I know how it is, my fellow patients. Teeth hurt, sciatica acting up, whooping cough, etc. It's hard to keep a handle on the various maladies of modern life. But when's the last time you had your Taste Barometer tuned? What's that? You haven't looked under that hood in ages? Well, let Dr. Q-Tip, M.D. help you with that.
Chris Ryan: I am ... underwhelmed. Usually doubles are so conceptually robust that they demand the extra acreage; or they come at a time in an artist's career where the fever pitch of creativity demands a big canvas. This joint is about as long as Thriller and despite all the talking-points memos going around about B's beguiling "split personality," the two poles of Beyoncé seem to be "slow jams" and "club bangers."
Angela Bruno: I am ... going to ignore 85 percent of this album. Or, I'm gonna wind up saying something I'll regret. Like, oh, her artistic bipolarity only reminds me of that commercial for a product-which-shall-remain-nameless where a woman sees her totally-slummed-out-on-the-inside reflection in the mirror due to a lack of "freshness." Which, actually, is quite applicable here. (Forgive me Sasha, for I know not what I say!) I feel like I'm betraying a good friend, like LC and Audrina or vice versa (depending on whose side you're on). What happened to that brickhouse-ness that only B'Day can invoke?!?! Sigh. I may have to disagree with you on the acreage, though. B covers a whole lotta ground: Buzz Lightyear ("Single Ladies": "Here's a man that makes me then takes me/and delivers me to a destiny/ to infinity and beyond"), Dave Matthews ("Smash Into You," ummm "Crash Into Me"), Renée Zelweger (in Jerry McGuire, "Hello"), Pavarotti ("Ave Maria," WTF?), career criminal ("Diva": "this is a stick up, stick up"), you know. Shall we dissect (further)?
Taylor Swift recently sat down with MTV News to discuss her new album, as well as various other matters of the heart and mind. Taylor-Tay, bringing the juxtaposition hard with a black turtleneck cropping her insane and intimidating blond locks, takes some veiled shots at her Prince-Charming-who-wasn't (aka Joe Jonas Put on Blast Chapter XXIII), and talks about her love of writing songs ... a love seemingly equaled only by dating and getting dumped by sleepy-eyed virgin pop icons and then blowing up their spot on MySpace.
Swift says that she would love for one of her songs to be used as the hook to a hip-hop song. According to the twang prodigy, "something people would not be expecting at all." Thus ruining the surprise factor of a blitzkrieg Plies/Tay Swift collabo, seeing as how we actually are expecting it now. Which makes this dreamer a little sad. "Love Story (A Gal & A Goon Remix)" sounded promising.
Further Viewing:
Taylor Swift Interview [MTV.com]
Now that the election's all settled and there's some dead time between now and your dysfunctional family's Thanksgiving dinner, I bet you're sitting there thinking, "What am I going to argue and fight about for the next 10 days!" Well, leave it to Rolling Stone to answer your prayers. They've got a new list out, enumerating the 100 Greatest Singers of All-Time, and it's sure to cause some Lincoln vs. Douglas-/Coke vs. Pepsi-level debate.
Continue reading "Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Singers of All-Time" »
There's a certain symmetry to Los Campesinos' hyperactive, Ritalin riot music and the prolific nature with which they release records. On We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed (their second full-length release this year, following up, Hold On Now, Youngster), their unkempt guitars, shout-along choruses and jumble of violins and keyboards somehow combine to sound like music that needs a speedy delivery. They have lots of ideas and they get them down and out quickly. Miraculously, though, the caustic literacy of their songs never suffers.
[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]
So we (and by we, we mean Rhapsody and the fine folks over at Matador Records) had a little get together the other day. Canadian hardcore-punk believers F*ck*d Up played, on and off, for 12 hours straight, getting by with a little help from their friends. In between their own chaotic, raucous sets, F*ck*d Up served as the house band for guests like Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, Tim Harrington of Les Savy Fav, the Vivian Girls, John Joseph of the Cro-Mags, J Mascis, Moby and more, all of whom provided mosh-pit-inciting covers of punk and hardcore classics from the likes of Wire, the Ramones and the Descendents. Enjoy a little taste of the proceedings in the video above and check out a photo gallery of the event after the jump. We've got much more to come from the show (including video interviews and performance footage), so stay tuned.
Continue reading "Live Video: 12-Hour F*ck*d Up Show @ Rogan Bouwerie, NYC" »
Summer is but a distant memory. [Sigh.] The temperatures are falling -- and so is your morale. Besides, maybe, Halloween and bloated holiday debt, what else have you to look forward to, you ask? Awesome music, that's what. Myriad releases from the juggernauts of pop will put the kibosh on your Seasonal Affective Disorder -- and nourish your Attention Deficit one. MTV News rundowns what you can expect this autumn -- new releases from T.I., Beyoncé (hallelujah!), Fall Out Boy, Britney (yes, please!), Kanye and more. And while we agree with most of them, we've got a few suggestions, too.
[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]
In celebration of VH1's Hip-Hop Honors show (which airs Monday, October 6 at 10 p.m. ET), Rhapsody talked to a variety of contemporary artists about this year's honorees. Here's Atlanta emcee Killer Mike on West Coast hardcore rap pioneers Cypress Hill.
Killer Mike: 1991, there was a mom and pop gospel and hip-hop store -- in the hood you find the same stores do well with both of those genres -- and there was one right up the street from my high school. I walked in there and saw, in the 99-cent bin, a single for "How I Could Just Kill a Man." "Pigs" was on the B-side, I think. It was a cassingle. I saw that in the bin, and I saw the skull logo and that grainy black and white image of Muggs and B-Real, and the other side was red. So, just based on the imagery, I was like, "I gotta hear this." I just grabbed the tape, unheard, and threw it in the walkman. The walk from the record store to the train station was about five minutes. And in the span of those five minutes, I was a fan. I was like, "This is the dopest sh*t ever." I wouldn't even let my man listen to it.
Continue reading "2008 VH1 Hip-Hop Honors: Killer Mike on Cypress Hill" »
Keri Hilson is like, "I have America's toughest job." That's not a direct quote, but I bet when people text message her and say, "What's good, Keri?" she says, "I have America's toughest job." Keri Hilson is a songwriter, which in and of itself, is like being an ice trucker (creatively speaking). You're sliding all over the place, trying to keep things straight and trying to deliver on deadline (I can't believe I threaded the needle on that simile). Never one to duck a challenge, Hilson has compounded the already daunting task of writing songs by making Britney Spears sound chemically balanced and making Diddy sound like he has a heart.
It's dia de los muertos in Times Square today. TRL, MTV's decade-old daily countdown show, is calling it quits. After 10 years, it will air its final episode sometime in November. (MTV News' James Montgomery gives a thoughtful appraisal of the show here). Yes, TRL was little more than tweens and teens caterwauling inside a studio, interspersed with occasional appearances by music videos (often in truncated form). But it did have its pop-culture charms; moments like the above, wherein Soulja Boy teaches Natalie Portman how to superman the women of the night, or the infamous Mariah Carey Ice Cream Meltdown, which was seemingly fueled by a couple of pints of Ben & Jerry's short-lived Xanax Attack flavor.
Good times. There have also been a smattering of decent to awesome live performances. After the jump, check out two of them -- Paramore and Alicia Keys - -from what would be TRL's final year.
