Last week I was on Youtube and came across, what I'm assuming, the final cut of Kanye West's "Paranoid" video. It was from the official label Youtube page, so I'm guessing what I reviewed a few weeks ago was a rough version. Kanye typically does release videos with multiple versions ("Jesus Walks", "Heard Em Say", "Flashing Lights"), and this version is superior to the other versions I've seen so far if that is the case. This one really makes sense. Matching the song with images similar to an old fashioned horror flick. Smart. It has a weird Michel Gondry, Tim Burton vibe as well (The video is directed by Nabil Elderkin). Appropriately creepy for a song that's about being creeped out. Plus Kanye's presence is in this far more than the previous version which was basically all Rihanna (I'm not mad at that by the way). I give it high marks, and it another great video in both their already pretty awesome Video-graphies.
I also want to add something I didn't mention before. If you don't have "808's and Heartbreak" (you suck first of all. I Keed! I Keed!)you probably wouldn't notice that the sung vocals on the song are credited to a new Kanye protege Mr Hudson. And He actually has one of my favourite songs right now in "Supernova". His album "Straight No Chaser" (there are actually two other singles from his upcoming album on his imeem page) won't be released until October, and there's still no official video for this single. I'm thinking it's a teaser and something will come along late summer. Anyway point is, I'm checking this guy out and hoping he doesn't suck. I like his style and his whole Dave Gahan phrasing mixed with the Chris Martin whiney vocal thing he has going on. We'll see.
6.30.2009
Award Show Review: BET Awards 09
I'm like, really behind as you can tell. The BET Awards were on Sunday and it's now Tuesday morning. Not only haven't I blogged about the awards yet, but I have some work to do because I need to post a Classic Album Review for Michael Jackson, there are a few new albums I need to review and I have to give you the new set of 6 Artists on my Top 25 All Time Artists list. And I want to have it all done by Thursday night (when I leave for Atlanta for the weekend).
So here we go.
The BET Awards 09 was the first televised award ceremony since the unexpected death of Michael Jackson.
And although I feel like it's more than appropriate for BET to celebrate him, being that a good 90% of the artists in the building owe so much to Jackson and the fact that BET have been long time supporters of all the Jacksons even when the other video networks betrayed him. And I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, they had less than three days to re-arrange the format of the show to make it a fitting and respectful tribute to the Legend.
For the most part, they did a great job. Jamie Foxx was the host and he did a pretty excellent job, his opening monologue included a hilariously funny attempt at Moonwalking and throughout the show he celebrated his love for Jackson and reminded the audience why he was so important.
There were a few performances of Jackson's hits by current artists. Ciara performed "Heal the World", Jamie Foxx and Ne-Yo dueted at the end on "I'll Be There", but Ne-Yo provided the best performance (imo) with "Lady in my Life". Ne-Yo connected with the song on an emotional level, and his vocals were the best I ever heard them. Aside from those handful of performances, and testimonies from stars in the audience on how Michael influenced them, there wasn't much else as far as a tribute to MJ. Michael's sister Janet Jackson
came out to a standing ovation toward the end to speak for the family and thank the fans for their support.
The rest of the show was pretty typical Award show stuff.
I'm pretty sure Beyoncé won the most with two awards, Ne-Yo won, Weezy won, T.I. and Rihanna won, Lebron James won, Taraji P. Henson won. But this was not an awards show where awards were actually important. In fact, because of the last minute changes the awards alot of the categories were combined and the nominations weren't announced. Just the winners.
Performance wise, it was pretty boring to tell you the truth.
Jamie Foxx did a terribly auto-tuned live rendition of his monster hit "Blame It". It's sad when T-Pain outsings you live, and you have no sense of stage presence or choreography. His performance was a bit of a mess, but still fun enough to appropriatley get the crowd on their feet.
Keri Hilson performed an uptempo medley of her two hits "Turnin Me On" and "Knock You Down" (without Ne-Yo or Kanye). She tried. She really tried. However seems like she missed a few rehearsals, or she was just super nervous. She looked awkward trying to sing live and do the little bit of choreography she was expected to do, though she still wasn't terrible. She pulled it together enough for me not to laugh at her.
