pop culture | Page 24

Chart Stalker 8/19/11: Are We Already Out of Throne Jokes?

by MJ on Aug 18, 2011 • No Comments

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 […]

Pass The Popcorn: “Final Destination 5”

by Popblerd Staff on Aug 15, 2011 • 1 Comment

movies / Pass the Popcorn! / pop culture

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 […]

R.I.P. Jani Lane

by Nick on Aug 12, 2011 • 2 Comments

music / pop culture / R.I.P. / rock music

Warrant first emerged on the music scene in 1989 with the release of their debut album “Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich” when I was a freshman in high school. Hair metal was still wildly popular at this time and Warrant became instantaneously well known upon the release of their first single “Down Boys” and then megastars upon the release of the ballad “Heaven”. The singles “Big Talk” and “Sometimes She Cries” kept the popular streak alive and Warrant had officially […]

New Release Report 8/9/11: The Throne Has Arrived

by MJ on Aug 9, 2011 • 3 Comments

Country Music / hip-hop / Metal Monday / music / New Release Report / New Releases / pop culture / Pop Music / rock music

Actually, it arrived yesterday, and I’m late. The highly anticipated full-length collaboration between mega-rappers Jay-Z and Kanye West, Watch the Throne, arrived at 12:01 Monday morning, and is already generating copious amounts of buzz around the internets. With guest appearances from Frank Ocean and Beyonce and production shots from Q-Tip and Pete Rock (not to mention Yeezy himself), Throne has hip-hop album of the year written all over it. It’s currently only available digitally, but a physical edition arrives at […]

bLISTerd: Happy Anniversary MTV-The Top 50 Videos of the ’90s (Part 1)

by MJ on Aug 8, 2011 • 2 Comments

bLISTerd / Lists! / pop culture / Pop Music / rock music / soul music / TV / Uncategorized / Videos

We’re celebrating the 30th anniversary of MTV all month on Popblerd! Did you check out our list of the Top 50 videos of the ’80s ? While the ’80s marked the genesis of the music video revolution, the ’90s found videos in full flower. It was almost a prerequisite that any song released as a single had a video to accompany it (seriously–name one hit song from the Nineties that didn’t have a video). By the Nineties, music had changed as well. While MTV stuck to […]

bLISTerd: Happy Anniversary, MTV!:The Best Videos of the Eighties (20-11)

by MJ on Jul 28, 2011 • 2 Comments

bLISTerd / Lists! / music / pop culture / Pop Music / rock music / soul music

20. “Every Breath You Take” The Police (1983) Simplicity, ladies and gentlemen. Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers went straight for the heart with “Every Breath You Take”, their biggest hit single (and the #1 song of 1983, according to Billboard magazine). The greatness of this video is all in the incidentals-the shadows moving from one side of Sting’s face to the other, his standup bass, the way the video seemed to fit seamlessly with the quiet intensity of the […]

bLISTerd: Happy Anniversary, MTV!: The Top 50 Videos of the Eighties (30-21)

by MJ on Jul 27, 2011 • No Comments

bLISTerd / hip-hop / Lists! / music / pop culture / Pop Music / rock music / soul music / Videos

30. “Shock the Monkey” Peter Gabriel (1983) Peter Gabriel is often lauded for his video work, although most of his innovative music videos are overshadowed by his greatest video achievement (which we’ll get to later). Frankly, I still have no idea what the hell 1982’s “Shock the Monkey” is about, but it has everything – monkeys, midgets, dot matrix printouts… The song is apparently about lovers’ jealousy, but the video looks a lot more like paranoid schizophrenia to me. Whatever […]

Reading is Fundamental: Scott Poulson-Bryant’s “The VIPs”

by MJ on Jul 27, 2011 • No Comments

Books / pop culture / Reading is Fundamental

Scott Poulson-Bryant has graced the pages of this site before. The award-winning journalist is a seminal figure in the emergence of the hip-hop generation in popular culture, having been one of the founding editors (and coining the name) of Vibe Magazine, serving as a contributor to Spin, co-hosting a VH-1 panel show, and authoring “Hung: A Meditation on the Measure of the Black Man in America”, as confrontational a book as has ever been written about the topic of black male sexuality […]

bLISTERd: Happy Anniversary MTV! The Top 50 Videos of The Eighties! (40-31)

by Popblerd Staff on Jul 26, 2011 • 2 Comments

bLISTerd / Lists! / music / pop culture / Pop Music / rock music

40. “New Sensation”-INXS (1988) INXS were not new when the reemerged with Kick in 1987, but they were certainly a sensation. The album was an international success and went 6x Platinum, in large part due to the series of videos that accompanied the four of the album’s hit singles. “New Sensation” was the third video from the album, featuring the band’s performance intercut with neon stop action animation to match the driving energy of the song. Among other things, […]

bLISTerd: Happy Anniversary MTV!! The Top 50 Videos of the Eighties

by Popblerd Staff on Jul 25, 2011 • 2 Comments

bLISTerd / Lists! / music / pop culture / Pop Music / Prince / rock music

Turns out that the revolution WOULD be televised. The musical revolution, that is. On August 1st, 1981, MTV was launched. It was the first TV channel to devote itself exclusively to music videos. When it debuted (with The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star”), I don’t think anyone had the slightest idea that MTV would turn into the cultural phenomenon it became. Within a few short years, the video age began. The era of the faceless, unphotogenic rock star was […]

“Watch the Throne” Album Coming Soon! Documentary Now!! And Tour Dates!

by MJ on Jul 25, 2011 • No Comments

Concert Reviews / hip-hop / movies / music / New Releases / news / pop culture / Pop Music

Got 10 minutes to spare? If you’re a Kanye West or a Jay-Z fan, you might want to have a look at the short film that was recently released, documenting their collaborative effort, Watch the Throne (out in one week). Of course, 10 minutes is nowhere near long enough to provide anything in-depth, but the mini-doc is pretty entertaining. Jay does much of the talking, and it’s cool to catch them (along with Jay’s wife Beyonce) in relatively unguarded moments-especially […]

R.I.P. Amy Winehouse

by MJ on Jul 24, 2011 • 6 Comments

pop culture / Pop Music / R.I.P. / soul music

As soon as I heard the news of Amy Winehouse’s passing at about noon yesterday, there was no doubt in my mind that I would write and post something about it on this blog. The question I had to ask myself was whether I should make this a news piece with very little opinion, stick to the music only, or talk about how her image, issues and passing affected me. I’m self-aware enough to realize that we live in a […]