Mya's forever-delayed Liberation has finally seen the light of day ... in Japan. Nicole Scherzinger, this is your future, so take notes! [Kevipod Music]
A clip of Britney's new single has leaked, and it sounds kind of like what would happen if you cross "Hooked On A Feeling" and a faded pop star whose aesthetic has been trapped in amber since 2003. [Kevipod Music]
Will a breathy, "ethnic"-sounding single with a title that will no doubt inspire a thousand "punani" jokes save Nicole Scherzinger's Her Name Is Nicole? Probably not, but that doesn't mean Jimmy Iovine won't pour wayyyy too much money out of Interscope's coffers in an effort to find out! [Kevipod Music]
If only the 1999 version of Mandy Moore was around to cover "Umbrella"—I suspect her cover would have a lot more oomph than this ready-for-Triple-A take on the Rihanna song that Moore performed on Yahoo! Music last week. [Kevipod Music]
Janet Jackson is apparently going to make her triumphant return to network TV on the 2008 Grammys, if this overly excitable backup dancer who talked to MTV Canada—because he's from the Great White North, duh!—is to be believed. The standards and practices department at CBS is already on high alert about this appearance, no doubt. [MTV.ca via Kevipod Music]
In the latest attempt to save her increasingly doomed solo album, Nicole Scherzinger is going the "singing about her vagina over a vaguely 'ethnic-sounding' track produced by Akon" route. It's a terrible song, but at least it makes her "I am a very conservative Catholic" claim in the new Entertainment Weekly even more hilarious—except to all the people at Interscope/Geffen who got laid off as a result of "belt-tightening," of course. [Kevipod Music]
Because really, we can't fathom any other explanation for the seventeen ways that this cover is completely unflattering to Kelly Clarkson. (Her eyes! Her phantom right hand!) Please, Narvel Blackstock—make sure this never happens again.
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While trawling my RSS feeds, I found a post from the interminably cheery MP3 blog Kevipod Music that was decidedly different in tone than the site's other posts. A snippet: "Sorry for the inconvenience, this was not hacked by any way or was it stolen from kevipod. I know most of you are concerned. Kevipod will be tried to be restored." Going to the blog revealed that the site had been stripped of its pop-starlet-filled banners, and the "sorry" post was the only one on the site—because the original Kevipod Music had been taken down by Blogger after one too many DMCA complaints*. Which is probably not all that surprising, given the site's penchant for linking to leaked copies of singles on ZShare and other third-party upload sites, but it still bummed out the 18-year-old Madrid resident, who took to another blog to plead his case:
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The Madrid music blog Kevipod has the long-awaited (we're sure someone has long been awaiting it) Avril Lavigne cover of Coldplay's "The Scientist," which she recently performed on BBC Radio 1. Perhaps most surprising of all: It's kind of decent, perhaps because it wasn't done in a studio and therefore doesn't bludgeon us with 85 kinds of compression. She even sounds pretty heartfelt, if you like that kind of thing. And hey—at least she didn't perform "Fix You."
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Janet Jackson's "Feedback" had a small uptick in sales this week, meaning that it could actually move up the Hot 100 after stalling a few weeks ago. But now comes the news that two singles are being released from her forthcoming album Discipline next—one for pop radio, one for urban radio—which could be a sign that her label really believes in the album or one that the label is hedging its bets and trying two singles at once to see which one is better. Hmm, I wonder! [Kevipod Music]
Along with the news that Kelly Rowland's long-delayed Ms. Kelly has been pushed back yet again (it's now set for release at the beginning of July) comes a new track from the album, the Scott Storch-produced "Come Back." It's a slinky little joint in the vein of Ciara's "Oh," and who knows—if it does well on the charts, maybe Ms. Kelly will see the light of day before the end of this decade:
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"Wall To Wall" is the first single from Exclusive, the second full-length by R & B heartthrob Chris Brown, and it sticks pretty faithfully to the template of "Run It," with its big beats, bigger boasts, and Michael Jackson-indebted vocal stylings. We've been spinning it all morning and we're pretty into it, although we suspect it'll sound even better coming out of passing cars this summer:
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Following yesterday's closure of the pop-centric MP3 blog Kevipod Music, which happened because the site posted a link to a snippet of Mariah Carey's "Touch My Body," other sites hosted by Google's free-blogging service Blogspot, like ALi's Blog, have been subject to DMCA smackdowns as well, although with a little Googling you can see that sites that are independently hosted or on Wordpress.com have so far escaped Carey's label's wrath.
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Ashlee Simpson's forthcoming album has apparently been pushed back yet again, after being moved from last November. Apparently her label's latest strategy involves repackaging the Missing Persons homage "Outta My Head (Ay Ya Ya)"—which sank like a stone after its initial release Dec. 11—as the lead song for a three-track EP that drops Feb. 5. Said EP is going to include a "hidden gem" from Ashlee's last album, and if that isn't music-business code for "we have no idea what the hell we're going to do with the songs she's turned in so far" then I don't know what is. [AshleeSimpsonMusic.com via Kevipod Music / Photo: Getty]
We were delighted to find the latest track from Amerie, whose mix tape from last year still gets a lot of airplay around the flophouse. The brassed-out "Gotta Work" is apparently going to be on Because I Love It, Amerie's forthcoming album that has a screwy release-date schedule. Check it: "April 28th (Australia), April 30th (UK) and May 16th (Japan) and in USA most likely for the summer"? (Emphasis ours.) Unless she releases another mixtape soon, we can already feel the "Please Release Me" coming on.
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"Makes Me Wonder" is a new track from Maroon 5, whose second album is scheduled for a May release; in the interest of full disclosure, we should say that your Idolators were conflicted about posting this track, if only because we hadn't had much love for this band in the past. But "Makes Me Wonder" is surprisingly not bad, thanks to the influences it's cobbled together; you've got a pinch of "Rock Steady," some well-placed falsetto, and a slightly straighter Scissor Sisters sheen:
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Kevipod Music has "Lil' Love," the new team-up from Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Mariah Carey and Bow Wow. The track appears on the group's upcoming Strength & Loyalty album, and it even features a Culture Club reference (hint—it's not "I'll Tumble 4 Ya"):
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Two new tracks featuring Ne-Yo made their way across the blogosphere today. "Make It Work" is a pleading ballad that has Ne-Yo reworking the Project Runway catchphrase into a pitch for working out the kinks of a relationship, while the breezy "Hate That I Love You," on which he duets with Rihanna, makes us wonder if he shouldn't just write nothing but regret-filled acoustic numbers for fed-up lovers to sing along with:
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Kevipod Music has an MP3 of "What I've Done," the first single from Linkin Park's forthcoming Minutes to Midnight. We present the song only as a public service, because frankly, it sounds as though all they've done is re-record the same overly dramatic anthem for the umpeenth time in a row, only without all those awesome DJ scratches and backing yelps that made them so exciting back in 2000 or so. We get it already! How many more ascending choruses and self-pitying verses are these guys gonna crank out before Jay-Z drops them from his Gmail address list?
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Mary J. Blige Just Can't Get Enough (Of Her Awesome Life)
ARTIST: Mary J. Blige
Madonna And Pharrell Break Out The Cowbells
ARTIST: Madonna
Idolator