Soulja Boy Tell Em (like is that his full name? I thought it was just Soulja Boy) got the crowd all singing along to his hit(?) "Turn my Swag On", which I hadn't heard before and is actually a pretty catchy tune. He, like most rappers, didn't do much performance wise. Just kind of walked back and forth on the stage. It was the crowd that made his performance a winner with Taraji, Keri and Lebron dancing and singing along.
Jay-Z introduced his new single "D.O.A. Death of Auto-Tune" to a live audience and pretty much slayed it. You could tell our boy Jigga was more than happy to be back on stage.
Meanwhile his wife slowed it down (and put a bunch to sleep, I have to be honest) with her beautiful rendition of "Ave Maria" where she incorporated Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" and went opera on us with the original Spanish version of "Maria". She sounded amazing, but I think everybody was expecting Sasha Fierce to come out.
Speaking of sounding Excellent, Keyshia Cole sang her duet with Monica "Trust". They both looked great, and Keyshia made a vast improvement over her mess of a performance last year. However Monica stole ALL Ms. Cole's shine. She sounded excellent, and like Jigga, was so excited to be back on stage. She'd be smart to release an album real soon.
Maxwell came out and performed his new single "Pretty Wings", a beautiful song sung beautifully but just like Beyoncé Keyshia and Monica, great vocals don't always make for the most memorable performances.
Drake and Lil Wayne's performance was memorable for the wrong reasons. First of all Drake was sitting down the whole time. It wasn't until the after show that I realized he was injured and couldn't move around. So he gets a pass, although I didn't understand why he didn't Sing the sung parts of his hit "Best I Ever Had", but whatever. The most bothersome thing about the perfomance is when Lil Wayne came out with his crew to perform "We Like Her". With all the terribly disgusting and vile comments they made within the song about Women and Sex I was really bothered with the fact they brought out about 5 or 6 under age girls (like 10-12) to stand around and dance to the song. What was he thinking?
Ofcourse there was the annual tribute, this time to The O'Jays. I can't for the life of me figure out why they'd pull Tevin Campbell out to perform for them, but they did. Than Trey Songz, Tyrese and Johnny Gill came and sang a trio of the O'Jays hits as "The Young O'Jays". They sounded good, but I have to say Trey Songz impressed me the most. He has great vocal talent. With the right material he'd be bigger than Chris Brown without a doubt.
I can't think of anything else to say about the show. Masterfully MC'd by Jamie Foxx, and pretty solid performances. I think overall I may just be getting bored of Award shows. However this was a good effort overall for the network. And I think they succeeded in giving Michael a great tribute.
So here we go.
The BET Awards 09 was the first televised award ceremony since the unexpected death of Michael Jackson.
And although I feel like it's more than appropriate for BET to celebrate him, being that a good 90% of the artists in the building owe so much to Jackson and the fact that BET have been long time supporters of all the Jacksons even when the other video networks betrayed him. And I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, they had less than three days to re-arrange the format of the show to make it a fitting and respectful tribute to the Legend.For the most part, they did a great job. Jamie Foxx was the host and he did a pretty excellent job, his opening monologue included a hilariously funny attempt at Moonwalking and throughout the show he celebrated his love for Jackson and reminded the audience why he was so important.
There were a few performances of Jackson's hits by current artists. Ciara performed "Heal the World", Jamie Foxx and Ne-Yo dueted at the end on "I'll Be There", but Ne-Yo provided the best performance (imo) with "Lady in my Life". Ne-Yo connected with the song on an emotional level, and his vocals were the best I ever heard them. Aside from those handful of performances, and testimonies from stars in the audience on how Michael influenced them, there wasn't much else as far as a tribute to MJ. Michael's sister Janet Jackson
came out to a standing ovation toward the end to speak for the family and thank the fans for their support.The rest of the show was pretty typical Award show stuff.
