And they said this day would never come. Axl Rose's magnum opus will be on Best Buy shelves across the nation this Sunday, all right, doubters be damned — and MySpace is doing us one better by streaming the whole thing for free as of right now. (MySpace is also streaming Paul McCartney's new project, which I personally just might be comparably psyched for.) And? Midway through my first listen, Chinese Democracy is sounding pretty cool, but I'm nowhere near close to being able to form a conclusive opinion on such a weighty matter. So I'll turn it over to those critics who've had a little more time to ponder the first original Guns N' Roses album in 17 years. Head over to GNR's MySpace to check out the album if you haven't heard it yet, and speak up: Do you think any of the reviews excerpted after the jump get Chinese Democracy right?
So here's what we know about the deal the Beatles just struck with the makers of Rock Band: Something's coming out next year; it's based on the Beatles' decade-long evolution as a band; it is a video game, but it is not part of the Rock Band franchise. And, uh, that's all we got right now.
Still, as a lifelong Beatlemaniac, and a relatively recent Rock Band-er, that's more than enough to get me psyched. The possibilities are endless. I'm talking super-difficult boss levels where you have to re-create "Revolution 9" using only a Wii Nunchuk! Multi-player adventure quests involving Ringo's mystical ring from Help! And, hopefully, some forum that will permit me to pretend I possess the musical skills needed to play side one of Rubber Soul. Or who knows, maybe it'll just end up looking like one of those fan-created Sims/Beatles mashup videos. (Seriously, there are dozens of these things on YouTube — check one out after the jump.)
Your turn to go wild: What would you like to see in a licensed Beatles video game? Bear in mind that it's apparently a standalone, non-Rock Band game. You never know, Harmonix and MTV Games might be listening...
<p>IMG IN CT: PM BLOG (pt 2)</p>Back on Valentine's Day, you may or may not recall, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that formerly famous rapper Coolio can fix a mean Caprese salad, courtesy of his Web series "Cookin' With Coolio." Kick rhymes in Michelle Pfeiffer's faceand master the kitchen? Is there anything this man can't do? Well, I found my answer to that question when I watched his boring new reality series Coolio's Rules, which premiered last night on Oxygen, of all places. Oof. I mean, dude came off as more immature than his teenage kids. And that pasta sauce he whipped up looked nasty!
But hey, maybe I'm just holding Coolio to an unfairly high standard. Anyone else catch Coolio's Rules last night? Will you be tuning in again next Tuesday?
Well whaddya know, the Cure is back! The 1970s-'80s-'90s British post-goth/post-punk alt-rockers are streaming their new album, 4:13 Dream, in its entirety on their MySpace page, so you can give it a preview before you shell out your recession-era dollars when it drops tomorrow. The haunting, 6-plus-minute Disintegration-esque opening track "Underneath the Stars" (which has had fans buzzing since Robert Smith and the boys debuted it live earlier this year -- watch them perform it at the Hollywood Bowl below) is easily the best Cure album-opener in almost 20 years, and after a quick first listen, it also seems to set the pace for what might be the best Cure album in almost 20 years. If you get a minute today, head over and check it out and let us know what you think.
In the spirit of the Site of the Day that Wook shared with us yesterday, I feel compelled to bring your attention to one more freaky optical illusion. That's the cover of Animal Collective's next album, Merriweather Post Pavilion (h/t), and I can't stop staring at it. See, it looks like it's moving...but then when you look closer it's not moving at all...yet if you try looking again out of the corner of your eye it is totally moving, man! So mesmerizing. Much as I dig (some of) Animal Collective's oddball indie experiments, I am willing to bet that this cover art will turn out to be at least as interesting as the actual music on Merriweather, if not more so. Or do you disagree? We'll have to wait til the album hits in January to find out.
Say it with me, Eminem fans: FINALLY! Reports have been flying for months that Em is recording a long-awaited comeback album. And last night at his book release party (Margeaux was there!), the pieces all came together. Em told the revelers that there is indeed an album coming soon... it's called Relapse... and today a two-minute lyrical clinic called "I'm Having a Relapse," apparently the first taste of that album, is all over the Web.
You can check it out below, but be warned, it's super-NSFW. And that's part of what makes this song so awesome for those who, like me, have been waiting years for the real Slim Shady to return. Em's flow, at one time the industry's wickedest, is right back on point — a huge relief for anyone who's been left underwhelmed by some of his half-asleep-sounding latter-day performances. What's more, he's using that delivery to spew the kind of perverse, hyper-aggressive wordplay that made fans out of Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney and billions of suburban teenagers back in 1999-2000. (Man, was it really that long ago that I saw Carson Daly introduce "My Name Is" for the first time?) Nah Right's Eskay has it right: "Drugs, violence, wacky voices and flows upon flows. Yep, he's back."
