too far.

"Well, that's Megan Fox for you," he told the Wall Street Journal. She says some very ridiculous things because she's 23 years old and she still has a lot of growing to do. You roll your eyes when you see statements like that and think, 'OK, Megan, you can do whatever you want. I got it.' ... Nobody in the world knew about Megan Fox until I found her and put her in 'Transformers.' I like to think that I've had some luck in building actors' careers with my films."

She Just Can't Quit Him
Despite this war of words, Fox confessed to MTV News that she is "addicted" to making movies with Bay. It's that sort of statement that makes you think that, behind all the heated press reports, the two shared a rewarding — if not fond — working relationship.

"You get addicted to those big action movies," Fox told us last summer. "You get addicted to the Bay-hem. You step away from it, and you're relieved and you're relaxed and you do something that's quieter and you feel like you're really working on it and you're fleshing out and figuring things out. But then you sort of miss that abuse."

He Just Can't Quit Her
As the public nastiness between Bay and Fox was at its height, members of his "Transformers" crew posted an unauthorized open letter on his official website. The letter called Fox "queen of talking trailer trash," dubbed her acting "cringe-able" and suggested she might have a future career as a porn star.

Now it's one thing if Bay himself speaks freely about his star, but he was not about to let others use his considerable platform to trash her. He promptly pulled the letter from his site and penned his own, one which again suggested the two really do respect each other.

"I don't condone the crew letter to Megan," Bay wrote. "And I don't condone Megan's outlandish quotes. But her crazy quips are part of her crazy charm. The fact of the matter is, I still love working with her, and I know we still get along. I even expect more crazy quotes from her on 'Transformers 3.' "

That's Just Meg and Mike Being Meg and Mike
Such quotes, alas, are not to be. Much has been made of their feud in the past and much will be made in the future. But the key to their whole relationship just might be this: It's not that they battle any more than any other director-and-actor duo in Hollywood; rather, they both happen to speak their minds in public, for better or worse. Fox and Bay are outspoken people, and that's a big reason why their quotes always pop up in headlines. Boring or tight-lipped creative types simply don't make news. When it comes to Fox and Bay, that's just how they roll.

"Obviously, what he said is not untrue, about me saying ridiculous things all the time and being 23," Fox told MTV News at Comic-Con last year. "That's all accurate. Those are all things that he would say to me and has said to me. That's actually one of the kindest things he's said about me. I don't feel like we're in a war of words at all. That's just me and Mike. That's how we talk."

source:mtv

In a broad sense, pop is any music based on memorable melodies, repeated sections (usually, but not always, verses and choruses), and a tight, concise structure that keeps the listener's focus on those elements. Pop as a musical style, however, began in the late '90s and early 2000s, when a pair of major forces began narrowing and focusing commercial tastes. First, the heavy influence of rap and R&B made the pop singles charts more homogeneous than ever. Then, the advent of the television contest American Idol further centralized what people agreed on as pop music. As such, Pop is primarily influenced by the time's two most broadly popular styles: R&B and adult contemporary. The sound of Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears in the mid-to-late '90s was of prime importance to the genesis of Pop, as were R&B superstars Aaliyah and R. Kelly, both of whom had a heavy adult contemporary angle to their material. By the 2000s, a parade of varying artists were catering to the mainstream with a similar type of pop music — artists as diverse as Destiny's Child, Black Eyed Peas, Faith Hill, Maroon 5, Keith Urban, and AmIdol alums like Kelly Clarkson and Clay Aiken. Not everything they recorded was Pop, but in varying degrees they included several bids to the mainstream each year and on each album. Although the essentials of songcraft were still much in abundance, their songs were as much about production as performance.

