Category: Pop (Page 129 of 216)

Road Warriors 54

February 29, 2008 / Mike Farley

The inaugural Outside Lands Festival will take place in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, with Jack Johnson and Tom Petty already confirmed, and Radiohead rumored to be performing too.
The festival is August 22-24.

Hanson will hit the road again for their The Walk Tour ’08. The guys will also be playing SXSW on March 15, a performance that will be broadcast live on Direct TV. The spring tour will be supported by Stephen Kellogg and The Sixers and “One Tree Hill’s” Kate Voegele.

Coheed and Cambria are currently on tour supporting Linkin Park, and there are a few remaining dates that you can check them out Continue reading »

Alternative, Concerts, Country, Hip Hop, Pop, Rock

DMed’s Video of the Week: Kerli, “Love Is Dead”

February 29, 2008 / David Medsker

My head tells me that I shouldn’t like Kerli. One listen to her voice tells me that she worships at the altar of Amy Lee – the song is smothered with Evanescence-style melodrama as well – and the lyric is straight from Alanis Morrisette’s notebook (“I know that you think of me when you’re beside her / Inside her”). But I find myself irresistibly drawn to the Estonian beauty. I feel like Oz in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” when the band fronted by the female wolf comes to Sunnydale and plays the Bronze. He’s dating Alyson Hannigan, Alyson freaking Hannigan, but damned if he could resist the singer’s siren song. I’m Oz, Kerli’s the wolf.

The wolf also made an appropriately creepy video for her brooding lead single “Love is Dead.” It starts with her horribly aged, standing in front of a CGI background that shows, well, death. As the video goes on, she gets younger, and everything behind her does, too. We get stuff from 20-year-old girls pitched to us all the time. None of it sounds like this. She’s not reinventing the wheel or anything, but you have to love a young girl with some depth. She covers Bauhaus’ “She’s in Parties,” for crying out loud. Hopefully the full-length album, which drops April 22, will follow up on the promise of this single.

Embedding, sadly, is disabled, but I highly recommend checking her out. And in case you still need more convincing, here’s a picture of her.

See what I mean? You’re drawn to her too, aren’t you? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to lock myself up in my cage, so I don’t accidentally eat anyone when the full moon hits.

To view the video, click here.

Update: Video link switched from Island’s site to YouTube.

Artists, External Music, Pop, Rock Babes, Seen Your Video, Songs, Videos

American Idol: Here We Go Again

February 29, 2008 / Mike Farley

Last night’s “American Idol” results show was less fluff than usual, more results…but two of the results were surprising, one bordering on shocking, at least to me. That can only mean that those idiots who purposely mess with the voting are at it again (you losers know who you are). Either that, or America is just ignorant.

So first they did some bit on Simon Cowell blatantly flashing the “L” for loser sign to either Ryan Seacrest or various others during the auditions. Whatever…we all know he’s a wiseass.

Then came the ’70s medley, which did one thing in particular…it exposed how bad some of these singers really are.

Okay, on to the results Continue reading »

Alternative, American Idol, Country, Pop, Rock

WTF?! Rewind – Taco

February 28, 2008 / Captain Capm

After Eight

Ah, Taco. How you came and went with such a fey flourish! You dominated the singles charts briefly with your synthed-up remake of “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and dared to go the full LP route by also issuing After eight. Seriously, dude. WTF?! Not that I have any room to make too much fun. You see, I bought this album in a record shop at the time it was big (I had already bought the single). Got it and the Atari 2600 cartridge “E.T.” at the same store. Yeah. So maybe you could say I struck out twice that day, but I enjoyed both at the time.

But this album now? It’s just too corny for words. While Taco offers up other cover versions of classics like “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Cheek to Cheek,” the real stomach churners are the tracks he penned himself. “Livin’ in My Dream World,” the original b-side to “Ritz” is bad enough. Taco reminisces about doing the Charleston, enjoying sing-along songs, and dancing on the Milky Way. Yech. If that weren’t enough, then perhaps “Tribute to Tino” in which Taco throws up appallingly bad synths in the faces of his listeners to tell them a tale of silent movie star Rudolph Valentino is. “Fairbanks, Chapman, Barrymore had leading ladies by the score like Tino” croons Taco. “Marie Provost” this is not.

The title track is also pretty abysmal. “After eight, a rendezvous with Kate! / She works late / I’ve had a hard day watching color TV” sings the Tac, trying to inflect as much of a ’30s style mannerism into his voice as he can. Then he tops it even more terribly with “Kate works each day 9 to 5, serving with true dedication / She serves you sodas, and ice creams, and pizzas, and chilis / And burgers, all kinds…and tacos, too…dig it!”

So yeah, basically there was “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and that was pretty much it. After Eight remains one of those distinctly ’80s novelty curios, and prices for CD copies of it are ridiculously overpriced. Still, you can nab the album off of iTunes these days. Taco did continue his career after this, but no one cared by the time his second album came out. It seems like the public didn’t need new versions of “Winchester Cathedral” or other pap such as “Opera Rap.” Yeah…”Opera Rap.”

And just to remind you how deeply serious Taco was when it came to puttin’ on his ritz, I’ll leave you with with this image from the back cover of this album:

Artists, Pop

American Idol: Ladies Night = Crap Night

February 28, 2008 / Mike Farley

When Simon Cowell declared Tuesday night that this season’s “American Idol” was David Archuleta’s to lose, he wasn’t joking. Not only did young David out-class every one of the guys, he left every lady in the rear view mirror as well, because for the most part, they did not deliver the goods on Wednesday night. Here is a recap….

THE GOOD

Carly Smithson went first last night, and in the little bit about “what viewers would be surprised to learn,” said she tends bar at an Irish pub in San Diego. I wasn’ t surprised, were you? Anyway, Carly sang Heart’s “Crazy on You,” and for me it was a bit too shouty. But by the end of the night, Carly sure looked good compared to the rest of the field. Randy said it was rough at the start but got better, Paula said Carly is a great singer, and Simon said it was better than last week, and that no other woman in this thing can touch Carly vocally. He may be right.

Brooke White strapped on her guitar and sang Carly Simon’s Continue reading »