Archive: November 2009 (41-50 of 119)

Nov 18 2009 12:52 PM ET

Beyonce & Gaga, 'Video Phone' official clip: When divas attack

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Categories: Beyonce, Divas!, Lady Gaga, Music Videos, New Stuff

Oh, Gagoncé: Until the day that the pop universe inevitably black-holes in one final blast of glitter, comet dust and tranny couture, these two can’t stop-won’t stop. Watch the new clip for their collaboration “Video Phone,” below:

It’s not so much a battle of the supernovas as a sort of Jupiter-and-an-orbiting-moon-in-a-white-bustier situation we’re having here; this is B’s show—La Gaga’s just guesting in it. (Though we’d love to see Gaga get a sammy for a co-star while she’s at it; homegirl is looking worryingly gaunt these days.)

I cannot tell a lie: Beyonce’s 8573 costume changes are delicious. Love the Bettie Page vibes; not mad at the Bond Girl monokini. Leather thigh-high garter boots? Casual Friday, I salute you!

But these two don’t look like friends, or even like they’re really having fun together. Too much ego? Too little time? Bad catering? Not sure, but it’s not quite the I Dream of Divas bonanza I was hoping for… However: I defer to you, readers—do your dream-cups runneth over?

More from EW.com’s Music Mix:
Bon Jovi tops the albums chart
Marina and the Diamonds: The Music Mix Recommends
Lady Gaga can’t win a Best New Artist Grammy, so who should?
New Lady Gaga, ‘Telephone’: Stream it here
Mariah Carey’s ‘I Want to Know What Love Is’ video: Play ball!
Chris Brown’s “Crawl” video: He feels remorseful about a lost love. Do you care?

Nov 18 2009 11:49 AM ET

Bon Jovi tops the albums chart

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Categories: Bon Jovi, Charts

Bon Jovi have come full Circle on the Billboard 200, notching their second consecutive No. 1 debut with 163,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan. (For what it’s worth, the Jersey vets’ last album got there with a more impressive 292,000.) They were by far the biggest-selling new release in a fairly quiet week.

Down at No. 8, Flyleaf gave the world 56,000 Memento Moris. Switchfoot made it to No. 13 with 39,000 copies sold of Hello Hurricane. Dashboard Confessional took No. 19 with 30,000 copies sold of Alter the Ending.

That was it for chart debuts this week. In other developments, Lady Antebellum‘s 2008 debut vaulted back into the Top 20 at No. 11 after a memorable performance at the Country Music Awards helped them move 45,000 units — more than double what they did the previous week.

What do you think of this week’s chart offerings? Any surprises? Who do you expect to come out on top next week, when John Mayer, Kris Allen, Justin Bieber, Norah Jones, and others will face off?

(Follow the Music Mix on Twitter: @EWMusicMix.)

More from EW.com’s Music Mix:
Charts on the Music Mix
Rock ‘n’ roll wine tie-ins
Miley Cyrus not a Twilight fan: “I’ve never seen it, nor will I ever”
Kris Allen: A track-by-track analysis of his self-titled debut album

Nov 18 2009 11:21 AM ET

Neil Young's 'One of These Days': An EW exclusive stream from his new live album

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Categories: An EW Exclusive!, Neil Young

Neil Young has never had a problem treating fans to material that he hasn’t yet released. Mind you, “treating” may not be the right word in some instances. In 1973 he played all of the great, but unarguably bleak and then unreleased, Tonight’s The Night on tour. The idiosyncratic rocker assured restless fans he would eventually get round to playing something they’d heard before—and then proved himself (technically) true to his word by blasting out the album’s title track again at the end. Audience reaction, needless to say, was mixed.

One suspects fans were happier at Young’s solo acoustic shows in 1992 when the singer-songwriter debuted material from his forthcoming Harvest Moon, a collection that found him in acoustically-inclined, country-rock, mood and a much more immediately accessible work than Tonight’s the Night. Young’s new release, Dreamin’ Man Live ’92, essentially offers a live, stripped-back, version of Harvest Moon made up of recordings culled from those shows. The CD, which is part of the Archives Performance Series, is released on December 8, but you can hear an exclusive stream of the mellow, melancholic, “One of These Days” below.

Did you see Neil perform in 1992? Or in 1973? In fact, if you’ve ever seen the man in the flesh and have a tale to tell, let us know!

(Follow the Music Mix on Twitter: @EWMusicMix.)

More from EW.com’s Music Mix:
Norah Jones: Current listening
Peter Gabriel covers Arcade Fire, Radiohead, Regina Spektor: When rock worlds collide
New Lady Gaga, ‘Telephone’: Stream it here
New Grizzly Bear video ‘Ready, Able’: Viva la claymation
 Solange covers the Dirty Projectors, delivers little bit of awesome

Nov 18 2009 10:07 AM ET

Norah Jones reveals her current listening and the identity of her CD cover canine costar

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Categories: Current Listening, MGMT, Neil Young, Norah Jones, Santigold

Norah Jones’ new CD, The Fall, (out yesterday) finds the chanteuse heading off in a rockier direction with a collection partly inspired by her break-up with boyfriend and musical collaborator Lee Alexander.

