It’s Weezy baby! And the rest of our list of the shittiest musicians working today.
Spin Cycle: Train’s “California 37”
“California 37” is the latest album by Train, and Popblerd’s managed to sneak into the future to uncover the damage Train will cause.
New Release Report 4/17/12: Train Keeps a-Rollin’
Jason Mraz, Train, and Jack Johnson. Nope, it’s not the playlist of your local adult alternative station, but it’s this week’s new release list!
The Strangeness of Cee-Lo Green’s Talking to Strangers
What do Chevy Chase, Pat Sajak, Alan Thicke and Cee-Lo Green have in common? Read on to find out. Fantastic singer. Amazing emcee. Man who has every conceivable area of his body tattooed. Certified eccentric. Man who vaguely resembles a dinosaur. One thing Cee-Lo Green is definitely NOT? A talk show host. Over the weekend, I had the vaguely horrifying experience of watching Cee-Lo’s Fuse-TV chat show “Talking with Strangers”, and I found myself reliving one of the saddest experiences […]
Popblerd!’s 2011 Grammy Preview: Pop & Dance
Pop is such a random catch-all term that it’s hard to figure out how the people that nominate artists for the Grammys figure out what constitutes “pop”. Of course, if you’re in the know, you just know that the labels that nominate their artists designate what categories certain songs go into, so…yeah, it’s totally random. This year’s nominees are the typical mixed bag of pop, a term that can navigate vast waters and describe everything from Michael Buble to Lady […]
Chart Stalker!: Billboard Year-End Version
Welcome to the first of two year end editions of Chart Stalker! Why two, you ask? Simple answer-Billboard’s year-end issue comes out before the end of the actual calendar year (to allow for publication time and ad purchasing). Generally speaking, it covers the year from December 1st of the previous year to November 30th of the current year, or thereabouts. Additionally, Billboard calculates it’s rankings by using a formula based on chart position, so where an artist ends up on […]
Chart Stalker 12/8/10: Here Comes Middle America!
Susan Boyle retakes the chart throne this week, selling 272,000 copies of her album “The Gift”. Meanwhile, The Black Eyed Peas debut at a disappointing #6.
The Grammy Crystal Ball: Who Gets Nominated?
Award season is in full swing, isn’t it? Coming less than two weeks after the American Music Awards and less than a week after the Soul Train Awards, and just a short time before the year-end best-of lists start raining down, the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences will announce the nominees for next January’s Grammy Awards. For the second consecutive year, there will be a prime time TV special announcing the nominees for the major categories, with scheduled […]
2010 American Music Awards: Live Blog
The American Music Awards may have fallen to third place on the importance list behind the Grammy Awards and the MTV Video Music Awards, but it’s still a pretty important show where it counts…at the cash register. It’s pretty well-watched, and lots of people that see performances or award winners end up going to their local store (or to iTunes) and picking up a single or album by someone they caught on the show. The AMAs began in 1974 as […]
New Release Report 11/2/10: What’s Out Today? Nothing.
No, not NOTHING nothing! “Nothing”! It’s the new album from N.E.R.D.! Good Lord, I’m corny. Anyway, this week’s list of new releases is headed up by the fourth effort from Pharrell, Chad and that other dude that doesn’t do shit. To my mild shock, it turned out to actually be a decent album. Probably my favorite Pharrell-related effort other than “In Search Of…”, the first N.E.R.D. album. It sounds fun, Pharrell’s voice and lyrics are less annoying than usual, and […]
Chart Stalker: The Power of Indie
“Indie Rock” is kind of a stupid term. “Indie” technically is shorthand for “independent” (as in not distributed by a major label), but most people see the word “indie” and think “hipster”. This leads to a bit of confusion. I mean, The Mars Volta record for a major label, and technically, Taylor Hicks and Elliott Yamin are “indie”. It should also probably be noted that most indie companies are actually owned by major labels. So we should probably think of […]
Attention, Soul Sisters! (and Others)…Train’s Album Ain’t So Bad
A year ago, would you have thought that the biggest selling single of 2010 would have come from Train? TRAIN? “Meet Virginia”/”Drops of Jupiter” TRAIN?? Yeah, me neither. The San Francisco-based band hadn’t scored anything resembling a hit in half a decade. Actually, I’d been wondering if the band even existed at all, or whether lead singer Pat Monahan was actually the only member utlizing the name “Train” after his (not bad) solo debut “Last of Seven” fell on deaf […]