A pop idol is a musician who has built his or her career on participation in a televised singing contest, specifically contests like the Idol brand (American Idol, British Idol, Sweden's Idol, etc.), PopStars!, The X Factor, and, in many cases, Eurovision. Generally speaking, most pop idols sing glitzy, slick, heavily arranged songs that emphasize vocal virtuosity over everything else. Their performances are accessible and hooky, aimed at appealing to the general public and, more importantly, the judges. Genres covered by pop idols often include (but aren't limited to) schlager, dance-pop, teen pop, vocal pop, country pop, and alternative pop/rock. Many pop idols find chart success, however fleeting, following their time in competitions — regardless of whether they win or lose — which resulted in many one-hit wonders in the late '90s and early 2000s. Not every singer or band who participates in a song contest necessarily falls into the pop idol category. The Finnish metal band Lordi, for instance, won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2006, but they wouldn't normally be considered pop idols in the same sense that someone like Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, or Andy Abraham are considered pop idols.

AM pop was the dominant sound of Top 40 AM radio during the 1960s and '70s. At the beginning of the '60s, AM radio was by far the dominant format; after 15 years, however, that status would shift to FM, thanks in large part to its willingness to play album tracks and longer songs (which earned it a devoted audience in the era of album rock). AM was the more tightly programmed, singles-oriented band on the dial, and it played the sort of commercial pop music that has since become synonymous with the era. Some AM pop singles appeal to modern ears only as embarrassingly kitschy artifacts of their time, far too dippily cheerful (or maudlin, as the case may be) for their own good. But AM pop wasn't just about bubblegum and mellow pop — there was also room for soul, British Invasion rock, post-psychedelic pop, country-rock and country-pop, folk-rock, and even occasional hard rock (provided it was concise, catchy, and not too heavy). Also, it delivered songs by most of the best acts of the rock and soul era: the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the powerful Motown and Brill Building stables, Neil Diamond, the Mamas & the Papas, and Simon & Garfunkel, among many others.

Naturally created in California, sunshine pop was a mid-'60s mainstream pop style typified by rich harmony vocals, lush orchestrations, and relentless good cheer. It was often mildly influenced by psychedelia, but it usually didn't aim to evoke any sort of drug-induced mind expansion; it simply drew from the warm and whimsical sides of psychedelic pop, incorporating production innovations of the time (especially those of Phil Spector and the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson). Sunshine pop often resembled the more elaborate and melancholy baroque pop style, though it could also cross into folk-pop or Brill Building pop. The stars of sunshine pop included the Beach Boys (circa Pet Sounds), the Turtles, the Association, and the Mamas & the Papas; other groups to score hits in the style were the Buckinghams, the Grass Roots, and the Left Banke, while certain others — Sagittarius, the Yellow Balloon, the Millennium — became cult favorites years after the fact.

Baroque Pop emerged during the mid-'60s, a time when artists including the Left Banke, the Beach Boys, producer Phil Spector, and composer/arranger Burt Bacharach began infusing rock & roll with elements of classical music, achieving a majestic orchestral sound far removed from rock's wild, primitive origins. Layered harmonies, strings, and horns are all hallmarks of baroque pop, as is the music's dramatic intensity. At the time of its inception, it was rock's most mature outgrowth to date, and its spirit lives on in everything from the Philly soul sound of the early '70s to the like-minded chamber pop sound of the mid-'90s.

Brill Building Pop applied the concept of professional songwriters in traditional pop to rock & roll. Numerous teams of professional songwriters worked at the Brill Building — a block of music publishing houses in New York City — writing songs for artists as diverse as the Coasters, the Drifters, the Shangri-Las, the Ronettes, Neil Sedaka, and Connie Francis. The songs were indebted not only to rock & roll and R&B, but also Tin Pan Alley pop, as the sophisticated lyrics and melodies proved. The productions on these early '60s records were also more sophisticated than most rock & roll records, featuring orchestras and bands with large rhythm and guitar sections. Though it fell out of favor after the British Invasion, both British and American pop/rock demonstrated an enormous debt to Brill Building pop for years to come.

