Archive: January 2010 (41-50 of 109)

Jan 21 2010 07:24 PM ET

Lady Gaga at Radio City: Best. Concert. Ever.

Last night, I had the great pleasure of seeing Lady Gaga kick off a sold-out, four-night engagement at New York’s legendary Radio City Music Hall and, lemme tell you Music Mixers, I almost wept with joy. Gaga’s Monster Ball tour is one of the greatest concert experiences of my life. AH-MAZING. I can’t stop thinking about it. In the past week  Gaga had some health issues, but you would never have known based on her tireless energy and robust vocals. This lady is the real deal! She opened the show with “Dance in the Dark” and hardly took a break until the climactic, floor-shaking performance of “Bad Romance.” My personal fave was “Boys Boys Boys,” which she began by asking, “Where are all the gay boys at?” Obvs, I immediately jumped up and began dancing. But there is no doubt that “Bad Romance” was the ultimate showstopper, with all of Radio City on its feet for Gaga’s hit single. The only downside was that Gaga never did one of my fave tunes off The Fame Monster, “Telephone,” but I’ll let it slide. Music Mix-ers, if you have any chance of going to see Gaga at Radio City, I heartily endorse. It could change your life. Or at least just make it really sparkly for a couple of hours.

Have you seen any of Lady Gaga’s shows? Were they as good for you as for me?

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

More from EW.com’s Music Mix:
Heidi Montag has big boobs, tiny album sales: her flop album sells fewer than 1,000 copies its first week
More Lilith Fair artists announced: Is this shaping up to be the best tour of the summer?
Ke$ha tells us all kinds of awesome, crazy stuff: ‘Have I made out with chicks? Hell yeah.’
Simon Cowell plans all-star Haiti benefit single

Jan 21 2010 04:56 PM ET

Heidi Montag has big boobs, tiny album sales: her flop album sells fewer than 1,000 copies its first week

Despite a media blitz (mostly detailing her recent plastic surgeries), Heidi Montag’s Superficial s a total stiff, selling fewer than 1,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. To put that grim number into context, Vampire Weekend topped the charts the same week with 124,000 copies of their disc Contra. Montag told EW just last week that she had spent more than $2 million on the album, leaving her broke, but still wasn’t worried about the album’s success. “I think it’s gonna do great,” said Montag. “I have a million twitter followers and they’re all very excited. So that’s at least a million people right there. It also takes time. I don’t expect it to be instant. Maybe it’s the biggest album in a couple months. Maybe it’s the biggest album in a year. This is the first album of many to come. As long as I can keep affording it and keep doing it, I will because it’s my love and my passion.” EW contacted Montag for comment, but her rep said she was “unavailable for interviews due to Hills filming for the next couple weeks.”

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

More from EW.com’s Music Mix:
Heidi Montag says new album cost almost $2 million, left her broke, is as good as ’Thriller’
More Lilith Fair artists announced: Is this shaping up to be the best tour of the summer?
Ke$ha tells us all kinds of awesome, crazy stuff: ‘Have I made out with chicks? Hell yeah.’
Simon Cowell plans all-star Haiti benefit single

Photo Credit: PacificCoastNewsOnline.com


Jan 21 2010 04:03 PM ET

More Lilith Fair artists announced: Is this shaping up to be the best tour of the summer?

The initial round of female artists slated to join the relaunched Lilith Fair for Summer Oh-Ten was impressive enough — Sarah McLachlan, Miranda Lambert, Janelle Monae, Mary J. Blige, Emmylou Harris, and lots more comprised an eclectic group exciting enough to guarantee my attendance. A second round of names came out today, lending some serious emotional heft and historical weight to the sisterhood: Cat Power, the Gossip, Norah Jones, Beth Orton, and the double lemme-show-you-children-how-it’s-done whammy of Loretta Lynn and Heart. This is already something I am willing to go crazy on, Mixers — and they say there are more “major” artists yet to be announced! (Might those include names like Swift, Clarkson, or Pink?)

Check out the official site for tour stops in your area, and then let us know: Are you ready to buy your tickets yet?

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

More from EW.com’s Music Mix:
Simon Cowell plans all-star Haiti benefit single
U2’s the Edge spills details on their new album: The Music Mix Q&A
Gorillaz drop “Stylo” with help from Bobby Womack, Mos Def
The Swell Season makes a triumphant return to NYC’s Radio City Music Hall
Animal Collective, Jay-Z win Pazz & Jop ‘09 critics’ poll

Jan 21 2010 03:15 PM ET

Ke$ha tells us all kinds of awesome, crazy stuff: 'Have I made out with chicks? Hell yeah.'

