Here is what happens when you let your “content” be ruled by the twin towers of cheap snark and search-engine optimization: You get idiotic blog posts like this one at infotainment clearinghouse E! that claims that Kanye West was shut out of the nominee field at this year’s American Music Awards because of people still being peeved about the whole Video Music Awards debacle in which he ran on stage while Taylor Swift was accepting her award for Best Female Video. Because hey, it’s fun to pile on celebrities and tut-tut your outrage in their general direction, right? Luckily (at least in this case), the American Music Awards are supposedly not determined by such emotional concerns—instead, as the press release accompanying yesterday’s nominee announcement noted, “Nominees were selected from data supplied by The Nielsen Company’s Broadcast Data Systems, which monitors radio airplay performance, and Soundscan, which tracks retail music sales.” So let’s go to the numbers! MORE »
Posts Tagged ‘T.I.’
everybody's a winner
Are The American Music Awards Really “Punishing” Kanye West? (Probably Not, No)
everybody's a winner
2009 Video Music Awards Winners
The complete list of winners at Sunday night’s Video Music Awards, held at Radio City Music Hall in New York: MORE »
T.I.’s Sentence: A Year And A Day
A judge has sentenced T.I. to one year and one day in prison for being found guilty of federal weapons charges, a sentence that’s in line with the plea deal the MC struck with authorities one year ago. T.I.—real name Clifford Harris—has 6-8 weeks to turn himself in to prison, and he can whittle his sentence to the under-300-day mark if he’s well-behaved while in the pokey. His community-service tour over the last year, which totaled 1,006 hours and included stops at schools and a show on MTV, may result in other offenders being given “experimental” sentences, even if they’re not famous! MORE »
It happened one weekend
Seven-Word Reviews Of Seven New Pop Songs
This was one of those two-day stretches where pop leak blogs were in overdrive, thanks to the songs leaking from every crevice in the music industry’s crumbling firmament (including its artists’ own blogs). Who wins? Well, the ad sales team at RapidShare, for sure. As far as listeners’ fates, the results are decidedly more mixed, as you’ll see from the brief reviews of new songs by Kanye West and T-Pain, Green Day, Dr. Dre and T.I., the Black Eyed Peas, Depeche Mode, Jennifer Lopez, and Ciara located after the jump. MORE »
100 and single
Two-Hit Wonder Flo Rida Owns Charts, Reminds Us He Exists
Obviously, we need to talk about the new song that takes over the top of Billboard’s Hot 100, and the mind-blowing record it sets.
But before we do that, let’s talk about Hilary Swank.
I find Swank’s movie career totally incomprehensible: She either wins Oscars, or she tanks. Not even Meryl Streep has won two Best Actress statues, yet in under a decade Swank has gone to that podium twice, like some kind of modern-day Katharine Hepburn. You’d think that would make her one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, or at least its most respected. Sure, she wins roles in some blockbuster-type stuff (The Core) or prestige-like stuff (The Black Dahlia), but these movies are invariably flops. Swank’s successes seem to have had no impact on her career, or the way she’s regarded by the general public. She’s some kind of metaphor for the in-and-out nature of post-millennial fame.
All this leaps to my mind when I consider Flo Rida, the rapper who reaches No. 1 on the Hot 100 for the second time, with the kind of sales total that you’d think would make Lil Wayne, Kanye West or Jay-Z bow respectfully.
But if I were them, I wouldn’t. Because after all, who is this clown? How did Flo Rida become the Hilary Swank of pop music? MORE »
putting the pseudo in pseudo-event
Live-Blogging The 2009 Grammys: Where The Winners Don’t Count As Much As The Ability To Bring In Ratings
Welcome to Idolator’s liveblog of the 2009 Grammy Awards, a year in which there will be more spectacle and less award-doling than ever. Well, at least it seems that way: The 3 1/2-hour telecast will have no more than 10 brass gramophones handed out during its running time, presumably because the music industry decided that what it really needed to give it a shot in the arm was a slightly more pretentious version of the Video Music Awards. (And yes, that is Paul McCartney being That Guy—or rather, the Bret Michaels-pioneered variation on That Guy who wears a shirt advertising his own projects—above.) Full minute-by-minute coverage after the jump! MORE »
everybody's a winner
Radiohead Is So Mainstream Now, You Guys
Radiohead will make its first U.S. TV appearance since 2000 in two weeks, when the band performs as part of this year’s Grammy ceremony. The band’s 2007 album In Rainbows is up for Album Of The Year against Coldplay’s Viva La Vida Etc., Ne-Yo’s Year Of The Gentleman, Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III, and the Robert Plant/Alison Kraus collaboration Raising Sand. T.I. is also expected to perform twice on the evening of Feb. 8—once with Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and Kanye West on “Swagger Like Us,” and again with Justin Timberlake on an unidentified song. (I’m pretty sure that Robyn Troup won’t be around to get ogled by the two this year, although who knows—the nostalgia cycle is pretty short these days.) A list of all the announced performers after the jump. MORE »
T.I.’s Road To Redemption Goes Through MTV
Sometimes I wonder if I’m not living in a Bizarro World where one day everyone is going to jump out of my TV and yell “Surprise!” and everything will be fine and we will all drink hot toddies and laugh about the joke that was life in the ’00s, particularly that one show about midgets and tall people dating and the other show about the plastic surgery beauty pageant and that one band from Florida with the guy with the black eyes that was sooo stupid and yeah everything is going to be fine. Yep, everything’s going to be just fine. MORE »
80 '08 (And heartbreak)
80 ‘08 (and Heartbreak): Announcing Idolator’s Year-End Extravaganza
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. MORE »
listening station
Justin Timberlake And T.I. Reunite, Remain Sexy While Doing So
Last night, “If I,” a new Timbaland-produced track that brings “My Love” collaborators T.I. and Justin Timberlake back together, made its way to the Internet, and while it’s not as future-soaked as the original track, it’s got a stuttery, pinging guitar line and one of those descending keyboard lines that bring to mind what it looks like when an object (here a flash of skin, I’m going to guess) glistens—you know, the type that Oran “Juice” Jones employed to a precipitous effect in “The Rain.” Also, the lyrics are kind of filthy! But the overall effect is not so much icky as it is hot, I’m not going to lie. YouTube rip after the jump. MORE »
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