web analytics

Pop Rock Nation

Blog

  • Friday Throwback – Rock The Cradle Of Love

    Back when I was watching more MTV than you can shake a stick at, there were so many videos that I saw at least a hundred times. This one specifically I remember, more than I remember the song itself. In fact, I can’t even think about this song without thinking about the video. I may have never heard it without also watching the video at the same time.

    • That’s a pretty sweet computer for 1990.
    • The dude looks like Patrick Dempsey from Can’t Buy Me Love.
    • When she said, “I was wondering if I could play this tape,” he probably thought she meant, “I was wondering if you could wax these drawers.”
    • That dude has a flat screen plasma in 1990!
    • This hot chick is dancing in his apartment and he jumps on the computer. Unless you are getting your web cam ready, that’s a bad move slick.
    • I ain’t nobody’s fool.
    • Making her spill red wine on her shirt was his only good move so far.
    • Ronald from Can’t Buy Me Love is terrible at making moves. Dude, she’s on your bed.
    • Liberace could’ve pulled her better than this dude.

    The girl’s name was Betsy Lynn George if anyone cared. And I already told you who the guy was. Ronald from Can’t Buy Me Love.

  • Soul Patrol! What Will Tay-Tay Do Next!?!?!??!

    For the record, I was one of the folks that *liked* Taylor Hicks.
    American Idol Season 5 was the first season I watched, and despite the fact that Taylor looked nothing like the typical “American Idol” looked like, I cheered him on and was happy that he won. I wasn’t impressed by Daughtry (but apparently 4 million other people saw what I failed to), and I thought Kat McPhee was a stuck-up bitch. Elliott Yamin, Paris Bennett and Taylor were my favorites. You could tell Taylor didn’t want to be a *star* per se, but he was in it for the chance to get his music heard by as many people as possible.
    I even liked the guy’s album! Granted, as a child of Eighties pop (think Steve Winwood or Michael McDonald), I would. But his album, from a qualitative standpoint, is better than any “Idol” winner’s debut, with the possible exception of Carrie Underwood’s. Unfortunately, it also sold the least (roughly 700,000 units moved), which means that shortly after one winner has been put out to pasture (Ruben Studdard was dropped about a week ago), Taylor has lost his contract with Arista Records. So two of the six American Idol winners are now label-less, and it’s more than likely due to lack of malleability more than it is talent.
    Let’s face it, Ruben’s fat. And his weight was a hindrance to his “image”. As a male R&B singer, the assumption is that no one cares about you unless you either dance like Michael Jackson or are capable of taking your shirt off and doing a few hundred pelvic thrusts. And Taylor’s “old”…granted, he looks a few years older than he actually is (at 30, he’s younger than I am), but a prematurely grey, slightly pauncy singer (no matter how talented he is) is not gonna fly in this “i want millions sold now”/”Idol”-disposable music world. While Rube is headed for Boradway (and I see a Weight Watchers/Jenny Craig deal in his future), Taylor goes back to being a bar musician, screaming his lungs out for the love of music. And something tells me that suits him a lot better than selling himself out for Clive Davis and his minions.

  • It’s The Same Old Song

    It’s one thing for a writing or production team to have a signature sound, quite something else when someone basically writes 100 versions of the same song, right?

    At least back in the day, folks had a sense of humor about it, right? Motown stuck so close to formula on the first few Four Tops hits (“I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)” and “Reach Out, I’ll Be There”) that the next song they did was called “It’s The Same Old Song” (wink, wink…nudge, nudge).

    This process started getting really stale in the late Eighties, when every faceless dance act released a second single that sounded exactly like the single before (Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” and “Together Forever”, Real McCoy’s “Another Night” and “Run Away” and Ace of Base’s “All That She Wants” and “The Sign” being just a few examples), but the Norwegian production team of Stargate has gone just a wee bit overboard. Although for some reason I can’t quite pinpoint, I actually *like* all of these songs!!

    Compare for yourself:

    Ne-Yo’s “So Sick”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hvI9kAUTKA
    vs.
    Lionel Richie’s “I Call it Love”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx-PJfsvR5Q
    and Elliott Yamin’s “Wait For You”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEskpfHOTAk

    AND

    Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFtICBASrpY
    vs.
    Chris Brown’s “With You”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqumjziPTzk
    and Ne-Yo’s “Go On Girl”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49P8X438NZk

    What do YOU think??