Tag: "rihanna"

• Since when has Amy Lee not been “that chick from Evanescence”?
• Not sure why you’d be addicted to “Purple Drank”. That stuff tastes nasty.
• Paul McCartney continuing to get the same message from the older generation as when he was with the Beatles: keep it down over there.
• For someone who’s “not mad”, De Keersmaeker sure sounds mad. At a pregnant lady no less.
• Anybody else disappointed that the ad isn’t real? That van looks mad baller.
• Nothing says you’re coming out like wearing a Ke$ha t-shirt.
• Sensing there’s going to be a lot of black and white stripes in this collection.
• Guessing that Rihanna is kind of an M.
• Nothing says “I think we need to break up” like ditching your band, going missing, and never to be heard from again.

Mash-ups are a mainstay on the hip hop scene with rappers constantly collaborating to deliver fresh material.  Even the most vicious emcee paired up with the current R&B diva has a natural charm, and we’ve come to expect Rihanna, Beyoncé or Kelly Rowland backing up big verses from big rappers.  Now, it seems that hip hop has crossed over into the pop star realm, blurring the lines between the sugary sweet stylings of pop icons like Britney, Katy and Bieber with the hard-hitting sound of the streets.

We got our biggest dose of the crossover craze when Nicki Minaj announced she would join Britney Spears on her Femme Fatale Tour this year. In a groundbreaking move, fans of pop music’s reigning queen would be shoulder to shoulder with fans of the hottest thing to hit hip hop in years.  What resulted was one hell of a party!

Now, other singers are following suit, and pairing up with some unlikely collaborators. Justin Bieber will throw a little hip hop into the holidays when he releases Under The Mistletoe, on November 1.  The fifteen-track holiday album features a version of “The Little Drummer Boy” with none other than Busta Rhymes. We can’t imagine Rhymes’ grimy, gruff voice singing about the birth of Christ, but we’re all ears.  Other guests on the album will include Usher, Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey.

Continue reading ‘Soundcheck: When Hip-Hop Goes Pop’

• As long as Madonna doesn’t pull a Janet Jackson, we’re actually okay with it.
• Professor Jay-Z taking the media to school as to how the sport of rap actually works.
• Shame Metallica didn’t know that three times is the charm.
• Only in the music industry would somebody get backlash for trying to promote common decency.
• Iron Man is apparently the new Rocket Man, according to the Shats.
• “Shot the fucking shit with him?” Not really the best choice of words, Noel.
• Rufio really doesn’t deserve that kind of dedication towards getting on the air.
• Don’t worry, Kaiser Chiefs. Just switch to a 5-man synth band, and you’ll be alright.
• It’s official. Michael Jackson is the new Tupac.

As Benjamin Franklin once said (and I’m about to paraphrase dramatically), only two things in life are certain: death and taxes.

Now we can add to that party of two another certainty: a new Rihanna album before the end of every year. Since making her debut with Music of the Sun in 2005, the singer has taken only one year off, 2008, during which she dealt with the fallout from the Chris Brown mess and still remained in circulation with an expanded second edition of Good Girl Gone Bad called Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded.

Her fifth album, Loud, which was only released last November, is still going fairly strong on the charts. It just spun off its fourth Top 10 single, “Cheers (Drink to That),” and one suspects that Rihanna and her label, Def Jam Records, could possibly milk it for at least one more. But she’s already making plans to move on to studio album No. 6. On September 15, Rihanna tweeted to fans that it’ll be in stores “this fall.” Four days later, again via Twitter, she revealed the title of the first single, “We Found Love.” As of September 23, an album title hadn’t been announced but an official release date was: November 21.

Enough already?

I suppose this gives die-hard Rihanna fans—and lord knows there must be tons of them out there to send 10 of her singles to No. 1 in five short years—but it also threatens to render her dangerously overexposed. And considering the fact that she’s set to make her film debut next May in the board-game-turned-action-flick Battleship, might we soon be in for Rihanna overload?

