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Pop Rock Nation

Category: Award Shows

Music-Awards

  • Award Season Is Upon Us: The 2008 AMA Nominees

    No matter how they try, the American Music Awards will never be able to escape the shadow of being the Grammys’ bastard little brother. Which is why today’s announcement of the nominees was met with a resounding yawn. The show gets ignored for several other reasons too. The awards are voted on by a select poll of consumers, which means we get hit with travesties like Milli Vanilli’s sweep in 1990 and C&C Music Factory’s sweep two years later. There have also been long-standing rumors that AMA winners are tipped off before the show airs, meaning that the winners are a lot more sure to be in attendance.

    This year’s nominees are fairly predictable. Alicia Keys leads the pack with five, followed by The Eagles and Coldplay. Other multiple nominees are Mary J. Blige, Rihanna, Lil’ Wayne, Kanye West, Garth Brooks, Carrie Underwood, Usher, and several others. The only head-scratching category, oddly enough, is Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Group, where the nominees are G-Unit, Three six Mafia and Wu-Tang Clan. Jordin Sparks’s submission in the Adult Contemporary category is also a bit of a head scratcher. Something tells me the nominating committee struggled long and hard in order to come up with those names.

    The show will be hosted by the usually entertaining Jimmy Kimmel and will in all likelihood be live-blogged by yours truly. Expect the usual snark and wishes for a Michael Jackson sighting.

    The show airs on November 23rd, and in a new wrinkle, they’re allowing the public of the wide world of internets to vote on the winners. You can log on to vote here.

  • VH-1 Hip Hop Honors ’08 – Quick Thoughts

    Unless I’m mistaken, I don’t think anyone on this site talked about the Hip Hop Honors show from earlier in the week. I know that Money Mike was possibly not even going to be able to watch the show until later in the week. I wasn’t able to live blog it, but did get to catch most of it.

    I love this concept, this show, and everything about why VH-1 does this show. You wonder why VH-1 does this and not say, MTV or BET, or even a network channel.

    What happens when I watch this show (and previous years as well) is that I smile. I simply smile throughout the entire thing. It reminds me of when and why I fell in love with hip hop in the first place. We hip hop fans are a funny bunch. We dislike far more of the current music that hip hop artists produce today than we like. The music from our youth will always be better than what’s out now. But damnit, if you talk bad about the art that we love, get ready to defend your stance. For hours. We are a passionate bunch. We’ve had to sell people on the fact that being an emcee is just as much of a honed skill as anything else. You don’t think so? Try rapping. We’ve had to let those know that while Whitney Houston’s voice is a gift, so is Jay-Z’s flow. And we never feel as if anyone thinks our music is on an equal plane as rock music. All of those things come back to me when I watch this show. Every year.

    The cool thing about this show is that it’s a show of acknowledgment. You can argue as to why certain people are honored earlier than others (I’m sure being able to show up with your crew intact is one of the reasons), but really, I don’t care. Hopefully, all the right folks will be honored eventually. This year, Cypress Hill, De La Soul, Naughty By Nature, Slick Rick, and Too Short were honored. As has been the case with the previous shows, to “honor” the hip hop legends, current and former hip hop stars come out and perform some of the honorees previous hits. And then the legends themselves get on stage. It was great to see Slick Rick on stage performing from his throne. Cypress Hill got the show started off with a bang and had a great live performance. And how did they get Naughty By Nature back together? I thought Treach and them didn’t get a long? But I was probably most excited to see De La’s performance, and I’ve included that below.

    Hopefully VH-1 continues to run this show. For people like me and those who are much bigger fans of the culture and the music, it’s maybe the best thing that VH-1 has done or will ever do. Hopefully we’ll get Money Mike’s thoughts when he gets the chance to watch the show.

    You can watch it online if you didn’t catch it on the tube at VH-1.com or check their schedule to see when they are showing it again.

  • The Always-Regal Tina Turner Has a New Album Out, and We’re Giving It Away!: (sorry, Aretha…You’re Not The Only One)

    She’s defied age, changing musical tastes, and the brutality of her ex-husband Ike for a career that’s spanned close to 50 years. Although it looked like Tina Turner was fit to retire just a couple of short years ago, she’s psyched us out and decided to showcase those nearly 70-year old legs on stage again for another tour. The artist,who hasn’t released an album of new material in seven years, has also returned with “Tina!”, a greatest hits package encompassing her entire career and featuring two new songs. MHW is giving away a copy of this album to one lucky winner who can answer this question properly:

    What is Tina Turner’s real name?

    Shoot your guesses over to musicpublisher@consumerhelpweb.com and we will pick a winner at random on Monday, October 13th. In the meantime, enjoy one of Tina’s classic videos!!

    *Neither musichelpweb or consumerhelpweb employees or their immediate families are eligible to enter.