Idolator, All About the Music... If Only It Were

clara peller dept.

50 Cent Hits The Game Where It Hurts (You Know, His Wallet)

As you may know, 50 Cent and the Game have been feuding for a while, over credits on albums or actions in strip clubs or just general assholery on the part of both parties. And you also may be aware of the fact that the Game has a new album, LAX, that came out yesterday. Well, some dude on 50 Cent's mazelike social-networking site ThisIs50.com decided to "celebrate" that fact with presents for his readers! More »

11:30 AM on Wed Aug 27 2008
By Maura Johnston
828 views, Comment

leak of the day

T.I. And Rihanna Do The Numa Numa Dance

ARTIST: T.I. featuring Rihanna
TITLE: "Livin' My Life"
WEB DEBUT: Aug. 26, 2008 More »

a modest proposal

Bye-Bye "Indie," Hello Again "Alternative"

Last night I was clicking through the zillionth or so argument on the Internet I've come across this decade, and as with approximately 98 million-billion-trillion of them, it hinged, to some degree, on the definition of "indie." We've gone through this a quintillion times on this blog, too, so I've decided to ask everyone to make a subtle, yet important semantic shift: The next time you're tempted to use the word "indie rock" to describe a band, scene, movement, Web site, or general state of mind, I want you to take a deep breath, crack your typing knuckles, press "delete" five times, and instead type this word: alternative. More »

1:45 PM on Wed Aug 27 2008
By Michaelangelo Matos
956 views, 45 comments

Latest by mackro: If music is saved on or represented by a physical object, it's pop music. The degree of how "pop" it is: completely relative. I know that's not useful now, but when music is eventually outlawed, none of this will matter. more »

videodrone

Leona Lewis: Almost As Competent As David Coverdale

I'm guessing Robert Plant got a bit of a chuckle from the Olympics' closing ceremony yesterday, which featured his former bandmate Jimmy Page performing "Whole Lotta Love" with British semi-superstar Leona Lewis in honor of China handing off ownership of the Summer Games to the UK. While Lewis' Aguilera-like run through the song was decent, if fairly predictable, one commenter on a fake YouTube clip of the event pointed out that "You have to admire the subtle genius of choosing a song about the size of Robert Plant's dick as the theme for the handover to London 2012." Although given all the speculation about Michael Phelps this year, maybe the song choice was super-appropriate? Anyway, for the fashion-conscious among you who are wondering just what on earth Lewis is wearing at the outset of the song, I've posted a better-resolution shot after the jump. More »

9:30 AM on Mon Aug 25 2008
By Maura Johnston
4,824 views, 11 comments

Latest by Kate Richardson: Glad you found a way to work Michael Phelps' huge penis into this post. That's why I love this site. more »

The Law

Guns N' Roses Leaker Gets Nabbed By The Feds

So, remember those nine songs from Chinese Democracy that leaked back in June? And remember how the proprietor of Antiquiet.com, the blog that streamed those songs until their servers crashed and they got a "friendly" e-mail or twelve from the Guns N' Roses camp, got a visit from the Feds shortly after the leaks sprung? Well, two days after he posted a call for lawyers on the site—"More and more each day, it looks like I may be indicted," he wrote—he was arrested by FBI agents and charged with violating Federal copyright laws. More »

2:30 PM on Wed Aug 27 2008
By Maura Johnston
605 views, 4 comments

Latest by thumper: ^^^ haha this is scurrry more »

leak of the day

New Kids On The Block Will Probably Not Have A Bunch More Hits

ARTIST: New Kids On The Block
TITLE: The Block
WEB DEBUT: Aug. 27, 2008
RELEASE DATE: Sept. 2, 2008 More »

burning questions

Is "Kala" The New "Play"?

If nothing else, the recent chart ascents of M.I.A.'s Kala and "Paper Planes" are fascinating for the parallels they evoke with... Moby. Think about it: Play was a modest-selling album by a critics' pet that thanks to truckloads of advertising wound up selling a huge number of copies; Kala finished second in Idolator Pop 2007 and is now climbing the charts (currently at No. 37, having sold 11,000 copies) thanks to its use in a movie (and trailer). I've long thought of Play as the signal album of the dot-com boom and bust, for many reasons, and it's interesting to see Kala in that light at this later date. No prizes for guessing M.I.A. will eventually sell 10 million, though.

3:45 PM on Wed Aug 27 2008
By Michaelangelo Matos
224 views, 7 comments

Latest by yrmom: Don't know if Kala's going to catch on like play but I keep meaning to comment that if the high school kids I worked with this summer were in charge then "Paper Planes" would have been the song of the more »

poor choices in soundtracking

A Note To The Democratic National Convention's Music Director

As clever as playing Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely" while Michelle Obama leaves the stage after her speech at the Democratic National Convention seems, considering the title, perhaps it would be worth actually listening to the song's lyrics for a bit and realizing the "she" referenced the lyrics is a baby. The line "Less than one minute old" might be the tipoff—plus I doubt Michelle Obama would care to be referred to as "precious." [Salon]

10:30 AM on Tue Aug 26 2008
By Dan Gibson
451 views, 16 comments

Latest by Cam/ron: @Clevertrousers: The house band played "Living in America," which reminded me of that Rocky IV scene where Brown fronts an obscenely tacky Vegas show to the Soviets' amusement. more »

feeling the fabric

Feeling the Fabric: Hyping The Drum & Bass

DJ-mix series come and go, but the paired Fabric and FabricLive mixes have so far issued 80 CDs. To see how they stack up as a whole, we're reviewing them in numerical order, and very loosely: in some cases I will only have played the mixes only two or three times. More »

5:30 PM on Wed Aug 27 2008
By Michaelangelo Matos
117 views, Comment

run-d.n.c.

