Tag: "Kanye West"

• Apparently, this fan hasn’t heard of the phrase “water under the bridge”.
• Probably would be even more entertaining if she collab’ed with Mini KISS.
• God must have looked down at that church and said, “What’s with all these hipsters?”
• Don’t worry Kanye. We’re definitely not the people who think this is still a joke, this is real. And it scares us.
• Don’t get a chance to do this much, but here’s Bright Eyes covering White Stripes.
• And here’s Jack White covering Hank Williams.
• And here’s Hank Williams, Jr. apologizing for comparing Obama to Hitler in an attempt to get his MNF job back. Chain ruined.
• You know what would make those protesters happy, Radiohead? You actually playing for them. And a tax hike on the rich, we guess.
• Roger Daltry, telling it how it is.
• It’s official. All the people in our iPhone contest on Twitter are getting an iPhone 4s. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

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′

Bon Iver seems to be everywhere these days. Whether he’s singing on a Kanye West album or debuting at Number 2 on the Billboard Charts, Justin Vernon’s folk project that started in a cabin in Wisconsin has turned into something bigger than he could have imagined. He seems to have inspired a whole new generation to grow out their beards and write some good old fashioned folk songs. Which brings us to one of the best folk bands we have here on OurStage, Statue of Liberty.

OurStage's Statue of Liberty

Bon Iver

Just like Bon Iver, Statue of Liberty hail from the midwest; Des Moines, IA to be exact. The band is a duo consisting of Bobby Bradford and Marywood Kate. Playing guitar and piano respectively, the two share vocal duties to create blissfully sweet vocal harmonies. Their song “Thick of It All” best exemplifies the comparisons to Bon Iver. Beginning with a delicate acoustic guitar melody, the two members sing together in seemingly perfect harmony. This creates a really breath-taking effect where the deep male voice and high-pitched female voice combine so seamlessly that it almost sounds like one voice. The track builds momentum, with a bass drum eventually coming in to provide a steady beat and some hand percussion to create more texture.

Continue reading ‘Statue of Liberty Vs. Bon Iver’

In this week’s edition of Live Wired, we’re switching things up a little bit. We’ve featured show review of fun and laid-back summer concerts such as Guster and Jack’s Mannequin and The Weepies. This time, we’re bringing you our thoughts on and a look into the “Generation Laser” tour, Lupe Fiasco’s twenty-date trek around the country this fall. On Monday, we caught the first night of this tour at a jam-packed House of Blues. Fiasco, the rapper hailing from Chicago, entered the stage to chants of “Lupe”, which continued throughout the night.

The first half of the show was by far the best. The energy in the room was high, the crowd knew every word to every song and Lupe captivated everyone with upbeat and exciting performances of some of his best tracks. He opened with “Words I Never Said”, the second song off of his album Lasers. It definitely set the tone for the night, with Lupe rapping the verses fueled by his political views and his back-up vocalists contributing with the song’s sing-along chorus. While most of his set consisted of content from Lasers, his latest album which was released back in March, an early highlight of the set was an older song, “Go Go Gadget Flow”. The crowd loved rapping the repetitive and easy to remember chorus, and Fiasco even changed the words around at the end to make the song about Boston.

Continue reading ‘Live Wired [Review]: Lupe Fiasco’

“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’

Whoever invented the movie preview must be some kind of genius. Because of them, half the fun of seeing a movie on the big screen is getting there—to the main attraction, that is. It always takes a few good trailers to put me in the mood. But sometimes, if the words don’t get in the way (damn, bad screenplays!), the music does. Too often terrible songs ruin perfectly good trailers—or make bad ones worse.

That said, movie-trailer music has come a long way. For a brief period in the early ’90s, nearly every other one seemed to feature the soothing new-age sounds of Enya floating by in the background. Nowadays we get a larger assortment of musical backdrops (pop, classical, rock, hip hop, techno and, of course, vintage Motown), some of which can actually turn must-avoid into must-see — at least until the coming attraction is over and sensible thinking once again prevails.

Variety, however, hasn’t done away with predictability, and recently, while screening trailers for some upcoming autumn releases, I noticed a few rules at play.

1. No self-respecting Oscar contender stoops to the tops of the pops. David Fincher may have gotten Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails to score The Social Network last year, but he knew better than to use Radiohead’s 1992 hit “Creep” in the trailer. Instead, he used a haunting cover by Belgium’s Scala & Kolacny Brothers. This year, for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (December 21), he punctuates the sneak-peek action not with Led Zeppelin’s classic version of “Immigrant Song” but with a near-equally exhilariting remake by Reznor and Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Continue reading ‘Sound And Vision: Pop Goes the Previews — The Best and Worst of Fall Movie-Trailer Music’

The MTV Video Music Awards always serve up big surprises and this year was no different.  From Beyoncé’s big news to Lady Gaga’s dragged-up, stand-in, this year’s show didn’t skimp on the stumpers.