This week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly features a profile of randy new pop star Ke$ha (see an exclusive portrait from the photo shoot), who recently overtook Susan Boyle at the top of the charts and has generally been blowing up the music scene like she’s Lady Gaga in 2009. If you know anything about the budding pop princess, you know this: She’s not lacking in the personality department. Ke$ha always has something to say, and it’s usually kinda crazy. So we thought we’d treat you to all the juicy, leftover tidbits from our interview with her. Little gems like how she gets frisky while text messaging and Twittering, her hatred of “celebretards,” and how she wouldn’t want to meet Jay-Z in a rap-off. Enjoy below!

On the glitter around her right eye: “If I smear glitter on my face, you don’t have a choice—you will be more attracted to me. It’s part of our brand makeup. So anyway, then I started thinking, why just do my eyes? Why not my entire body? And at the end of my shows why don’t I put a backpack on that’s like a hand-held cannon and blast glitter at people? So not only do I look attractive, but so does everybody who’s dancing? It’s kind of like become my thing.”

On providing vocals for Flo Rida’s smash single “Right Round”: “I didn’t get credit, I didn’t get paid. Honestly, I walked into the studio and there was Flo Rida and Dr. Luke doing the song, and I was like, ‘I’ll just sing on it. I’m just happy you like my voice enough to put me on your song.’ I believe in karma, so if I’m not a douchebag about that, it’ll just come back to me. So it’s like, ‘You know what, if you don’t want to pay me, it’s fine. I’m excited to have my voice on the radio.’”

On her relationship with her former marching bandmates from high school: “I get text messages all the time. And they were all such bitches, so now I’m like, Eat it! I save their numbers to prank later.”

On people thinking that she runs around with the likes of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie: “Oh, gross! I’m from the opposite of that. Do you think that those girls dig through the garbage for their clothes? That’s what I’m saying. And, you know, would they live in a house with 10 people that they’ve never met, you know? And would they be OK if they never came home for four days and just went to Vegas on a whim? Like, would they never wear high heels when they go out so they can run from the cops? Very different.”

Much more after the jump!

READ FULL STORY »

Jan 21 2010 02:27 PM ET

Simon Cowell plans all-star Haiti benefit single

Who says Simon Cowell’s an icy-veined grouch? The English impresario has announced plans to put together an all-star charity single to raise funds for the suffering people of Haiti. Details beyond that are scarce: According to a gossipy report in U.K. tabloid The Sun, Cowell protegées Susan Boyle and Leona Lewis have already signed on to the project, but those artists’ reps could not confirm this when contacted by the Music Mix. And it’s unclear what song they’d be singing.

So let the speculation begin: Which artists would you like to hear on a Cowell-orchestrated Haiti benefit single, and what would you have them sing? Suggest away in the comments, below.

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

More from EW.com’s Music Mix:
U2′s the Edge spills details on their new album: The Music Mix Q&A
Gorillaz drop “Stylo” with help from Bobby Womack, Mos Def
The Swell Season makes a triumphant return to NYC’s Radio City Music Hall
Animal Collective, Jay-Z win Pazz & Jop ‘09 critics’ poll

Jan 21 2010 11:36 AM ET

U2's the Edge spills details on their new album: The Music Mix Q&A

Categories: Q&A, U2

U2′s the Edge attended last weekend’s Golden Globes ceremony, where the band was up for a Best Original Song award for “Winter,” their contribution to Afghanistan war drama Brothers. (The trophy ended up going to Crazy Heart‘s “The Weary Kind.”) We caught up with the guitarist on the red carpet to get the scoop on U2′s planned follow-up to last year’s No Line on the Horizon. —Interview by Nicholas White

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How’s the new U2 music going?
THE EDGE:
We are working on a lot of new songs. Some of them are really, really happy. We’re convinced that we have something really special. It’s like deciding whether we are going to release the album before the tour starts or leave it for a while, we don’t really know yet. Literally, within a day of getting off the road, Bono and I were working on new songs. On a roll.

Are you incorporating any electronic influences?
We try and keep things moving forward. We are experimenting with a lot of different arrangements, and electronic is one of the things we are playing with. But there are other songs that are very traditional, almost folk. In some ways, that’s the thing we haven’t figured out yet, is where this album is going to end up. We’re having fun with the process.

