Tag: "eminem"

There have been so many live performances at the MTV Video Music Awards that I couldn’t possibly remember them all. But according to a quick sampling, most of them were mediocre, some offensively so. The best and worst, however, stand out in the cultural memory. There were certainly some good ones and some horrible ones not on this list, but here’s what made the biggest impression:

The Best:

6. The Hives, 2002 – “Main Offender”

A pretty rocking performance, but what puts this one over the top is singer Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist announcing that they’re out of time, so everyone can turn their televisions off, knowing full well that The Vines were just about to start playing.

Continue reading ‘The EditoriaList: Best And Worst MTV VMA Performances’

• Three cheers for The Country Evangelists. Wait, that isn’t their name? What a waste.
• Blake must be devastated right now.
• Ironic that a band kind of named after royalty would be the one to speak for the people.
• If Biebs actually goes on Maury and gets out of this fatherhood claim, we think he should do the dance. You know,that dance.
• Liam’s just dangling the Oasis fruit in front of everybody.
• Nicola Roberts probably figured out it’s not a good idea to get into a fight with Madonna after seeing what she did to those poor hydrangeas.
• Consider us genuinely excited to see what 50 Cent can do when he puts his mind to it.
• Time to hunt YouTube for clips of this.

• The Stone Roses are back and just wanna be adored all over again.
• Courtney Love throwing a classic Courtney Love hissy fit.
• Not really sure how anybody didn’t see this coming, especially with a song called “Crank That”.
• Axl Rose: the king of class.
• Two hip hop stars being named gods of rock? Oh, GQ.
• Guessing that Taylor thought it was surreal Amy Lee didn’t have to strip to get attention.
• Indie kids everywhere, don’t worry. It’s completely normal to freak out at this.
• 300 shows for one album? This is madness.

The 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards was filmed in Atlanta on October 1 and aired on BET last week.  Packed with powerful performances and full of surprises, the show offered the world a glimpse of some of rap’s most promising up and comers through their nine cyphers, and gave some unexpected players a turn at the mic while other big names were noticeably MIA.

The show’s opening set the pace for the night.  A fire-filled stage revealed Young Jeezy who spit some verses before throwing the mic to T.I. Making his triumphant return to the stage in his hometown of Atlanta, the recently–released rapper got straight to the point, spitting “I been out of sight/ been out of mind…another year of prison/ promise this is it for me/ trying to make it through the storm/ should be makin’ history. /No feeling sorry keep your pity and your sympathy/ good or bad take it like a man whatever’s meant to be.”

Hosted by Mike Epps, the show was light on awards. An hour into the show, they had only given out one. The night’s biggest winner was Chris Brown (who couldn’t be bothered to show up) for his hit, “Look At Me Now” featuring Busta Rhymes and Lil Wayne. The song nabbed a total of four awards including Best Hip-Hop Video, People’s Champ Award, Reese’s Perfect Combo Award and Best Featured Verse from Busta.

Continue reading ‘Soundcheck: 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards: Scathing Cyphers, Political Points, and Missing Winners’

Every great screen biography of a music superstar needs three key ingredients to really sing: 1) An icon with the greatest story never told. 2) A talented lead actor or actress gunning for an Oscar nomination—singing talent and striking resemblance optional (Angela Bassett didn’t sing a word in What’s Love Got to Do with It, and she looks nothing like the film’s subject, yet she was Tina Turner). 3) Kick-ass songs.

Fantasia Barrino as gospel great Mahalia Jackson is coming soon. The Elton John Story (aka Rocketman) is reportedly finally in the works (I’d cast Justin Timberlake over mentioned favorite James McAvoy and pray that he can nail a British accent), as is Aretha Franklin’s (with or without Halle Berry, the Queen of Soul’s No. 1 choice), Anne Hathaway as Judy Garland and Sacha Baron Cohen as Freddie Mercury.

Robert Pattinson was announced as a possible Kurt Cobain at one point last year, but it’s hard to imagine that we’d get the true story as long as Courtney Love is around to kill it or put her spin on it. Ryan Gosling has the chops to pull off Cobain, but he’s already in everything and he’s several years older than Cobain was when he committed suicide. Note to aspiring biopic producers: One doesn’t have to cast a “star” as the star. Some biopics (Amadeus, starring Tom Hulce as Mozart; La vie en rose, with Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf) do just fine without huge names.

Now that she’s gone too soon, too, it’s probably only a matter of time before we get Amy Winehouse‘s “untold” story. Note to aspiring biopic producers: Tabloid-era stars are best left alone unless, as with Eminem’s 8 Mile, the focus is on life before they were famous. Otherwise, we’ve already seen the action play out in the pages of Us Weekly and People magazine.

But what about those biopics in various stages of development and non-development? Here are six that I’m dying to see.

1) David Bowie: The star. The spectacle. The songs… Iman. I can’t think of a rock icon whose story is more deserving of the screen treatment. It would be a shoo-in for the Best Costume Design Oscar, and with a star like Jonathan Rhys Meyers (who already played a Bowie-esque figure to perfection in the 1998 film Velvet Goldmine), an actor worthy of the material.

