web analytics

Pop Rock Nation

Blog

  • News On Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, American Idol, And Kanye West

    Rihanna
    I was only going to write about Rihanna, but other bits of news came out today that I thought were interesting as well.

    Rihanna

    According to MTV.com, Rihanna has joined the cast of the upcoming Peter Berg directed film, Battleship, which I’m assuming is a take on the classic kids’ game.

    She’ll join my man Tim Riggins (aka Taylor Kitsch from the TV show Friday Night Lights) and Alexander Skarsgård, who is best known for his role in True Blood.

    It will be the first movie for the pop princess who has a number one single out there with Eminem, called Love The Way You Lie. The movie is scheduled to come out in the spring of 2012.

    Justin Timberlake and American Idol

    The Rolling Stone’s website has a bit about possible American Idol changes.

    The show is reportedly close to a deal to bring back producer Nigel Lythgoe (who left in 2008) in an executive producer role while targeting new candidates including Justin Timberlake and Elton John as potential replacements for Cowell, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

    While the article does say that getting Timberlake would be a long shot, he’d be the perfect replacement. I can’t believe I never thought about him. In my opinion, he’s just as talented a TV performer as he is a music artist. If you’ve ever seen him on Saturday Night Live, you know what I mean. He’d be the anti-Cowell, but he’d bring instant credibility, super stardom, and the ability to create off the top of his head.

    The article also says Lythgoe isn’t a fan of the four judge panel, which could be bad for Kara DioGuardi who is the only judge with a little bit of Cowell in her. It would also be bad for me as I think I may just be her biggest fan.

    Kanye West

    Kanye West made the Silicon Valley rounds today, showing up at both Facebook and Twitter headquarters. He also created a Twitter account and you can find him @kanyewest.

    He previewed some lyrics from his new album, which he says is now not going to be called Good Ass Job. I always liked that name.



    You can also check out photos of Kanye at Twitter on Flickr.

    Photo of Rihanna shared via Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

  • First Look – The Fire By The Roots

    Just last week, I wrote about The Roots and John Legend teaming up for a new album called Wake Up Everybody. I also embedded a song from The Roots new album How I Got Over called The Fire, which features John Legend.

    Now, that song has a video. Questlove tweeted out this message earlier today:

    if ever i needed the power of 1.3 million RTs and you claim you love The Roots its NOW http://youtu.be/n94URvpQOAc #HIGO (WATCH THE VIDEO!)

    How about I do him one better? Since The Roots’ new album is the leader in the clubhouse for my favorite album of 2010, I’ll embed the video below.

  • New Music From Lauryn Hill? Repercussions

    Recently, as in the last day or so, a previously unreleased Lauryn Hill track was leaked and as is usually the case with anything unreleased by an artist of Hill’s stature, the Internet blew up.

    Ok, I’m hyperbolizing a bit and I think I just created a new verb. What makes this more intriguing than most leaks is that Hill’s career is as mysterious as a previously unreleased track itself.

    After being one of the most revered artists in the late 90s, her career went off the deep end.

    There was that infamous unplugged album that she dropped in the early 2000s that showed her in a stage of her life that was much different from the perception of what a brilliant artist should be. She seemed, well, crazy. And she was fine with showing that.

    Then there was the supposed Fugees reunion that started and stopped. There was even an iTunes single called Take It Easy that left a lot to be desired. Wyclef and Pras both publicly blamed the situation on Hill and said she was hard to work with and never on time.

    But recently, there has been hope for Lauryn fans. She has started performing live here and there and is slated for the Rock The Bells tour. The timing of this unreleased track is interesting simply because it seems that she’s trying to come back into the public eye, even if it’s been in slow motion so far.

    This song is probably not necessarily “new”, because supposedly Lauryn has a ton of unreleased material from previous restarts of her career that stopped for whatever reason.

    Check out Repercussions: