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Tag: Black Eyed Peas

  • Fergie Vs. The Censors – Grammys 2010

    SLoretta Lynneal brought the crowd to life with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Leonard Cohen. Then he opens up with another performance. No boring awards here.

    Roll out the songs.

    Here’s Pink, doing herself proud in front of the industry and a worldwide television artist. Her outfit is a cross between nun’s habit and none habit. She is glamour and spins through the track without blemish eveas she disrobed into truly none. If Jerry Falwell hadn’t died, this would have killed him. Our girl spins as though in a circus, looking sexier by the minute until she is drenched in water and hit every note while spinning above the crowd in fabric.

    Amazing.

    Miranda Lambert and Keith Urban, both beautiful, look pretty pedestrian after that. They announce Loretta Lynn’s Lifetime Achievement Award and a Trustee Award for long-timer producer Walter Miller.

    Best New Artist, the Kiss of Death Grammy, that Gaga should have been eligible for rolls up. I told Money Mike that Hilson was the safe Academy choice although The Ting Tings or MGMT should win. Zac Brown Band pulls the well-deserved upset! The boys look happy, yet even though they are performing later, they get played off.

    Miley Cyrus, all growed up, introduces the Peas. Fergie gets “mother-father” in place instead of the lyric and CBS reacted too late for the delay. CBS began experiencing audio difficulties. Language. After watching Pink spin above the crowd, dripping water and dressed in ribbons, do we really need to worry about some lyric. BEP does their typical strong musical theater performance. I’ve Got A Feeling brought everyone out, robots included.

    Welcome to the Future, they exhort the crowd. Except, you know, for the censorship part.

    Loretta Lynn photo: Scott Schram http://schram.net/

  • Billboard Magazine Lists The Best of 2009

    Now that we’re in the last week of December, we’re being surrounded with all of these Best of Year or Best of Decade wrapups and lists. We’ll be taking a look at some of those over the next two weeks, and I figured the logical place to start would be with the fine folks at Billboard magazine.

    So, what were people buying and listening to on the radio in 2009? Pretty much the same thing they’ve been listening to for most of the decade:dance-oriented pop/R&B with a little country thrown in. Taylor Swift ranked as the year’s top artist and had 2009’s top album with “Fearless”. That particular album is closing in on the 5 million mark in sales and has truly been a crossover sensation. The next few spots on the artist list are pure pop: Beyonce, Lady GaGa (the year’s top new artist), The Black Eyed Peas and Miley Cyrus. Rapper Kanye West breaks up the monotony by placing at #6-he is also the year’s top-ranked male artist. Rock music doesn’t get representation until you get to Nickelback at #9, and after Beyonce, the highest ranked R&B artist is Ne-Yo at #17.

    Beyonce also captures the #2 spot when it comes to the top album of the year, and she’s followed by Nickelback’s “Dark Horse” and a pair of soundtracks-“Twilight” and “Hannah Montana-The Movie”. These positions are based on chart rankings and not actual sales. Soundscan will publish it’s year end rankings…uh, when the year ends in a week and a half.

    Here’s a list of this year’s Top 20 artists and Top 20 albums, according to Billboard.

    Top Artists:

    1) Taylor Swift
    2) Beyonce
    3) Lady GaGa
    4) The Black Eyed Peas
    5) Miley Cyrus
    6) Kanye West
    7) Britney Spears
    8) T.I.
    9) Nickelback
    10) Pink
    11) Kings of Leon
    12) Katy Perry
    13) Flo Rida
    14) Kelly Clarkson
    15) Jason Mraz
    16) The Fray
    17) Ne Yo
    18) Lil Wayne
    19) Rascal Flatts
    20) Zac Brown Band

    …and here are the year’s Top 20 albums:

    1) “Fearless” Taylor Swift
    2) “I Am…Sasha Fierce” Beyonce
    3) “Dark Horse” Nickelback
    4) “Twilight Soundtrack” Various Artists
    5) “Hannah Montana: The Movie Soundtrack” Various Artists
    6) “Circus” Britney Spears
    7) “808s & Heartbreak” Kanye West
    8) “The Fame” Lady GaGa
    9) “Relapse” Eminem
    10) “The E.N.D.” The Black Eyed Peas
    11) “Only by the Night” Kings of Leon
    12) “The Blueprint 3” Jay-Z
    13) “David Cook” David Cook
    14) “The Foundation” Zac Brown Band
    15) “Now That’s What I Call Music 29” Various Artists
    16) “Funhouse” Pink
    17) “Intuition” Jamie Foxx
    18) “No Line on the Horizon” U2
    19) “Unstoppable” Rascal Flatts
    20) “A Different Me” Keyshia Cole

    Interesting personal factoid is that I own 12 of the Top 20 albums of the year, but I actually paid for only 7 of them (Kanye, Jay-Z, U2, Beyonce, Pink, Zac Brown and Kings of Leon).

  • New Release of the Week 6/9/09: Teena Marie

    teena

    Former protege of Rick James, vanilla soul sister, the one and only Lady T. Whatever you call her, Teena Marie is back with her first album in four years, “Congo Square”. The first single, “Can’t Last a Day” has already made noise at urban radio, and with a guest lineup including MC Lyte, Howard Hewett and Faith Evans, it’s sure to spawn even more hits. The R&B scene has been extra-weak so far this year, so here’s hoping Teena’s new album is the kickoff for a good second half of the year on the soul music front.

    Here’s what else comes out tomorrow:

    Mos Def The Ecstatic– After wowing us ten years ago with “Black on Both Sides”, Mos confused us with the overreaching “The New Danger” and then completely threw us off with a deliberate throwaway album in “Tru3 Magic”, an album so lazily put together it didn’t even have a cover. Now off the Geffen label and on Downtown Records (home of Gnarls Barkley, among others), Mighty Mos is back with an album that will hopefully knock the bad taste of the last couple of records out of listener’s mouths. Early reviews are promising.

    Black Eyed Peas The E.N.D.– On the other side of the hip-hop coin are the Black Eyed Peas. My distaste for them is legendary, but what I find more striking is the fact that their new song “Boom Boom Pow” has been the #1 song in the country for the past eight weeks and I have not heard the song ONCE. I’m sure the BEP will sell kajillions of records without my support anyway.

    Sonic Youth The Eternal– After nearly two decades in the MCA/Geffen family, New York alternative legends Sonic Youth are back on an indie label for “The Eternal”. These guys (and girl) have a pretty strong cult following, and since they’re not gonna make a pop breakthrough anytime soon, I don’t think it matters *what* label they’re on. They’re gonna sell what they’re gonna sell anyway.

    Pleasure P. The Introduction of Marcus Cooper– Pleasure P is the former lead voice of raunchy R&B outfit Pretty Ricky, and this is his solo debut. “Boyfriend #2” has already hit the Top 5 on the R&B charts, and the big production guns were definitely brought out for this release, including Cool & Dre, Ne-Yo and Keith Sweat. You’d think that a lot of these groups would stay together longer. It’s not like anyone’s leaving an R&B group these days to have an awesome solo career. Anyone seen Slim from 112 lately? How about Sisqo?

    A full list of this week’s new releases can be found here.