In other words, if you never really liked Eminem, I bet you'll be giving this somewhere in the vicinity of a 1. But if you're like me and you think pop culture has been sorely missing his subversive influence — if you've been longing for the only artist who can cross this many lines and offend this many listeners in a way that's actually clever, not just crass — you'll be leaning towards a 7 or higher. So how would you score it? And meanwhile, get ready for a lot more insight into Em's mind when the new issue of EW hits stands tomorrow with an exclusive excerpt from his upcoming autobiography, The Way I Am...
Back in the 1970s, Allen Funt, of Candid Camera fame, put out an R-rated feature film called What Do You Say to a Naked Lady, which had, yes, live, nude women dropping trou (and everything else) in public so the startled reactions of strangers could be caught on film. It felt a little like that last night at the Ace Gallery in Hollywood, a warehouse-like space where a few hundred music industry types were herded up a ramp and confronted with about 35 motionless and completely naked (except for their high heels) ladies. But there was nothing to say to them, because we were all there to hear the world premiere of Kanye West's forthcoming 808s & Heartbreak, with the stationary models as a sort of accompanying art installation, as imagined by Italian artist Vanessa Beecroft. For some, Allen Funt wasn't the filmmaker brought to mind. "For the first time, I feel like I'm really in a Fellini movie," said the fellow next to me. For those of us with really long memories, the phalanx of female birthday suits almost could have passed as an homage to the original, pre-censored, NSFW album cover of Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland, although Hendrix had a slightly higher tolerance for body fat on his models than West or Beecroft.
The women stood motionless as most of the album played out, backlit by a large, glowing screen controlled by a visual DJ in the corner. The crowd -- which included hip-hop luminaries like Rick Ross and Will.i.am -- gathered around the dimly lit gals in a semi-circle, as guards paced an invisible perimeter to make sure no one tried to engage the models. Three songs in, some of them began to sit down or strike other poses, seemingly at random, as we tried to imagine exactly what direction Beecroft had given them. The front half of the brigade appeared to be African-American, and the rear flank Caucasian; most (but not all) of the black women wore curly black wigs pulled completely over their faces, and most (but not all) of the white ladies had white wigs similarly obstructing their faces. Was there a statement being made here -- besides the obvious one of trying to hold the first listening party in history where people don't spend the whole night grouped around the bar?
Yes! West finally appeared after the album had run through in its entirety and offered some explanations. "I've always been a fan of Vanessa's work and its strong imagery," he told the crowd, explaining that Beecroft had only had a week to put the event together. "I liked the idea of nudity, because… in society, they tell us to wear clothes at a certain point… Crazy is anyone who breaks from the norm. The irony, for me, someone who's talked about so many labels, [like] Louis Vuitton… 'this girl looks good, I'm not going out with her if she don't look good'… The irony for me [was] to lose the most important person to Hollywood." It was left unspoken just who that was, but presumably he was referring to his late mother, who died from complications following cosmetic surgery in Los Angeles, and who he had previously noted was the subject of the album's closing song. "And now it's time to deliver ideas in the most naked form possible," he added.
One of the worst things you can call a TV show is "inoffensive." It's the equivalent of telling someone that you just want to be friends: "You're not horrible enough that I need to ban you from my life, but you offer nothing that I can't get somewhere else, so I'll just see you when I see you." Eleventh Hour — CBS' latest procedural, imported from Britain — is inoffensive.
The show revolves around Dr. Jacob Hood (A Knight's Tale's Rufus Sewell) who, in the premiere, identified himself as a special science advisor to the FBI, then added, "I was appointed to investigate crimes and crisis of a scientific nature." You'd think that Sewell's warm bath of a voice could make any line of TV dialogue work, but no, it just emphasizes how much bad writing is beneath him. Dr. Hood is partnered with Special Agent Rachel Young (Sugar & Spice's Marley Shelton), whose job it is to protect the biophysicist from the people he pisses off in the course of solving cases. This means he carries a panic button with him that he can, oops!, accidentally sit on late at night and summon her to the hotel bar, gun drawn, when she's wearing a short white robe that's open just enough to remind us that underneath those pant suits, she wears a sexy black bra. Puh-lease. I suppose we should be happy that the producers opted for that kind of humiliation instead of a pratfall to make her seem vulnerable to the audience. Having a woman be the muscle in a partnership is cool — don't blow it! Keep her balls-to-the-wall (as when a stranger offered to buy her a drink and she responded, "Before you disturb me, you should know I’m filling out this paperwork because I shot at a man today." Why? "Because he disturbed me").
