Blog Posts by Daniel Kreps

11.11.11It's that time of the century again when the calendar strikes all ones, 11/11/11. To celebrate this momentous, once-in-a-lifetime occasion, The Amp has plunged deep into our iTunes to create this playlist, featuring our favorite Track 11s. By no means is this a "best of" list; it's just our personal picks of those pivotal songs that show up toward the end of albums. It would have been easy to make a list of 100 awesome Track 11s, but keeping with the theme of the day, we painstakingly edited our choices down to a succinct eleven. Enjoy the "Six Ones Day" party with these cuts:

Animal Collective's "Brother Sport," 11th song on Merriweather Post Pavilion

The Beatles' "Every Little Thing," 11th song on Beatles for Sale

You Da OneOutside of first single "We Found Love," Rihanna has kept a tight lid on her upcoming album Talk That Talk. But with the disc due out November 18th, the singer decided to whet the fans' appetite by premiering a new track called "You Da One," one of the few radio-friendly songs on the very dirty TTT. The single is textbook Rihanna with its trademark stuttered hooks, islands-tinged sound, and lyrics about obsessive love. "You the one that I dream about all day, you the one that I think about always," Rihanna sings on the chorus. And like all singles these days, there's the prerequisite dubstep breakdown in the final third of the song. Compared to the universally praised smash "We Found Love," "You Da One" definitely falls into the category of lesser RiRi singles like "Man Down" and "Russian Roulette," but there's no way a song this catchy won't result in yet another Top 10 hit for Rihanna:

When it was announced that producer extraordinaire Brian Eno would be the guest on last night's The Colbert Report, no one could have anticipated this would happen: Michael Stipe, Colbert, and Eno singing a rendition of Bill Withers' "Lean On Me" together. With R.E.M. calling it quits, we figured it'd be a while before anyone heard Stipe sing again, but there he was, enshrined on Colbert's Rock & Roll Shelf of Fame, since R.E.M. was the first band to ever perform on Colbert's show. The host does a great job harmonizing with the two vets, but just the image of Eno and Stipe singing together makes this one of the late-night music highlights of 2011. It's just a shame R.E.M. never linked up with the producer during their run.

Did you purchase tickets for an Adele concert that ended up being canceled? Here's a new DVD to rub that disappointing feeling back in your face: On November 29th, the British songstress will release her CD/DVD Live at the Royal Albert Hall, which features her entire September 22, 2011 performance from London's most famous venue. The gig was filmed after Adele canceled her first U.S. tour but before she nixed her second U.S. trek, so it was that brief moment in 2011 when the singer wasn't overly affected by "recurrent vocal cord bleeding from a benign polyp." Lasers have since saved her voice.

Over four million Americans have already purchased Adele's 21 this year, but with Black Friday just weeks away, the singer needed to release something new to capitalize on the sales surge. Unfortunately, because Adele is still recuperating, she won't be able to promote the DVD herself, but her team has figured out a solution: Live at the Royal Albert Hall will premiere at movie theaters in New

Usually The Amp hates on that person who spends an entire concert filming the gig on their iPhone, but this time we'll make an exception. Kanye West's performance at the Victoria Secret's Fashion Show won't air until November 29th, but you don't have to wait until then to watch the rapper sing "Stronger" while surrounded by scantily clad supermodels. West was originally supposed to perform at the 2007 Victoria's Secret special but he canceled his appearance after the death of his mother Donda. According to MTV Rap Fix reports,West dedicated his two-song Victoria's set to his mom, because nothing says "fitting tribute" like Adriana Lima and Gisele Bundchen traipsing around a runway wearing next to nothing.

As an added bonus, Jay-Z made a surprise cameo to perform a cut off Watch the Throne. Watching cell phone footage from the performance isn't the best way to experience the Throne, but something tells us that the Jigga-half of the appearance won't make it to CBS on November 29th. The song is called "N----- in Paris," and while Kanye rapped a heavily censored version of the track -- "Got my homies in Paris, and they goin' gorillas" -- at the end of the day, it's still called "N----- in Paris," and CBS is still the network that aired Janet Jackson's Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction. Better to err on the side of caution. Also, none of the lingerie-wearing supermodels walked down the runway during the "Paris" performance, another clue that it won't be aired during the Victoria's Secret broadcast. Maybe Jay-Z just stopped by because he loves supermodels; we know supermodels love Jay-Z.

Call it the Pomplamoose Award: Every year, there's one song that appears in a ad that's so frequently played during commercial breaks, it absolutely wears on the sanity of anyone who watches a lot of TV. The repetition gets to the point where we need to Google who's responsible for the song just so we know where to target our anger. Last year, it was the Christmas sweater-wearing duo Pomplamoose and their inescapable Hyundai ads that had viewers hurling their remote controls at the screen. Before that, it was those terrible "Saved By Zero" spots. The most annoying commercial of 2011: Those Nissan Versa Sedan spots featuring Foster the People's "Don't Stop (Color On the Walls)."

Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic.comTom Waits' schedule is suddenly filling up: On top of his excellent new album Bad as Me, Waits has signed on to bring his gravelly voice to a new film called Seven Psychopaths, presumably in the role of one of the psychopaths. The Amp's favorite singer-who-acts joins a stellar cast that includes Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, and Christopher Walken. According to Collider, In Bruges director Martin McDonagh will helm the film. (The mere thought of maybe seeing Waits, Harrelson, Walken and Rockwell sharing a scene together in a black comedy about a trio of friends who kidnap a gangster's Shih Tzu already guarantees that we'll be purchasing a movie ticket.)

Talk That TalkIf Rihanna's 2009 album was called Rated R, then the singer's upcoming Talk That Talk should maybe be dubbed Rated X: The first reviews of RiRi's latest disc are out, and the lyrics on TTT are reportedly very, very dirty. The tongue-out album cover was the first hint, but VH1 calls Talk That Talk "the dirtiest pop record Since Madonna's Erotica." In fact, just reading the lyrics would make even Prince blush.

"Watch n' Learn" is like a how-to guide for satisfying Rihanna, with the singer mapping out all the locations she wants to get busy before telling her partner, "It's your turn now, watch and learn now, watch and learn how." But the award for naughtiest song on TTT goes to "Cockiness," which boasts the lines "I want you to be my sex slave" and "I love it when you eat it." Rihanna: Singer by day, phone sex operator by night. We've come a long way from simply standing under her umbrella...