Seven years after The College Dropout, the specter of Kanye West’s opus looms large over the rap landscape. He’s put out better albums in the intervening years – arguably, his stunning sophomore set Late Registration – but Dropout was the game-changer. Never has Kanye’s notorious inward focus been quite as breezy and flippant, nor his boasts as tempered with something like genuine humility; and if Late Registration is a big-budget, melodramatic epic, Dropout was the winning indie comedy from a […]
Posts tagged "Chris Brown"
Award Show Sundays Special: The 2011 BET Awards Live Blog
It’s been a minute since we live-blogged an awards show around these parts. I gave some consideration to doing some commentary on the Billboard Music Awards, but got pulled into another direction-a move that turned out to be a wise one (since all of the clips I saw from the show and all of the commentary I saw on social media was lukewarm.) I have a love-hate relationship with the BET Awards (to say nothing of my largely HATE relationship […]
Chris Brown Leads 2011 BET Awards Nominees
Following his crocodile tear-stained “tribute” to Michael Jackson on last year’s BET Awards, the cable network has announced that singer/actor Chris Brown has received the most nominations for this year’s ceremony. Brown, whose career looked to be over after an assault on his then-girlfriend Rihanna, has completed an unexpected comeback this year. His fourth album, F.A.M.E., has already spawned five hit singles and was recently certified Gold for sales of over 500,000 copies. He’ll be vying for the Video of […]
Who is the Most Hated Music Artist Right Now? No Surprise…
The ratio of pitches we get via email vs. the ratio of PR pitches that ends up on the site is relatively small (watch us disappear off of everyone’s PR list now), but I have to say that one recent email caught my eye. It linked to the five most hated artists in music today. The process used to figure this out was pretty simple, it seems. Looks like they just did Google searches on a number of artists and measured the amount […]
Chart Stalker: It’s Britney (Again), Bitch!
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 […]
Spin Cycle: Chris Brown’s “F.A.M.E.”
It would be too easy to trash Chris Brown’s new album, right? The guy’s a certified asshole. Not content to man up and apologize for his widely-publicized beating of Rihanna, he’s been a one-man self-implosion device since then-bitching about being blackballed, going on random Twitter rampages and most recently, going bananas after Robin Roberts dared ask him about the Rihanna beating on “Good Morning America”. But what does the fact that he’s an asshole have to do with his music? […]
The New Improved Blerd Radio: Now with No Echo!
Not only has Jesse been a great addition to the Popblerd! staff, he’s also helped me revitalize the somewhat dormant Blerd Radio! (translation: I was a little too lazy to keep doing these myself.) Our first record was recorded last week, but fell victim to some serious audio issues; namely the fact that everything I said echoed. With audio issues fixed, we forged on ahead earlier this week and recorded a much more successful episode. Join Jesse and I as […]
Chart Stalker 3/30/11: No Such Thing as Bad Press
What brings me to this particular conclusion? The fact that Chris Brown’s F.A.M.E. debuts atop the Billboard 200 album chart this week with the second biggest first week sales of his career. Not even a full-on temper tantrum on the set of “Good Morning America” after being confronted with questions regarding his arrest for assault could stop over 270,0o0 fans from purchasing his album. Interestingly enough, F.A.M.E.‘s first week number is also higher than the first week number for any […]
Popblerd!’s 2011 Grammy Preview: Rap
Another year, another time to kvetch over the Grammy Award nominations, right? It may be music’s biggest night, but it’s hard to find a Grammy Awards that’s not fraught with controversy and/or boring as hell. The nomination process always results in head scratching decisions, and this year’s are no different. Katy Perry nominated for Album of the Year? Weird. Lady GaGa’s “Bad Romance” scratched off of the Record of the Year nominees? Uber-weird. No Lil Wayne nominations? Big Boi passed […]
Blerd Radio Season 2, Episode 1: Lesbians in the Echo Chamber
…and, we’re back!! After taking a bit of a holiday break, Blerd Radio is back and kicking off our second season! For the new season’s first episode, I brought in longtime friends Carletta and GG , and we were joined by our buddy (and Blerd Radio newcomer) Brittany . Over the course of 90 minutes, we cover a ton of pop-culture related topics, including: -The upcoming 10th season of “American Idol” and what it means for the future of the show. -Whether “Black […]
