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Pop Rock Nation

Author: Money Mike

  • The Boring-Ass Grammy Nominations

    The Grammy Awards are music’s biggest night, but lately they’ve interested me less and less. Of course, everyone’s favorite hobby is bashing the nominations (and winners), but the ceremony has seemed to evolve (devolve?) from an ultra-conservative nightmare (check out the winners from any Grammy category up until maybe the early Nineties for proof…are you aware that neither James Brown nor David Bowie has ever won a Grammy Award? And that The Rolling Stones only have two?) to a back-slapping snooze-fest for the baby-boom generation (the Paul Simon and Steve Winwood clean-ups of the late-Eighties) to a show that simply looks at the Billboard charts and nominates who’s on top of it, regardless of talent. Then for the major awards they throw in one old fogey and the old fogey inevitably wins (see: Ray Charles, Herbie Hancock, Steely Dan, and last year’s Plant and Krauss project).

    This year is relatively old-fogey free, but the nominees are very pop-centric and were basically just snatched from the top of the Billboard charts. Beyonce leads the pack with 10 nominations, followed by Taylor Swift with 8. Other big nominees include the Black Eyed Peas, Lady GaGa, Jay-Z, and Kings of Leon. The frightening thing is that the three major categories basically contain the same group of artists: Beyonce, GaGa and Swift are all up for Record, Song and Album of the Year. BEP are up for Record and Album but got snubbed for Song, while Kings of Leon are up for Record and Song, but got left out of the Album category because “Only By the Night” came out before the eligibility period. The only folks who were able to sneak through that group were Dave Matthews Band (and it’s not hard to imagine that sympathy for deceased sax player LeRoi Moore is what snagged them their first Album of the Year nomination) and Maxwell, who is (actually deservedly) up for Song of the Year.

    Here’s the thing, though. I LIKE Beyonce, Swift and GaGa, and still feel their nominations are somewhat undeserved. Well, let me temper that. “Poker Face” is so damn catchy it probably SHOULD be nominated for Record of the Year. However, I would say their nominations are more based on “wow-these records sold millions and millions of copies” than “wow-these records are really good). Because as shitty as this past year has been for music, I can name a ton of albums that were better than Beyonce’s, and the less said about The Black Eyed Peas, the better. At least they’ve finally been removed from the hip-hop category and placed in pop where they belong.

    The Best New Artist category is the weakest in recent memory. This is essentially a two-act race, with Zac Brown Band being the people’s choice and Keri Hilson being the industry favorite (although Lord only knows why). The other nominees (MGMT, Silversun Pickups and The Ting Tings-who probably should have been nominated LAST year) are all fairly under the radar.

    Notable omissions? You’d think after all the strings that were pulled putting Whitney Houston’s “I Look to You” out before the nominations deadline would help it get a nomination? No dice. Houston got a big fat zero, although the album was certainly good enough to deserve some love. Meanwhile, Grammy favorite Kanye West got the most low-key six nominations any artist has ever gotten. His “808s and Heartbreak” album was shut out of the major categories, and five of his six nominations are all in TWO categories-Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (where he’s nominated for Beyonce’s “Ego” remix, Keri Hilson’s “Knock You Down” and Jay-Z’s “Run This Town”) and Best Rap Performance by a duo or group (where his own “Amazing” with Young Jeezy is up against “Make Her Say” alongside Common and Kid Cudi).

    Anyhow, here are the nominees in the major categories. The Grammy Awards airs on 1/31/2010 on CBS.

    Record of the Year:
    “Halo” Beyonce
    “I Gotta Feeling” Black Eyed Peas
    “You Belong with Me” Taylor Swift
    “Poker Face” Lady GaGa
    “Use Somebody” Kings of Leon

    Album of the Year:
    “I Am..Sasha Fierce” Beyonce
    “The E.N.D” Black Eyed Peas
    “Fearless” Taylor Swift
    “The Fame” Lady GaGa
    “Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King” Dave Matthews Band

    Song of the Year:
    “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” Beyonce
    “Pretty Wings” Maxwell
    “You Belong with Me” Taylor Swift
    “Poker Face” Lady GaGa
    “Use Somebody” Kings of Leon

