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Pop Rock Nation

Tag: Rihanna

  • 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

  • American Idol Season 9 – Who Makes The Top 8?

    This is the first week in the newest season in which I have no real idea who is going home. No one had a performance which just caused you to hold your nose so as not to smell the stench coming out of the television.

    Our brown-haired punching bag, Teflon Timothy didn’t even have his usual stink-a-roo performance, which could work against him. Why? Well, in the previous weeks, his fans were trying to save him out of desperation and fear. This week, they’re probably not as desperate.

    With a water gun to my head, I think my Mexican brother Andrew Garcia is the one who probably takes the hit. He’s nowhere near the worst singer left, but then again, neither was Paige Miles. Santa’s little helper, Aaron Kelly is now grating my nerves, but I don’t think people are ready to see him go. I think Teflon Timothy does survive one more week, but it will be much harder next week.

    Onto the elimination …

    Ryno makes creepy girl stand-up first. He pulls her toward the center of the stage.

    Crystal Bowersox is next to have her emotions played with. She joins creepy girl at the center of the stage.

    Young Katie Stevens joins them. They are the girl power group of three.

    Crystal is safe. And so are Katie and creepy girl. Well, that was a waste.

    But it does mean that it’s an all-dude bottom three. That sounded kind of lewd.

    Jason Derulo is performing. I really like his energy and think he’s more than just a one hit wonder. He was also signed by my wife, Miss Kara DioGuardi. And if I wasn’t so lazy, I’d put the umlaut over the “u” in his name. But I don’t want to do the google search to figure out the HTML. I want to watch dude perform.

    I enjoy Whatcha Say more as a song, but he performers In My Head instead. He may eventually need to lose that Freddie Jackson mustache. If I told you that he outperformed Usher (who was on this show last week), would you believe me? Well, he did.

    David Archuleta
    Last night, I was wondering who was going to try to pull off Imagine and no one did. Instead, we get David Archuleta, who performed this song during his season, to give it to us. You mean Blake Lewis was busy?

    It was probably his money performance of his season, though I’d say guest starring on iCarly was a bigger thrill for me personally. Ok, I think I just might’ve given you more information about myself than necessary.

    David Archuleta and Aaron Kelly could both be in the new Harry Potter movie and I’m not sure anyone would recognize them. Accio!

    It’s Lee’s turn to stand-up. Ryno’s going to split the rest of the guys into two groups. One group will be the safe group. One group will be the all-male bottom three. There I go again.

    Lee goes to one side and Big Mike starts another group. Casey joins Lee and Aaron joins Big Mike. Tim joins Lee and Casey. I can tell you right now that Aaron, Big Mike, and Andrew are the bottom three.

    I could make a slightly political/racial statement about the two minorities being in the bottom three, but let’s face it, we know who watches this show.

    Aaron Kelly is safe, predictably. I’ll save the speech and just say, demographics, demographics, demographics.

    If Big Mike is the the guy to go home, I think the judges save him. If Andrew goes home, I don’t think they save him.

    Rihanna performs Rock Star 101. Jeez, she’s going through singles like morning donuts at an Internet company. I think she’s singing live, but it’s not like the song is all that hard to sing. She’s wearing this tight patent leather suit that only she and Lady Gaga can pull off these days. But it’s hiding her trunk a bit and that makes me sad.

    Andrew Garcia is safe and Big Mike goes home. Wow! First shocker of the season. Let’s hope he gets saved.

    He’s singing Woman’s Work while his wife is crying. That was heartbreaking.

    Here’s video of the first time he performed the song:

    They used the save! Big Mike is back next week and if it’s anything like last year, there will be two eliminations last week.

    Seacrest out!

  • Stranded

    We’ve told you about the Haiti charity singles that are soon to be released such as the Simon Cowell All-Star version of Everybody Hurts and the 25th Anniversary 2010 version of We Are The World. I wanted to give props to another song that was put together for the same reason.

    While we haven’t heard the final update to the We Are The World remake, I’m going to guess that it won’t be able to match the perfect combination of Jay-Z, Rihanna, and Bono on Stranded (Haiti Mon Amour).

    I didn’t watch the Hope For Haiti special live. But I did go on iTunes and download both the album and concert broadcast. I thought all of the songs performed by Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, and others came straight from the heart. The performances were subdued and the artists let their voices shine as to not overshadow the goal of the evening, which was to raise money for Haiti.

    Save for Shakira’s I’ll Stand By You, which I simply couldn’t get into because of her wailing, I enjoyed everything. It was a perfect evening, not only for the money that was raised for Haiti, but also for how the music community showed that once again it can come together when needed.

    The best thing I heard that night, and maybe the best thing I’ve heard in a long time was Stranded (Haiti Mon Amour). From Jay-Z’s whispery delivery, “When the sky falls and the earth quakes, we gon’ put this back together, we won’t break,” to Rihanna and Bono complimenting each other on the chorus, it’s a song that I hope becomes timeless.

    If you haven’t heard it or seen the performance, it’s definitely worth checking out.