With only one major release week left in 2011, the industry is heading into break mode, but not before unleashing two superstar live albums this week. First and foremost, there’s Live At The Royal Albert Hall, the first ever live CD and DVD from this year’s it-girl, Adele. The British singer regales us with tracks from her two smash albums, plus a smattering of covers-including a delicate take on Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me”, which we featured […]
2011 American Music Awards Live Blog
Make sure you check in at 8 PM tonight for our American Music Awards live blog!
2011 Soul Train Music Awards Nominees: Same Old Soul…
After an absence of several years, the Soul Train Music Awards returned strong two years ago, and late last week, the nominees were announced for their 2011 ceremony, which will appear on the BET network on Sunday, November 27th. You’re not gonna find much in the way of unfamiliar names here. Comeback king Chris Brown made out like a bandit on both the regular BET Awards and the BET Hip-Hop Awards. He finds himself with the most nominations this year, […]
The Popblerd Chart Report 11/13/11: Scotty McCreery’s Teenage Dream
Television viewers voted Scotty McCreery as the 10th American Idol, and those same viewers likely contributed to the teenager’s debut at the top of Billboard’s album charts this week. Clear As Day starts off at pole position with a fairly impressive 197,000 units sold. It’s the biggest first week sales total for any “Idol” champ since David Cook in 2008. Also worth noting, after a year and a half without a new solo artist debuting at #1 on the album […]
The Viewfinder: Beyonce’s “Countdown”
Even with a little bambino on the way, Beyonce is still as (Sasha) fierce as ever. She debuted her new video for the Boyz II Men-sampling “Countdown” last night, and it’s pretty much 4 minutes of everything you’d expect from a Beyonce video. The cuts in this video are so fast (and there’s so much happening even apart from that) you might just go dizzy from watching. It’s certainly the best of the videos released so far from the 4 album. […]
2011 MTV Video Music Awards Live Blog
It’s the 2011 version of the VMAs and really, other than who has a hot single, what’s the real difference from year to year? You take a bunch of famous pop stars, give them tons of alcohol, and just let them act the fool on live TV. I think the real question should be: Who is going to do something that makes the Twitter go crazy? Kanye, Lady Gaga, or how about Kanye? My money’s on Kanye. I have my […]
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 […]
Spin Cycle: Jay-Z & Kanye West “Watch The Throne”
I’ll admit to having a fair share of trepidation prior to hearing Kanye West & Jay-Z’s Watch the Throne album. Let’s face it, Jay-Z’s had a pretty rotten track record when it comes to collaborations. How many of you still bump those Best of Both Worlds albums with R. Kelly? What about that Collision Course thing with Linkin Park? No? Me neither. Actually, my copies of all three of those albums (yes, I bought all three) are now in the […]
New Release Report 7/26/11: R&B Overload…and Rabbits
It’s got to be tough living in someone’s shadow, especially when you’ve got talent of your own. Kelly Rowland has spent the last fifteen years (for better or for worse) being perceived as “the other chick in Destiny’s Child”. That does her kind of a disservice-seeing as a) she’s fine as hell (prettier than Beyonce, IMHO) and she’s got a pretty voice, even if the material she’s given is often terrible. Her solo career has really never gotten off the […]
“Watch the Throne” Album Coming Soon! Documentary Now!! And Tour Dates!
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 […]