There's a reason I'm three paragraphs in and I'm just now getting to the crime in this episode — it was kinda boring, even though it involved human cloning. After 19 (!) dead fetuses were found in Seattle, it was finally time to bring in Hood, who was apparently the first person to think about doing DNA testing. (Note: The local detective was played by Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Riley, Marc Blucas, who should really cut his hair.) Hood determined that they were clones, and, set out to find the person pulling the strings — someone with the codename Geppetto. That was so supposed to be clever, but it made me groan. Even more so after Young said she never understood Geppetto — a woodcarver wants a son so badly that he makes one, Pinocchio...what is there not to understand? Her musings, however, made Hood realize that Geppetto would be commissioned by a billionaire parent who'd lost a child, and he took Young to a library to sit and look through hard copies of local newspapers from 2005. Wouldn't a computer have been quicker? Of course, Hood found the dad (Michael O'Keefe) and had a heart-to-heart that revealed something about himself: his wife died two years ago, and not a day goes by that he doesn't want her back. The tears in Sewell's eyes made me wish he was on a better show. Like, The Mentalist. In the end, Hood saved the mother who was carrying the 20th ill-fated fetus, but Geppetto got away. Do we want Geppetto to be the villain that returns every Sweeps period? Eh. (Insert shoulder shrug.) A better question: Do you want this series to last until November?
Come on. I know you’re out there. Kath & Kim fans? No, I’m not talking about the American version, which debuted last night on NBC, but fans of the Aussie original, which has become a pop culture sensation since its debut Down Under in 2002.
Like me, you probably tuned in out of morbid curiosity, to see how Hollywood would make over the Aussie institution. The verdict: It’s not very noyce.
In translating the cult hit for a stateside audience, the creators of Kath & Kim have stripped the show of its essence and edge. Overly slick, it lacks the grit and wit of the original. The primary appeal of the Australian Kath & Kim, an Aussie friend once explained to me, is how "daggy" it all is. But where the Aussie version delights in skewering the smug suburban sensibilities of its characters, this version is oddly squeamish, shying away from deadpan deconstruction of the middle class, and opting instead for low-hanging sitcom-style laughs (Kim's husband calls her "Dude"! Ha!)
And don't even get me started on the casting. Molly Shannon makes a respectable showing as menopausal mom-on-the-make Kath (a role originated by actress-comedian Jane Turner), but Selma Blair can't hold a candle to series co-creator Gina Riley's muffin-topped fashion victim Kim.
All of which begs the question: Why can't networks leave well enough alone, and let American audiences experience imports like Kath & Kim (and Ab Fab, for that matter) in their original form?
How do you feel about the new Kath & Kim, PopWatchers? And did you ever watch the Aussie series?
David E. Kelley, David E. Shmelley. Some assumed when the TV-guru left Life on Mars' production team the show was dead. Others thought it bit the dust when ABC reshot the pilot with a whole new supporting cast. I, for one -- being an anglophile who adores John Simm and Philip Glenister, the one two punch of the British original -- thought it was all over the day some fool got the crap idea to remake my favorite show.
Then there was that moment during last night's premiere when it hit me: Lord, was I wrong. I LOVE Life on Mars. Sure, you can't tell that much from just a pilot, but just think about it. The show has brought The Sopranos' Michael Imperioli, The Wire's Clarke Peters, and The Cosby Show's Lisa Bonet all back on TV. And during the same hour! More than that, it got Harvey Keitel on series TV in the first place. And he's great (sorry, Philip, still love you though). Lead Jason O'Mara, on the other hand, is a freakin' revelation. Sure, he rocked The Closer, but I didn’t expect this. This is good.
Oh, and the show itself has some pretty good lines ("I have an ass that can fart every Peter, Paul & Mary song ever recorded," "Let’s not wait until another girl ends up with her dead on"), great tunes ("Life on Mars" and "Baba O'Riley" in the same episode), and a pretty good mystery. Why is Sam stuck in 1973? Will he get back to 2008? And, if you’ve seen the Brit show, will this one end the same as it did in England?
So who else watched Life on Mars last night? And who else was as taken as I was? Or am I totally alone?
I guess it's a good thing I know more about vampires than technology, because it took the Army Corps of Engineers a tech-savvy friend and much nail-biting to figure out how to install the $%#& Twilight widget so I could watch the damn thing. By the time I got it to work, the trailer was already on YouTube. But! Check it out, and my initial impression, below:
1. The kiss between Bella and Edward -- not a bad one. Almost hot, actually. Based on the film's poster, I was afraid they'd have zilch chemistry. Happy to see I might be wrong.
2. Is it just me, or does Robert Pattinson's American accent make him sound a little like a young Marlon Brando? Bella: "You've gotta give me some answers!" Edward: "I'd radda hear your tearies." And a little further in, "My famlee, we're different from udders of our kind." A Godfadder in the making.
3. I wish I could've seen more than a split second of Alice and the rest of the Cullens, and met Jacob too.
4. That's a cool trick Edward pulls with the apple. In fact, all the action seems pretty cool, though the dialogue could definitely use a little, uh, juice.
