Some combinations just plain work. Chocolate and peanut butter Porkchops and applesauce Macaroni and cheese Brad and Angelina However…just because a certain formula seems to work for most, it does not necessarily mean that it will appeal to all. Not everyone likes Reeses Cups. Some people are lactose intolerant, some allergic to apples. Some people even prefer Jennifer Aniston to Angelina Jolie. Great commercial success has been realized by the duo of Jim Steinman and Michael Lee Aday, a.k.a. “Meatloaf”. The two paired up […]
Monthly archive August, 2011
Spin Cycle: Kanye West And Jay-Z HAM It Up
After their collaboration with Rihanna on Jay-Z’s Run This Town from The Blueprint 3 and Jay-Z’s guesting verses on Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, it seemed fitting that they’d work on a project together. But considering the size of both men’s egos, it wouldn’t have been out of left field to think that a full length collaboration album would be impossible to complete. Jay-Z has tried a few already times with little success, considering he and R. Kelly […]
Chart Stalker 8/19/11: Are We Already Out of Throne Jokes?
Surprising no one, Jay-Z and Kanye West debut at the top of Billboard’s album charts this week with Watch The Throne. The highly anticipated wap cowabbowation (sorry, that was my RZA voice) scores 2011’s second-biggest first week, after Lady GaGa’s Born This Way (which is still holding on at #18). Unlike GaGa, Jay and ‘Ye didn’t benefit from special pricing at a digital account. Actually, it could be argued that Throne was a limited release. It was available for half […]
“Put The Needle on The Record” And Enjoy This Book of ’80s Photography (Reading is Fundamental)
Now that vinyl is making a comeback, it’s good to see folks appreciating the art of the album cover again, even though a recent article I read somewhere (and am too lazy to cite for reference) says that album art is shrinking as we move further into the digital age. Matthew Chojnacki’s new book, “Put The Needle On The Record”, takes us back to the glory days of the eighties, when not only album art was the rage, but many […]
Rolling Stone Introduces “The King of Hip-Hop” In New Article
…and actually, I have less of a bitch about this than you might think. Of course, Rolling Stone magazine has never exactly been the go-to place for anything related to hip-hop culture, so I automatically took their list of hip-hop titans with a grain of salt-even before I dug into it. However, upon reading it, I realized that their list was less about a “best rapper of all-time” discussion (which, let’s face it, would place them WAY out of their element) and more about […]
Spin Cycle: Hercules & Love Affair’s “Blue Songs”
In 2008, a like-minded friend hipped me to the self-titled debut from Hercules and Love Affair. That album’s electropop sensibilities, along with vocal contributions from Antony Hegarty made clear that this was a group to keep an eye (or ear) on. Since that debut disc, they’ve been busy remixing for other artists, including Chromeo, Poly Styrene, Cut Copy and Goldfrapp among others.Finally, Hercules and Love Affair took some time to focus on their own work, and the result is Blue […]
New Release Report 8/16/11: After The Throne
Still catching your breath after last week’s rollout release of Jay-Z & Kanye West’s “Watch The Throne” ? Well, today marks the final installment of this superstar release-the deluxe physical version (which Best Buy had a four day exclusive on, to the consternation of many music retailers) hits all music stores today. So now, you can get the album in any way, shape or fashion you would like. Happy now? Elsewhere on the release schedule, aggro-rock band Blue October returns with Any Man […]
The Viewfinder: Cee-Lo Green’s “Cry Baby”
Cee-Lo Green is so bad ass, he can make a dope video and not even be in it!! “Cry Baby” is the latest single from the rotund soul man’s album The Lady Killer. The video for the sprightly tune (I think this may be the first time I have ever used the word “sprightly” in a sentence) marks the return of Jaleel White, who just about everyone in the world knows as Steve Urkel on the hit ’90s TV show […]
Pass The Popcorn: “Final Destination 5”
A good critic is essentially a reductionist, distilling popular art and entertainment into its most basic components and highlighting which parts add to and which parts detract from the final product. It’s easy to take a movie like The Social Network and sing high praises for the hauntingly ambient soundtrack, the laser precise direction, and the compelling performances, just as it is easy to take a movie like Vampires Suck! and rake it over the coals for terrible writing and […]
