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Tag: Sheila E

  • American Idol Season 10 – And The Winner Is …

    Like I said yesterday in my American Idol recap on Popblerd!, this season is a bit anticlimactic. It’s reminiscent of the Jordin Sparks/Blake Lewis clash. Neither contestant was super interesting or had a great story and they were simply nice kids. That’s how I feel about this year’s finale.

    Based on last night, Lauren clearly out-performed Scotty, but really, it’s not about what happened last night. What’s more important is how much of a fanbase each was able to create throughout the season. I’ve pegged Lauren as this season’s winner from day one based on how I think they can market her. She’s much more in the Kelly Clarkson/Carrie Underwood zone than anyone else they’ve had in the past several years. But Scotty has those girly girls voting for him in droves. And that could prove to be the difference.

    I received this tweet from elliehempleman which made me excited for the show.

    @roheblius you finally got to see @JLo shake her money maker. Worth the wait?

    (She’s on the East Coast so she was able to see the show before I was.)

    Wait, I just saw Aunt Becky (lesser known as Dixon’s and Annie’s mom) in the audience! That woman never ages.

    We’re going to do this a little differently tonight. Here come the bullet points!

    – The top 13 is singing Lady Gaga’s Born This Way. Are they trying to tell us something?
    – If Pia dressed like this during the season, she would’ve never lost.
    – Haley is wearing some of the hottest hot pants I’ve ever seen.
    – Hey, Karen Rodriguez, thanks for reminding me what you look like.
    – James Durbin is performing with Judas Priest. He’s wearing a captain’s hat and a sleeveless vest, looking like he wants to bring back The Village People.
    – Jacob Lusk and Kurt Franklin are performing together. Gladys Knight just came on stage to sing with them, but without the Pimps. Oprah Winfrey is shaking her head for not thinking of this trio for her final week of shows.
    – Casey and Jack Black are on stage together and they both have new movies coming out this weekend. For Black’s it’s Kung Fu Panda 2 and for Casey, The Hangover 2.
    – The girls of American Idol performed a flurry of Beyonce’s hits and it really made you appreciate Beyonce as both a singer and a performer. Haley has a little funk in her though. Pia, not so much.
    – Beyonce came out and just killed everything. They’ve had some fantastic performers on this show before, but she leaves most in the dust. And who doesn’t enjoy that Beyonce shake? I’ll take two.
    – They rolled out the corpse of Tony Bennett to sing with Haley. Who am I kidding? This dude has more life than I do.
    – In the “5 Years Late” department, Lil’ Jon came out on the stage. And in the “15 Years Late” department, TLC came out. But damn, Chili is still fine. The moral of the story is and always will be, “Don’t go chasin’ waterfalls, y’all.”
    – Tim McGraw came out to sing with Scotty, but really, he just should’ve started bench pressing him. Scotty’s a little light in the ass to be on stage with McGraw.
    – So this is what happens when your wife is the star of the show. Marc Anthony is out singing and I’ll be fine with this if J. Lo comes out and dances for him. If not, it’s a waste of my five minutes.
    – If Marc wasn’t a Grammy winning singer and was just some dude from the hood, wouldn’t he look like someone who kidnaps children?
    – J. Lo is out with him and she is shaking what her momma gave her. I think Beyonce threw down the gauntlet and J. Lo answered the challenge.
    – Sheila E. was banging on some drums too. It’s always great to see Sheila.
    – While the Idol dudes were out performing, my son says, “How does Scotty do it? Did he hypnotize the judges. I just don’t think he’s very good.”
    – Tom Jones came out to sing It’s Not Unusual. If Carlton comes out dancing, I will declare this show the greatest of all time.
    – It didn’t happen, though Jacob tried his hardest to channel his inner Carlton.
    – Hey, it’s Lady Gaga. At least this time, she’s actually on stage, rather than from her own concert like a couple of weeks ago.
    – Lauren started to sing some Carrie (you know, that song about Tony Romo) and you just knew Carrie was coming out to sing with her. Someone needs to feed Carrie a couple sammiches. She still has that terrible case of noassatall.
    – Beyonce is out again singing her new single 1 Plus 1. Let’s just say that this is a smidgen better than Beyonce’s current single about the girls who are running the world. Ok, maybe 100 times better.
    – Finally, we get some Steven Tyler live. Sing it Stevie!

