Amplifier
  • We were initially concerned that the resurrection of Eminem's Bad Meets Evil collaboration with Royce da 5'9" also meant the return of Slim Shady's dreadful serial killer alter ego (their EP is called Hell: The Sequel, after all). However, the duo's new single "Lighters" leaked yesterday, and there's nothing morbid or satanic about it. Talk about false advertising. Human hit machine Bruno Mars sings the chorus, so really how grim could it be? Mars' hook is as banal as his chorus on B.o.B's "Nothin' On You," but when Em steps to the microphone, things get explicit:

    "Lighters" is almost a Drake song, with that cloistered production sound everyone's aping these days. The verses by Eminem and Royce da 5'9" are both stellar, but Mars' chorus feels really tacked on to attract the masses, like Rihanna's contribution to last year's chart-topper "Love the Way You Lie." It's almost a distraction from an otherwise solid track, but Eminem is a record exec now and Royce is one of his clients, so

    Read More »from Hear Eminem’s New Single Featuring… Bruno Mars?
  • Since Justin Timberlake is no longer willing to be "Justin Timberlake," there's been an opening for a heartthrob crooner with an urban edge for a long time now -- so long, people actually hallucinated new JT music. Today, Joe Jonas, of the once-hot, now-not power-pop boy band the Jonas Brothers, has applied to fill this sexy vacancy. The lead singer JoBro has been threatening to go electro-pop on us for a few months, and he sort of has, unleashing the very Chris Brown-sounding "See No More," which was, in fact, co-written by Chris Brown and produced by Brian Kennedy (half of the team who brought us Rihanna's killer "Disturbia").

    "See No More" provides plenty of anguished falsetto and a big R&B melody line over choppy synths and a rolling beat. This could definitely be a summer jam, but now the only question is can Joe Jonas dance? All signs point to no. (You can still come back, JT, we love you!). Jonas' solo disc is due September 6th.

     

    Read More »from Joe Jonas Would Love to Be Your New Justin Timberlake
  • We now have some music to go with those hilarious lyrics. Coldplay's new single "Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall" arrived this morning and there's a lot to like about it -- the melody is strong, the lyrics seem less ridiculous in the context of the song, Brian Eno's production is great as always -- but it's a pretty standard Coldplay track.

    Coldplay have attempted this type of arms-outstretched anthem before; in fact, they've built their discography on them: "Clocks," "Viva la Vida," "Lost!" and basically every track that isn't "The Scientist." It's been 11 years since Parachutes, and the band is progressing very slowly musically, which is good for fans who love that classic Coldplay sound. Instead of attempting to become the next U2, here they sound a lot like the British rock act Doves (who also sound like U2). That won't prevent "Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall" from being a hit.

    Coldplay, who were sued because "Viva la Vida" resembled a Joe Satriani song, note that "Every Teardrop Is

    Read More »from Coldplay’s ‘Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall’ Is Not as Bad as Its Title
  • Pink has given birth to a girl and generated a new hashtag for the occasion, tweeting, "We are ecstatic to welcome our new beautiful healthy happy baby girl, Willow Sage Hart. She's gorgeous, just like her daddy. #beyondblessed." That's fantastic news for the pop star and her motocross star husband, Carey Hart, and excellent news for fans anxiously awaiting Pink's return to her high-flying live hijinks, like this performance of "Glitter in the Air" that had jaws on the floor (and stars' gowns dampened) at the 2010 Grammy Awards:

    [Photo: Jeff Kravitz/AMA2010/FilmMagic.com]

  • "T-PAIN VOWS TO NEVER USE AUTO-TUNE AGAIN!" barked a press release today. "What!?" screamed the 10 people who really care about T-Pain. But how will he get his signature robot-voice without digital assistance? "I'm onto something that I think is bigger and better called The T-Pain Effect," he said. Oh, well, it all makes sense now.

