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Pop Rock Nation

Author: Pop Rock Nation

  • Freddy Fender’s Next Teardrop Falls

    Freddy Fender, 69, is dead of what media reports are calling lung cancer.

    Fender offered a unique mix of Mexican-American and country-western music, and began recording at the age of 20. His early career was marred by arrest and imprisonment while his later carer was hampered by various medical ailments. Despite those, Fender won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Performance.

    His most famous song was Before The Next Teardrop Falls, which became a crossover #1 Billboard hit in 1975. Fender had another top 10 hit that year with Wasted Days and Wasted Nights and a #20 single with Secret Love the same year. Truly, 1975 was a good year for the portly Texan.

    Fender’s official webpage has been turned into an online memorial and has hundreds of entries as of this writing.

    Spinning In The CD Today:
    Are You Ready For Freddy – Fender’s breakthrough hit album 31 years ago.

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  • Jadakiss Looks For More Street Cred

    Latest releases not doing too well?

    Down in the dumps because Fiddy and Lil’ Kim get popped while you get ignored?

    Welcome to the Jadakiss PR Machine.

    Seems our old buddy, who hasn’t been arrested in two years, got stopped in New York this holiday weekend. Police officers reportedly found a handgun in the rapper’s vehicle — almost exactly what happened to him two years ago in North Carolina.

    That was around the time that Jada beat Kanye to the punch by asking the musical question about GWB knocking down the WTC. Does our friend Jason like publicity? Dunno, but it seems a convenient arrest for a rapper whose latest single is Jada’s Got A Gun.

    Ruff Ryder or no, I’m feeling a little used.

    Spinning In The CD:
    Has Weird Al really been doing all this to us for decades now? I’m laughing my ass off that a whole new generation is discovering him. And you know what? The man can put a song over. Listen for Yankovic’s White and Nerdy and Canadian Idiot off Straight Outta Lynwood. Al is definitely getting better with age.

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  • The Return of George Michael

    The last time George Michael kicked off a tour, George Bush was the President, the United States was fighting in Iraq and healthcare costs were said to spiraling out of control.

    As the now 43 year old singer starts his new tour, little seems to have changed in the world. Even Sir Elton John seems to have publicly forgiven his one time duet partner.

    What surprised many critics this weekend was that Michael, no stranger to banner headlines after a much publicized series of arrests, kept the intensity meter tuned to 11. Skewering George W. Bush and Tony Blair among other, Michael opened his tour in Barcelona with a show that reportedly ran more than two hours. Critics attending the show say that his powerful voice seemed to be as strong as ever.

    It’s hard to say if Michael can be musically relevant anymore, but it is nice to see an artist with more than 75 million units of music sold in his career, back out on the road while he still has command over a great voice. As for the politics, he is only living up to a decades old pattern of rockers being political so that behavior is perhaps the most ordinary he has displayed.

    Spinning In The CD:
    I’m really trying to like Fergie and London Bridge and having a really hard time doing so. I ordered Ne-Yo today to cleanse the Fergster and Paris Hilton from my memory banks.