The RZA Delivers Some Of The Most Astute Political Commentary Of The Season

Unsurprisingly, the number of concerts and musically enhanced protest rallies surrounding the DNC in Denver this week has brought forth a more-than-equal number of blog posts covering them. You'd expect a site called Pop + Politics to be inside the events, and they've recently posted two good write-ups of Wyclef Jean's performance and his call for Latino communities to get behind Obama. But the showstopper is this video interview with the RZA, in which the Wu-Tang Clan CEO explains how "Obama went platinum" (and citing numbers), talking about how his priors prevent him from voting, and then urging 18-year-old black men to vote because they've "got eight years to make [their] move": "A black man, by the time he's 25, he's either locked up or dead." (It's also worth mentioning that Pop + Politics is doing excellent DNC coverage outside of music.) [Pop + Politics]

4:30 PM on Wed Aug 27 2008
By Michaelangelo Matos
149 views, 4 comments

Latest by bnb614: Someone ask RZA what he thinks about Joe Biden being pro-RIAA. more »

get over yourself

"Can You Believe It? I'm Actually Flying Commercial"

For two and a half minutes, Diddy (who abuses the ~~first~~ third-person like he was Suede or something) laments rising gas prices by (a) flying American Airlines instead of his private jet and (b) giving "a shout out to all my Saudi Arabian brothers and sisters, and, all my brothers and sisters from all the countries that have oil—if you could please send me some oil for my jet, I would truly appreciate it. Can you believe this? I"m actually flying commercial. That's how high gas prices are, OK? So I feel you." The phrase "read it and weep" comes to mind, but Diddy's genuine incredulity that he might have to act and be treated as a normal person and not a demigod make it more like, "Watch it and vomit." [YouTube]

1:00 PM on Wed Aug 27 2008
By Michaelangelo Matos
189 views, 10 comments

Latest by queensissy: @Audif Jackson Winters III: Yipe. The only thing that makes Southwest better than Greyhound is fewer beheadings. I fear this AirTran you speak of. more »

listening station

Oasis Vs. Jay-Z: The Inevitable Transition From Tabloid-Hyped Feud To Mix Tape

The Spanish producers Cookin' Soul have done the guy who blended Jay-Z's "Jockin' Jay-Z" and Oasis' "Wonderwall" one better, and created a whole mixtape bringing together tracks by Jay and the Britpop blowhards, who I guess are still fighting since they both have albums coming out later this year. It's available for download from Cookin' Soul's MySpace page, and a few tracks are available for download there as well—my current favorite is "Ignorant Shirt," which blends the Gallagher brothers' "The Girl In The Dirty Shirt" with, yes, "Ignorant Shit." My only complaint about the whole enterprise? Cookin' Soul didn't call their project The Bloke Album. [MySpace]

8:53 AM on Wed Aug 27 2008
By Maura Johnston
204 views, 4 comments

Latest by revmatty: The Bloke Album FTW more »

objects of affection

Idolator's Tribute-Video Treasury Has Its Night In Court With Huey Lewis

Do you believe in: a) the sheer animal magnetism of John Larroquette in a three-piece suit, b) situation comedy, c) the power of a tribute video to make you feel complete, d) love? If you answered "all of the above," join me after the jump. More »

2:15 PM on Wed Aug 27 2008
By Kate Richardson
161 views, 2 comments

using our illusions

The Curious Case Of The Disappearing "Shackler's Revenge" Artwork

Last night, Blabbermouth posted an item claiming that it had found new Guns N' Roses-related artwork, and that said art was intended to accompany either the "Shackler's Revenge" digital download or—gasp—Chinese Democracy. But when I clicked through from my RSS feed to the post this morning, I found that it had since been removed. Cached posts scattered around the 'Net revealed that the item quoted "writer Erin Fox" as having found the cover from Microsoft, who I guess would have distributed the cover because "Shackler's Revenge" is going to become commercially available via the forthcoming video game Rock Band 2. (Just in case you're wondering, that explanation makes no sense to me, either. And I have no idea who Erin Fox might be.)

While trawling the Internet for further information on this mysterious bit of art—naturally, I wanted to see if Blabbermouth had removed the post because of pressure from the band's very hands-on management or because it wanted to wipe bits of egg off its face—I found a thread on the GNR forum GNRevolution that not only revealed it as fan-made, it teased a lurker out of the woodwork who went by the name of "azoff." As in Irving Azoff, the band's manager? Well, not quite—but that doesn't mean my curiosity wasn't piqued by his cryptic posts.

More »

10:15 AM on Thu Aug 21 2008
By Maura Johnston
1,628 views, Comment