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Pop Rock Nation

Category: News

music-news-from-breakups-to-the-lastest-buzz

  • New Releases 12/21-22/09: Mary J. & More!!!

    I’m pushing this out a little earlier than usual for one reason:

    Mary J. Blige’s “Stronger with Each Tear” is available on amazon Mp3 for $3.99 for today only! Four bucks for a Mary J. album-ANY Mary J. album-is a pretty good deal. I broke my longstanding embargo on buying digital for this, figuring you couldn’t beat the price. Although “Stronger” appears to be on the average side of Mary albums, hell…it’s only four bucks!!

    Also out today (or tomorrow):

    Didn’t buy Eminem’s “Relapse” yet? Want to embarrass yourself by buying the work of a past-his-prime rapper and giving it to your kid, whose probably already moved on to someone else? Well, knock yourself out. “Relapse: Refill” hits stores this week, and if what I’ve heard of the unreleased material is any indication of what the entire album sounds like, stay the hell away. When you haven’t had anything new to say in almost a decade, it’s probably time to hang it up, and the fact that Eminem is in his mid thirties and still slinging poop rhymes and gay-baiting means that, despite his considerable skill, it looks quite unlikely that I will ever pick up another Eminem album for the rest of his career.

    The only other notable release is the “We Are Young Money” compilation from the Lil Wayne-led campaign. Weezy has already done his part for promotion by getting arrested late last week for marijuana possession. Artists appearing on this compilation include Drake, Nicki Minaj, Pleasure P, and Lloyd. In other words, yawn…

    With that, we close up shop on new releases for 2009. January 2010 will bring new music from the likes of Peter Gabriel, Vampire Weekend and Ke$ha, as well as reissues from The Jackson 5 and Maxwell. As always, you can get a full list of this week’s releases here!

  • Raging Against Christmas: Anarchy in the U.K.

    It’s quite a big deal to have the #1 single in the UK over Christmas. Over the years, that spot has hosted artists ranging from Band Aid (whose “Do They Know It’s Christmas” topped the chart in 1984) to Mr. Blobby (don’t feel bad if you don’t know who that is…unfortunately, I do).

    Anyway, for the past few years, the Christmas #1 in Britain has been tied in with “X Factor”, AKA the British version of “American Idol”. Like “Idol”, “X Factor” is spearheaded by Simon Cowell. Although the show doesn’t mean much on U.S shores, it has spawned at least one certified hitmaker (for a brief time, anyway) in Leona Lewis.

    One guy took exception to Cowell’s domination of the UK charts (and what it represents to true music fans) and started a Facebook campaign to get people to download Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name” in the hopes that it would prevent “X factor” winner Joe McElderry from hitting the #1 spot with his cover of Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb” (I can’t make this stuff up folks).

    So, the results are in and the #1 single in the UK is…”Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine! Half a million people downloaded it last week, pushing the 18-year old song to the top of the charts. This chart victory is all kinds of symbolic, proving the fact that British music fans are a little tired of having processed musical cheese shoved down their collective throats (although it might have been better had they used their Facebook clout to promote a new artist who needs the publicity). It’s also cool that the guys from Rage have promised to donate money to charity as a result of their chart-topping success. Now if we could just do something about Susan Boyle here in the States…

  • Not Necessarily the News: RHCP, Timbo & Weezy!!

    *John Frusciante has quit the Red Hot Chili Peppers-AGAIN. The guitarist, who was famoulsy replaced by Dave Navarro briefly in the late Nineties-confirmed the split this week via his MySpace page. There appears to be no drama behind the split, but if you’re like me, you’re wondering how Anthony, Flea and Chad will brave this split. The band became megastars with Frusciante as their guitarist, and the one peak-era album they recorded without him (“One Hot Minute”) is definitely not regarded as their finest work. Critics have lavished tons of praise on Frusciante for his guitar playing and vocal harmonies over the last few years, although his solo albums allegedly require a strong stomach to listen to. Can both sides survive without the other?

    *Supa-producer Tim “Timbaland” Mosley has been quoted as saying that he is quitting hip-hop. Tim was quoted in a recent interview as saying (and I’m paraphrasing here) that his audience is essentially white women these days, and that hip-hop fans are not buying enough records to justify his staying in that genre. Doesn’t that statement sound all kinds of wrong? We can of course start with the fact that Timbo is basically admitting to selling out and abandoning the fans who made him who he is. Because I guarantee those pop artists wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t for the work he did with the likes of Missy Elliott and Aaliyah. I guess he’s gassed up off of that Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado money. However, when you consider the lukewarm commercial reception that his “Shock Value II” has received so far (not to mention the savage critical reception), something tells me that Timbo might be returning to hip-hop a little sooner than he thinks.

    *Finally, take this as a lesson, record companies, of what can happen when you continually fuck with release dates. Lil Wayne’s “Rebirth”, an album whose release has literally been all over the calendar this year, just sprung a major leak. Apparently, some copies had already been shipped to amazon.com and 500 or so people who’d preordered the album were accidentally sent copies of “Rebirth”-although the album is now not scheduled for release until next February. Can you say “collector’s item” ladies and gentlemen? This is the first instance I can remember of an album being pulled after already being pressed and shipped since Prince’s “Black Album” back in 1987. Yes, Jay-Z fans (and Metallica fans), calling an album the “Black Album” is not an original idea. At any rate, expect some of those 500 copies to pop up on eBay VERY soon.