Continue reading ‘Sound And Vision: Rihanna Promises a New Album “This Fall” — Too Soon?’

iHeartRadio is all about well…radio, and taking it to the next level. Not only does the site allow you to live stream talk and music radio stations locally and nationally, it also enables you to create your own custom stations based on your musical tastes. This past weekend, iHeartRadio went all out to promote their new and improved Web site, along with the launch of the iHeartRadio mobile app that grants users listening access from their phones. For the launch, they put on a giant, star-studded festival in Las Vegas, which sold out about ten minutes after tickets were made available. The theme of the night was very much focused on the diversity and popularity of the festival’s artists.

For the majority of fans who weren’t able to get a ticket or make their way to Vegas, iHeartRadio streamed the entire two-night event on their Web site. Here at Live Wired, we were part of that majority, and since we’ve been talking so much about streaming festivals online, we’re here to tell you what it was like. The evening kicked off with a half-hour “pre-show” hosted by two personalities from NYC’s popular radio station z100, followed by the first performance of the night. The Black Eyed Peas, who apparently are not on their hiatus yet, took the stage first and were pretty underwhelming. Not that they’re exactly known for their live shows (See: this year’s Super Bowl performance), but the audience didn’t seem too entertained either.

Continue reading ‘Live Wired [Review]: iHeartRadio Festival’

• Mark Hoppus, laying down some existential music philosophy. Yeah, that just happened.
• Mogwai and Thrice probably don’t know whether to be flattered or terrified.
• All this Cure is enough to make some indie boys cry (with joy).
• Thom Yorke, revealing his inner club kid.
• Thom Yorke, hiding his secret love for Dr. Pepper.
• Stealing a dead man’s Telecaster? That dude deserves some Poltergeist action.
• Mark that down as just another thing that Britney should apologize for, but probably won’t.
• We’re guessing Rihanna doesn’t get that very often.

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′

Jermaine Lamarr Cole, better known as J.Cole, has been hip hop’s best kept secret for years.  Ever since Jay-Z signed him to RocNation, we’ve been waiting to hear what all the hype was about.  After his debut album was pushed back…and back last Spring, our interest in the newbie only intensified. After a jam-packed summer of touring and teasing, the wait is finally over.

Cole will release his debut album, Cole World: The Sideline Story on September 27 on the heels of a massive build up.  In the months leading up to his debut release, Cole treated fans to new music through his “Any Given Sunday” campaign, delivering singles each week since July 13. While he had initially planned on dropping a mixtape prior to his major release, he changed his mind, deciding to stream music on his Web site and Ustream instead.

He told media in July, “The music I was gonna put on the mixtape I’mma just slowly drop it. I’ll just drop it out online and they’ll find it. You know, my fans will find it how they will. I’m confident. I don’t wanna run and drop a mixtape. I don’t want people to get confused with that. I don’t want them to love it, because they’ll love it. If I put out a mixtape they’re gonna love it cause I don’t know how to put out a bad mixtape. That’s the problem.”

Cole wasn’t being cocky.  His mixtapes are what gained the attention of Jay-Z back in 2007—The Come Up mixtape earned him a spot on The Blueprint 3 in 2009. After his secondmixtape, The Warm Up hit the streets that year, Jay signed him as the first artist at his RocNation imprint. Since then, Hov has kept his protégé on his toes, making him wait til the eleventh hour to lend a verse to “Mr. Nice Watch”.

Continue reading ‘Soundcheck Album Preview: Will J.Cole Take Over With ‘Cole World’?’

• Wait, so this means Mick Jagger is giving a Rolling Stones award to…himself? How appropriate.
• If you do the math, that means we’re getting an average of 9 minutes of listening to snow fall in each song. Awesome.
• We’re not sure if DJ Shadow best titled his new album, because now that we know more, we think it’s better.
• More Primal Scream, less sleep.
• Just another day in weird artist collaborations. This time we get Rihanna and Coldplay.
• Queen fans everywhere can collectively sigh in relief that this didn’t happen.
• This is almost enough to make up for his creeptastic (pun-intended) Emma Stone video. Almost.
• Just in case you weren’t getting enough Spears in the club.

• Nothing says French perfume like The Strokes.
• We really hope this album can live up to all the hype.
• Marilyn Manson and Shia LaBeouf are bros, apparently.
• Is that Win Butler dunking!?
• This story just got more interesting.
• It’s probably a miracle these dudes are even alive at all.
• We’ll take a leaky mansion over our apartment any day.
• Does this mean we’ll be seeing ‘chillwave’ in the dictionary soon too?