    So this proclamation wasn't another apology to Jay-Z (it'd have been his second of the week!), but the announcement of a business partnership. T-Pain will be working with a company called iZotope on a new vocal-processing effect, which will likely feature on his fall album rEVOLVEr. iZotope makes a ton of software including iDrum, an iPhone app that allows users to create beats on the fly using material from RZA, Underworld, and Major Lazer.

    It was never clear whether T-Pain was a paid shill for Auto-Tune, but since he mentioned the pitch-shifting software every time he opened his mouth, he eventually did team up with the company on the mobile app I Am

    Read More »from T-Pain Tires of Being the Face of Auto-Tune
  • Sometimes sports and music collide in rather unique ways. Like when Metallica announce they'll play "Enter Sandman" at the home of Yankees closer Mariano Rivera, Jay-Z gets in trouble for partying with the Kentucky Wildcats, or U2 wreak havoc on major league baseball schedules. Or Huey Lewis and the News' Sports. Today brings two such stories:

    First, there's Puck Daddy's account of how Bono and his assistant got stranded hitchhiking outside of Vancouver. The pair had gone out for a walk -- it's hard to imagine Bono using a public restroom without a massive security detail following him, let alone go on a nature hike, but whatever -- when suddenly the skies opened up and the weather turned torrential. So Bono hit the highway, stuck out his thumb... and was picked up by Gilbert Brule, a professional hockey player for the Edmonton Oilers, and his girlfriend. It just so happened that U2's 360° Tour was en route to Edmonton the next day, so Bono repaid Brule by inviting him to the show and

    Read More »from Stranded Bono Saved by Canadian Hockey Player
  • If a rapper says something offensive, everyone's Eminem air horn goes off, but until now nobody's been able to ask shocking rapper Eminem what he thinks about shocking rappers Odd Future. MTV News' Sway finally did quiz Slim Shady about the young L.A. rap crew led by cockroach-munching, slur-spitting MC Tyler, the Creator. Em owned up to not being too familiar with OFWGKTA's oeuvre (he's been "in the lab," you see), but said he's heard enough to be impressed:

    "I think that from the stuff that I've heard -- I haven't heard a lot from them, I still have to go check out everything that they're doing -- but I've heard enough to know that it feels like they're pushing boundaries and buttons, and that's definitely one of the things that I'm familiar with, especially when I first came out. I love it, I love the fact that they're doing that. And the dudes can rhyme."

    It's worth noting Eminem hasn't been "shocking" in years -- most of his most sadistic and homophobic rhymes came early in his

    Read More »from Yes, Eminem Sort of Does Have an Opinion on Odd Future
  • Here's something that should surprise no one: Lil Wayne's Tha Carter IV and its awesome album cover have been postponed yet again, from June 21st to the end of the summer, August 29th. No word yet why the album was pushed back this time, but we can assume it's because 1) hip-hop albums never come out when advertised and 2) the rapper received less-than-favorable feedback from TC4's latest single "How to Love," which is an awful song. According to XXL, another new single, one that will attempt to scrub "How to Love" from our memory, is due out July 4th.

    Tha Carter IV was initially supposed to arrive on May 16th, but by now we've been trained to expect news about delays every month like clockwork. At one point, the album even had a (probably fake) track list. Three supposed singles have already been released -- "6 Foot Seven Foot," the Rick Ross rip-off "If I Die Today," and that terrible smooth jam -- but none of the tracks have lived up to the singles Tha Carter III produced. This

    Read More »from Lil Wayne’s ‘Tha Carter IV’ Gets Delayed Again, Right on Schedule
  • AC/DC's super-charged hard rock may make drunk and disorderly fans riot, but it has quite the opposite effect on great white sharks. According to a Australia's ABC News (via NME), "You Shook Me All Night Long" lulled the animals into a state of mellowness. "Their behavior was more investigative, more inquisitive, and a lot less aggressive -- they actually came past in a couple of occasions when we had the speaker in the water and rubbed their face along the speaker which was really bizarre," says charter boat operator Matt Waller, who couldn't resist getting in a dig at his country's recent egging victim: "I have this thought that if there is something that attracts them there is obviously going to be something that they reject -- maybe it would be Justin Bieber, who knows."