READ FULL STORY »

Jan 20 2010 05:39 PM ET

Gorillaz drop 'Stylo' with help from Bobby Womack and Mos Def

Hints and clues about a new Gorillaz album have been leaking out for over a year now, and today their reps made it official: The cartoon primates will return March 9 with Plastic Beach, whose luminary-stuffed track list you can pore over after the jump. Even better, Gorillaz have just liberated the first single from Plastic Beach. It’s called “Stylo,” you can hear it on YouTube for now before it goes on digital sale Jan. 26, and it boasts guest vocals from Mos Def and the great Bobby Womack. Yes, that Bobby Womack, the soul legend behind classics like 1973′s “Across 110th Street.”

“Stylo” would be pretty cool even without his contributions. At its core it’s a robotic disco groove, accented nicely by Gorillaz mastermind Damon Albarn’s spaced-out crooning and a few short-but-sweet rhymes from Mos. But man, when Womack’s inimitable roar sweeps in around the 2:00 mark, “Stylo” positively catches fire. The final product is closest in sound to “DARE,” Gorillaz’ 2005 tune featuring Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder, but I think I like this one even better.

Consider this a very promising indication of where Plastic Beach is heading. Give “Stylo” a spin on YouTube, then let us know what you think.

READ FULL STORY »

Jan 20 2010 04:57 PM ET

Rihanna covers 'Redemption Song' for Haiti on 'Oprah'

Rihanna stopped by this afternoon’s episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, which was devoted to the disaster in Haiti, to perform a cover of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.” You can download her live cover now from the iTunes Music Store for $1.29, with proceeds going to the Hope for Haiti Now telethon that she and others will participate in this Friday. So how was it?

Not bad. Rihanna stayed true to the feel of Marley’s original at first, taking the song as an acoustic dirge with a mournful organ part. By the time she got to the second verse (“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery”), though, she had shifted the tempo and arrangement in a more upbeat direction, where they stayed through the song’s conclusion — making “Redemption Song” into a Rihanna tune, in other words. As for Rihanna’s singing, she’s never had the strongest live voice, and her limitations showed here at times. But given the somber context, it felt appropriate for her voice to crack slightly.

Did you watch Rihanna on Oprah? What did you think of her “Redemption Song”? Download it from iTunes, then let us know.

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

More from EW.com’s Music Mix:
Animal Collective, Jay-Z win Pazz & Jop ‘09 critics’ poll
Vampire Weekend tops the albums chart
Stephen Gately: Is new Boyzone video a fitting tribute?
Susan Boyle talks to Oprah about her hospitalization

Jan 20 2010 01:43 PM ET

The Swell Season makes a triumphant return to NYC's Radio City Music Hall

The last time the Swell Season played NYC’s Radio City Music Hall, it was May 2008, just a few months after principal members Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová won their Oscar for “Falling Slowly.” With Once-mania in full swing, they had no trouble selling out such a prestigious venue back then. But to fill Radio City again almost two years later, this time with no awards show water cooler moment to help spur ticket sales? Now that’s something.

And so last night the Swell Season (pictured at another recent gig) gave another sold-out RCMH crowd its money’s worth with a searingly emotional performance. That’s the only way they know how to do it. I saw Hansard and Irglová play for a small press audience last fall, and they filled that tiny club with the exact same passionate intensity as they did last night’s enormous room. Wherever they find themselves on stage, those two hold nothing back.

READ FULL STORY »

Jan 20 2010 12:28 PM ET

Animal Collective, Jay-Z win Pazz & Jop '09 critics' poll

Our ears are full of the exciting sounds of 2010 by now, but a final word on the previous year in music has just arrived with the results of the Village Voice’s annual Pazz & Jop critics’ poll. After collating the personal Top 10 lists of 696 music geeks around the nation, the venerable NYC publication has determined that the best album and single of 2009 were, respectively, Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion and Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind.”

No huge surprise on either count there, though perusing the full album and single rankings will yield a few more unexpected entries. (Baroness’ The Blue Record at No. 19? Evidently I need to keep better tabs on the sludge-metal scene.) You can also look up individual ballots to see what your favorite music critic, as if you have one, liked last year. Mine is here. And don’t miss Voice writer Sean Fennessey’s interview with Jay-Z on the origins and meaning of his No. 1 single.

What do you think of this year’s Pazz & Jop results? Any particularly outrageous omissions or inclusions? Make your case in the comments.

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

More from EW.com’s Music Mix:
Vampire Weekend tops the albums chart
Stephen Gately: Is new Boyzone video a fitting tribute?
Susan Boyle talks to Oprah about her hospitalization
New Taylor Swift song, “Today Was a Fairytale”: Listen here

Advertisement

TV Recaps

Powered by WordPress.com VIP