Y’all know how much I love Kanye West, but I fear he might be burning the candle at both ends and trying to put out too much product at once. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy has barely been out for two months, and there’s the Watch the Throne project with Jay-Z coming out. Now, reports are saying that Kanye’s got yet another album almost in the can that he plans to have out in the summer? Maybe it’s just because […]
Village Voice Pazz & Jop Goes Gaga Over Kanye
Music tastemakers of a certain vintage still go crazy over The Village Voice‘s annual Pazz & Jop poll. The poll asks a who’s who of music critics for their favorites in music over the previous year. The results for 2010 were published recently, and Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was voted the best album of 2010 by a landslide, receiving almost double the votes of the runner-up, LCD Soundsystem’s This is Happening. Yeezy then ran roughshod over the […]
Chart Stalker!: It’s Britney, Bitch!
Welcome to another week of “how low can you go” on the Billboard album charts. Cake’s Showroom of Compassion takes the #1 spot with a paltry 44,000 units sold. It’s the California band’s first chart-topper, and a notable achievement considering their six year absence, however, scoring a #1 album with a number that’s half if not a third the number of the average #1 album is somewhat dubious. Cake scores one of four debuts in this week’s Top 20. Kentucky […]
Coachella Lineup Announced!: Care for Some KoL or Kanye?
I’m sure many of you reading will not have a problem traveling out to the California desert to see the Coachella Music Festival. Me? I’ve actually never been to a multi-day music festival, and going all the way across the country is not really on my agenda-unless I have a really good reason to do so. The lineup for this year’s Coachella has me seriously thinking about making the trek in April (key word: “thinking”). This year’s headliners include Kings […]
Hear Here!: Kanye & Jay-Z’s “H.A.M.”
Let’s talk about ham for a second. Lots of things come to mind when I think of that word, most of which are not hip-hop related, unless you count that one time in Big Daddy Kane’s “Smooth Operator” when he says “here I am” so fast that it sounds like “ham”. More often, I think of the tasty parts of a pig-as I’m sure you do. (and yes, I know in this case “H.A.M.” serves as an acronym for hard […]
The Idiot Box: Josh Groban Sings Kanye’s Tweets? I’d Buy That One
Check out the spoof commercial Josh Groban made, during which he sings Kanye West’s tweets.
Popblerd! Presents: The Top 40 Albums of 2010 (The Top Five)
Popblerd finishes off the Top 40 albums of 2010 with the final five.
The Viewfinder: Kanye West’s “Monster”
Have a ghoulishly good time with Kanye West’s “Monster” video.
Chart Stalker 12/2/10: Yay ‘Ye!!
A look at this week’s Billboard 200 album chart. Kanye West debuts at #1, while Nicki Minaj scores the best sales week for a female rapper ever.
Chart Stalker 11/24/10: Just Like the Old Days!!
Thanks to a very healthy slate of new releases and the Beatles’ debut on iTunes, this week’s Billboard chart almost looks like one from 5 or 6 years ago when more people were buying records and also bodes well for a fairly successful holiday season. Nine albums scan over 100,000 copies this week (actually, eight of the nine scan over 150,000). This number includes seven debuts, but…this week’s chart-topper is actually a holdover. Susan Boyle actually INCREASES her first week […]
Spin Cycle: “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” by Kanye West
It’s one thing to not like Kanye West’s music. I’m a reasonable guy, and I don’t expect everyone to like everything. I can even understand if you’re not a fan of hip-hop. Well, I can’t understand it, but I can give you a pass. However, it unnerves the hell out of me when people criticize Kanye’s art based on his public persona-especially when all they know of him is maybe the four or five songs they hear on the radio […]
New Release Report 11/22/10: Well, Hello Kanye
The week before Thanksgiving is typically the week that record companies bring out their big guns. There will be quite a few major records battling for chart supremacy this week, and most of them will have a 24-hour jump on the average music release, since many of the albums are being made available for sale on Monday instead of Tuesday. Here’s what you should be looking for: Kanye West “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”– Kanye’s fifth album has been met […]