    Waller's evidence is pretty anecdotal, so while we don't advise singing "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" in the midst of a Jaws situation, researcher Dr. Jonathon Werry says there may be something to the boater's

    Read More »from Soothing Sounds of AC/DC Calm Aussie Sharks
  • Warning: The above video is very violent, in a Roger Rabbit kind of way. This masterpiece comes courtesy of the band Is Tropical, who hired France's "legendary video interlopers" Megaforce to craft a music video for their single "The Greeks." All those parental watchdogs complaining about the murder in Rihanna's "Man Down" picked the wrong video to criticize -- "The Greeks" is a brilliant exercise in what A Clockwork Orange refers to as "ultra-violence."

    Little French kids dressed up as action film villains go around with Super Soakers and brutally execute each other in ways that border on gory, excessive, and somewhat nostalgic. For instance, who knew drug trafficking could be depicted so adorably? The kids look like they had so much fun filming this thing; it's like the greatest game of "Cops and Robbers" ever, or the final scene of Scarface starring adolescents. We don't want to sound like we have bloodlust, but the funniest moment comes at the 2:00 mark, when one kid shoots a

    Read More »from Watch the Best Music Video of 2011: Is Tropical’s ‘The Greeks’

Pagination

(2,394 Stories)

News for You

  • NYers furious over photos taken through windows

    NEW YORK (AP) — In one photo, a woman is on all fours, presumably picking something up, her posterior pressed against a glass window. Another photo shows a couple in bathrobes, their feet touching beneath a table. And there is one of a man, in jeans and a T-shirt, lying on his side as he takes a nap.

  • 'Iron Man 3' races past $1 billion dollar mark on monster foreign take

    By Todd Cunningham LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "Iron Man 3" was soaring past $1 billion at the worldwide box office Thursday, in a display of world domination that would make one of Marvel's super villains proud. The box-office bounty - roughly $700 million from abroad and $300 million domestically - is a major triumph for Disney, which bet big on comic book superheroes when it bought Marvel Studios for $4 billion in 2009. And its decision to bring aboard a Chinese partner for "Iron Man 3" and focus the Disney marketing machine on the booming foreign market looks pretty good right now, too. ...

  • Denmark favorite to win Eurovision Song Contest

    MALMO, Sweden (AP) — An ethno-inspired flute and drum tune from Denmark is the bookmakers' favorite to win this year's Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday, which also features a bizarre opera pop number from Romania and an Armenian rock song written by the guitarist of Black Sabbath.

  • NYC artist's secret photos raise privacy issues

    NEW YORK (AP) — In one photo, a woman is on all fours, presumably picking something up, her posterior pressed against a glass window. Another photo shows a couple in bathrobes, their feet touching beneath a table. And there is one of a man, in jeans and a T-shirt, lying on his side as he takes a nap.

  • Native American actress proud to walk Cannes red carpet

    By Belinda Goldsmith CANNES (Reuters) - Native American actress Misty Upham never dreamt she would be walking the red carpet at Cannes to showcase a film shot on her reservation. Upham features in "Jimmy P. Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian", focused on the relationship between World War Two veteran Jimmy Picard, a Native American Blackfoot, and Georges Devereux, his psychoanalyst. Upham said like Picard, played by Puerto Rican actor Benicio Del Toro, she is Blackfeet, the largest tribe in Montana state. ...

  • 'American Idol' finale draws record low ratings

    NEW YORK (AP) — Ratings for the "American Idol" finale plunged to a record low for the 12-year-old show.

TOP VIDEOS

  1. Can't Hold Us
    1.Macklemore & Ryan … | Warner
  2. 2.P!nk, (f/ Nate Ruess …
  3. 3.Justin Timberlake
  4. 5.Rihanna, (f/ Mikky E …
  5. 6.Selena Gomez
  6. 7.Macklemore & Ryan …
  7. 8.Imagine Dragons
  8. 9.Icona Pop
  9. 10.Florida Georgia Line