Beyonce has decided to move onto single number two with the new ballad, “1+1”.
The song was performed by the Bey on American Idol last night.
That is not the only surprise; footage of her rehearsing the song leaked by Jay-Z.
“Sometimes you need perspective. You’ve been right in front of greatness so often that you need to step back and see it again for the first time. This is the dressing room rehearsal for American Idol. NO MICROPHONE. No effects,” said Jay as he wrote on hisLifeandTimes websitein a post titled “Pregame.”
I'll reserve my judgement of the song as soon as I get a chance to listen to it. You can listen to the mastered version below.
Indie artist The Weeknd managed to suffer from the infamous song leaking. Five demos, including a song intended for Young Money artist Drake, were leaked yesterday.
These songs were allegedly recorded back when The Weekend was part of a production team known as The Noise. The Weeknd will be releasing two projects, "Thursday" and "Echoes of Silence", following the release of his first 9-track album, "House Of Balloons".
In case you are unfamiliar with The Weeknd, he is an R&B singer by the name of Abel Tesfaye. His album, "House of Balloons", was universally-praised by critics and fans alike with a rating on 89% on Metacritic. Let's hope that his next project will be just as great, if not greater, than the first one.
One of my favourite new UK rappers Tinie Tempah has broken a U.S. record. It was confirmed that his latest single, “Written In The Stars”, has been certified platinum and has hit the top 15 of the Billboard Hot 100 with a peak of #12.
This makes Tinie the first British rapper to have a platinum single in the U.S., selling over a million copies. The single also peaked at #1 in the UK last year September, with his album reaching #1 and attaining double platinum status. His U.S. debut has been revised and will feature Wiz Khalifa, Bei Maejor and Ester Dean.
Speaking of which, his second U.S. single is about to be released. “Till I’m Gone” will feature the new radio rapper Wiz Khalifa. Speaking of the collaboration, Tinie told the Daily Star:"I feel like we're in the same kind of situation but in reverse. He's really huge in the US and I have a lot of presence in the Europe and UK, so if there was ever a time to collaborate now would be the time."
To comment on the song, it is another Stargate-produced track. However, this sounds refreshing and will undoubtedly be getting good spins on the radio. It’s really catchy but not really that ground-breaking.
Meanwhile, Tinie has also decided to jump onto the Adele bandwagon as he has stated that he has been in the recording studio with her. Tinie Tempah reportedly met up with Adele in Los Angeles and told the Daily Star: "We're working on something together. It's going to be something amazing. You'll all hear about it very soon."
I’m not sure about how I feel about this collaboration. They are both big in the UK but they differentiate from different musical genres. I’m hoping that he takes something inline with her sound, as she is slaying worldwide right now. This would surely give Tinie exposure and allow the world to see his greatness.
Jack Sparrow is coming for pirate’s parrot-made wigs!
Seems like the public only cares about Johnny Depp, as ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides’ seems to be breaking records worldwide. The movie is the fourth installment in the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ series.
The film opened up in the US with $35 million on Friday, beating ‘Fast Five’ $34.4 million to have the biggest opening of 2011. The film was estimated to open up with the years biggest opening of $88 million over the weekend, marking a decline in the film’s trend in the US, as ‘Dead Mans Chest’ opened up with $55 million on its first day and ‘At Worlds End’ took in $42.9 million the first day. However, the filmed opened up overseas with $92.1 million earned in three days. Now reports are saying that the film has grossed $104.4 million up until Tuesday in the U.S., beating industry expectations
Thanks to the release on Wednesday, ‘On Stranger Tides’ managed to gain the biggest opening of 2011 and Disney’s fourth-biggest opening ever in the UK. The $11 million gross is more than the rest of the UK’s box office’s top ten combined! It also broke records in Russia and China, grossing $25 million (an industry record and outpacing ‘At Worlds End’ entire run) and $20 million respectively (outpacing the entire run of the previous ‘Pirates’ installment).
Wig-snatching mates!
It also manages to break the record of ‘Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince’ in 2009 by pulling in a massive, record-breaking $256.3 to $260.4 million overseas for the biggest weekend opening for a film. ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ ($236 million), ‘Spider-Man 3’ ($230.5 million) and the previous Pirates film, ‘At World’s End’ ($216 million) grossed lower over the weekend compared to ‘On Stranger Tides’.
It pulled in $346.4 to $350.6 million worldwide, becoming the fourth-highest international bow of all time at the worldwide box office. It was beaten by openings from ‘Half-Blood Prince’, which opened up with $393 million, Spider-Man 3with $381 million and ‘At World’s End’ with $357 million. However, new reports state that up until Tuesday the film had grossed $310.8 million overseas, brining it's total revenue to $415.2 million in less than a week!
‘On Stranger Tides’ also broke Imax theater records, becoming the top global opening of all time for the large-format exhibitor. It grossed $16.7 million. In the U.S., the movie played in a record 256 Imax theaters. “For Disney and the Pirates franchise, this is a huge global phenomenon, and we're thrilled that Imax produced a worldwide record, as well,” said Greg Foster, who is the chairman and president of film entertainment at Imax. “This shows that moviegoers around the world continue to embrace Imax as the place to see their blockbusters. We're particularly excited about the powerful $61k per screen average internationally.”
Disney president of worldwide distribution Chick Viane also had a few positive words to say about the movie. “I think Rob Marshall obviously made one hell of a movie, and when you team Jerry Bruckheimer and Johnny Depp, it’s dynamite,” he says. “And for me, I will never look $90 million in the face and say it’s not a successful opening. Tracking had always aimed at this number, but everybody tried to make it more than the realty of tracking was. And there’s no doubt but that the international box office is becoming more and more important.” At least he realised that. Now record labels and artists should realise that America is not the only market in the music world.
Scores for the film have been sinking to low levels as film critics have been less-than-enthusiastic about the film as it has a rating of 45% based on 36 critics on Metacritic, the worst out of all the franchise’s films.. Over at Rotten Tomatoes the reviews faired worse, with a rating of 33%. Users, however, were more positive with a rating of 6.8 out of 10 at both websites.
It seems like the critics are the only fools trying to sink your ship Jack Sparrow. Too bad you and Disney are leaving with all that pile of gold…
Jason Derulo gets soaked and flashy in his music video for his brand new single ‘Don’t Wanna Go Home’, off of his sophomore studio album, “Future History”. The single is has been released on Monday, May 23 with a video premiere on Wednesday, May 25.
The various scenes include dancers lying over Jason on a coach, dancing in the rain in a warehouse, and brilliantly creating a dance shoot with actual flash lights.
As expected, the song has tremendously grown onto me and I can easily play it if I want to have a great time, although it heavily lacks creativity. Let’s hope that he won’t suffer the dreaded sophomore slump, as I feel that he is underrated and can utilize his talents more if he uses less auto tune and learns that less is more when it comes to performing.
You can watch the video below, as it is one of his best videos to date.
Alas, Beyonce has finally premiered the much-anticipated and delayedFrancis Lawrence video for her single “Run The World (Girls)”. The single is off of her upcoming studio album, “4”, which sees a release date of June 28.
Strutting her stuff on the apocalyptic video, we see Mrs. Knowles riding on her horse before showing us who’s coming for the throne. The camera then focuses on a close-up of Beyonce’s face, before she and her clan of female dancers declares war. We see her doing ‘intense’ choreography, such as the Irish River Dance and some African-inspired dancing, unraveling inspiration from the ‘Lion King’ by contacting Scar to allow Shenzi and Banzai to make a cameo as she holds them together with straps (she used Ed as her fur coat to cover up her assets: see album cover here), and pursues world domination by battling it out against the male specimen.
Although it was entertaining to see Bey shake and pop her kangaroo jelly, the video falls short of amazing. The dancing was uninspiring and looked as if she took a few cultural dances, clustered them up together, and performed it. However, in the end, I do feel that she nailed the choreography.
Certain parts of the video also seemed to be out of place, as the camera placed its attention on solo shots of Beyonce, when it should have been focusing more on the choreography scenes, thus breaking the cohesiveness of the video. The female empowerment concept also made this very predictable and has been used more than Lil Kim’s Pay-Pal account to pay for her amazing transformation. The song is still an audible beating to my ears, but I know that Beyonce will have stronger tracks on her album.
Overall, if this is Beyonce’s best then the only female pop stars that will be running the world are Adele, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Gaga and Katy Perry. I didn’t expect the video to mind-blowing, but for what its worth I am pleased. Let’s just hope that the second single blows us away.
Fresh off the release of her apocalyptic music video for ‘Run The World (Girls)’, Beyonce Knowles is ready to ravish our eyes with her new album cover for “4” (Look out for the video’s review later on).
Bare-chested and all, you can clearly see that her presence is blocking her name just to show off a new vintage 80’s-Stockolm hooker image that has finished off her ‘duties’. I cannot deny that the cover screams Rihanna “Rated R” era; in actual fact, I love it! It’s my second favourite album cover of hers, not succeeding the cover of “Dangerously In Love”.
The release date has been confirmed for June 28, two days after her 90-minute performance at the prestigious Glastonbury event, which will push those first week sales up. Lets hope that the album has plenty of tunes to offer up and that it won’t disappoint us. I know that she has really strong songs, but has yet to deliver the iconic album.
In less than 24 hours, Lady Gaga has premiered another song off of her upcoming album, ‘Born This Way’. The song, which goes by the name of ‘Marry The Night’, premiered on the Facebook game Farmville.
The song falls into the same realm as any 80’s-inspired club song. The song starts off with a melodic synth riff, which is played throughout most of the song, before blowing up into a generic club song. During the bridge, the song’s synths appear to become stronger, however fails to scream ‘single-worthy’.
Although the song might be a bit stronger than its predecessors, the chorus lacks that extra push that could transform it into a dance floor killer. This era has been more disappointing by the minute.
Listen to the track below and let me know what you think.
Lady Gaga continues her streak of promotional singles from her upcoming album, ‘Born This Way’. The single is the second promotional single ahead of the album’s release, which is a week from now. The individualism “anthem” features an appearance from Clarence Clemons, who is a longtime saxophonist for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street.
Take a listen below and let me know what you think about the RedOne-produced track.
In order to keep her new single afloat, Beyonce has debuted a longer trailer for her new video ‘‘Run The World (Girls)’’. Watch as Beyonce stands in front of a burning car, riding a black horse like she owns the throne, and making sure her army troopers of females prepare for Chart and world domination.
The video will premiere on Friday May 13 and will be sure to overshadow Rebecca Black or any artist hoping to show themselves on Friday. These teasers are probably being released to build up the non-existent hype left for this project, as the song has been dropping down the charts.
I’m sure the video will slay my life and build up my anticipation for her new album, titled “4”.
Rihanna has unveiled the single to her next single ‘Man Down’. The reggae-tinged tune will serve as a dual single along with 'California King Bed' from her four million-selling album, “Loud”.
While I feel that they could have at least been more creative and added a little va va voom to the cover art, the cover is still cohesive with the album’s theme.
I’m sure this song will do well on the urban charts. We’ll have to see whether it can crossover to the pop charts and if it could be another top ten song for Rihanna.
As if the fantastic ‘Final Destination’ series could not be any more predictable, New Line Cinema has released a new trailer for ‘Final Destination 5’. The movie will be directed Steven Quale and written by ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ writer Eric Heisseser.
The film stars Nicholas D'Agosto, Emma Bell, David Koechner, and Candyman legend Tony Todd, who plays William Bludworth in the first three installments of the series, as they hope to avoid Death. This untimely event is seen when Sam Lawton (Nicholas D’Agosto) has a premonition about a bridge he is on collapsing, killing him and everyone around him. However, as in the previous films, when this premonition becomes a reality, he manages to save himself and a few other people. Like the other delusional victims, Sam thinks that it’s over, before realizing that Death is after him and all the remaining survivors.
To wet fans’ pants even more, Tony Todd stated that if ‘Final Destination 5’ is a box office success, then ‘Final Destination 6’ and ‘Final Destination 7’ will be filmed back-to-back. I pray that they come up with more creative ideas, since I don’t want this franchise to go down the way the ‘Saw’ franchise did.
Watch how the latest victims will be tortured by Death. ‘Final Destination 5’ will be released to theatres August 12, 2011.
The Promotional wheel for Lady Gaga continues, as she has released a promotional single ‘The Edge of Glory’ to iTunes yesterday. The track serves as one of the few promotional tracks leading up to the release of her upcoming album, “Born This Way”.
“The Edge of Glory” serves as one of the better singles, consisting of lightly-layered synths infused with a Kelly Clarkson-style electric guitar and a saxophone breakdown. The single is actually better than “Born This Way” and could have served as a better lead single over “Born This Way”.
Lady Gaga has also decided to strike while the iron is hot, as she announced that a new promotional single, ‘Hair’, will be released to iTunes on May 16. The song was produced by Gaga collaborator RedOne.
