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Pop Rock Nation

Author: Pop Rock Nation

  • The iTunes Shuffle

    I was talking to a friend the other day and he was telling me about a new song from someone named Leona Lewis. As he was telling me why her song Bleeding Love was worthy of spending a buck on, I was trying to remember where I saw her name. And then it hit me. It was in an e-mail from Apple, telling me what was upcoming and hot in the iTunes Music Store. Lewis was the winner of the third season of Simon Cowell’s UK show The X Factor. And while my friend and I both agreed that a broken heart is a better metaphor to use in music than a bleeding heart, I decided to take a leap and get the song. I wasn’t disappointed. And it doesn’t seem that iTunes fans are either. It was the number one song last week on the iTunes singles chart, only to be bested this week by Mariah Carey’s Touch My Body.

    That lead me to two other immediate iTunes purchases. Sara Bareilles’ Love Song is so catchy that I just had to buy it. She’s sort of a mix between Vanessa Carlton and Fiona Apple. And finally, I had to buy the MacBook Air song, New Soul by Yael Naim that Steve Jobs chose himself to be featured in the commercial for the new laptop.

    iTunes really has me by the credit card these days. After decided that I wasn’t going to buy CDs any longer and would only buy through iTunes, I’ve found myself buying more music of late. Instead of buying Randy Jackson’s new album, I simply bought Real Love by Katharine McPhee and Elliot Yamin. And after having a discussion about Family Ties with my girlfriend and finding out that she’d never heard of Billy Vera and the Beaters, I had to buy At This Moment for her. Word to Alex P. Keaton. Lastly, because I want Big Rube Studdard to make it in this business, I bought the new American Idol go home song, Celebrate Me Home.

    Luckily, I already bought Patrick Swayze’s She’s Like The Wind, or that would’ve been my next move.

  • Music New Releases 3/25/08: Cornering The Market On Silly Band Names

    OK, so both me and GG are out of town this week, so the next couple of entries might be rushed and short…sorta like the one I’m about to write.

    This week’s most interesting new release isn’t actually coming out this week…Gnarls Barkley’s “The Odd Couple” was suddenly pushed up from it’s initial mid-April street date to…sometime last week. Retailers were instructed to sell the record as soon as they got it. At any rate, it should be out everywhere by now (I have my copy) and because Cee-Lo is one of those guys who seems to be incapable of making an uninteresting album, you should check it out.

    Also out this week, the new album from the Jack White/Brendan Benson side project The Raconteurs (which hopefully is better than their shitty first album), the sophomore effort from Panic! At The Disco (who are now Panic At The Disco…the most inexplicably idiotic name change since Matchbox 20 became matchbox twenty), Diddy’s new vocal group Day26 (coming from the latest season of “Making The Band”), the first album from Counting Crows in something like half a decade, AND “Funplex”, the first new album from the B-52’s since 1991!!!

    Sorry for the condensed version, but I gotta run: Happy Shopping!!

  • Friday Throwback – Flava In Ya Ear (remix)

    I’ve been writing my Friday Throwback post at my own blog for about the last 9 months, but I thought it was perfect for the blog here at Music Help Web. Basically, what I do is take a song from my youth, find the video on YouTube, and re-watch it and just chart my thoughts about it.

    Let’s give it up for Craig Mack.

    – How cute, Puffy and Biggie are wearing matching hats.

    – Did you know that Biggie got more butts than ashtrays?

    – Don’t be mad, UPS is hiring.

    – Puffy kind of looked like a broke Michael Jackson grabbing his crotch during Craig Mack’s verse.

    – What was Irv Gotti doing in the background?

    – Has anyone asked LL Cool J what the heck his verse was about? Couscous? Tongue kiss a piranha?

    – Hey look, there’s half of Busta Rhymes. When he used to be fun.

    That’s still one of the greatest posse cuts ever. But whatever happened to Craig Mack? Well, Biggie showed up and took the hip hop world by storm and Mack kind of got left behind. According to his Wikipedia entry, he was scheduled to drop something last year, but it was shelved. Maybe he’ll bring flava to your ear another day.