Fantasia | Popblerd

Fantasia, Side Effects of You: Album Review

by MJ on Apr 30, 2013 • 5 Comments

One of the most dependable R&B singers in the game returns.

Popblerd’s New Release Report 4/23/13

by MJ on Apr 23, 2013 • 2 Comments

hip-hop / music / New Release Report / New Releases / news / Pop Music / rock music / soul music

Look who’s waiting for you at the record store counter with those dreamy eyes…

American Idol Season 12 – And Then There Were 6

by GG on Apr 11, 2013 • 6 Comments

American Idol / pop culture / Pop Music / TV

Who does each American Idol contestant compare to? GG does his American Idol comps for this season.

The Reality Check – Top 20 American Idol Contestants Of All-Time Part 2

by GG on Mar 13, 2013 • 18 Comments

American Idol / pop culture / Pop Music / TV

Tiffany and GG finish up their list of the top 20 American Idol contestants of all-time.

Chart Stalker: It’s Britney (Again), Bitch!

by MJ on Apr 7, 2011 • 1 Comment

hip-hop / music / New Releases / news / Pop Music / rock music / soul music

This week’s Billboard album chart features 5 new albums in the Top Ten, led by Britney Spears. Her seventh studio album, Femme Fatale, opens at the top spot with 276,000 copies sold. On the good side, that represents the second highest first week number of the year so far (narrowly edging out last week’s Chris Brown total). Also on the good side, it’s Britney’s sixth number one album (out of seven releases). On the bad side, it’s the lowest first […]

Popblerd!’s 2011 Grammy Preview: R&B

by MJ on Feb 11, 2011 • 11 Comments

award shows / music / news / soul music

It’s the sooooooul train! Kinda. Did you know that the Best R&B Album category was not made official until the mid-Nineties? Think of all the great classic soul albums of the past, from What’s Going On and Superfly to Bobby Brown’s Don’t Be Cruel and Mary J.’s What’s the 411?. None of ’em ever had an opportunity to win a Best R&B album Grammy because the category didn’t exist! Not that the National Arts of Recording Arts & Sciences has […]

Fantasia’s “Back to Me”: Brush the Drama Aside and Listen

by MJ on Sep 27, 2010 • 2 Comments

Album Reviews / music / soul music

The first step towards enjoying Fantasia’s new album “Back to Me” is forgetting about all of the idiotic tabloid junk that she seems to have been a willing participant in recently. Honestly, the whole “suicide attempt” shouldn’t even be a big issue-after all, Fantasia’s not the first person to pull a crass publicity stunt to sell records and she certainly won’t be the last (it still annoys me, though). The fact of the matter is that Fantasia’s one of those […]

Blerd Radio Episode 7: My Summer Vacation

by MJ on Sep 13, 2010 • No Comments

Blerd Radio / Country Music / hip-hop / movies / music / news / pop culture / Pop Music / soul music / Sports

After it became apparent that summer was going to very quickly get away from me, I decided to table the podcast for a couple of months. However, those of you who were enjoying Blerd Radio, guess what? We’re back!! For our Season 2 premiere, I called on my regulars: GG and Car-late-a Carletta for what turned out to be a quite entertaining show. Among the topics discussed: -While waiting for Carletta to show up, GG and I discuss our summers, the return […]

Chart Stalker 9/1/10: The Girls Have It

by MJ on Sep 1, 2010 • 2 Comments

Country Music / hip-hop / music / Pop Music / soul music

New blood at the top of the chart, y’all! The Top 2 albums both sell over 100,000 units as well (with Eminem at #3 just short of six figures). Leading the charge is Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream”, which starts off with 192,000 units. While some might think that a small number in light of “California Gurlz” being inescapable this summer, it’s also worth nothing that this is more than 4 times what Katy’s debut album started with, and “I Kissed […]

Chart Stalker 8/26/10: There’s Life!!!

by MJ on Aug 26, 2010 • 2 Comments

Country Music / hip-hop / music / news / Pop Music / rock music / soul music

Eminem #1, yada yada yada blah blah blah. However, the remainder of the Top 10 on this week’s Billboard album chart gets an almost complete makeover, by virtue of six debuts and a reentry. The only albums in this week’s Top 10 that were also in last week’s Top 10 besides Eminem are Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs” (#7) and Justin Bieber’s “My World 2.0” (#8). This week’s Top 10 debuts come from R&B singer Kem (#2), singer-songwriters Ray LaMontagne (#3) […]

New Release Report 8/24/10: Teenage Dream or Adult Nightmare?

by MJ on Aug 24, 2010 • 4 Comments

Indie Rock / music / New Releases / Pop Music / rock music / soul music

I don’t TOTALLY hate Katy Perry. You have to know someone to hate them, and I don’t know the woman personally. So there’s that. Otherwise, she just seems like an exploitative whore for fame-kinda like GaGa without the talent. So needless to say, I won’t be picking up Katy’s latest release, “Teenage Dream” today. However, I’m pretty sure a couple hundred thousand folks will, injecting some life into the music industry, which has been running on fumes for most of […]

Blerd Briefs: ‘Tasia, “Idol” and Dr. Laura

by MJ on Aug 14, 2010 • 8 Comments

Blerd Briefs / music / news / pop culture / Pop Music / TV

Well, not so brief this time… Has Fantasia had a busy week or what? The Season 3 “American Idol” champ has got a man in her life. Unfortunately-that man is still married and Fantasia is being cited in the divorce proceedings as a contributing factor in the dissolution of that marriage. The spurned wife also says that Fantasia and her new boyfriend have made sex tapes (to which I say “gross”). A day after this information was made public, ‘Tasia […]