Both of these songs serve as one-track previews before the whole album is revealed on May 23. Little Monsters will be able to use the “Complete My Album” option if they purchased the promotional singles, as well as ‘Born This Way’ and ‘Judas’, at a reduced price, while we still wait on that “greatest album of the decade”...
Rihanna is ready to continue with her reign on the charts and she’s making sure that nobody dares to stand in Her Majesty’s way!
Moments ago, she finally premiered the music video for her new guitar-driven single ‘California King Bed’, off of her fifth album, “Loud”. The single will be released to radio only on May 31, but should be able to at least chart on the Billboard charts.
Rihanna has produced yet another visually-engaging video. With each era, Rihanna seems to be getting better, visually and vocally. It’s like she could effortlessly blind us with her beauty. The video is basically a collage of Rihanna beauty shots, with emphasis on the despair lurking in Rihanna’s eyes when the bed, which her partner lays on, shifts away. Her emotions are at full force as she steps down from her throne and when the screen turns into Black and White. It’s almost like a beauty ad, but with a heavenly and sublimed feeling to it.
Watch as Rihanna graces your ears and eyes with her ‘California King Bed’ video.
Yes, I know that I am late with this one, but better late than never.
Lady Gaga has finally premiered her new video for the Biblical-inspired single “Judas”. The video was directed by the Lady herself, alongside her choreographer Laurieann Gibson. Starting off with bikers riding along the highway, the video tells the tale of Lady Gaga, playing Mary Magdalene, having a relationship with a modernized Jesus. However, when he finds out about her relations with Judas, she is stoned to death
I actually loved this video! The cinematography looked like it came straight out of ‘The Village’ setting. It was strange, haunting, engaging, and quite intriguing. It also tried to cause controversy, but without being blasphemous. However, my concern with the video is that they focused more on sub par choreography, which I think Gaga nailed, and less on the actual story, which made the storyline a bit complicated to understand. However, a great video was made.
By the way, am I the only one who loves this song and video? I didn’t fall for the hype, so I guess I’m safe to say that I’m anticipating this album.
Lady Gaga revealed on Twitter the “Born This Way” tracklisting. The standard edition will contain 14 songs, while the deluxe edition will include 5 more tracks. These tracks are "Born This Way Country Road Version," "Judas DJ White Shadow Remix," "Marry the Night Fernando Garibay Remix," "Scheibe DJ White Shadow Mugler" and "Fashion of His Love Fernando Garibay Remix."
DJ White Shadow, one of the album’s producers, spoke to MTV News about the album. "I don't even know how to explain it. [Born This Way] is not a pop album; it's a pop masterpiece of music. If there was no category of pop music, you wouldn't call it pop music,".He added: "She thinks of sh-- that I can't comprehend," he said. "It doesn't make sense to me, and I'm a creative person. ... Working with her is totally different than anyone else I've ever done anything with. She's the most hands-on person I've ever run into. She could walk into Steve Jobs' office and tell him he's doing Apple wrong, and he'd listen. As a producer, it's super cool to be with somebody who generally cares and is fully involved."
The video for “Judas” will debut on Thursday, 05 May. The long-form video, which was co-directed by Gaga alongside her choreographer, Laurieann Gibson, will premiere on E! at 7:00 pm EST. The biblically-themed visual stars Lady Gaga as Mary Magdalene and Norman Reedus as Judas Iscariot. How interesting…
Let’s hope that people get bored of all of these gimmicks and that she’ll finally choose her talent over gimmicks. I really loved her, but I’m starting to lose interest in her as an artist. I’m hoping the album is just as great as her previous two.
On July 1, fans of the robotic series will be able to lubricate their coochies when it get’s released. To please your appetites, the new full trailer of “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” has been revealed.
The cast shown in the 3D clip includes Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, John Malkovich, John Turturro, Frances McDormand, Patrick Dempsey and Hugo Weaving.
Watch the clip below in order to experience some intense, mind-blowing scenes.
Looks like Jenny is finally back to snatch ‘em wigs again! The video for Jennifer Lopez’s latest single “I’m Into You” finally premiered two days ago on “TODAY” show. The new album, “Love?”, is out now, so you people better go out and support Mrs Lopez. I’m hoping that she has an American Idol performance to broaden her chance of hitting #1.
Wow! Jennifer has really been drinking from the fountain of youth. I have no idea how she has kept her youthly beauty for years now, but whatever she’s doing is working. It seems like this women ages backwards. The video consists of Jenny frolicking around with her Cuban male model, William Levy, and glamour shots of Jennifer, displaying every aspect of Jennifer’s luscious body. Thank God Lil Wayne didn’t make a cameo appearance. The video was clearly focusing on Jenny and things would have felt out of place with Wayne’s presence.
"We did it in Mexico in Chichen Itza. It was really beautiful. I've never been," said Lopez. "It was funny because over Christmas, I had my whole family at my house, and every day my cousins and my aunts and everybody tuned in to this thing [telenovela] to see this guy ... I called my cousins and they were like, 'It's William Levy. You've got to get William Levy!' "
Watch Mother Latina in her “Love Don’t Cost A Thing” inspired-video and watch her break it down to a snippet of her song “Papi”.
Nintendo seems on planning to release remake ‘Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D’ on June 17 in Europe and June 19 in North America and has also revealed a trailer for the game.
Although long-time fans of the N64 original game won’t find anything different, and no footage of the ‘Master Quest’ or ‘Boss Challenge’ modes has been revealed, you’ll still be able to see Link’s new sleek design look, as the game’s visuals have been worked on in order to give it a modern day feel. The footage also includes 3D debuts of Ganondorf and Sheik, as well as the games’ bosses Dodongo and Volvagia the dragon.
Let’s hope that people really miss this game and are willing to buy a remake. Watch the trailer below.
Remember yesterday when I made the post about Rihanna’s music video and my idea for it? Well, it seems as if one of her team members decided to search the internet, raid my blog, and decided to use my idea. I couldn’t have been more happy that that they’re using a reddish tint in the video. The picture shots Rihanna laying over a male model's body.
The video was shot in Los Angeles during March and will serve as the sisth single from her four million-selling fifth studio album, “Loud”. The song will go for Top40/Mainstream adds on May 31st, so you better request the song so that Rihanna and hit #1 on the chart. This song seems to be the modern day “Big Girls Don’t Cry”.
Finally achieve the success that he deserves, Chris Brown is giving the green light to release his next single “She Ain’t You”, off of his fourth studio album, “F.A.M.E”. The song has so far peaked at #83 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #13 on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop songs.
It would have only been expected that he tribute Michael Jackson in this music video. The fedora hat and the dancing screamed MJ, but that’s a good thing. I really enjoyed the simplicity of the video and I’m glad that the director didn’t go overboard with any special effects. The video actually kind of represented a Michael Jackson Wii game, if I must say so.
You actually see Chris Brown hovering in the air at the beginning of the video before finally coming down to Earth, followed by lighting backgrounds in a room and bubbly lights and butterflies flying around after the chorus, almost to represent the fantasy childlike nature of Michael Jackson. I even saw some Ne-yo “Closer” aspects and choreography after the second verse of the song.
This video actually reminded me of Michael and what a great loss the world experienced. I’m still affected by it, even thou I never even knew him personally, yet his music made it feel as if he were talking through it to us.
Anyway, “F.A.M.E.” is out now. You can buy the album and the single over at Amazon.
That Rihanna reign just won’t let up! The Barbados Beauty has officially confirmed that the video for her new single “California King Bed” will premiere in less than ten days. No director has been confirmed as of yet, but as Toya would say, we would expect Melina or Anthony Mandlar to do it. Well, we all know how great their videos for Rihanna are, so we can’t disagree, now can we?
This is part of her duel single release consisting of this song and “Man Down”, which has been confirmed to be directed by Anthony Mandler. A picture of Rihanna was pictured on the video’s set over in Portland, Jamaica. This would be the perfect surrounding for the reggae-tinged song.
I’m hoping that the visual for “California King Bed” consists of radiant tints and lots of silky sheets. Then after the opening guitar strums, the sheets unveil Rihanna’s face, backed up by some sunlit lightening. Throughout the video, close-up shots of her and her lover are placed on the camera and there are shots of them caressing one another. During the video’s course, she imagines her lover laying gently besides her, stroking every aspect of his face, and before the start of the chorus he disappears and she erupts with emotion. Before the bridge, flashbacks of them together flicker and it’s revealed that he passed away. However, we return to the introduction of the video, only to find out that she had been dreaming.
Well, it could have been a good idea. Let’s wait and see what Rihanna will do when the video for “California King Bed” premieres.
over at Amazon.