Lady Gaga kicked off the show with a monologue from her male alter ego, ‘Jo Calderone’. “She left me! She said it always starts out good and then the guys—meaning me, I’m one of the guys—we get crazy. I did. I got crazy. But she’s f—ing crazy too, right?” The narrative was hard to follow at first, and I’m guessing die-hard Gaga fans figured it out before the rest of us.  Still, she delivered an intense performance of “You And I” with a guest appearance by legendary guitarist, Brian May of Queen. What you didn’t see on television was the tumble Gaga took off her piano towards the end of her performance.  Ever the pro, she moved on before the crowd even noticed her slip up.  Her video for “Born This Way” earned her two awards; Best Female Video and the newly created Best Video with a Message category.

Jay-Z and Kanye West took the stage for an unexpected performance of their Watch The Throne hit, “Otis”.  While it was instantly exciting to see the two onstage together, the performance was not as magical as expected.  The best part of their set was when security bum-rushed a stage-crasher who tried to interrupt the  lackluster performance.

Nicki Minaj was nominated in three categories and  nabbed the Moon man for Best Hip Hop Video for “Super Bass”. She presented the first award of the night to tour mate, Britney Spears for “Til The World Ends” for  Best Pop Video. In her speech, a healthy, happy-looking Spears thanked God, her kids, and ex-agent boyfriend, Jason Traiwick.  Gaga presented Spears with the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award telling the crowd, “I used to hang posters of her on my wall and touch myself when I was laying in bed,” before introducing an awesome montage of Britney’s videos, complete with a legion of dancers donning her most iconic outfits and legendary dance moves.

After accepting her award, Britney introduced Beyoncé, who sang “Love On Top” in a suspiciously body-conscious outfit of black pants and an oversized blazer.  While those of us on the black carpet had already seen the secret bulge at arrivals, she teased the crowd during her intro saying, “I want you to stand up on your feet, I want you to feel the love that’s growing inside of me.” At the end of her set she opened her blazer to reveal a shockingly developed baby bump.  The smile on her face as she rubbed her belly was the highlight of the night, as husband Jay-Z and Kanye West celebrated from the front row. Her video for “Girls (Run The World)” won in the Best Choreography category, but lost to Katy Perry for Video Of The Year.

Perry (who had a whopping ten nominations this year) also took home the Best Collaboration title for “E.T.” with Kanye West. Her husband and past VMA host, Russell Brand, kicked off a touching tribute to Amy Winehouse who died last month at twenty-seven.  He highlighted her amazing voice, which he called “a timeless sound like a roar from the guts of humanity,” telling the crowd, “When a talent like Amy Winehouse comes along, it affects everybody.” He was joined by Tony Bennett, who likened her to prolific jazz singers, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald before debuting a duet he recently recorded with Amy. Bruno Mars delivered a loving performance of her cover of “Valerie” ending it with a final farewell, singing, “Say Amy, oh Amy/ I love you darling, I love you darling/ Say Amy, whoa Amy, we’ll miss you baby.”

Other stand-out performances came from Chris Brown, who didn’t win a trophy, but wowed the crowd with his stellar dance moves and Adele, who belted out “ Someone Like You” so effortlessly, it’s no wonder she’s every artist’s favorite artist. Odd Future’s Tyler ‘The Creator’ won the coveted Best New Artist award, beating out newbies Kreayshawn, Big Sean and Wiz Khalifa with his hit,  “Yonkers” prompting a profanity-ridden acceptance speech from the Wolfpack front-man.

Lil Wayne closed the show with a bang-literally, when he smashed the guitar he was using at the end of his set.  He started off with an auto-tune assisted rendition of “How To Love” and followed up with a rocked-out version of “John”, set to Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man.”  Weezy dropped the digital version of his highly anticipated Carter IV album following the show, with the physical album in stores yesterday.

Although hip hop headlines usually highlight a new album, or the latest antics of riled up rappers; Lupe Fiasco gave people something else to talk about last week.

