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Pop Rock Nation

Tag: Amy Winehouse

  • Is Entertainment Weekly’s List of the 100 Greatest Albums of the Past 25 Years a Purple Mess?

    I actually meant to discuss this a couple weeks ago when it was actually current news, but hey, better late than never.

    I’m a list guy. I can spend hours, days on end attempting to make sense of lists of the best sitcoms of all time, or whether “Off the Wall” or “Thriller” is the Purple Rain Cover better Michael Jackson album (“Off the Wall” is), or…well, you get the picture. Anyway, the folks at “Entertainment Weekly” published their 1,000th issue a couple weeks ago (congratulations to them), and they posted lists of the 100 greatest TV shows, movies, books and records of the past 25 years. While the TV and movie lists were interesting (book lists don’t move me), I was most intrigued by their list of the Top 100 albums. Sitting pretty at the top of the list was…”To the Extreme” by Vanilla Ice.

    Obviously, I’m kidding. The album they picked for the #1 spot was Prince’s “Purple Rain”, which struck me as sort of a strange choice. I mean, it’s logical. Hell, it’s an incredible fucking album. It’s just not a standard or expected choice. I would have expected “OK Computer” or “Nevermind” (both of which would have been as deserving…”Nevermind” didn’t even make the list), or, if the EW folks wanted to be edgy, Winehouse’s “Back To Black” or any of the three qualifying Kanye West albums. But “Purple Rain” just seems like sort of a left-field choice, or as left-field as any album as huge as “Purple Rain” was can be, considering the damn thing spent damn near six months at #1 on the charts.

    (more…)

  • Chart Chat 5/25/08: Duffy, Keith Sweat & More!!


    Y’all know what it is…here are this week’s Top 20 Singles & Albums, courtesy of the folks at Billboard.

    Top 20 Singles:

    1) “Lollipop” Lil’ Wayne feat. Static Major
    2) “Bleeding Love” Leona Lewis
    3) “Take a Bow” Rihanna
    4) “Love in This Club” Usher feat. Young Jeezy
    5) “No Air” Jordin Sparks & Chris Brown
    6) “Sexy Can I” Ray J. feat. Yung Berg
    7) “4 Minutes” Madonna feat. Justin Timberlake
    8) “Pocketful of Sunshine” Natasha Bedingfield
    9) “Touch My Body” Mariah Carey
    10) “Damaged” Danity Kane
    11) “Love Song” Sara Bareilles
    12) “Leavin’” Jesse McCartney
    13) “Bust it Baby Pt. II” Plies feat. Ne-Yo
    14) “What You Got” Colby O’ Donis feat. Akon
    15) “Say” John Mayer
    16) “Low” Flo-Rida feat. T-Pain
    17) “With You” Chris Brown
    18) “Love in This Club Part II” Usher feat. Beyonce & Lil’ Wayne
    19) “Bye Bye” Mariah Carey
    20) “Forever” Chris Brown

    Top 20 Albums:

    1) “Narrow Stairs” Death Cab for Cutie
    2) “Nothing But the Best” Frank Sinatra
    3) “We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things” Jason Mraz
    4) “Rockferry” Duffy
    5) “Spirit” Leona Lewis
    6) “E=MC2” Mariah Carey
    7) “Home Before Dark” Neil Diamond
    8) “Hard Candy” Madonna
    9) “35 Biggest Hits” Toby Keith
    10) “Just Me” Keith Sweat
    11) “Taylor Swift” Taylor Swift
    12) “Division” 10 Years
    13) “Now That’s What I Call Music 27” Various Artists
    14) “Greatest Hits: Every Mile a Memory” Dierks Bentley
    15) “Gavin DeGraw” Gavin DeGraw
    16) “Awake Live” Josh Groban
    17) “Lyfe Change” Lyfe Jennings
    18) “On My Way Here” Clay Aiken
    19) “Juno” Soundtrack
    20) “Sleep Through the Static” Jack Johnson

    *So…um…who the hell is 10 Years? Not that I profess to be the beginning and ending of all things music, but it’s a bit rare for me to have never once heard of an artist in the Top 20. Oh,well.

    *A nice cluster of newbies in the Top 4, including a well-deserved bow at the top from Death Cab for Cutie.I’d imagine the biggest surprise would be from British soul singer Duffy at #4. Her single “Mercy” also rockets up the chart, landing in the Top 30 this week.