It took rock & roll a few years before they had a group of attractive young vocalists to claim as their own Teen Idols. Most of the teen idols of the late '50s and early '60s owed more to traditional pop than rock & roll. They didn't have the raw sexuality of Elvis Presley, nor did they have his instinctive vocal talents. The teen idols were carefully groomed and given inoffensive, catchy material to sing. Pat Boone was the first of the teen idols of the late '50s. Boone primarily covered rock & roll and R&B hits, but his clean-cut good looks and smooth vocals set the stage for singers like Paul Anka, who primarily sang ballads that were given contemporary pop/rock productions. Ricky Nelson emerged at the same time as Anka, and out of all the teen idols, his music remained the closest to rock & roll — Nelson performed rockabilly, R&B, and rock & roll, but he played with professional studio musicians who helped give the music a cleaner attack. After Anka and Nelson, the golden age of teen idols emerged, as a number of vocalists with limited vocal skills but good looks became stars. These vocalists — like Fabian and Frankie Avalon — sang songs written by professional songwriters. Frequently, this material hearkened back to the Tin Pan Alley and traditional pop that dominated the early '50s, but the records were given rock & roll productions. Teen idols continued to be popular throughout the early '60s and the genre went through a number of fads, including a string of teenage television actors who turned into singers, as well as a wave of melodramatic songs about tragic teenage deaths. Rockers like Gene Pitney, Dion, and Del Shannon were packaged as teen idols, but their music was substantial enough to essentially sustain the death of the fad in 1963. Furthermore, there were a number of British teen idols — such as Cliff Richard and Adam Faith — who dominated the charts in the same era with similar music, but they all faded away upon the arrival of the Beatles in 1963. During the '70s, the term came to describe a number of AM-pop artists like the Bay City Rollers and Shaun Cassidy, who essentially updated the lightweight approach of '60s teen idols for the '70s.

Bubblegum is a lightweight, catchy pop music that was a significant commercial force in the late '60s and early '70s. Bubblegum was targeted at a preteen audience whose older siblings had been raised on rock & roll. It was simple, melodic, and light as feather — neither the lyrics or the music had much substance. Bubblegum was a manufactured music, created by record producers that often hired session musicians to play and sing the songs. Frequently, the session musicians were given a fake band name to give the illusion that they were a real group. Apart from acts like the Partridge Family and Tommy Roe, most bubblegum groups were one-hit wonders. Appropriately, the genre also had a short life span, lasting roughly five years. As those preteen bubblegum fans grew up, they left the music behind. However, the genre had a surprisingly long legacy, as musicians that grew up with bubblegum created songs that reflected the sunny, catchy simplicity of the music.

Falling somewhere between traditional pop and R&B, the sound of the Girl Groups was one of the most popular rock & roll genres in the early '60s. Though there were strong elements of rock & roll and R&B in the music, the girl group sound was decidedly more polished than earlier forms of rock & roll. It was driven by producers and songwriters, who helped guided the groups and gave them material to sing. The vocalists had roots in gospel and R&B, while the songwriters and producers were schooled in traditional pop, which resulted in an exciting hybrid. The songs were innocent and yearning, with sweet, catchy melodies and driving backbeats. Though the girl groups faded away in the mid-'60s, they had a profound influence on pop/rock, particularly British Invasion acts like the Beatles.

Pop/rock might seem like an overly vague designation — after all, rock & roll was catchy and melodic long before it was thought of as pop music, and from the early '60s on, nearly all pop reflected the influence of rock & roll in one way or another. But pure pop took a while to become comfortable with rock's insistent backbeat, and it wasn't until the dawn of the '70s — around the time when rock & roll's first-generation fans were settling into adulthood — that truly equal pop/rock fusions became the epitome of mainstream music (as opposed to pre-rock vocal pop, which still commanded a sizable adult audience for most of the '60s). Naturally, pop/rock's primary focus was on melody — as big, catchy, and instantly memorable as possible, whether the song was a rocker, ballad, or midtempo in-betweener. But the other, less immediately apparent aspect of pop/rock was its emphasis on the professional craft of record-making. The songs were tightly constructed, with no wasted space or prolonged detours from the melodic hooks. The production was clean, polished, and bright, making full use of the advances in recording technology (and technique) that had taken place over the course of the '60s. In general, pop/rock was catchy and energetic enough to appeal to younger listeners, but clean and safe enough for adults as well. Pop/rock, however, was not soft rock; it's important to realize — hard as it may be to imagine today — that the big hooks, rock instrumentation, and definite backbeat gave pop/rock an energy that would have been too edgy for more conservative listeners who hadn't grown up with rock & roll. Naturally, with its commercial accessibility, pop/rock produced some of the biggest stars of the '70s, such as Elton John, Peter Frampton, Paul McCartney & Wings, and Fleetwood Mac; it continued on into the '80s with Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Hall & Oates, George Michael, and many others. In the '90s, pop/rock became largely the province of well-established veterans, as alternative rock, urban R&B, hip-hop, and teen pop took over the pop charts to the exclusion of most everything else.

