Image Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images; KMazur/WireImage
Drake’s been promising it for some time now, and yesterday, he finally delivered: his collaboration with the late R&B great Aaliyah.
The low-key track, titled “Enough Said” and produced by Drizzy pal Noah “40″ Shebib, features never-before-heard vocals from Aaliyah, 11 years after her death. Take a listen below:
Image Credit: Michael Kovac/Getty Images
As sure as water is wet and as sure as there will always be an England, Elton John will always hate Madonna.
The two stars’ longtime feud was revived last night when John appeared in an interview with Australia’s Channel 7, where he proceeded to lob a bevy of nasty insults at his rival.
“She’s such a nightmare” John said of Madge. “Her career is over, I can tell you that. Her tour has been a disaster and it couldn’t happen to a bigger c—.”
But you better believe Sir Elton wasn’t done there: “And she looks like a f—ing fairground stripper.” Hey-O! Music Mix has never been to a fairground that had strippers, but we’ll go ahead and assume that that was an insult.
If you’re wondering why John’s letting loose on Madonna, he did drop a big hint: “She’s been so horrible to Gaga,” he said, referring of course to Lady Gaga — his son Zachary’s godmother.
Justin Bieber’s trending on the ol’ Twitter again, and it’s not because of his UCB-parody biopic 8 Kilometers.
The pop star released the official video for his Big Sean-assisted Believe single “As Long As You Love Me” this morning, and it’s squarely on the epic side.
The Anthony Mander-directed clip begins with some narrative dialogue between Bieber and what looks like a character from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City but is really Reservoir Dogs actor Michael Madsen. Madsen plays a protective father of Bieber’s love interest, played by 21 Jump Street actress Chanel Celaya. “She needs to be with a man, not a boy,” Madsen warns the singer, who in fact is a man. “I don’t want to know you. You need to get in your car and leave and don’t come back ’cause if you do, it’s not gonna be good for you.”
Yet Bieber’s heart tells him to stay the course, even if it means his body will suffer a bloody beating in a parking-garage scene that boldly calls to mind Michael Jackson’s “Bad” video, plus a splash of Drive.
Image Credit: Patrick T. Fallon/Getty Images
It’s been almost a decade since No Doubt released a single, and even longer since they gave us an album. That all ends now!
The Gwen Stefani-led Orange County band is releasing their comeback album Push and Shove on Sept. 25, and today they debuted their LP’s first single, “Settle Down.” And it’s good!
Check out the reggae-infused, summer-loving No Doubt track below and let us know if you like what you hear:
[Update: There's a video now!]
It must be International “Get Free Music From Up-and-Coming Hip-Hop Artists” Week. First there was Ocean’s Tumblr stream, and now we’ve got Azealia Banks dropping her anticipated mixtape Fantasea for free via Twitter. Get the 19-track beast here and then return to the comments section below to let us know if the “212″ wunderkind is living up to your expectations.
Read more on EW.com:
Azealia Banks heads to the country in ‘Liqourice’ video: Watch it here
Azealia Banks drops rhymes, balloons, confetti at NYC Mermaid Ball
Azealia Banks, Patti Smith, Haley Reinhart invade our weekly Spotify playlist
Frank Ocean, Channel Orange (Def Jam)
If Southern California needs an avant-R&B soundtrack, let this be it: Ocean’s hypnotic major-label debut plays like an indie movie, with songs about sun-faded palm trees, cokeheads in Polo sweats, and strippers in Cleopatra makeup. (Think Drive by way of baby-maker-pop maestro Maxwell. )
A transplant from New Orleans, Ocean is less concerned with urban realism than with his own ‘80s-noir fantasy of what the city’s like, and his music captures that vibe perfectly, pulsing with electro-soul grooves, vintage jazz-funk, and Angelino-friendly cameos by John Mayer and Andre 3000.
Orange even echoes other great odes to California glitz (“Super Rich Kids” nods to Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets,” while “Lost” references Eve and Gwen Stefani’s “Let Me Blow Ya Mind”). The Hollywood clichés are intentional—there’s a song called “Forrest Gump”—but Ocean’s smart about tweaking them, especially on the love songs, where he’s just as likely to praise a girl’s double-D’s as allude to his crush on a guy.
