Our look at the closing lines of the week’s biggest new-music reviews continues with a roundup of reactions to One Love, the fourth album by French DJ (and producer of the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling”) David Guetta: More »
The “crazy cross-genre mashup” slot at last night’s Brit Awards went to a blend of the Ting Tings‘ cover of “Rapture” “Shut Up And Let Me Go” and Estelle’s “American Boy” that segued into everyone performing “That’s Not My Name” together; it worked intermittently, but at least allowed the British soulstress to flash a pretty great jacket. But what’s this? Did the Brits’ producers take their inspiration from the mash-up collective The Hood Internet, who posted their own bootleg of the two tracks back in June? The Hood’s version of the blend is embedded after the jump.
Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus (yes, together), Adele, Estelle (with Kanye West in tow), and Chris Brown have been added to the bill for Sunday night’s stuffed-with-performers Grammy telecast, which is also going to feature a Four Tops tribute fronted by original Top Duke Fakir, Jamie Foxx, and Ne-Yo. I am guessing that, given the number of people scheduled to warble and strum during the course of the telecast, the actual number of awards given will be low, but I guess that’s what the Internet is for. (Unless we’re in for a long night of medleys, in which case, my liveblogging skills will be stretched to their absolute limit.) Full roster of announced-so-far performers after the jump!
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.
As you may have gathered, I’m raring to close the book on 2008, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t run down some of the site’s highlights during what was a pretty dreary year overall. After the jump, behold a pretty subjective top 12 of the year (thanks to our technological limbo I can’t run any sort of numbers, but I think this list accurately captures the best moments we’ve had during a long slog of a year). And of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank all of you for coming back, reading, commenting, and pointing out when I get shit wrong (which is too often). If you think I got this list wrong, feel free to abuse me with compliments in the comments section!
One of the year’s most pleasurable pop confections came courtesy of a British soul singer who reeled in Americans by appealing to their innate narcissism. I speak, of course, of Estelle’s lighter-than-air, Kanye-assisted ode to Yankees “American Boy,” which first took hold of ears over here in February and slowly made its way into the Stateside pop consciousness over the ensuing months.
Late this past summer, I was thinking of making one of those CafePress T-shirts with the somewhat cryptic, post–Katie Holmes slogan “Free Estelle!” True, it wouldn’t have meant a thing to anyone except my fellow poptimists and chart geeks. And it wouldn’t have accomplished much, unless I wore it while marching in a circle in front of Atlantic Records’ headquarters. But I did feel pretty passionately about it.
Gym Class Heroes’ video for “Guilty As Charged”… More »
The just-launched MySpace Music is all about making money for the labels, right? So it would behoove them to have songs that the people want to buy available for purchase on the service, no? Come with me as I try to buy the top 10 songs on this week’s Hot Digital Tracks chart by using MySpace’s widgetry:
OK, so it’s not exactly a sequel to the Destiny’s… More »