Amplifier
  • In January, MainStreet.com named Grand Rapids, Michigan, 10th on its list of America's "dying cities." It's possible nobody would have ever learned about this dubious distinction, but Newsweek picked up the story on its website, giving folks living in the Midwestern city -- and nearby Detroit and Flint -- something to be bummed about in addition to massive unemployment and home foreclosures.

    To prove they're still thriving and have the same taste in classic rock as Madonna, 5,000 residents of Grand Rapids turned to the power of music and motivated to break the world record for largest lip dub on May 22nd, lip synching to Don McLean's sombre "American Pie."

    "We disagreed strongly [with the article] and wanted to create a video that encompasses the passion and energy we all feel is growing exponentially in this great city," the clip's director and executive producer Rob Bliss wrote in a statement posted on YouTube (via Buzzfeed). "We felt Don McLean's 'American Pie,' a song about

    Read More »from 5,000 Residents of ‘Dying City’ Lip Dub Song About Day the Music Died
  • Robert Plant no longer wants to front Led Zeppelin but we can't allow Pussycat Doll (and new X Factor judge) Nicole Scherzinger to take his job because that is all kinds of wrong. However, in case of Led Zep emergency, please call Karen O. Thanks to a videographer who captured the new "red band" trailer for David Fincher's adaptation of the Swedish bestseller The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman's collaboration with Trent Reznor on 1970's "Immigrant Song" is all over the web. Reznor (who is scoring Dragon Tattoo) has replaced the song's octave-jumping, see-saw guitar riff with murky, moody synths and emphasized ominously pounding percussion while Karen O brings the hammer of the gods, shrieking and snarling her way through the greatest song about a Viking invasion ever recorded. Valhalla, I am coming!

    (Also: The movie looks pretty cool!)

    (Also also: Wikipedia informs us "The song was placed over an animation of kittens in Viking costumes on rathergood.com"

    Read More »from Hear Why Karen O Is Totally Qualified to Join Led Zeppelin
  • Usually, stories about Elvis Presley being spotted in a Manitoba supermarket appear in the Weekly World News or some other sketchy checkout line publications. However, the fine folks at PBS delivered breaking news this weekend: that Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. were found alive and well in New Zealand. As the story goes, a New Zealander who himself was gunned down in a drive-by shooting left evidence in his diary that the two rap legends were frequenting his Australasia hometown, which explains all those posthumous releases.

    Unfortunately, Tupac is not alive and well. And neither is Biggie. The story that appeared on the reputable PBS site was a hoax perpetrated by a group of hackers called the LulzSec, who posted the story as retribution for PBS's portrayal of WikiLeaks on their program Frontline. "We just finished watching WikiSecrets and were less than impressed. We decided to sail our Lulz Boat over to the PBS servers for further... perusing," LulzSec warned prior to the

    Read More »from Tupac Is Not Alive and Well and Living in New Zealand With Biggie
  • There is footage of a person dressed like a Sasquatch dancing to Justin Bieber on YouTube, but that is not the video from the Sasquatch! music festival you are seeking this morning. The Amp did the dirty work and found the best full-song clips on the web so you can catch up and tell your friends you were mourning the death of Gil Scott-Heron by experiencing a pair of new Modest Mouse songs at Washington's gorgeous Gorge Amphitheatre over the long weekend. (Hint: to hear an even larger chunk of the fest, including sets from Robyn and Wilco that have yet to hit YouTube, enjoy the audio streams at NPR.)

    A quick note on the new Modest Mouse songs: They're both choppy, shouty, sing-songy, and very Modest Mouse-y. No evidence of the influence of Big Boi -- yet.

    Modest Mouse - "Lampshades on Fire"

    Modest Mouse - "Poison"

    Foo Fighters - "Walk"

    The Flaming Lips - Long intro into "Race for the Prize"

    Iron & Wine - "Tree by the River"

    The Thermals - "Now We Can See"

    [Photo: Dana

    Read More »from Pretend You Went to Sasquatch! and Caught Modest Mouse’s New Songs
  • On June 28th, the Wu-Tang Clan will release what's being advertised as their new album, Legendary Weapons. But is this really a new Wu album? We have some concerns that something fishy is going on in the 36 Chambers.

    First clue: Debut single "Only the Rugged Survive" features the RZA rapping, and only the RZA rapping. That's strange, since the single artwork announces the track "features RZA," instead of it being a foregone conclusion that the mastermind is involved. Check out "Only the Rugged Survive" at Nah Right.

    Second hint: The album is coming out on E1 Music, the label that's released not-quite-real Wu albums like 2009's Chamber Music. On these discs, leftover verses are strewn together under one beat and packaged as real deal Wu recordings, even though the last official Wu-Tang album was 2007's 8 Diagrams.

    What's promising about Legendary Weapons is all of the core members are on it (according to a press release). Ghostface Killah, who was reduced to almost a spectator on 8

    Read More »from Get Excited For a Not-Quite-New Wu-Tang Clan Album
  • There are many reasons to be dubious about reports in sketchy U.K. tabloid the Sun, but the life of Amy Winehouse is so bizarre, we're inclined to buy this morning's report that the singer is back in rehab... and possibly stopped off for a bottle of vodka on the way. In other words, "They wanted me to go to rehab, I said no, no, no... OK, fine, shut up already, but I'm just gonna drink this first."

    At least part of this story is accurate -- Winehouse's rep told Us Weekly the 27-year-old singer is indeed at London's Priory clinic because "She wants to be ready for performances in Europe this summer and decided to seek an assessment." The other details are a little sketchier: A stumbly Winehouse allegedly popped into a hair salon, puked in the bathroom, and then confirmed what she'd done by announcing, "I just puked all over your bathroom." Then she supposedly stopped into Meadway Food and Wine in North London's Southgate neighborhood, bought a bottle of Smirnoff, and downed it on the

    Read More »from Amy Winehouse Returns to That Place She Really Didn’t Want to Go
  • For the first time in 30 years, Alice Cooper has done something that hasn't happened in his long, strange career: He canceled a gig.

