Following her recent songs with Cobra Starship and Robin Thicke, Leighton Meester spilled to MTV that her next collabo will be with Lil Wayne (of course it will be) on the track “Make It Rain.” MORE »
Search Results
collaborations
Leighton Meester Becomes Lil Wayne’s Umpteenth Duet Partner
Awards
If Only The People’s Choice Awards Had Included These Artists
And so today brings the final nominees list for the People’s Choice Awards, a roundup of the some of the less-challenging artists and material from the past year or so. And—yippee!—this was the first year that “we, the people” were allowed to have somewhat of a say in the nominees. But despite this privilege, snubs still abound in the music categories. MORE »
Charts
Amerie Gets Trounced In The Charts
Maybe there really is no accounting for taste. Despite the healthy heaping of critical accolades for Amerie’s fourth album In Love & War—not to mention Idolator’s own five very legit reasons you should pick the record up (there’s still time!)—the sales figures don’t lie. MORE »
Endorsements
Five Reasons That You Should Pick Up Amerie’s “In Love And War”
“The new album by R & B spitfire Amerie is out today.” That’s a sentence that I thought I’d never get to write on Idolator, despite her being one of my favorite singers for the duration of this site’s existence. And to make the news even better, In Love And War—which is her first U.S. release since 2005, thanks to Sony botching the release of Because I Love It two years ago—is quite good, even joy-inducing in spots. (It could maybe be pared of a song or two; the Lil Wayne remix of her artistic-statement single “Heard ‘Em All” is the definition of CD-era filler.) “But why do you like it,” you ask? I’ll tell you! After the jump, five reasons why it’s worth hunting it down at your preferred outlet for purchasing music. MORE »
listening station
Someone Decided That The Sugababes Needed A Kingston Feature
Yesterday, a six-track sampler of the original take on the Sugababes’ made-for-American-audiences Sweet 7 leaked—the difference between this record and the soon-to-be-released album is the presence of Keisha Buchanan, who last month was unceremoniously booted from the girl group and replaced with Eurovision-tested singer Jade Ewen. The sampler contains the already-released (and underwhelming) “Get Sexy” and “About A Girl,” as well as one track that made me chuckle mirthlessly over just how badly the group’s handlers wanted to try and break the girls in the States. MORE »
web 2.no
Today Is A Sad Day For The RSS Feeds Of Freeloaders Everywhere
Music Is The Heart Of Our Soul, the blog that somehow found every new piece of pop music as soon as the promotional copies were pressed, has been shut down by its owner, the singularly named, grammatically creative, often-agitated blogger known as “Vicki.” And it wasn’t a visit from Big Music’s legal team that did it! If her Twitter is to be believed, she finally grew tired of people caring more about getting their free-music fix than they did about her: “since you know of all & trust me if i die today & the blog was still there, you guys dont care just want the blog to update,” she Tweeted to a concerned reader. (Who was probably more concerned about where they were going to find the new Amerie single than about her, it should be noted.) A cache of her now-deleted blog expands on her frustrations: MORE »
videodrone
Amerie Gets A Room At The Disturbia Inn
While I like that R & B singer Amerie’s new label home, Def Jam, seems to at least be trying to properly release her forthcoming album In Love & War, there’s something about the video for the banging “Heard ‘Em All” that makes me wonder just how hard she’s going to be pushed as Rihanna Mach II. The video’s directed by Anthony Mandler, who also was behind the clips for “Disturbia” and “Run This Town,” and “Heard” has a similarly post-apocalyptic feel, only with some added plot about her being “difficult.” Love, love, love the ferocity of the song, though—especially that bit about having a Sean Kingston feature forced upon her! Clip after the jump. MORE »
upcoming releases
Amerie Stitches A Sampler
Island Def Jam has posted a sampler of Amerie’s forthcoming record In Love & War, which comes out Nov. 3, and it has snippets of three new-to-me tracks: the crackling bit of funk-rock “Higher”; the busting-loose “Tell Me You Love Me”; and the luscious “Pretty Brown.” (Also streaming: a snippet of the extended flight-as-sex metaphor “Red Eye”; the full version of the blistering “Heard ‘Em All”; and the summer-jam-that-shoulda-been “Why R U.”) So I guess this album is actually coming out, unlike last time! Awesome. [IDJ via ItsMeAmerie@Twitter] MORE »
self-referential
In case you missed my appearance on All Things Considered this weekend—in which I discuss the calculus for determining summer songs, why we’re probably stuck with the Black Eyed Peas forever, and the awesomeness of Amerie—it’s streaming at the public-radio network’s Web site. (Bonus: The transcript, in which it is revealed that I said “you know” approximately 1,438 times during the segment, and in which my “songs coming out of car radios” metric for judging a summer song’s power is compared by a slightly overzealous commenter to condoning torture.) [NPR] MORE »
somethin 4 the weekend
What Was Your Song Of The Summer For 2009?
I’m taking off a little bit early today because I’m going to tape an appearance on NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered, in which I will be quizzed about this year’s contenders for Song Of The Summer, and why this summer’s most-people-unifying songs probably weren’t ones that came out this year, let alone this decade. (Michael Jackson, duh.) (Well, Michael Jackson and the ever-atomizing nature of “pop music,” which is resulting in things like gym staples not getting anywhere near the pop charts and the Black Eyed Peas being the only force that can unify us all. Anyway, given that the sweltering season of this year is nearing its close, I figured I’d ask: What song defined the summer of 2009 for you the most? My pick, after the jump. MORE »