All of which has little to do with the burning question EW wants Ms. Jones to answer: Who is that gorgeous monster-hound with her on the cover? “His name is Ben,” she tells EW. “He’s just somebody’s pet in Brooklyn. The photographer had this idea to have 15 dogs swarming around, but this one was so beautiful we took some solo shots. I didn’t bring my own dog. He’s a poodle, but he’s 20 pounds and looks like Fozzie Bear and he would have incited chaos.”

Jones also revealed what music is currently making her go “Woof!” “I just loved that Santigold record, and MGMT. I love Elvis Perkins, I’ve been listening to that a lot. But I’m, like, obsessed with Neil Young. I’m listening to Zuma and Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere a lot. He seems like someone that just does whatever the hell he wants. And God love him for that!”

More from EW.com’s Music Mix:
Marina and the Diamonds: The Music Mix Recommends
Peter Gabriel covers Arcade Fire, Radiohead, Regina Spektor: When rock worlds collide
New Lady Gaga, ‘Telephone’: Stream it here
New Grizzly Bear video ‘Ready, Able’: Viva la claymation
 Solange covers the Dirty Projectors, delivers little bit of awesome

Nov 17 2009 05:39 PM ET

Rock n' Roll wine tie-ins: Go to our hee-ee-eead, make us forget that we still need you so

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Categories: Wine

I was at the grocery store buying a last minute present for a friend’s birthday party a couple weekends ago — what? it was on the way to the restaurant! — and while perusing the gift cards, I happened to notice the ugliest goddamn bottles of wine I’d ever seen, like someone had slapped a totes-hids Ed Hardy sweatshirt on a defenseless chardonnay and then jacked the price up by $20. Upon closer examination, it was just as I feared: Christian Audigier, a.k.a. The Dude Who Makes Those Totes-Hids Ed Hardy Sweatshirts, has branched out into wine, covering the bottles with skulls and roses and panthers and all the other symbols of rampant ‘Oughts douchebaggery we’ve come to know and love thanks to such fine role models as Jon Gosselin and Bret Michaels. The wine actually has a MySpace page. If this were a sketchy club, I think the wine would be hitting on us. And when you think about it, this idea is not so bad. Hell, I bought a bottle. (Joke purchase = still a purchase.)

And that’s not all from the intersection of music culture and fermented grapes! Today’s inbox played host to not one but two press releases featuring ways for us common folk to make our wine racks rawk. Read on!

READ FULL STORY »

Nov 17 2009 04:56 PM ET

Miley Cyrus not a 'Twilight' fan: 'I've never seen it, nor will I ever'

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Categories: Kids Do the Darndest Things, Miley Cyrus, Movies, Twilight

It’s like the Easter bunny just pooped on a unicorn. Miley Cyrus, tween America’s pole-prancing, party-in-the-U.S.A.-ing overlord, wants nothing to do with Twilight—arguably the only pop cultural benchmark more important to her target demographic than her own multi-media empire.

“I’ve never seen [Twilight], and nor will I ever,” she tells Ohio radio station Q92 in a filmed backstage interview. “I don’t believe in it—I don’t believe in it. I don’t like vampires, I don’t like any of the stuff, like the wolf that pops out of the screen when I’m watching my TV at night. I don’t like it, I don’t want anything to do with it. I don’t like the shirts, any of it.”

Watch the clip after the jump, beginning just before the one-minute mark:

READ FULL STORY »

Nov 17 2009 04:02 PM ET

Kris Allen: A track-by-track analysis of his self-titled debut album

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Categories: American Idol, Kris Allen

My colleague Whitney Pastorek recently reviewed Kris Allen’s self-titled debut (out today) — check out her thoughts, and her grade here — but as EW’s resident Idoloonie, I couldn’t let today’s momentous release go by without a borderline crazy analysis of every track on the record. Yeah, I know, I already went overboard on lead single “Live Like We’re Dying” (as a snippet, a full song, and a video), and I previously weighed in on 30-second leaks and/or live Miami performances of the American Idol season 8 champ’s remaining dozen tracks. But for those of you who’ve either declared Nov. 17 as Kris Allen Day or who don’t understand the meaning of an Idol off-season, the following deep dive is for you. Let’s get the party started, in chronological order, after the jump! READ FULL STORY »

Nov 17 2009 03:52 PM ET

Jack White to produce Queen of Rockabilly Wanda Jackson's next album

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Categories: Jack White, Music, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Things That Are Awesome

At long last it looks like rock’s first lady, Wanda Jackson, is finally getting her due. Yes, it helps that the 72-year-old was just inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but the news that Jack White will be producing her next album makes an authentic comeback seem imminent.