I'm pretty sure Beyoncé won the most with two awards, Ne-Yo won, Weezy won, T.I. and Rihanna won, Lebron James won, Taraji P. Henson won. But this was not an awards show where awards were actually important. In fact, because of the last minute changes the awards alot of the categories were combined and the nominations weren't announced. Just the winners.
Performance wise, it was pretty boring to tell you the truth.
Jamie Foxx did a terribly auto-tuned live rendition of his monster hit "Blame It". It's sad when T-Pain outsings you live, and you have no sense of stage presence or choreography. His performance was a bit of a mess, but still fun enough to appropriatley get the crowd on their feet.Keri Hilson performed an uptempo medley of her two hits "Turnin Me On" and "Knock You Down" (without Ne-Yo or Kanye). She tried. She really tried. However seems like she missed a few rehearsals, or she was just super nervous. She looked awkward trying to sing live and do the little bit of choreography she was expected to do, though she still wasn't terrible. She pulled it together enough for me not to laugh at her.
Soulja Boy Tell Em (like is that his full name? I thought it was just Soulja Boy) got the crowd all singing along to his hit(?) "Turn my Swag On", which I hadn't heard before and is actually a pretty catchy tune. He, like most rappers, didn't do much performance wise. Just kind of walked back and forth on the stage. It was the crowd that made his performance a winner with Taraji, Keri and Lebron dancing and singing along.
Jay-Z introduced his new single "D.O.A. Death of Auto-Tune" to a live audience and pretty much slayed it. You could tell our boy Jigga was more than happy to be back on stage.
Meanwhile his wife slowed it down (and put a bunch to sleep, I have to be honest) with her beautiful rendition of "Ave Maria" where she incorporated Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" and went opera on us with the original Spanish version of "Maria". She sounded amazing, but I think everybody was expecting Sasha Fierce to come out.Speaking of sounding Excellent, Keyshia Cole sang her duet with Monica "Trust". They both looked great, and Keyshia made a vast improvement over her mess of a performance last year. However Monica stole ALL Ms. Cole's shine. She sounded excellent, and like Jigga, was so excited to be back on stage. She'd be smart to release an album real soon.
Maxwell came out and performed his new single "Pretty Wings", a beautiful song sung beautifully but just like Beyoncé Keyshia and Monica, great vocals don't always make for the most memorable performances.
Drake and Lil Wayne's performance was memorable for the wrong reasons. First of all Drake was sitting down the whole time. It wasn't until the after show that I realized he was injured and couldn't move around. So he gets a pass, although I didn't understand why he didn't Sing the sung parts of his hit "Best I Ever Had", but whatever. The most bothersome thing about the perfomance is when Lil Wayne came out with his crew to perform "We Like Her". With all the terribly disgusting and vile comments they made within the song about Women and Sex I was really bothered with the fact they brought out about 5 or 6 under age girls (like 10-12) to stand around and dance to the song. What was he thinking?
Ofcourse there was the annual tribute, this time to The O'Jays. I can't for the life of me figure out why they'd pull Tevin Campbell out to perform for them, but they did. Than Trey Songz, Tyrese and Johnny Gill came and sang a trio of the O'Jays hits as "The Young O'Jays". They sounded good, but I have to say Trey Songz impressed me the most. He has great vocal talent. With the right material he'd be bigger than Chris Brown without a doubt.
I can't think of anything else to say about the show. Masterfully MC'd by Jamie Foxx, and pretty solid performances. I think overall I may just be getting bored of Award shows. However this was a good effort overall for the network. And I think they succeeded in giving Michael a great tribute.
6.07.2009
Album Reviews: Black Eyed Peas, Depeche Mode, Electrik Red
I'm back. I had all my finals a couple of weeks ago, and after all of that I've just been very lazy to get on the blog. I'm here now though and I have just a few reviews. I've actually been Re-discovering some cd's from earlier this year (Chris Cornell, I may have to do a retraction review on his album "Scream"), but one of these releases I was really excited for, one was something that intrigued me, and the other was something I have had for a while and haven't listened to up until this past week.
