Fall Out Boy’s “Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet” now has a video, a clip that was apparently shot in the space of four hours and that fuses Weekend At Bernie’s with a rollercoaster-filled trip to the amusement park. (Yes, the brief Absolute Punk-referencing clip featuring Wentz’s body being discovered by Spencer Smith and Brendon Urie of Panic! At The Disco that leaked last week was a trailer for the video.) Clip after the jump. More »
The video for “Open Happiness,” the Coca-Cola-sponsored collaboration between Cee-Lo, Janelle Monae, Fall Out Boy lead singer Patrick Stump, Panic! At The Disco frontman Brendon Urie, and Gym Class Heroes’ Travis McCoy, debuted this morning, and it presents us with a fantastical world in which Urie is reporting the news, Stump is piloting a fishy helicopter, and Monae is teaching the kids of the world how to be more like her (a fine development, if you ask me). There’s also a sly shout-out to Teletubbies, whose super-saturated landscape is very reminiscent of all the colorful joy ping-ponging around the screen here. Clip after the jump. More »
Last night in Oakland, Tori Amos covered Britney Spears’ “…Baby One More Time,” prefacing her version of the gigantic pop hit with an explanation that a fairy had told her to take on the track during that night’s show. (Perhaps the fairy was really excited by the news that Spears was in the studio with “…Baby” scribe Max Martin earlier this week?) Amos is just one of many musicians who’ve been compelled to put their own spin on “…Baby” in the decade since its release, probably because the one-two-three punch of the song’s minor-key pathos, Spears’ trapped-canary narrative, and the track’s pop perfection is too much to resist. Amos’ cover, the original, and a few other versions considered after the jump. More »
Spencer Smith has posted a snippet of a new song by him and his Panic! At The Disco bandmate Brendon Urie on the band’s official site; it’s called “Oh Glory” and it’s upbeat and dancey, and would seem to bear out Pete Wentz’s claims that this album would feel like more of a natural progression from their first full-length A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out. More »
In the wake of yesterday’s news that half of Panic At The Disco would be leaving the band, Pete Wentz posted a cryptic note to his blog—one that implied, at the very least, that the long-abandoned exclamation point in the band’s name would be restored, at least in spirit. Linked from a picture of a big “!” was Panic lead singer Brendon Urie’s cover of Bob Marley & the Wailers’ “3 Little Birds”—you know, the song that reminds everyone that “every little thing’s going to be all right.” YouTube embed of the track after the jump. More »
I generally enjoy Fall Out Boy. I liked the band’s most recent album, Folie A Deux, and the current single “America’s Suitethearts” (just as long as I manage to erase the video from my memory). But somehow the performance of that song on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno last night became a battle of unnecessary vibrato, as Panic At The Disco‘s Brendon Urie joined the band for some sort of “who can avoid the actual notes more” duel. I’m sure there’s some aspect of performing live outdoors that can be blamed (not to mention people who will say the band always sounds like this), but, man, there are some seriously cringeworthy moments here. The clip, as well as a truly painful interview with John “Formerly Known As Stuttering John” Melendez, below the cut.
There are two reasons that I’m glad I kept putting off my treatise on the very unfortunate Bob Dylan vs. will.i.am smackdown in honor of Pepsi: First, MTV News’ James Montgomery pretty much summed up my thoughts on the overall “the present is kinda crappy, let’s just OD on sugar” feel of the ad; and second, I found out that the Coca-Cola-sponsored collaboration between Cee-Lo, Patrick Stump, Janelle Monae, Brendon Urie, Travis McCoy, and Butch Walker had debuted online today. Guess which one is about 50 million times more pleasurable to these ears? I’ll give you a hint: It’s the one without Shrek in its attached video. Embeds of both tracks after the jump.
Seventeen (which the idea of my infant daughter reading someday fills my heart with dread already) is rolling out widgets that are complete with animated somethings and interactive whatsits, which play tracks selected by today’s biggest pop stars with sizable teen audiences. Apparently, if you are in fact a teenage girl, you could express your fandom for your favorite artist by embedding this sort of thing on your Facebook page. Instead, let’s just take a look at the artists’ choices, and validiate our existing feelings about their artistic output!