    It’s now time. Who wins season 10 of American Idol?

    And the winner is … Scotty McCreery!

    Well, 10 years of American Idol are in the books. And I’m tired. See you next year.

    Photo of Carrie Underwood is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

  • New Music In Stores & Online 7/29/08: Wow, This Is Bad

    In most years, there’s a period from mid-July to mid-August during which NOTHING comes out. As a record buyer, this is frustrating because you’re walking into record stores and not finding a thing that strikes your interest. On the other hand, with the holiday selling season closer than you think, it might be a good idea to save your money for the deluge that awaits.

    Anywhere, here’s my five picks (if I must) out of this week’s releases. How bad is it? I’m actually mentioning one of the same releases this week that I mentioned last week. Thank God for semantics.

    Sugarland “Love on the Inside”-The hottest country duo in the land took an interesting tactic with their new release. It came out last week in a “deluxe” edition, while this week marks the introduction of the presumably less-bells-and-whistles containing (and cheaper) regular version. Ten years ago, if you were to tell me that I’d even be considering buying an album like this, I’d have laughed you into September, but I’ve acquired a fondness for modern-day country. Although I’ve not heard much of Sugarland (aside from the godawful duet with Bon Jovi that I mentioned in last week’s column), I could very well be tempted to check this one out.

    Country duo Sugarland\'s new CD \"Love on the Inside\"

    http://www.sugarlandmusic.com/splash.html

    Rick Springfield “Venus in Overdrive”-Here’s something that just might freak you out. The guy that teenage girls drooled over in the early Eighties (my cousin had a picture of him hanging in her bedroom back in the day) is approaching 60. SIXTY. Nevertheless, the indefatigable Springfield continues playing and touring. This is Rick’s first album of original material in five years. His last album, “The Day After Yesterday” was an interesting collection of covers. I said “interesting”, not good.

    http://rickspringfield.com/

    (more…)

  • A Purple Celebration: Happy Birthday, Mr. Nelson


    Today, June 7th, 2008, is Prince Rogers Nelson’s 50th birthday. And despite the contrarian, slightly grumpy figure he’s cut over the last couple of years, no one can deny that these 62 inches of dynamite are responsible for some of the best music made over the past thirty years.

    In an age where most artists or bands are lucky to cut two or three classic albums, Prince has made at least four absolutely perfect (Dirty Mind, 1999, Purple Rain and Sign ‘o The Times) albums, with another 5 or 6 that come close (Controversy, Parade and The Gold Experience chief among those). He’s the total package-one of the all-time greats on two instruments (guitar and keyboards), a strong songwriter, an amazing entertainer and a top-shelf vocalist.

    Turn on pop radio today and every song that doesn’t sound like Michael Jackson sounds like Prince. The hollow drum-machine suound that he perfected in the early Eighties is still in just about every Neptunes, Timbaland or will.i.am production. Justin Timberlake can talk shit all he wants, but all “FutureSex/LoveSounds” is, is a Prince album with Michael Jackson vocals.

    Shit, how many artists are so bad ass that you can put together a greatest hits album of songs that he’s written and/or produced but didn’t sing and it would still be as bangin’ as a greatest hits album comprised solely of music he wrote/produced/performed?

    Since Mr. Nelson is notoriously prickly about people posting footage of him on the web, I won’t dig through Youtube to find video footage of him. However, we can’t celebrate the man properly without at least some music, so enjoy some excellent music that while not fronted by the man, contained his involvement.

    Stevie Nicks’ “Stand Back” was not only heavily influenced by Prince’s “1999”, but the man himself played keyboards on this record and got a co-write credit for his handiwork.

    “A Love Bizarre” is essentially a Prince song. He sings every line along with Sheila E. and adlibs enough that the song really should be considered a duet.

    Maybe someday, someone will be nice enough to release The Family’s album on CD. For those unaware, The Family was Prince’s attempt to a) keep a band in his stable after the dissolution of The Time and b) “get some of that Duran Duran money”. Their 1985 album is a highly soughty-after classic, not only because it’s a great album but also because it contains the original version of “Nothing Compares 2 U”, which went on to become a huge #1 for Sinead O’ Connor.

    Happy birthday, Mr. Nelson. How many guys out there can rock the shit out of Radiohead’s “Creep” in high heels while only being 15 years away from social security?