    Best New Artist:
    Zac Brown Band
    MGMT
    Keri Hilson
    Silversun Pickups
    The Ting Tings

    Best Pop Album:
    “The E.N.D.” The Black Eyed Peas
    “Breakthrough” Colbie Caillat
    “All I Ever Wanted” Kelly Clarkson
    “Funhouse” Pink
    “The Fray” The Fray

    Best R&B Album:
    “The Point of it All” Anthony Hamilton
    “Turn Me Loose” Ledisi
    “BLACKsummersnight” Maxwell
    “Testimony Vol. 2: Love & Politics” india.arie
    “Uncle Charlie” Charlie Wilson

    Best Rock Album:
    “Black Ice” AC/DC
    “Live at Madison Square Garden” Steve Winwood & Eric Clapton
    “Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King” Dave Matthews Band
    “No Line on the Horizon” U2
    “21st Century Breakdown” Green Day

    Best Rap Album:
    “Universal Mind Control” Common
    “Relapse” Eminem
    “The Ecstatic” Mos Def
    “The Renaissance” Q-Tip
    “R.O.O.T.S.” Flo-Rida

    Best Alternative Music Album:
    “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix” Phoenix
    “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today” David Byrne & Brian Eno
    “It’s Blitz” The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
    “The Open Door” Death Cab for Cutie
    “Sounds of the Universe” Depeche Mode

  • Chart Chat 12/2/09: Boyle Burns Up the Charts!

    Ladies and gentlemen, the highest first-week total for an album in 2009 is now owned by…Susan Boyle?

    Yep, she first wowed ’em on “Britain’s Got Talent”, and now a frumpy, middle-aged Brit has scored a first week better than Eminem, 50, Jay-Z, Britney, John Mayer and even the King of Pop’s last albums. “I Dreamed a Dream” starts with an amazing 701,000 units. It also broke records in Boyle’s native country, where it had the biggest-selling debut week in HISTORY.

    Add in a #2 finish for Andrea Bocelli’s Christmas album and it’s fairly obvious to see who comprises the record-buying public these days. Expect these two albums to be the top sellers of the holiday season.

    It’s hard to say whether Adam Lambert’s outrageous awards show appearance helped or hurt his sales. His “For Your Entertainment” bows at #3 this week with sales of 198,000 copies. For the sake of reference, last year’s second place finisher, David Archuleta, opened with 183K, and it’s fair to say Lambert’s gotten much more of a promotional push than Archie did. All things considered, I’d say those numbers are probably something of a disappointment.

    Other debuts this week: Rihanna pops in at #4 with a so-so 181K (to be truthful, none of her albums has had especially strong first week sales, though), while Lady GaGa’s 8-track “Fame: Monster” EP crashes onto the charts with 174,000 sold. Right behind it? Lady GaGa’s original “Fame” LP, which has been repackaged with the additional tracks from “Monster”. That scanned 151,000 copies, making it the week’s biggest gainer.

    The week’s biggest disappointment has to be Shakira’s “She Wolf”. Coming off of the wildly succesful “Oral Fixation” album and the hit “Hips Don’t Lie”, PLUS an “SNL” performance and a Rolling Stone cover, I’m sure the album was expected to do better than a #15 finish and 89,000 copies sold.

    The American Music Awards, as expected, were a big catalyst for some of the chart jumps this week. Five-time winner Taylor Swift jumps 24% in scans this week to sell another 125K and inch closer to the 5 million sold mark on “Fearless” (she might reach it before the end of the year), while Michael Jackson’s “This is It” soundtrack jumps 13% to 108,000 sold this week, putting it a week or so away from a million sales.

    John Mayer takes a bit of a tumble, as “Battle Studies” falls from 1-13 with just over 92K sold, bringing it’s two week total to a not-bad 400,000 copies. Still, that drop has got to be alarming, as was Bon Jovi’s 1-19 fall last week. However, that’s not the biggest chart drop in history. Incubus’s last album, “Light Grenades” freefell 1-37 in it’s second week out. And it still wound up selling 800,000 copies. So, a large drop isn’t necessarily a death knell.