    …and is it me, or does this song sound suspiciously like…

    *As tipped off last week, Usher cruises into the Top 20 with his “Love in This Club” remix, which features the beyond-ubiquitous Lil’ Wayne as well as only slightly less ubiquitous Beyonce. Personally, I think it’s time for *both* of them to take a vacation.

    *Clay Aiken, I think it’s time to say bye-bye to your career, eh?

    *Keith Sweat is in the Top 10 of the album charts for the first time in almost a decade (and hits the #1 spot on the R&B albums chart for the sixth time). Proof that begging will *never* go out of style!

    Let’s take it back!!!

  • Random Music Geekdom Plus A Tribute To Phyllis Hyman

    There’s so much crap I could talk about. Beyonce and Jay-Z are officially married, Kanye’s tour is getting rave reviews, Stone Temple Pilots may be recording an album soon, Weezer’s new album cover is indescribably gay, Winehouse is a hot mess…yada, yada, yada. But since I don’t really have anything to focus on, and there’s not a whole lot of really *musical* musical news going on right now, I figured I’d freestyle a little bit and back off a little from the typical topics, so…

    1) Please check out popdose.com. That site features contributions from some of the geekiest music geeks I’ve ever laid eyes on, and that’s said with lots of affection. I don’t always agree with what they say (and they share the typical suburban white attitude to a lot of R&B and hip-hop that gets under my skin from time to time…sidenote: why is it that if you’re black and you point out a trait that seems to be common to another ethnicity, you’re seen as a militant?), but they love their Eighties, they love their Michael McDonald, and they’re all very good writers. It is, hands down, my favorite music-related website around. Bookmark it, but make sure you read here first 🙂

    2) Because I’m a music geek like the Popdose guys, I’m starting to compile a list of the 500 Greatest Albums Made Since My Birth (for the record, I was born sometime in late spring 1976). There’ll be no Beatles, and the best of Motown will get left off, but I actually think I’m gonna go waay over 500 and then will require some paring down. Stay tuned. I’ll probably post it here when I’m done.

    3) I was a little bored (intentionally, I needed some chill time) last night and found myself wandering around YouTube, when I came upon a video clip that moved me so much I had to share it with you.

    Most of you do not know who Phyllis Hyman was. She actually never charted a single on the Billboard Top 100 singles chart (this was back in the days when R&B artists had to cross over in order to chart pop), although she scored something like 17 Top 40 R&B singles over the course of her career (hitting #1 with 1991’s “Don’t Wanna Change The World”. She was equally capable of singing jazzy torch songs as she was singing songs that subtly hinted at funk. She toured Broadway with the Duke Ellington tribute musical “Sophisticated Ladies”, and performed songs written by everyone from Barry Manilow to Hall of Famers and Philly Soul architects Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff. In the process of a nearly twenty-year career, she set the stage for mature R&B vocalists like Anita Baker and Sade.

    This performance is from a show that dates somewhere between 1986-1987. She apparently had just lost a good friend, and the writer of this song, Linda Creed (who also wrote “Betcha By Golly Wow” and “The Greatest Love of All”) had also just passed away from cancer. The woman is sobbing throughout the entire performance of the song and yet still gives it her all. It is a touching performance, almost painful to watch. But listen and you will fall in love with the power of this woman’s voice. I’ve been talking to friends lately about vocalists’ ability to inhabit a song. It’s what separates mere singers from legends. It’s what separates an Ashanti from a Mary J. Blige, you know? Phyllis was not only a great singer, she was a master interpreter.

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=pgT7AyPmjfM (here is the live performance)

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=uucSuUiKvcg (here is the original studio version of the song)

    http://terrencesays.blogspot.com/2006/11/saturday-morning-video-phyllis-hyman.html (a link to a 1992 performance on the Arsenio Hall show)

    Phyllis apparently felt the pain of the lyrics she sang in a very acute fashion. Racked for years by addictions to food and alcohol, feeling like she never got her due as a performer and suffering from bipolar disorder, she committed suicide in 1995.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllis_Hyman

    http://www.phyllishymanstory.com/ (a book on the singer’s life was recently published)

    This, folks, is real music. Enjoy.