Over to you, PopWatchers: What do you think of the trailer? Are you tons more excited for the movie now that you've seen it? Or are you wishing it were the dusk of the Twilight empire already? Sound off below (but please keep it civil)!
My childhood hero, Weird Al Yankovic, is touting his new single as the first time he's ever released a parody while its target was still No. 1 on the charts (h/t). This may or may not be technically true, since T.I.'s "Whatever You Like" was unseated from the top spot (by another T.I. single!) yesterday morning, within hours of the time when Weird Al's identically titled "Whatever You Like" showed up on iTunes. Anyway! Ol' Al has remade T.I.'s big-spender anthem into a suitable ode to our credit-stressed times. It's no "White & Nerdy" in my humble opinion, but then, what song is? It's definitely growing on me, and I know can't argue with a song that references Top Ramen within the first minute. How about you?
Slezak's gut IM reaction: "J'loathed.** I feel like it was created in a lab in 20 minutes. A Swedish lab. 'Is sounding like hit, yes?' And then she sips her frap and shrugs and lays down the track and goes back home. 'Toxic' was the last song of hers that felt exciting to me."
My take: It starts off a bit Katy Perry, then ends all Pussycat Dolls (and I totally miss "Toxic" Britney, too!). That said, when I listened a second time, I was singing along to "Boy don't try to front, I-I know just-just know what you are are-are" and trying to pretend that I didn't hear-hear her say something about a lollipop and a sucker. I won't buy the single, but I also won't change the station if I happen to hear it.
Your turn.
* We thought it better not to pass judgment on those grainy "Womanizer" snippets leaked on the internet last week. ** You know he feels strongly when he speaks pseudo-French. See also: Le gasp!
Simon Baker plays Patrick Jane, a man who pretended to be a psychic until a serial killer, known as Red John, whom he bragged about profiling for the police on TV, murdered his wife and child in their home — and left Patrick a note saying that were he a real psychic, he wouldn't need to open the bedroom door to know what had been done to his family. Hor-ri-fy-ing. That flashback was set up beautifully: Now aiding the California Bureau of Investigation, as a skilled observer (not psychic), Patrick had already established that Red John always puts the smiley face he draws in the victim's blood on the first wall a loved one will see when he or she enters the room. Why? He wants the person to see it before the body, so that he or she will experience a moment of pure dread. Cut to us watching Patrick climb the stairs to his bedroom, read the note, slowly open the door, and set eyes on a dripping red smiley face. That I had to rewatch that scene to write about it meant I slept with the lights on last night. (Even after watching The CW's exceedingly delightful Privileged to bring me back to a semi-happy state.)
My favorite part of "Another Way to Die," the new James Bond theme song that just leaked, would have to be the lyric where Jack White attempts to work in the title of the movie — and can't quite bring himself to utter that much-maligned phrase: "Another tricky little gun/Giving solace to the one/That'll never see the sunshine." Just say it, Jack. Quantum of Solace. It's not as bad a title as everyone says. You could give those words a real cred boost if you'd just mention them in passing! Okay, maybe I'm still alone on that one. And maybe he's saying "silence," not "solace" — I can't really tell from the fuzzy radio rip that I'm listening to (below).
Anyway! I really dig this song. Alicia Keys and Jack White have way better musical chemistry than I expected them to: Jack ratchets up his usual riff-tastic retroisms with some Bond-appropriate orchestral flourishes, which in turn complement Alicia's soaring vocals better than your average stripped-down Stripes cut might. Granted, "Another Way to Die" is no "Goldfinger" or "Live and Let Die." But it's easily as much fun as "A View to a Kill" or "Die Another Day" (both of which are
thoroughly enjoyable tunes, so don't even start, naysayers).
Where would "Another Way to Die" rank on your personal list of fave Bond songs? A final note before you weigh in: I'd just like to point out that I kinda-sorta predicted that the Quantum of Solace theme song would be a historically unprecedented duet between a pasty, semi-reclusive indie dude and a soulful lady with a big voice. (Check out the parenthetical sentence at the end of the third paragraph.) And now my kinda-sorta prediction has come true, and the musical fruit it has borne is oh-so-glorious. Feel free to offer your thanks below — or don't you like "Another Way to Die" as much as I do?
he sound so out of breath half the time? Finally, I'll be damned if I can figure out why he's decided to "sing" for an entire track instead of gracing us with a single line of rap — or giving this track to an actual singer. Look, far be it from me to criticize a musician for going outside of his or her lane. The Love Below is a really cool record; I've got no problem with rappers turning singers, if they can actually craft a listenable song that way. But Kanye's no André 3000 in that department. It's just not working for me, to the point where I still feel like there's something I'm not "getting" about this song.