Continue reading ‘Sound And Vision: Justin Timberlake as Elton John and Six Other Wish-List Music Biopics’

Hostyle Muggshot

Detroit, Michigan. Home to rappers like Royce da 5’9″, Obie Trice, Proof, Black Milk and—of course—Eminem. With a pedigree like that, up-and-coming Motor City MCs know they have to come correct right out of the gate. Hostyle Muggshot, a member of the Woofpac collective with rappers J-Kidd and Moe Dirdee, does just that, unapologetically delivering his hustler manifesto. On “I Am Focused,” the rapper declares, “When I’m looking for the best I am all I find,” over an onslaught of grinding guitars. Tracks like “I Don’t Sweat” and “Can’t Hold Me Back” will drive that point home even further. On the latter, Hostyle Muggshot promises to “keep my name in the air like fragrance” while shrill keyboards up the urgency. “Future” takes off at a gallop, with the rapper spitting clever lines like “I cope, I never lose hope, I bounce off the ropes, I’m a fighter.” Looks like Detroit may have another hip hop heavyweight to add to its hall of fame.

“Future” – Hotstyle Muggshot

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Mike Check

Mike Check started his career in music behind the kit, eventually trading sticks for a pen and becoming a songwriter. Turns out it was a good swap. Today Check is one of New York’s up-and-coming MCs, firing up audiences with fervent lyrics about anything from crime and poverty to Christian Laettner. On the bubbling, synth-driven “Mega Man” Check details his A-game with the ladies, promising to “fade away like Laettner” after its over. The mood gets heavier on “My Back Yard,” a lyrical tour of NYC set to a sample of Benny Mardones’ “Into the Night.” From Fifth Avenue to Ground Zero, Jamaica Queens, South Bronx and Brooklyn, Check explores the worlds of the haves and have-nots. The rapper’s fierce determination to move out of the latter category is on display in “For the Rush,” an adrenaline-filled banger about owning the audience. “Every time I close my eyes never seen another dream,” he spits, like New York’s version of Jimmy “B-Rabbit” Smith. If it’s true you gotta lose yourself in the music to really make it, Mike Check is well on his way.

“For the Rush” – Mike Check

This was a brutal exercise, listening to at least large chunks of every Number 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 for the years between 2000 and 2010 (I should have stopped at 2009, but I’m a glutton for punishment). Anyway, in order to avoid repetition, if a song was a Number 1 in more than one year (carried over from a previous year), I only considered it for the first year in which it hit the top spot. I thought I might see some kind of trend in quality of pop music, but no such luck—highs and lows abound throughout.

2000

Best: “Smooth” by Santana featuring Rob Thomas. Rob Thomas tries really hard to wreck this song with his awful singing, but it’s still really catchy. Sorry Rob, but I’ve come from the future to tell you that you’ll have more success offending listeners with your solo record.

Worst: The epic and universal terribleness of “Arms Wide Open” by Creed beats out such dreck as “Everything You Want” by Vertical Horizon and a song called “I Knew I Loved You” by a band that wrote the name “Savage Garden” on a piece of paper, looked at it and said, “Yes. Let’s name our band that. That’s not totally stupid at all.”

Dishonorable mention: “Independent Women Part 1” by Destiny’s Child, for opening the song with a shout out to Charlie’s Angels, the movie in which it is featured, and for kicking off the verse with the lyric, “Question: Tell me what you think about me.” Yeah, that’s not a question, that’s a command. What do I think about you? I think that you’re too pushy and have a tenuous grasp on parts of speech.

Continue reading ‘The EditoriaList: Best And Worst #1 Singles 2000-2010′

“Take back Vanessa Redgrave
Take back Joe Piscopo
Take back Eddie Murphy
Give ‘em all some place to go”

— Tom Petty, “Jammin’ Me” (1987)

“Fuck Tom Petty!”—Eddie Murphy

Oh, those crazy stars! What will they say next? And will they ever learn? What a tangled web they weave when they start to take pot shots at each other.

Celebrity feuds have existed since before the dawn of the pop charts. Eminem owes much of his early notoriety to cutting down to size the likes of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, ‘N Sync and Moby in videos and on record. Meanwhile, off the record (though always totally for attribution), Katy Perry has never met a fellow chart-topper she wouldn’t slag off.

But lately, stars keep colliding and disturbing the peace in the music galaxy. Liam Gallagher just filed suit against his brother Noel over the latter’s claim that Liam pulled out of a high-profile Oasis gig in 2009 due to a hangover and over comments Noel made blaming Liam for the demise of the band. But then brothers in arms have engaged in verbal—and occasionally, physical— combat since the heyday of the Kinks, which featured the dueling Davies, Ray and Dave. Chris and Rich Robinson of the Black Crowes, William and Jim Reid of the Jesus and Mary Chain, and Kings of Leon‘s Followill brothers have the battle scars to prove it.

Continue reading ‘Sound And Vision: Celebrity Feuds — Pop Is a Battlefield, World War II’