    Altogether a nice Thanksgiving week. 12 albums sold more than 100,000 copies, giving us a taste of the good old days. Sales should drop sharply for all titles next week, as relatively normal buying habits resume. Boyle should retain her #1 title, with albums from Allison Iraheta and R. Kelly bowing in the Top Ten.

    Here’s this week’s Top 20 albums:

    1) Susan Boyle “I Dreamed a Dream”
    2) Andrea Bocelli “My Christmas”
    3) Adam Lambert “For Your Entertainment”
    4) Rihanna “Rated R”
    5) Lady GaGa “The Fame Monster (EP)”
    6) Lady GaGa “The Fame”
    7) Miley Cyrus “Time of Our Lives (EP)”
    8) Taylor Swift “Fearless”
    9) Carrie Underwood “Play On”
    10) Norah Jones “The Fall”
    11) Michael Jackson “This is It”
    12) Various Artists “Twilight: New Moon Soundtrack”
    13) John Mayer “Battle Studies”
    14) Justin Bieber “My World”
    15) Shakira “She Wolf”
    16) Various Artists “Now 32”
    17) Casting Crowns “Peace on Earth”
    18) Michael Buble “Crazy Love”
    19) Glee Cast “Glee-the Music Vol. 1”
    20) 50 Cent “Before I Self Destruct”

  • CD Review: John Mayer’s “Battle Studies”

    John Mayer’s first album, “Room for Squares”, set up damn near permanent shop in my music rotation shortly after its’ 2001 release, and the two studio albums that followed were even better. Unlike most people, I wasn’t hung up on Mayer’s matinee-idol looks (although I would imagine that most matinee idols don’t have that ugly O-face Mayer has when he performs) or even his admittedly superior guitar skills. For me, it was his lyricism. Somehow, Mayer seemed to tap into lots of feelings I had regarding life, love and relationships. There was an instant and intense relatability.

    Well, I guess it’s true what they say: what goes up must come down. Mayer’s fourth solo studio album, “Battle Studies” isn’t anywhere near as good as the album that preceded it, 2006’s “Continuum”. However, let’s be fair here. “Continuum” was a watershed album-the album that managed to convince even my friends that hated John Mayer (and there were plenty of them) that this guy was a lot more than “Your Body is a Wonderland”. Even though “Battle Studies” doesn’t reach those lofty heights, it’s still a pretty solid work. It’s just a matter of tempering your disappointment after realizing that this isn’t another “Continuum” and then appreciating the album for what it is.

    “Battle Studies” is, is a concept album about relationships. Folks have been comparing being in love to a war for years-think Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield” or Lenny Kravitz’s “Battlefield of Love” or Jordin Sparks’ “Battlef…” OK, you get the picture. Mayer stretches this metaphor out for an entire album, with mixed results.

    Musically, the album’s fairly restrained. The most energetic song on “Battle Studies” is a very faithful version of Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads”, required playing for every aspiring blues guitarist. In terms of remakes, Mayer has done better (“Bold As Love”, “Free Fallin’”), but this is pretty solid, if a little bit on the karaoke side. He fares far better with original works like “Heartbreak Warfare” and “Assassins”. The latter song has the album’s best lyrics, while the former song comes a close second lyrically but adds an ambient U2-esque musical vibe. It has an expansive sound that’s atypical of Mayer’s vibe but notably still manages to maintain the intimacy that’s a hallmark of his work.

    “Half of My Heart” is taylor made (pun alert) to climb the charts, and as if Mayer needed any help making the song a hit, it features support vocals by music’s current it-girl Taylor Swift. On the other side of things, there’s the simple “Who Says”, which sounds agreeably tossed-off. It’s a simple acoustic ditty (that recalls “The Heart of Life”, one of the best songs on “Continuum”), with unusually acerbic lyrics from Mayer (“I don’t remember you looking any better/but then again, I don’t remember you”).

    Then there’s the rest of the album. Songs like the bluesy “Perfectly Lonely” and the slow jam “All We Ever Do is Say Goodbye” are decent enough, but I don’t get the same spark of recognition and appreciation on these songs that I get from Mayer’s earlier work, and I think that’s the rub here. There’s not a bad song to be heard here, but some of the songs (especially on the last third of the album) sound like John Mayer spinning his wheels. Thankfully, John Mayer on autopilot is still relatively engaging.