Right now I'm holding out hope that this is just a demo of some sort. Maybe Kanye will sound less sleepy on the real thing. And maybe I'll see the light on "Love Lockdown" after a few more days of listening. But it's certainly isn't grabbing me anywhere near the way the first teaser singles from Kanye's lastthreealbums did. You tell me: Am I wrong here? Is there something I'm missing about "Love Lockdown"? (Also, on a semi-sorta-related note: Whoa, Kanye was apparently just arrested at an L.A. airport on vandalism charges after allegedly smashing a paparazzo's camera? I got no comment on that right now, except for an emphatic "Wha'happen?!" and my well-wishes to Kanye.)
I was ready to declare the CW's new series Privileged an ill-advised knockoff of the 2007 flick The Nanny Diaries. I mean, come on, does any of this sound familiar to anyone else?
• Girl moves in with hoity-toity richies to tend to spoiled brat children • Girl "studies" family • Girl meets hunky next-door neighbor, flirtatious banter ensues • Girl has verbal altercation with matriarch
Not to mention both are based on novels (Zoey Dean's How to Teach Filthy Rich Girls is the inspiration for Privileged). But that's where the similarities mostly end. Megan (pictured left), played by one of EW's 15 fall TV stars to watch, Joanna Garcia, is a plucky type-A with almost a little too much quirk about her. Yet her can-do attitude makes her light-years more likable than Scarlett Johansson's sullen, whiny Annie Braddock (pictured right). (Plus it takes only one episode for Megan to tell off snotty twin Sage and her enabling grandmother Laurel, played by Golden Globe winner Anne Archer.) With an interesting backstory -- after Manhattanite Megan relocates to posh Palm Beach, Fla., we find out she's actually a native and has yet to tell her family she's returned -- and a faint glimmer of a love triangle involving Megan, neighbor Will, and BFF Charlie, the clever dramedy has just the right amount of intrigue and suds to be my new Tuesday-night guilty pleasure.
What do you think, PDubs? Did any of you catch last night's premiere? Want to weigh in early on whether Megan should choose friend Charlie or rich boy Will? Will Megan ever win over Sage? What do you think of the new series?
Stuff I thought was cool in last night's pilot for J.J. Abrams' Fringe on Fox:
• Lance Reddick's spooky cranium. First thing in the ep I saw that made me cheer out loud.
• That translucent-skin ailment. Gross, but really cool.
• The cow walking through the halls of Harvard.
• The whole immersion tank scenario. I was thinking, "How very Altered States." And then, a few minutes later, who shows up but Altered States star Blair Brown. With a ROBOTIC ARM. Well played, sirs, well played.
I was a little afraid that I might have to wait for another nice round anniversary year to blog again about Lauryn Hill after last week's Miseducation milestone. So a million thanks are in order to the Roots' ?uestlove, who kept the celebration going yesterday by pointing his Twitter readers toward a never-before-heard leaked song from Ms. Hill (h/t). Yes! It's unclear when, exactly, "World is a Hustle" was recorded, but it's pretty great — all eight minutes of it. Crying out against hypocrisy and greed in words that recall her Unplugged album, but fleshing out the production with the soulful flourishes of her studio work, this sounds like the logical next step we've been waiting for in her progression as an artist.
Before I get too carried away, I should point out that the fuzzy state of this recording would suggest that it's more like a rough demo than a completed single. And right now we don't really have enough context to interpret what any of those gloomy lyrical pronouncements mean. This could have been created over this past Labor Day weekend, or minutes after stepping off that unplugged stage in 2001. Ms. Hill might not have even meant for us to hear this song in any form, finished or unfinished. But I'm happy we've gotten the chance to enjoy it for now — whatever the circumstances. Aren't you? Check out "World is a Hustle" below, and chime in below...
Shouts out to my boy Harold, who seems to have used his Purple Crayon to direct Common's video for his new single "Announcement" (below)! J/k, it was actually directed by the talented Lil' X. But the clip's a lot of fun anyway. In addition to the whole 2-D look, I'm particularly enjoying the sidelong triple-take entrance of Pharrell, who produced "Announcement," at roughly 1:25-1:31. And the song's a winner for sure. There's a cool new laid-back party vibe emerging for Com's new album, next month's Invincible Autumn Summer... though it's always possible that "Announcement" would sound different if I weren't bumping it on the very same super-headphones that the dude in the video is rocking at the beginning. You'll just have to tell me: Does this video look and sound as great to all of you?
If you, like me, flew through the 768-page behemoth that is Breaking Dawn during the wee morning hours following its release, you probably have little left to temper your Cullen cravings until the big screen version of Twilight hits theaters November 21 (thank you, Harry Potter). Which is all the more reason I was so psyched to stumble upon the first chapter of Stephenie Meyer's next book, Midnight Sun.
As any die-hard Twilighter can tell you, Midnight Sun is a retelling of the saga's first book through the eyes of hunky vampire Edward Cullen. Meyer recently told EW.com that she's 12 chapters into the novel, which Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke and star Robert Pattinson (pictured, with costar Kristen Stewart) used to help flesh out Edward's persona in the film. I've gotta say, as much as I love the original Twilight story, I think I'm even more in love with the tale from Edward's darker point of view.
But I shouldn't call it simply Edward's perspective, because as you know, the vamp's ability to read other people's thoughts provides easy access to everyone's inner workings. We're not only privy to Edward's intense (and I mean INTENSE) struggle to not eat Bella, but we get a peek into the minds of the mysterious Cullens -- from Jasper's naughty yearning to devour a classmate in the cafeteria to Alice's ongoing worries about her partner's vegetarian fidelity. Edward's voice in the novel is not only more nuanced and mature than high-strung Bella's (perhaps his 107 years has something to do with that), but we get the added bonus of avoiding all the smoldering eyes/icy-cold granite-body talk.
What say you, PopWatchers? Have you had a chance to peruse the first chapter of Midnight Sun? Do you prefer the Twilight story from Bella's or Edward's perspective? Which scenes are you dying to see through Edward's eyes? (I'm stoked for the fight scene!)
TV on the Radio's last album was — to greatly oversimplify a complex work of art — a moving meditation on the fate of human warmth in a time of conflict. Or maybe I misunderstood all those lyrics and it was a concept album about delicious crumbly desserts? Either way, Return to Cookie Mountain was a record that drove people pretty wild two years ago. So when the first taste of their dizzily awaited follow-up Dear Science went online this week, some of us fans just about lost it. Go over to TVOTR's official website ASAP to hear teaser track "Golden Age" and you'll see why. This song grabs you immediately with a super-tight electro/funk groove, then swiftly blossoms into effusive strings and synths — a brighter, lighter sound than most anything on Cookie Mountain. "There's a golden age comin' round, comin' round, comin' ro-o-o-ound!" crows Kyp Malone. Sure sounds like it.
My only disappointment is that this is not a Beck cover, but somehow I'll forgive the guys because they are geniuses. TVOTR's new album Dear Science is due in about a month, with "Golden Age" and 10 more songs. I know I can't wait; can you?
Raise your hand if you've come across the new Rihanna video on TV recently and been a little scared. (No, not that new Rihanna video... not that one, either... this new Rihanna video, for "Disturbia.") It's okay, I was shaken too. You can check out the clip below — if you dare. Mad creepy, right? It looks like she accidentally wandered into Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" video, or else some sort of freaky Victorian mental hospital. Not quite what I'd expected for a dance-pop song based around the lyrics "Dom-dom-dee-dom, dom-dom-dee-dom-dom." It's cool to see Rihanna trying something new, though. And the song is so catchy it'd work with practically any visuals — even if this video seems like it was crafted to test the limits of that statement.
So, do you dig this video's haunted-hallucination vibe? And while we're at it, I'm hoping one of you can help explain why this song is called "Disturbia." Did I miss the time when that became a word in the English language? (Is disturbia a place? A state of mind? An unusual first name?) Or is this, like, an oblique tribute to that Shia LaBeouf movie? Help!
I was honestly not aware that we'd arrived at the point where Garden State homages were remotely hip again. (Were they ever, really?) But Santogold's new video for her excellent single "Lights Out" (h/t) has forced me to reconsider my position. Somehow that signature wallpaper-camouflage trick just looks a lot cooler without all the Braff getting in the way of the pretty patterns. Doesn't it? Check it out below and chime in. It'll change your afternoon, I swear...
"Lucid Dreams," the new teaser track from Franz Ferdinand, has been firmly stuck on repeat for me ever since those mischievous Scots dropped it on us unawares recently (h/t) — and it's not even in my iTunes. I've been going back to their official site and clicking "play" to make the little turntable stream this tune over and over again for days. Give it a try yourself (below) and you'll see why. Mostly, I just can't get enough of that rough-tumbling guitar riff that anchors the song. Alex Kapranos is in fine form, too, even if I can't quite figure out what's going on with his geography-heavy lyrics. (Istanbul! Alexandria! Ithaca!) So catchy. Franz Ferdinand still haven't penciled in a release date for their next album — but did anyone else just get a lot more excited for whenever it arrives?
The thing that most interested me about N.E.R.D.'s "Everybody Nose" video was the weird way MTV chose to censor it. Not a bad clip — just a little boring. Luckily, the video they just dropped for the "Everybody Nose" remix (below) is far superior on every level. Let me count the ways:
Hot guest verses from Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco (which makes this a semi-official CRS reunion!), plus a particularly excellent cameo from the Clipse's Pusha T. Everybody's in top form, making this poppy club track double as a serious lyrical clinic.
So, anyone else feeling this video? All the PopWatchers standing in the line for the comments section, pipe up!
Rejoice! The magnum opus that Dr. Dre has spent the past two years perfecting is finally here! No, not Detox — that won't be out 'til the end of this year (maybe). I'm talking about his new Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, created with Monster Cable and Interscope/Geffen/A&M honcho Jimmy Iovine. These are no tinny little ear buds — they retail for $350, and they come with a higher purpose. "With Beats," Dre announces on the official site, "people are going to hear what the artists hear, and listen to music the way they should: the way I do." Sounds like a challenge to me. So I got my hands on a pair of Beats by Dr. Dre, and used 'em to listen to some beats by Dr. Dre, the way the man intended...
00:00: I slip on my Beats by Dr. Dre and turn on their internal power. This noise-canceling technology is sick! Is my cubicle-neighbor saying something to me? Possibly, but I know not what, for I am enveloped in a world of pure and utter silence. Silence produced by Dr. Dre.
00:05: NWA's "F--- tha Police" comes blasting on. (Note: some NSFW lyrics in all linked songs.) Man, do those samples hit harder in surround-sound. I feel like I am literally standing in the middle of Judge Dre's courtroom, and I am a little worried that he is about to hold me in contempt for not answering his questions.
05:51: On to "Nuthin' but a G Thang," from The Chronic. You know, I don't think I've ever really heard the lyrics of this song like I am now. How did I miss this classic couplet: "You never been on a ride like this before/With a producer who can rap and design luxury headphones, the maestro." So true!
10:04: "'Slim Shady, you a basehead.'/'Nah-ah!' 'Then why's your face red?/Man, you wasted.'" Now you're just being unfair, Dr. Dre. My face is red because I'm overwhelmed by emotion at the awesomeness of this Eminem song that you produced, obviously.
14:42: I could listen to "Still D.R.E." all day on repeat, even with my mediocre regular headphones. With Beats by Dr. Dre, I am in total rap-nerd heaven. That bone-deep bassline! Those haunting keys! That little mischievous keyboard thing that comes in on the chorus!
30:24: Yeah, I just listened to "Still D.R.E." four more times in a row.
31:16: If you're like me, you still remember the first time you heard "In Da Club" in 2002. (I was In Da Dorm Room.) Listening to that epic stomp of a track again on Beats by Dr. Dre allows me to imagine a wonderful world where 50 Cent kept making killer singles...
34:02: ...instead of middling filler like last year's "Come & Go." This has to be one of the more forgettable songs Dre's ever been involved with. Still, revisiting it with this unbelievable equipment makes me appreciate those Psycho shrieks and descending keys a lot more, for sure.
Okay, so these headphones are pretty dope. And how am I supposed to go back after that? I'm currently considering switching my listening habits full-time to exclusively Dre-produced music, exclusively on Dre’s headphones. (I do have a nagging fear that Beats by Dr. Dre's insane noise-canceling abilities might be making me go a tiny bit deaf, like what happened to Colin Greenwood last year. Will I still even be physically capable of hearing Detox by the time I've spent another week with these things?!) But you tell me, all kidding aside: Would any of you audiophiles be willing to spend serious cash for this kind of sound?
Gnarls Barkley's last video was a wacky dance party, complete with random Timberlake cameo and alleged seizure-inducing strobes. Their new one couldn't be more different: It's more like an indie short film than your typical MTV fare, and you hardly even see the Gnarls guys except for a single quick shot. Check it out below, and click through to the jump for my take:
Am I the only one who found this clip mad disturbing? Not necessarily in a bad way, just sayin'. That hemorrhaging heart that starts walking around and singing in Cee-Lo's voice? So freaky! (I sense Guillermo del Toro taking notes for Hellboy 3.) Then again, I guess most of us have had conversations that felt like this at some point in our lives. And the video's creepy/melancholy vibe definitely fits the tune — which is one of my favorites from The Odd Couple, for sure. Just remind me never to go to Gnarls Barkley's greasy-spoon diner for brunch, okay? But you tell me — what do you make of this video?
You know that old saying, "the villain is the hero of his own story"? Well, here it is, only a click away: the musical tale of Dr. Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris) and his ongoing quest to gain admittance to the Evil League of Evil (this year he's got "a letter of condemnation from the deputy mayor...that's gotta have some weight"), while awkwardly wooing Penny (Felicia Day), the girl of his dreams, and battling his arch-nemesis, Captain Hammer (Firefly's lantern-jawed Nathan Fillion, pictured). And because all of this is coming from the geekalicious mind of Joss Whedon (and his terribly talented siblings) it is an Epic Win*.
Shimmy through past the jump to find out how awesome NPH truly is (which we already knew), the wonders of backlot locations, and why "Epic Win" has an asterisk.
