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Pop Rock Nation

Category: Award Shows

Music-Awards

  • 2009 Hip Hop Honors Live Play By Play

    VH-1’s Hip Hop Honors show is one of my favorite shows of the year. It’s still amazing that VH-1 of all stations pays respect to the hip hop genre best, but hey, I’m not complaining.

    (By the way, I know that it’s not technically live considering I’m on the West Coast, and I’m DVRing it so that I don’t have to watch commercials, but when people look at this in a few years, will they even know?)

    (Wait, I just let the cat out of the bag. Damn.)

    This year’s show pays respect to the Def Jam label. I hope we see some Rick Rubin tonight. I know we’ll see a lot of Russell Simmons.

    And away we go…

    Russell Simmons at the 2008 VMAs
    Russell Simmons at the 2008 VMAs
    – I think I saw Rubin already. It was either him or Jesus Christ. I’m not quite sure yet.

    – If you like you some Tracy Morgan, this is your show. If you don’t like you some Tracy Morgan, I’m not sure how much of this you’ll be able to stomach.

    – Hey, LL is on this show even though he doesn’t have a record to pimp. Wait, didn’t he just start a new TV show?

    – Black Thought and Eminem tear up Rock The Bells, but I was a bit sad watching because it takes Em doing hip hop karaoke to show that he can still bring it.

    – Jazzy Jeff was spinning and ?uestlove was on the drums by the way. Talk about all-star cast.

    – Why is Jimmy Fallon on this show? Oh yah, he put the Roots on his show. He can be on it.

    – You know how Dr. Dre got all swoll in his later years? Chuck D doesn’t believe in that.

    – Another reason I like this show is because it’s the one time a year where we get to see what Flavor Flav did that truly made him famous.

    – I’m not quite sure that Ludacris deserves to be on the same stage that Public Enemy just graced, but oh well, it’s all about the love tonight.

    – KRS-One doing No Sleep ‘Till Brooklyn? Well, he can do whatever song he wants as long as he doesn’t get mad at us.

    – For The Love Of Ray J is still on? It’s amazing that the same station that puts Ray J in his drawers on TV is the same station that puts this show together.

    – Warren G and Trey Songz just doesn’t have the same ring to it as Warren G and Nate Dogg. “And I see my homie Trey,” just doesn’t work for me.

    – Only Brett Ratner would use the name “Method Man” and the words “true genius” in the same sentence. I’m not sure Mef’s mom would say that. Whatever happened their TV show Method and Red?

    – Uh oh, I may get a little excited here. Mary J is here and she and Meth are going to perform I’ll Be There for You/You’re All I Need to Get By, and it’s not the Diddy remix.

    – Onyx is on the stage and everyone watching all said at the same time, “I guess Onyx is still alive.”

    – I think the last time I saw Eve was on last year’s Hip Hop Honors show.

    – Ja Rule and Ashanti are on the stage doing an old favorite. Wait, I’m not sure any of their songs were old favorites. I always thought that they should let Ja Rule stand on a box whenever he was rapping on stage. He looks like Tupac’s mini me.

    (For the first time in the history of this show, I hit the fast forward. I apologize. Ja Rule and Ashanti did a second song. I couldn’t take it anymore.)

    – There’s been an Oran “Juice” Jones sighting. I repeat, there’s been an Oran “Juice” Jones sighting.

    – Hold on, I may have to fast forward again. I think Tracy just introduced Rick Ross. On most of the earlier performances, Russ Simmons and Chris Rock were rappin’ along with the songs. Not with Ross. They’re just pretending to like it.

    bbvsta_dmxvsem– DMX is back! If you’ve been wondering what X is into lately, he’s supposedly “fighting” on an MMA show. Notice the word fighting in quotes.

    – Let’s put it this way; Kid Rock is a more charismatic rhymer than Rick Ross.

    – EPMD is doing Crossover, but poor Parrish’s mic isn’t working.

    – Foxy Brown is wearing the same clothes she wore in 1997, except she’s about 25 pounds heavier in the chest area. Always trying to keep up with Lil’ Kim.

    – I can’t believe they ended the show with Doug E. Doug doing Kanye’s Touch The Sky.

    – Oh well, even though it was probably the worst of the Hip Hop Honors show, there was still some good stuff. Watch for the first half.

    – By the way, was Jay-Z busy or persona non grata?

    Photo of Russell Simmons by Philip Nelson, Live Streaming Expert and shared via creative commons

  • Michael Jackson And Taylor Swift Lead 2009 American Music Award Nominations

    The nominations were released today for the American Music Awards, and we wouldn’t usually make such a big deal about the nominations. But, when word came out today that Michael Jackson had five posthumous nominations, it became very newsworthy.

    You may wonder like I did, how Jackson could be up for an award being that he hasn’t released a new album in many years. According to The Rolling Stone, it’s because of the sales racked up by Jackson’s Number Ones, which was released some 6 years ago.

    According to a press release, the nominees “were selected from data supplied by the Nielsen Company’s Broadcast Data Systems, which monitors radio airplay performance, and SoundScan, which tracks retail music sales.” This pretty much explains why Michael Jackson and his Number Ones are included on the nominees list: Even though the greatest-hits compilation was originally released in 2003, it’s sold almost two million copies since the King of Pop’s death on June 25th, making Jackson’s eligible for a posthumous Artist of the Year award.

    Taylor Swift at the Sydney Factory Theatre
    Taylor Swift at the Sydney Factory Theatre
    Taylor Swift and Eminem are also up for three awards. Jackson, Swift, Eminem, Lady Gaga, and the Kings of Leon were all nominated for the Artist of the Year award. Swift leads all artists with six nominations, while Jackson had five and Eminem received four.

