After the cover of Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City” from the unlikely combo of Slash, Fergie and Cypress Hill made its way online last week, former GNR guitarist Slash Hudson took to his Twitter account to defend the curvy Black Eyed Peas’ fox’s inclusion on the track. Or maybe he’s just making a general assessment about Fergie’s rock chops. MORE »
In the wake of yesterday’s horrifying incident in London where an apparently lovestruck (??) fan punched the excessively inoffensive Leona Lewis, the British pop-clearinghouse Popjustice has released a manifesto declaring that we need to enter a new era of being nice to pop stars, and resisting the reflexive snark that has taken over so many corners of the Internet. “It should be possible for popstars to sign copies of mediocre books without fear of being hit around the head by a bellend,” writes Popjustice, “and it is the absolute right of anybody to go about their daily job without fear of being punched, unless they are Perez Hilton.” Well all right then! How can you be nice to a pop star today? Popjustice has a couple of ideas. MORE »
The lead Pussycat Doll is apparently the latest person to attach herself to Slash’s forthcoming solo album, which comes out next year and is set to feature a Love Boat-worthy cavalcade of cameos by the likes of Iggy Pop, Flea, Stacy “Fergie” Ferguson, Adam “Maroon 5″ Levine, and Jason Bonham. But why not just go all the way and re-record La Scherz’s forever-in-turnaround solo effort Her Name Is Nicole as a collaborative effort between the Pussycat Dolls’ chief vocalizer and the still-in-search-of-a-frontperson semi-supergroup Velvet Revolver? Let’s face it—both projects need a big shot in the arm, buzz-wise, and this could maybe almost do it in a “so crazy, you have to check out the MySpace page at least once” sort of way… [AceShowbiz / Photo: Getty] MORE »
Two years ago, the Dutch singer Esmée Denters was a YouTube phenomenon who got snapped up by Justin Timberlake’s label, thanks presumably to her covering “What Goes Around… Comes Around” in full-on Webcam confessional mode. Well, since then Timberlake’s been trying to get her name out there, first putting her singing up for charity, then taking her around the country on showcases where she flaunts her new single “Outta Here.” I actually became acquainted with this song at the gym, where it was one of the many semi-anonymous dance tracks blaring on the TVs that weren’t tuned to (sigh) the YES Network, mixed in with endless plays of all those failed Pussycat Dolls singles and “Single Ladies.” “Outta Here” is not groundbreaking by any stretch—it’s pretty much perfectly paired to being played while people sweat out calories and hangovers—but it’s pretty punchy, and her growly tendencies make the track even better. Clip after the jump. MORE »
A note to the Sugababes: It’s probably not a good sign that someone just came over here searching on “pussycat dolls new song too sexy for this club” while presumably looking for your bombastic new single “Get Sexy.” And said Internet sleuthing was from someone inside the UK—your home turf—at that! MORE »
Over the weekend, the Sugababes played the Midlands Music Festival in Staffordshire, England, and they previewed a couple of new songs from their seventh album, a.k.a. their forthcoming attempt to break America with the assistance of Jay-Z. “About A Girl,” penned by the Moroccan-Swedish Lady GaGa collaborator RedOne, and “Thank You For The Heartbreak,” written by the Norwegian Ne-Yo collaborators StarGate, are both way better than the Pussycat Dolls-ish mess that was the album’s first single “Get Sexy.” But will it be enough for them to catch the ears of fickle U.S. radio listeners? Decide for yourself after the jump. MORE »
The charts are in a bit of a Dog Days slumber, so let’s try a little trivia: What’s the most oft-recurring word on Billboard’s Hot 100 over the last decade? I’m thinking of a word that appeared virtually never prior to, say, 1990 and eventually became ubiquitous. “Remix”? “Tha”/“Da”? “Dre”? “T-Pain”?
No, the most common word on the chart, pretty much every week, is “Featuring.”
This week, for example, 16 songs with “featuring” credits are on the Hot 100—17 if you count a “duet with” credit on Keyshia Cole’s latest single with Monica. (But then it goes back down to 16 if you exclude the craven Pussycat Dolls single “featuring” existing lead singer Nicole Scherzinger, a la Diana Ross in ’67 or George Michael in ’85.)
A dozen of these tracks, unsurprisingly, come from the worlds of R&B and hip-hop – genres where the team-up is standard operating procedure for both emerging acts (Drake, Kid Cudi) and veterans (T.I., Mary J. Blige). On this week’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, “featuring” appears no less than 37 times.
Back on the Hot 100, three of this week’s “featurers” are in the Top 10, and two are brand-new to the winners’ circle. Examining just these three tracks, you get a sense of the power of the featured-artist credit. Simply put, in pop music, there are friends, and there are friends. All three of these singles benefit to some degree from the name(s) to the right of the magic word. MORE »
Nominees for the 2009 Video Music Awards, which will be presented on Sunday, Sept. 13 in New York City:
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Last night’s Critical Karaoke event was pretty rousing success, and thanks to everyone who came out. Apparently there will be video of the whole night online soon (which is a good thing, because everyone’s performances were stellar), but for now my piece—which looks at the Pussycat Dolls’ current attempt to recapture the zeitgeiest, “Hush Hush; Hush Hush”—is after the jump, with a video so you can listen to the song while reading along, as the performative nature of the evening dictated. Just imagine it being read by someone whose arms are flailing a lot. MORE »