Naturally, I'll start with The Black Eyed Peas who are still #1 on the charts with "Boom Boom Pow" and have a hefty amount of worthy singles to select from on their 5th album "The E.N.D." (releasing today).
The Black Eyed Peas have always tried to be all things to everybody, and over the years as their sound has changed dramatically, they still manage to appease most of their fan base. They are still Hip Hop, but manage to incorporate alot of Pop and Dance elements into the mix. And this album follows in that pattern of achieving a very eclectic sounding album. This time they go heavy on the Dance and Electronica genre, at points blatantly ripping off Daft Punk and Stuart Price. Luckily the Black Eyed Peas are blessed with a great producer in Will.I.Am, who actually does a good job imitating the styles of other acts but adding more to it. "Alive" is easily the best song on the album, and although it does sound almost exactly like a Daft Punk (circa "Discovery") track, he does some very interesting and creative things with it. Plus the lyrical content and the vocals add something that wasn't there with the songs that obviously inspired some tracks (other Daft Punk, Les Rhythmes Digitales clones being "Rock Your Body and "Rockin to the Beat").
There are however a bunch of tracks that have a real Will.I.Am stamp on them, songs that are really creative and different like "Simple Little Melody" and the aforementioned "Boom Boom Pow" or the lovely "Imma Be" which are all really roller coaster rides of tracks with something new happening with every verse. "The E.N.D." isn't entirely filled with Dance cuts however. The albums second official single "I Gotta Feeling" is a very lively Pop/Rock type anthem for the summer, "Electric City" is sort of this years "Hey Mama", just with a more laid back Dancehall feel. They even try to go World on "One Tribe" (not a fan of this song by the way) with a positive message about unity. Overall this is a really great, fun, energetic, sing songy, extremely addictive dance album. The only complaint I have is that it goes a little overlong and sometimes it slows down the tempo of the album on the whole. Still those are just maybe 4 or 5 songs out of an album that last well over an hour.
Next Up, Depeche Mode. So to give you an idea on my background with Depeche Mode... i just heard "Enjoy the Silence" 3 years ago. So I'm pretty much a New fan of this legendary Electronic group. Their 1990 Album "Violator" is generally thought of as a classic and pre-cursor to the Electronic music of today, and put against a lot of those current albums "Violator" still stands out. Their new and now 12th studio album "Sounds of the Universe"
was released almost two months ago, and it's a pretty solid album. Okay I listened to it once at work, and didn't really pay all that much attention to it... but I know that I enjoyed the production value on most of the songs. It's definitely within the style they seem to have created, just great to listen to. And everything just seems to work so nicely together, the production is really moody and enjoyable without being too much or even overproduced. And the vocals and lyrical content also works well with these songs. In particular, "Jezzebel" has Dave Gahan sounding the best I've ever heard him. Like I said before though, I've only listened once. With that one listen, I know that I'll give it repeated listens and the album will probably become a favourite by the end of the year.
Lastly, and definitely LEAST is the album I was a bit intrigued by. I don't know what the course of events was but somehow I read about a new girl group Electrik Red.
Four black girl singer/dancers produced by Tricky Stewart and The-Dream. And since I love The-Dream, and I generally love Girl Groups I wanted to check out their debut "How To Be A Lady Volume 1". Unfortunately, it plays just like a Dream album. It seems that Electrik Red are to The-Dream what Vanity 6 and Appolonia 6 were to Prince. Just an excuse to write songs in their own style for women. This album is definitely at it's best when they are blatantly ripping off songs in Prince's 80's style ("Friend Lover"). The album average at best when The-Dream gives them songs exactly like his own ("So Good" "Devotion"). And the album definitely is at it's worst when the girls try to force a personality on us("W.F.Y." "Kill Bill").
These girls are really pretty, and definitely have the image needed for a successful Girl Group, unfortunately they lack every thing else. They seem to lack the personality of Spice Girls or TLC, and the vocal prowess of Destiny's Child or Danity Kane. They really are just The-Dreams female puppets. So the search for the next great Girl Group will have to continue because these girls aren't it.
