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The Grammy Nominations: Let The Vague Sense Of Anticipation Begin!
Tomorrow morning–at 11:30 a.m. ET, to be exact–music’s biggest stars, including Akon, Fergie, the two lead dudes from Linkin Park, and George Lopez (?), will hold court in Los Angeles and announce the nominees for the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, which take place on Feb. 10, 2008. Anyway, with the announcement of the nomination ceremony comes the speculation over which artist will walk away with the most nods. Will the voters go crazy for Feist’s Apple-sanctioned tastefulness, or the Boss’ stature? Will Amy Winehouse be forced to make the first trainwreck award-show appearance of 2008 after racking up a slew of nominations? Our take comes after the jump. MORE »
year-end analysis
“Paste” Gives The National A Gold Star
Paste came out of the gate with its Top 100 Albums Of 2007 list, and it’s topped by The National’s Boxer, with the Arcade Fire (hey, remember them?) and Bruce Springsteen right behind it. (For those of you who were wondering, Radiohead’s In Rainbows came in at No. 11.) The full list is after the jump, but here are a few impressions:
THE GOOD: The top 20 is pretty much full of the usual triple-A suspects (White Stripes, Wilco, Modest Mouse, Band Of Horses, Iron & Wine), but it’s awful nice to see Miranda Lambert’s genuinely thrilling Crazy Ex-Girlfriend get some love at No. 18.
THE BAD: The clustering of Internet-loved darlings near the list’s bottom–particularly the Menomena-Liars-Deerhunter-Dan Deacon-Art Brut run that makes up Nos. 85-81–makes one wonder if this list really needed to be 100 albums long. 2007 wasn’t that good, folks!
THE WHAAA? Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings’ 100 Days, 100 Nights (No. 45) being bested by the safe-as-milk Norah Jones (No. 44) and the Grey’s Anatomy-approved caterwauler Brandi Carlile (No. 41)? C’mon, Paste–we know you have a target demo, but challenging people can sometimes be fun. MORE »
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Idolator Live-Blogs The American Music Awards: You Don’t Have To Be Good, You Just Have To Be Popular
Or, in the case of this guy, you just have to have your Sunday night open. Anyway, welcome to Idolator’s second liveblog of the American Music Awards, the Dick Clark-helmed celebration of musical “favorites” that inspired this site’s first live blog almost exactly one year ago. Back then, I was cranky about Rascal Flatts and Nicole Scherzinger’s Pussycat Dolls and Jimmy Kimmel, all of whom are back to make my zingers flow once again. (I actually read an AMA preview that used as its hook the fact that the AMAs are Kimmel’s first post-writers’-strike TV appearance, which should tell you about the caliber of talent on tonight’s show.) After the jump, we find out just which musicians will inspire the people of America to get clicking on a Web site. MORE »
Nickelback: As Popular Now As Limp Bizkit Was In 2000
Despite critical disdain and claims of self-plagiarizing hovering over their heads, Nickelback’s All The Right Reasons crossed the six-million-copies sold mark last week, the 15th album of the 21st century to do so and the first since Usher’s Confessions, which came out in April 2004. (Reasons was released all the way back in October 2005.) MORE »
putting the pseudo in pseudo-event
American Music Awards Nominations Try To Prove That Popular Music Is Still Somewhat Popular
Nominees for this year’s American Music Awards–the annual Dick Clark-produced awards ceremony where the idea of the “best” is thrown out the window–were announced today, and Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, Linkin Park, and Daughtry led the field of nominees with four each. This year’s AMAs will be even more subject to the sway of street teams and crazed computer-attached teenagers, as voting has shifted from a poll of 20,000 music buyers to an online survey (presumably tracking down 20,000 people who actually buy music and know of all the nominated artists and albums, which span categories including contemporary inspirational, soundtracks, and the still-kicking “alternative,” proved too difficult of a task for the production company). MORE »
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“Paste” Knows Its Audience A Bit Too Well
Once again, we present Rock-Critically Correct, a feature in which the most recent issues of Rolling Stone, Blender, Vibe and Spin are given a once-over by an anonymous writer who’s contributed to several of those titles–or maybe even all of them! After the click-through, he switches things up a bit and gives the latest issue of Paste a once-over: MORE »
Your Local Awful Outdoor Concert Venue May Go The Way Of Ozzfest’s Ticket Revenues
If you haven’t purchased your ten-dollar lawn tickets for the Family Values tour, featuring Korn and whoever is in Evanescence these days, you might want to grab some before the 20,000-seat amphitheater is a thing of the past. The giant outdoor pavilions on the outskirts of larger cities are becoming less and less useful to concert promoters, and they’re being replaced by venues less than half their size. With concert megapromoter Live Nation selling off venues near cities like Nashville, Indianapolis, and Columbus, will the boomer-oriented package tour (this year’s models include a package with Styx and Foreigner opening for Def Leppard) soon be a thing of the past? MORE »
videodrone
Clive Davis Still Giving Kelly Clarkson’s “My December” A Chilly Reception
The Kelly Clarkson-Clive Davis war of words is clearly not going to end anytime soon–or at least not until Clarkson’s next album, My December, comes out later this month. A brief recap: Rumblings about December being pushed back from its late July release date surfaced a few weeks ago, after Davis allegedly panned the largely Clarkson-penned record in a company meeting; the album’s release date was then pushed up to June 26; then, during the American Idol finale, Davis took to the podium and neglected to plug Clarkson’s album, instead extolling the virtues of professional songwriters.
The skirmish continued last week, the New York Post ran a piece claiming that Davis was out of touch and cramping Clarkson’s style; today, in a sorta-surprising show of corporate dissonance, Fox 411 columnist Roger Friedman ran an item that opened with a comparison between Clarkson and Courtney Love (!), and went on to blame Clarkson’s manager, Jeff Kwatinetz, for a good portion of the friction: MORE »
aggregated assault
What The Music Blogs Are Posting Right Now
- A dayglo swirl of Dee-Lite-related tracks. [Fong Songs] - Hits from the career of Wilbert Harrison, including his version of the Lieber and Stoller song “Kansas City.” MORE »