When White produced Loretta Lynn’s 2004 album Van Lear Rose, the country singer went from “forgotten superstar” status to ubiquitous year-end list-topper. His indie cred brought her talent back into public consciousness, not to mention widespread acclaim: Van Lear Rose is still tied for the highest-rated album on metacritic.com.

For those who are kinda fonda Wanda, it’s a thrill that the first woman to holler her way into rock history may get the long-overdue popular reappraisal she deserves. Her ’50s singles never took off like those of her one-time boyfriend Elvis, but gutsy stompers like “Fujiyama Mama,” “Let’s Have a Party” and “Hard Headed Woman” (below) sound raw even today:

And don’t worry that her age will drag this upcoming album down—I saw her live a few years back, and she was still playing guitar and boppin’ the blues like a teenager. It will be fascinating to see how she and White mesh together, and it’s great to think that if all goes well creatively, Jackson could finally garner the mainstream acclaim that has so often eluded her.

Do you think the White Stripes/Raconteurs/Dead Weather frontman can pull a Rick Rubin a la Johnny Cash and bring Jackson back to the top of her game? And what other sadly neglected rock n’ roll originals would you love to hear given a fresh start in the studio?

More from EW.com’s Music Mix:
Marina and the Diamonds: The Music Mix recommends
Peter Gabriel covers Arcade Fire, Radiohead, Regina Spektor: When rock worlds collide
Bob Dylan’s ‘Must Be Santa’: New Christmas classic or ‘Animaniacs’ homage?
 Solange covers the Dirty Projectors, delivers little bit of awesome
Joni Mitchell, James Taylor help birth Greenpeace: An EW exclusive stream

Nov 17 2009 02:14 PM ET

Marina and the Diamonds: The Music Mix recommends

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Categories: Buzzworthy, EW Recommends, Indie Rock, New Stuff, Things That Are Beautiful, Things That Are British

God bless the Queen—and the fantastical alt-pop princesses her U.K. dominion has yielded in 2009. To the list of spiritual-starchild Kate Bush descendants that includes Florence and the Machine, Ellie Goulding, and Bat for Lashes, add Marina and the Diamonds, a.k.a. 24-year-old Welsh space oddity Marina Diamandis.

Though her first major-label single, a re-recording of “Mowgli’s Road” from February’s Obsessions EP, falls to earth today in Europe, a full-length isn’t due until next year, and her physical-release presence in the U.S. is so far limited to a small run on the Neon Gold imprint; Warner Bros. will reportedly be taking over her business Stateside.

Having finally recovered from the summer-long repeat-repeat-repeat compulsion that was her magi-gorgical  “I Am Not a Robot” video (lie! still playing it), I’ve recently (sort of) moved on to the “Mowgli” clip, below:

What do you think, Music Mixers? Still waiting for the guaranteed-bananas “Seventeen” video to drop, but to me she’s like Rocky Horror and Regina Spektor had a baby, and then hired Fiona Apple to give it afternoon piano lessons, plus absinthe juice box. Et voila! J’adore.

More from EW.com’s Music Mix:
Peter Gabriel covers Arcade Fire, Radiohead, Regina Spektor: When rock worlds collide
New Lady Gaga, ‘Telephone’: Stream it here
New Grizzly Bear video ‘Ready, Able’: Viva la claymation
 Solange covers the Dirty Projectors, delivers little bit of awesome

Nov 17 2009 12:56 PM ET

New Alicia Keys video, 'Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart': It's raining cat(suits) and dogs!

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Categories: Alicia Keys, New Stuff, Video Gaga

Though lead single “Doesn’t Mean Anything,” currently languishing at no. 62 on Billboard’s Hot 100, isn’t exactly setting the pop world aflame, the next track from Alicia Keys’ upcoming Dec. 15 album The Element of Freedom is kind of fire. And now it’s got a video:

Is it sensical that Keys has the Powder-esque ability to to resurrect a dearly-departed Old Yeller with a touch of her healing hand? It is not! Does she look like the world’s foxiest California Raisin in a purple one-shouldered catsuit? She does! Do I love that “Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart” swoons like a Sign ‘O’ the Times-era Prince, and has the best organ-y synth riff since T.I.’s “What You Know”? I do! Is this clip empirically any good at all? Not sure! But I’m sold like Cash 4 Gold, Music Mixers.

More from EW.com’s Music Mix:
Robert Pattinson thinks ‘Twilight’ mania is ‘perhaps close’ to the Beatles
Lady Gaga can’t win a Best New Artist Grammy, so who should?
New Lady Gaga, ‘Telephone’: Stream it here
Mariah Carey’s ‘I Want to Know What Love Is’ video: Play ball!
Rihanna’s violent, disturbing ‘Russian Roulette’ video: How dark is too dark?
Chris Brown’s “Crawl” video: He feels remorseful about a lost love. Do you care?
Solange covers the Dirty Projectors, delivers a little bit of awesome

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