His charity, The Lupe Fiasco Foundation,  launched Block By Block, an initiative he pledged would feed 100 hungry Chicagoans a day for the rest of August. “We basically go and just provide hot meals to different parts of the community around the city.” He told WGCI’s The Morning Riot. “Basically, we just feeding 100 people every day until the end of the month. And hopefully we’ll expand it. So last year, we just did it for a day. This year, we’re doing it for fifteen, twenty days, and hopefully, it’s something that we keep expanding on. It’s one of the little initiatives we do.”  The foundation also supports educational programs and has a broader goal of empowering kids and young adults.

Photo: John Clarke Russ - Bangor Daily News

Twitter has become a breeding ground for self-absorbed celebrities. They can tweet about anything that happens to cross their minds, and hundreds of thousands of followers will read it—regardless if anyone really cares. Whether insightful or inane, some celebrities can’t be limited to just 140 characters. And some fans want more that just the occasional SMS update. For example, diehard Kanye West fans are often wondering “What is Kanye eating for breakfast today? He must eat like a champion!” and “What’s Kanye’s exercise routine like? I really need to do some work on my abs.”

Don't act like you didn't know we were watching

Well, fear not Kanye fans! Ad agency GlobalHue has just announced a new service called Voyr, where fans will be able to pay a monthly fee to get a behind-the-scenes subscription to their favorite celebrities. And who’s the first celebrity who agreed to get involved in Voyr? You guessed it, Mr. West. That’s right, for $4.99 a month, you can get access to webcasts of the Watch The Throne tour, videos of his exercise routine, what he’s eating—and instructional video on how to make it from his personal chef, videos of concert rehearsals, an animated series called Runaway, a documentary about Kanye appropriately titled Me and much more.

Yes, you read that correctly. For five dollars a month, you can have the privilege of watching Kanye West do mundane tasks like working out and eating food. Now, if you’ve heard Kanye’s latest on-stage rant, you know that all Kanye wants to do is be loved by the people. And a lot of people do love you, Kanye. But we love you for the great music you make, not for the ridiculous rants, award show interruptions and ego-maniacal moves like this. These are the kinds of things that make people think you are an antihero. No one wants to pay money to see you go to the gym, take a nap and then eat a 100 dollar steak. Or maybe they do? With other big name celebrities like Oprah and Elton John being rumored to partner with Voyr, maybe the market for virtual celebrity stalking is growing. Considering all the bodyguards and security you see celebrities with today, the whole concept seems a little strange. Most celebrities are trying to avoid paparazzi and adoring fans when they go out in public, so inviting total strangers to watch what you’re doing everyday doesn’t really make sense. Don’t they want to keep their personal life private and separate from their work? I guess some people want to make themselves into a brand rather than an artist. Voyr doesn’t launch until September 15th, so we’ll have to wait until then to see how it all plays out.

The King Of Beef has a few bones to pick, and he’s been on a slow burn leading up to the release of his new album, R.E.D. The Compton-based bad boy has made a career out of picking fights, and this time, his sights are set on some serious targets.

His latest lash-outs? Jay-Z, Tony Yayo, 50 Cent and Kanye West, among others, get burned in R.E.D.’s lyrics, like White Girl Mafia’s, Kreayshawn, proving no one is safe, except of course, for Eminem.

Last week, he told Jenny Boom Boom that he rated Watch The Throne a “7”, with 6 points going to Kanye. He then delivered some back-handed compliments at Jigga, saying, “I don’t hate Jay-Z.  I have every album from Reasonable Doubt to Watch The Throne,” just before saying he would never need Hov for anything.  “I’m gonna need Jay-Z? I’m good. I’m not going to need anybody. All I need is God and my family.” He then took some more personal digs, saying “I don’t know. Jay-Z don’t seem too sterile. Beyoncé ain’t pregnant.”

Last month, in his “Otis” remix, he takes jabs at Hov and Kanye while covering their Throne hit. On the heels of the diss track’s release, he told HipHopDX, “With Jay, I’ve beentryin’ to coax him into sayin’ somethin’ or doin’ somethin’. But he’s smart, and I don’t think he’ll jump out the window like that. Plus, I’m prepared for it.” Game added with a laugh, “With his age and where he’s at with his career, he might be too reserved to entertain [a challenge], and I respect that.”

While acknowledging his previous promise to refrain from throwing stones at the RocNation exec, Game says he couldn’t resist. “I contemplated, ‘Damn, I went at Jay; I said I was off of that.’ Fuck it. I’m me. I’m Game. I do what I do. I just had fun, man. Anybody that want a problem, or wants to say somethin’ on a record, you know it’s gonna get a response, so watch yourself.”

Continue reading ‘Soundcheck: Game’s Got Beef — Seeing R.E.D.’