    American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert is scheduled to perform his first single from his upcoming album at the awards show, alongside Alicia Keys, the Black Eyed Peas, and Jennifer Lopez.

    The show is set to air live on November 22.

    You can see a full list of the categories and vote for who you think should win at ABC’s website.

    Photo of Taylor Swift by Girl.in.the.Green.Scarf and shared via creative commons

  • Chart Chat 9/24/09: The MTV Bump

    Three big pieces of news on the Billboard Album charts this week…

    First, there were debuts aplenty thanks to a majorly packed new release schedule. Top honors went to Brit prog-rockers Muse, who entered at #3 on the strength of 128,000 copies sold. It’s their best first week and highest debut ever. Right behind is Kanye West protege Kid Cudi, who clears a handsome 104K with his debut. Hip-hop phenom Drake enters at #6 with his first commercially released EP, and rapper Lil’ Boosie (yeah, I don’t know who he is either) starts off at #7. The top 10’s other debut comes from metal veterans Megadeth. Dave Mustaine and company enter the charts at #9 with 45K sold.

    There are a couple of long-awaited returns to the chart. Kiss’s Ace Frehley, who hasn’t released a solo album in something like two decades, arrives at #27 with “Anomaly”, proving that the KISS Army is very much still in effect. Other returning vets include Uncle Kracker, who’s been gone for the better part of a half-decade (#38) and Living Colour earning their first chart ink since 1993 at #161.

    Speaking of effects…how about the Oprah effect? Thanks to Whitney Houston’s season-opening two day interview with the TV queen, “I Look to You” holds at #2 for a second week, increasing 77% in scans to sell 156K for the week. This vaults Whitney’s album over the 500K mark in a scant three weeks. I hope she sent Oprah flowers or something.

    And then there’s the MTV Awards effect, which benefited just about every artist who presented and performed. Jay-Z’s “Blueprint 3” took a smaller than usual second-week hit, dropping 37% to land at 298K for the week and a second frame at #1. Jay’s album is only a couple of weeks away from outdistancing the sales of his last record, “American Gangster”, which rang up just over 1.1 million in sales. Additionally, the song that closed the show, “Empire State of Mind”, vaults to the top of the downloaded tracks chart and jumps from 50-5 on the Top 100 singles chart, giving Jay two singles in the Top 5. Additionally, “Run This Town”, his current track with Kanye and Rihanna, jumps to #2, becoming the highest charting single ever for Jay-Z as a lead artist. As a featured artist, he’s had 3 #1s-Mariah Carey’s “Heartbreaker”, Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love” and Rihanna’s “Umbrella”

    Other MTV performers who made noise this week include Lady Gaga (#12/+76%), Pink (#28/ +95%) and Green Day (#54/ +17%).

    Now for the question you’ve all been itching to ask: how did the Taylor Swift/Kanye West/Beyonce fiasco affect sales? Well, here goes:

    Swift’s “You Belong with Me” becomes the first country song to rise to the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 airplay chart in the chart’s 18 year history. The track picks up 60% in downloads to land at #9 on this week’s Top Digital Songs chart and also climbs two spots to #4 on the Hot 100 singles chart (which combines digital and physical sales with airplay). Her nearly quadruple-platinum album “Fearless” increases 37% and lands at #8 on this week’s Billboard 200 Album chart. It’s the week’s biggest-selling country album.

    Beyonce’s “I Am…Sasha Fierce” increases 40% in scans to land at #40 on the album chart. “Fierce” has sold almost 2.5 million copies in a year on the charts. Her award-winning “Single Ladies” track jumps from 106-43 on this week’s Top Digital Songs chart, increasing 159% from last week’s total. In addition, the current single from “Fierce”, “Sweet Dreams”, has just become the sixth Top 40 hit from that album, putting her within shouting distance of tying Janet Jackson (who did it twice) and Rihanna for the record in this category.

    Meanwhile, Kanye West’s “808s & Heartbreak” drops 7% in scans this week. It’s hard to tell if his spaz out hurt sales, as “808s” had experienced a 6% slide the previous week and a 7% slide the week before that. “808s” has already scanned 1.6 million copies. However, despite declining sales, don’t cry for Mr. West. Aside from being the main producer of the week’s #1 album and the mentor of the artist at #4, Kanye has two songs in this week’s Top 10. The aforementioned “Run This Town” shoots up two spots to land at #2, and he debuts on the chart at #8, accompanying Drake, Lil Wayne and Eminem on “Forever”. As they say, there’s no such thing as bad publicity as long as they spell your name right.

    Expect Jay to have another strong week next week, although he will be outshone by the new Pearl Jam album, which has an excellent chance at debuting on top.

    Here are this week’s top 20 Albums (I’m using Billboard’s Comprehensive Albums chart, which includes older titles, which is why there’s a discrepancy between some of the chart positions here and some of the positions I mentioned earlier):

    1) Jay-Z “Blueprint 3”

    2) Whitney Houston “I Look to You”

    3) Muse “Resistance”

    4) Kid Cudi “Man on the Moon: The End of the Day”

    5) Miley Cyrus “Time of Our Lives EP”

    6) Drake “So Far Gone EP”

    7) The Beatles “Abbey Road”

    8) Lil Boosie “Superman: The Return of Lil Boosie”

    9) Michael Jackson “Number Ones”

    10) Taylor Swift “Fearless”

    11) Megadeth “Endgame”

    12) The Beatles “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”

    13) The Black Eyed Peas “The EN.D. (The Energy Never Dies)”

    14) Kings of Leon “Only by the Night”

    15) Lady Gaga “The Fame”

    16) The Beatles “The Beatles (The White Album)”

    17) The Beatles “Rubber Soul”

    18) Zac Brown Band “Foundation”

    19) Trey Songz “Ready”

    20) Brooks & Dunn “#1s…and Then Some”