    While his peers have cited exhaustion, scheduling conflicts, and even pigeon poop to call off shows at the last minute, Cooper went three decades without ever missing a concert. However according to Blabbermouth, Cooper was "too ill to even leave the hotel" in Santiago, Chile, which seems like a good excuse to nix a gig. You don't want him coughing on fans or his snake and getting them sick, too. The shock rocker promises to start a brand new concert streak by performing his next scheduled show in Buenos Aires, Argentina, tomorrow night.

    We don't have the resources to accurately tabulate just how many shows Cooper has performed in the past three decades, but it has to be in the thousands. His Iron Man streak reminds us of the Baltimore Orioles' Cal Ripken Jr., who played in a record 2,632 consecutive baseball games over a span of 17 seasons. Like

    Read More »from Alice Cooper, Rock’s Cal Ripken Jr., Cancels His First Gig in 30 Years
  • Who isn't delighted by Suck It and See, the name of the Arctic Monkeys' awesome (trust us, we've heard it) fifth album? The Amp enjoyed it so much, we made up our own album cover. And last night, David Letterman rewarded himself after a hard week haggling with Lady Gaga by pronouncing the title, pausing dramatically, and adding, "I'm being told it's their Christmas album."

    Letterman likes his hard rock -- he's a famously huge Foo Fighters fan -- and "Don't Sit Down Cause I've Moved Your Chair" explodes into a hefty riff that shows the Sheffield quartet haven't shook off the influence of Josh Homme, who coproduced 2009's Humbug. Alex Turner and Co. kicked it out perfectly. Watch it and see:

    Read More »from Arctic Monkeys’ Album Title Delights David Letterman
  • While news that the Grammys are cutting 31 categories from its bloated award show sat well with viewers (us included), some folks are less than pleased with the decision to dump what they see as opportunities to honor ethic music. At a press conference in Beverly Hills yesterday, a coalition of performers protested the restructuring of the Latin field (downsized from seven Grammys to four) and the removal of the Latin Jazz Album Grammy from the Jazz field. "We will not be disenfranchised," the group wrote in a letter to the Grammys.

    Paul Simon and Herbie Hancock both support the coalition, and Carlos Santana, who just last week accosted Atlanta-area baseball fans over anti-immigration laws, also protested the slimming of the Grammy field. "To remove Latin Jazz and many other ethnic categories is doing a huge disservice to the brilliant musicians who keep the music vibrant for their fans -- new and old," Santana wrote.

    Musician Bobby Sanabria, the leader of the coalition and a

    Read More »from Angry Musicians Want Their Latin Jazz Grammy Category Back
  • "You do know how to make an entrance," Robin Roberts gushed to Lady Gaga on Good Morning America earlier today. That is true. However due to what seemed like a major technical fail, Gaga's GMA arrival was slightly less of an OMG moment than the spectacular stunt she'd planned.

    While the sounds of her hit "Bad Romance" filled Central Park, Gaga was nowhere to be found. There were shots of dancers onstage, shots of the crowd, and more shots of the crowd anxiously looking for Gaga. The first verse passed... and the first chorus... then GMA provided a strange shot of the superstar wearing a unicorn's horn offstage, clearly preparing for her big moment. It was like seeing a theme park Mickey Mouse without his head -- quite jarring -- and took the oomph out of what was about to come: Lady Gaga soared through the air on a zipline from the back of the crowd to the stage, dangling just inches above her fans' heads like the Flying Nun. It should have been a WOW! but it wound up a meh.

    Lady

    Read More »from Lady Gaga’s ‘Good Morning America’ Set Was a Wee Bit Too Ambitious

Pagination

(2,394 Stories)

News for You

  • Woman on Trump: 'Somebody had to stand up to him'

    CHICAGO (AP) — An 87-year-old woman who alleges Donald Trump cheated her in a skyscraper-condo sale told jurors Monday she had qualms about suing the real estate mogul and TV celebrity. But, she quickly added, "Somebody had to stand up to him."

  • Germans blame euro zone crisis for Eurovision debacle

    BERLIN (Reuters) - Germans lamented their unexpectedly poor showing at the Eurovision Song Contest, blaming Chancellor Angela Merkel's tough stance in the euro zone crisis for their failure to win any points from 34 of the 39 countries voting. Denmark's Emmelie de Forest won the event, watched by around 125 million people across Europe, with 281 points while German act Cascada was 21st out of 26 countries, getting just 18 points from Austria, Israel, Spain, Albania and Switzerland. ...

  • OJ Simpson lawyers say he is closer to freedom

    LAS VEGAS (AP) — The latest high-stakes court hearing for O.J. Simpson in the glitzy capital of big gambles has come to a close with the former football star's defense team feeling confident that their client is closer to getting out of prison.

  • NY Cuomo letter warns Kardashian over T-shirt logo

    ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's sent a letter to Khloe Kardashian's (KLOH'-ee kar-DASH'-ee-uhnz) informing the reality star the logo on her T-shirt line may be violating copyright law.

  • Prince reigns over own music releases in new deal

    LONDON (Reuters) - Singer Prince has signed a new deal with Kobalt Music Group to market and distribute his future work without giving up control over his rights, the company said on Monday. The singer-songwriter, who is famed for changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol in a wrangle over musical rights, will release his own work as well as a slate of new music by other artists that he produces, Kobalt said. ...

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