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Pop Rock Nation

Category: People

all-about-musicians-and-the-people-who-help-them-make-music

  • Friday Throwback – Love U 4 Life

    After three albums, Jodeci finally got their wedding song on. The wedding song is the one song that makes groups timeless. It’s the one song that gets played at weddings, and once you’re on the wedding playlist, you’re on it for life. Always And Forever anyone?

    This song is not a song about freakin’. Not every freakin’ day, or every freakin’ night. It’s a love song. Give it to ‘em K-Ci.

    • Is T-Boz in her bra?
    • “I wanna love you for life, because your love is why I live.” I wonder if K-Ci sang that to Mary J. Blige.
    • Even with the pimp daddy hat and the pimp daddy suit, why does K-Ci still look like Tyrone Biggums?
    • Someone tell Jo-Jo that wearing the Sox hat was old by then.
    • Especially with a suit.
    • I swear I thought the Pastor looked like Rev Run.
    • It has to be Rev Run.
    • Why wasn’t the DMC the ring bearer?
    • When Dalvin slobbed down T-Boz, I wonder if Mack-10 was ready to get his backyard boogie on? Get your boogie on …

    This would be Jodeci’s last hit single I believe. K-Ci and Jo-Jo would take this blueprint and successfully launch a career as the two-some of the creative name of K-Ci and Jo-Jo. All the songs about freakin’ and feenin’ and were replaced by songs about love and love, and more love. They became romantic balladeers. One of these days, when I’m out of ideas, I’ll work in my favorite K-Ci and Jo-Jo song, All My Life.

  • Friday Throwback – I Ain’t Mad At Cha

    Tupac Shakur died on September 13, 1996 and I figured it was fitting to showcase one of my favorite Tupac songs for Friday Throwback. It’s crazy to realize that it’s been now eleven years since he passed. Part of the reason I like this song so much is because of the timing. The video was released to MTV only two days after he died. And in the video, it shows him dying and partying in heaven. It was odd timing, but more coincidental than ironic. The video was filmed several months earlier. The song itself was on Pac’s All Eyez On Me and featured a sampling of DeBarge’s A Dream.

    • Where have you gone Bokeem Woodbine?
    • They can get a real actor like Bokeem, yet hire people off the street to play the one scene where there’s dialogue in the ambulance?
    • Redd Foxx greets you after you die?
    • I like the album version of the song much better than the video version.
    • Quick to approach a ghetto cutie with the same line? I remember them hollerin’ at hoochies with the same line.
    • Whatever happened to Danny Boy?
    • That was a broke ass Sammy Davis Jr. in there.
    • While he redid the song entirely for the video version, most of the first and second verses are similar and only changed because of the cursing. However, the third verse is entirely different.
    • Marvin Gaye was dancing like a mad man and Jimmy Hendrix was wearing some loud colors.

    Even though his works were probably a bit overrated lyric wise, there’s no arguing about his impact in hip hop. I still wear my Pac shirt today.

  • Friday Throwback – If It Isn’t Love

    It’s amazing to me how many people don’t know their New Edition history. It hurts my feelings. Ya, people know Bobby Brown because of Whitney. But what about everyone else? As a group, they were one of the best R&B groups of all time. And maybe even more importantly, they were able to make the transition from teenage group to adult group. They were able to grow with the times as seen by Heart Break, their adult careers (which seemed to have sputtered out for all of the members), and the comeback album, Home Again. Here’s one of my favorite NE videos.

    • Are those ballet slippers on Ralph?
    • Who is the dude that talks to them at the beginning?
    • And who is that random Asian girl that turns on the music?
    • I think I saw the New Kids steal these same moves.
    • Johnny Gill has the same haircut as Prince Akeem from Coming To America.
    • What was the reason for shirtless Ralph dunking his head in the water?
    • Do Mike and Ron even need to be in the video? Everyone knows they didn’t sing backup on this song.
    • Love her? What?
    • Ok, were they trying to recreate the Fun Bunch high five?

    I’m all for NE recording until the day they die. They can still sing (well at least Ralph, JG, and Ricky Bell can) and I bet you they’ll be able to throw down on the dance floor for at least another 10 years.