Pop music has been a profitable industry in America since the 19th century, but for these purposes, Early Pop/Rock is a style that took shape in the post-rock & roll era, once the more conservative elements of the record industry had come to terms with the new musical landscape. Early Pop/Rock emerged in the late '50s, as the initial rock & roll craze began to die down, and a lighter, smoother (but still similar) alternative to rock was needed. Mostly a singles medium, Early Pop/Rock was influenced by the beat, arrangements, and style of rock & roll (and sometimes doo wop), and it didn't sound bad on the radio next to rock & roll. But Early Pop/Rock didn't rock as much as rock & roll. It was about professional craft, both in the songwriting and the studio production, and had little to do with the edge or attitude of rock. As the '60s wore on, Early Pop/Rock began to incorporate touches of psychedelia and blue-eyed soul; by the '70s, it had mellowed substantially, thanks in part to the singer/songwriter movement and Bacharach's brand of smooth adult pop. Some of Early Pop/Rock's biggest acts in the '60s included the Beach Boys, the Four Seasons, the Everly Brothers (entering a different phase of their career), the Association, the Rascals, the Righteous Brothers, and (in the U.K.) the Walker Brothers and Petula Clark; other major figures included composer Burt Bacharach, producer Phil Spector, and Brill Building songwriting teams like Barry/Greenwich and Goffin/King. The classic '50s and '60s-style strain of Early Pop/Rock morphed into AM pop, pop/rock, and soft rock by the mid-'70s, but it continued to dominate good-time oldies radio formats for decades afterward

Most of the time, Christian Rock essentially follows the sonic blueprint of mainstream AOR and arena rock, except of course for its Christian-themed lyrics. It was initially a somewhat controversial style in Christian circles, as more conservative elements believed all rock & roll to be inherently evil by nature, and gospel radio programmers were accordingly reluctant to program the music when it appeared during the mid-'70s. But others began to see Christian rock as an effective way to reach the unconverted, wrapping spiritual messages in an attractive package that strongly resembled a highly popular mainstream musical style. Petra's two Dove Award nominations in 1984 effectively signaled the gospel music community's acceptance of Christian rock as a viable and legitimate form, and helped pave the way for the heavier, flashier Christian style known as heaven's metal (itself an attempt to hook secular fans with an already established sound and spiritual lyrics). Harder, more uptempo Christian rock songs often try to project a firm, tough-minded, unshakable religious attitude, in keeping with the aggressive sound of the music, although many Christian rock bands have a fondness for majestic, sweeping power ballads; in both cases, the polished, squeaky-clean production is often just as close to the sheen of CCM pop as to the already slick sound of much AOR. Although some Christian rock bands experimented with rawer, more biting sounds in the late '80s and early '90s, the associations between the established conventions of big, anthemic hooks, loud yet smoothed-out guitars, and intense (yet fundamentally safe) spiritual emotion never completely died down. That time period also witnessed the unique phenomenon of King's X, a band with roots in Christian rock which garnered a devoted cult following among secular listeners and critics, thanks to its willingness to deviate from established musical formulas and address spirituality in more general terms. As alternative CCM began to capture larger portions of the Christian rock audience during the mid- to late '90s, many Christian rock heavyweights conceded the impact of mainstream alternative rock and shifted their brands of hard rock accordingly, although Petra soldiered on into the new millennium with their sound virtually unchanged