On the gorgeous “Bad Religion,” he pours his heart out to his taxi driver, crying over a relationship he’s sick of hiding. Considering that he just recently admitted he was once in love with a man, it’s an especially poignant moment. “I could never make him love me,” Ocean broods. But with a confession this heartfelt, it’s hard to believe that’s true. B+
—Melissa Maerz
Read more on EW.com:
Def Jam: Early release of Frank Ocean’s ‘Channel Orange’ part of original marketing plan
Frank Ocean from Odd Future opens up about sexuality
Jay-Z and Kanye West’s ‘No Church in the Wild’ video: Watch it here
Image Credit: Lloyd Bishop/NBC
Odd Future fans who had July 17 marked on their calendars got a pleasant surprise late last night.
Not only did sudden headline-maker Frank Ocean make his television debut on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, but there was also a surprise announcement: the hotly anticipated Channel Orange would be streaming online for the next 24 hours on Ocean’s Tumblr, as well as for sale on iTunes. The album, which fans thought wouldn’t be available until next Tuesday, became the No. 1 album on iTunes within the hour.
And according to Def Jam, that was all part of Channel Orange‘s unusual marketing strategy.
It all began in June, when Ocean mysteriously announced via teaser trailer that the album would be coming out by July. That left a relatively short period of time for promotion, but Team Ocean made the most of it. Just within the past week, the buzz spiked when Ocean opened up about his sexuality mere days before his cover profile in last Sunday’s New York Times Arts & Leisure section.
When asked Sunday night whether Ocean’s semi-coming out affected the album’s marketing plan, Def Jam president Joie Manda told EW in an e-mail, ”Absolutely not. You have to understand that Frank’s letter last week was in NO WAY intended to impact the marketing of this record. Like all things with Frank, it was a carefully measured, very personal decision.”
Manda said then that the label’s “plans remain the same: to support Frank Ocean’s creativity and artistry and allow him the freedom to continue building the very special relationship he’s cultivated with his fans.”
This is a pretty strange story, even by True Blood‘s standards.
Influential Los Angeles radio station KCRW premiered a new collaboration between famed Detroit protopunk Iggy Pop and Best Coast’s Spin covergirl Bethany Cosentino called “Let’s Boot and Rally.”
The new cut’s snaking guitars and Cali surf-rock vibes strike an interesting balance between the two artists’ respective styles, though given Best Coast’s recent taste for the subdued melancholy, the song tilts toward Iggy.
What really makes it intriguing, though, is that the song was co-written by KCRW DJ and True Blood music supervisor Gary Calamar and composer James Combs — plus the fact that it will be featured in the HBO program this Sunday.
Writes Calamar:
“Each episode is named after a song that is used in that show. We had a situation where we had an episode called ‘Boot and Rally’ but we really didn’t have a song that was True Bloody enough to use. What to do. Should we change the title of the episode? I suggested that maybe we can have someone write a new song called ‘Boot and Rally’…..Everyone agreed to give it a try and I started brainstorming.”
If you’ve ever watched one of those sweeping, heart rate-quickening Nike/Gatorade/Chrysler commercials and thought, “There should probably be an over-the-top British rock song in here,” then we’ve got just the thing for you.
While you were celebrating America’s freedom from Britain yesterday, those sneaky redcoats slyly posted a music video for “Survival,” Muse’s official song of London’s Summer Olympics, on the Internet.
Like the song itself, the video is on the ambitious side, trying in four minutes to capture more than a century’s worth of sweaty Olympian drama. And as an added bonus, they also threw in an Easter egg for Marvel fans by flashing an image of what looks to be the next Spider-Man villain at the 3:00 mark!
Spend some time with the video in all its spandex glory below and head to the comments to let us know just how pumped you are for the big event:
Image Credit: Michael Caulfield/WireImage
Committed fans of Kanye West may have noticed something different about his opening performance at last Sunday’s BET Awards — namely, a new song.
‘Ye previewed a verse of “New God Flow” at the ceremony, but now the full song has shown up online in all its Pusha T-assisted glory. The Ghostface Killah-sampling track has an old-school Kanye flavor that’ll put smiles on the faces of College Dropout and Late Registration fans, while the song’s unmitigated swagger and dark edge will surely please those who loved My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and “Mercy.” Sorry, 808s and Heartbreak fans — no love for you!
Check out the new Kanye cut below and head to the comments to let us know what you think:
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