Robin Thicke and The Game give it up for (surprise!) the ladies in the newly leaked track “Diamonds,” off the deluxe edition of Thicke’s forthcoming Sex Therapy. Over a butter-smooth music bed, the duo shout out female artists both fierce and fabulous, including Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige, Rihanna, and Keyshia Cole. The name-drop marathon extends to Oprah and Michelle Obama, as well as Robin’s wife of four years, actress Paula Patton. Glad somebody is finally giving Paula props—she turned in an excellent performance as the endlessly supportive teacher, Ms. Rain, in Precious, but everyone forgets that she even appeared in the film, since Mariah Carey’s brown wig stole all her thunder.
Listen to “Diamonds” and feel thankful for all the wonderful gals in your life behind the jump: More »
Late last summer, Slipknot’s All Hope Is Gone and The Game‘s LAX engaged in a SoundScan battle to the death, almost. Initial returns had LAX ahead of the masked Iowans on the albums chart by a mere 13 copies, but a hasty recount put Slipknot in the drivers’ seat, with a victory margin of 1,134 albums sold. You’d think the metallers would feel satisfied that they’d pulled out a victory at the last minute, wouldn’t you? Obviously, you don’t know the psyches of the men behind the masks.
What were the 80 most important musical recordings, artists, trends, events, and performances of 2008? What were the eight things this year that broke our hearts—or, at least, our ears? We’re happy to announce 80 ’08 (and Heartbreak), Idolator’s year-end overview. The list is below the jump.
In the current music climate, first-week sales are more important than ever—not so much as a predictor of future success, but a way for artists to claim a high “peaked at this spot on the charts” number, what with the cycle of promotion for 99.9% of cultural products screeching to a halt on said items’ release date. For two relatively high-profile releases in 2008, the test, then, became trying to find as many sales as possible during that first week so as to ensure a high-enough chart position for said acts to at least seem kind of relevant for a day or so. (Al Franken and Nicole Scherzinger, together at last!)
This morning while doing my YouTube rounds, I found a clip claiming to have as its audio bed a high-quality version of Kanye West’s Tears For Fears homage “Coldest Winter,” so I–hoping to hear the song without all that peaking and radio static that nearly ruined last week’s leak somewhere around listen No. 10–clicked. But instead of “Coldest Winter, however, we’re treated to a video that fuses together a photo of Steve Jobs holding a pitcher of Kool-Aid, paparazzo shots of The Game and Snoop Dogg, and gunshot sounds in a way that’s seemingly inspired by both Paperrad and ransom notes.
When I saw the SoundScan charts this morning, I felt kind of bad for Slipknot. The masked metallers haven’t been having the best string of luck recently, and now their album All Hope Is Gone was narrowly beaten out for the top spot on the album tally by LAX, the new album from tormented name-dropper the Game. How small of a margin did they lose by, you ask? Try 13 sales. Well, apaprently I wasn’t the only one who felt bad about this: Slipknot, upon seeing this statistic, gathered up its brooding rage and did what any red-blooded American would do: They demanded a recount from the SoundScan folks. You can probably guess what happened next.