Naturally, I'll start with The Black Eyed Peas who are still #1 on the charts with "Boom Boom Pow" and have a hefty amount of worthy singles to select from on their 5th album "The E.N.D." (releasing today).
The Black Eyed Peas have always tried to be all things to everybody, and over the years as their sound has changed dramatically, they still manage to appease most of their fan base. They are still Hip Hop, but manage to incorporate alot of Pop and Dance elements into the mix. And this album follows in that pattern of achieving a very eclectic sounding album. This time they go heavy on the Dance and Electronica genre, at points blatantly ripping off Daft Punk and Stuart Price. Luckily the Black Eyed Peas are blessed with a great producer in Will.I.Am, who actually does a good job imitating the styles of other acts but adding more to it. "Alive" is easily the best song on the album, and although it does sound almost exactly like a Daft Punk (circa "Discovery") track, he does some very interesting and creative things with it. Plus the lyrical content and the vocals add something that wasn't there with the songs that obviously inspired some tracks (other Daft Punk, Les Rhythmes Digitales clones being "Rock Your Body and "Rockin to the Beat").There are however a bunch of tracks that have a real Will.I.Am stamp on them, songs that are really creative and different like "Simple Little Melody" and the aforementioned "Boom Boom Pow" or the lovely "Imma Be" which are all really roller coaster rides of tracks with something new happening with every verse. "The E.N.D." isn't entirely filled with Dance cuts however. The albums second official single "I Gotta Feeling" is a very lively Pop/Rock type anthem for the summer, "Electric City" is sort of this years "Hey Mama", just with a more laid back Dancehall feel. They even try to go World on "One Tribe" (not a fan of this song by the way) with a positive message about unity. Overall this is a really great, fun, energetic, sing songy, extremely addictive dance album. The only complaint I have is that it goes a little overlong and sometimes it slows down the tempo of the album on the whole. Still those are just maybe 4 or 5 songs out of an album that last well over an hour.
Next Up, Depeche Mode. So to give you an idea on my background with Depeche Mode... i just heard "Enjoy the Silence" 3 years ago. So I'm pretty much a New fan of this legendary Electronic group. Their 1990 Album "Violator" is generally thought of as a classic and pre-cursor to the Electronic music of today, and put against a lot of those current albums "Violator" still stands out. Their new and now 12th studio album "Sounds of the Universe"
was released almost two months ago, and it's a pretty solid album. Okay I listened to it once at work, and didn't really pay all that much attention to it... but I know that I enjoyed the production value on most of the songs. It's definitely within the style they seem to have created, just great to listen to. And everything just seems to work so nicely together, the production is really moody and enjoyable without being too much or even overproduced. And the vocals and lyrical content also works well with these songs. In particular, "Jezzebel" has Dave Gahan sounding the best I've ever heard him. Like I said before though, I've only listened once. With that one listen, I know that I'll give it repeated listens and the album will probably become a favourite by the end of the year.Lastly, and definitely LEAST is the album I was a bit intrigued by. I don't know what the course of events was but somehow I read about a new girl group Electrik Red.
Four black girl singer/dancers produced by Tricky Stewart and The-Dream. And since I love The-Dream, and I generally love Girl Groups I wanted to check out their debut "How To Be A Lady Volume 1". Unfortunately, it plays just like a Dream album. It seems that Electrik Red are to The-Dream what Vanity 6 and Appolonia 6 were to Prince. Just an excuse to write songs in their own style for women. This album is definitely at it's best when they are blatantly ripping off songs in Prince's 80's style ("Friend Lover"). The album average at best when The-Dream gives them songs exactly like his own ("So Good" "Devotion"). And the album definitely is at it's worst when the girls try to force a personality on us("W.F.Y." "Kill Bill").These girls are really pretty, and definitely have the image needed for a successful Girl Group, unfortunately they lack every thing else. They seem to lack the personality of Spice Girls or TLC, and the vocal prowess of Destiny's Child or Danity Kane. They really are just The-Dreams female puppets. So the search for the next great Girl Group will have to continue because these girls aren't it.
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