We still have a few days to wait until Nas' new album arrives in stores, stripped of its controversial intended title. There's a very good chance you've already heard Untitled, though, thanks to last week's widespread online leaks. Don't worry — Nas has suggested he doesn't even mind if we download it. (Why would he, after what happened to Lil Wayne's heavily bootlegged album last month?) In fact, he called the experience of being leaked "so f---ing exciting." I couldn't agree more, so I hereby call a formal end to the heated pre-release phase of the debate surrounding Untitled. Let the equally heated post-release phase begin! (It's also streaming now at last.fm, if you're holding out for a legal listen.)
Nas put himself in a pretty fix at the very start of his career,
dropping one of the bar-none greatest albums of all time in 1994. It's proved an impossible standard to live up to, for Nas or (almost) anyone else. So is his new one another Illmatic? Of
course not. But it's saying something that that's even a real question being posed in the Web's more fevered corners. Reason number one for that has to be Untitled's production. Nas' biggest post-Illmatic pitfall has been his inconsistent beat selection, and he fights that demon off for
good here. From the avant minimalism of Jay Electronica's "Queens Get the
Money" to the widescreen strings of DJ Toomp's "N.I.*.*.E.R. (The Slave
and the Master)" to the sparkling synths of Polow da Don's "Hero," there's not a clunker in the
bunch.
Nas' rhymes themselves, meanwhile, have virtually always been superlative over the years — but he's been plagued by an occasional lack of focus. That's not an issue on Untitled, a passionate, in-depth exploration of his political conscience. "Sly Fox" moves from dissing Bill O'Reilly and Rupert Murdoch into an on-point critique of today's mass media; "America" rails against the death penalty and institutional misogyny. I can't remember the last time I heard an established commercial figure take on topics like that for an entire album. Turns out that provocative title wasn't a tease or a stunt at all: He really follows through on those uncomfortable questions, more than I think even many of his fans quite expected.
So who else has been bumping Untitled? Nas may have believed that Hip Hop is Dead a couple years ago, but I'm finding it hard to imagine more resounding proof that it's alive and kicking than this CD. In fact, I think Nas might have just put an early lock on my personal album of the year race. How about you?
I'm sure this show, which pits 12 pooches, pictured, against each other for the title of "Greatest American Dog," sounded like a good idea to someone, at some point. Kinda like EW's December 3, 1993 cover of Frasier's dog, Eddie. (It's true, y'all.) But somehow, it's even less fun than you'd expect. (And read about the show's shocking July 30 elimination by clicking here!)
The canine competitors and their owners live and train at the "Canine Academy." Each episode, they'll duke it out in a Dog Bone Challenge to determine which pair gets to stay in puppy paradise, a private luxury suite. The winner also gets to decide which pair will rough it in an outdoor dog house (slightly larger in size than a tent). The rest of the contestants and their pets will share communal bedrooms, which producers clearly hope provides some drama. In the premiere, the challenge was musical doggy chairs. When the music stopped, the owners had to get their dogs to jump up on a tiny platform and sit. Why was I surprised that I was seeing this on a major network? Each episode, there will also be an elimination challenge in which the dogs and owners perform in front of three judges -- including an editor-at-large of Dog World and Dog Fancy.
This week, working in groups of four (or eight), the owners had to come up with a skit that would showcase their dogs' basic skills (e.g. sit, play dead, pirouette, skateboard). Some rose to the challenge -- like film producer Laura and her mohawk-rockin' Pomeranian, Preston, from Team Aloha, which did an Hawaiian theme. Others crumbled: Aspiring comic Michael took it upon himself to emcee his team's doggy disco and overshadowed his Boston Terrier, Ezzie. Judge Victoria Stilwell, host of It's Me or the Dog, noted that Ezzie was licking her lips, which is a stress signal, and also cowering in Michael's sequined presence. She didn't look like she was having fun, Stilwell said. Michael choked back tears. The wind was literally knocked out of him when he eventually got the boot. I was sorta sad to see Michael and Ezzie go, following their "farewell lap" of the ring; she'd stolen English Bulldog Tillman's skateboard while he was rehearsing and Michael had pretended to lift his leg on the furnishings in the Dog Bone Suite. They were promising.
After the jump, I pick the pooch who should've hit the road, and my early favorites (yes, I think the blogfather will make me keep watching).
I'm all in favor of more Kevin (Brian Baumgartner) and Oscar (Oscar Nunez), but this first two-minute webisode in The Office's online-only summer series, in which Kevin defies Oscar's sound advice and applies for a small business loan to pay off his gambling debts, strikes me as all set-up and no punchline. I'm looking forward, however, to later in the series, when Darryl (Craig Robinson) tries to help Kevin by macking on the loan officer. Anyway, check out episode 1, which premiered online just moments ago, below. Then let us know what you think, where you'd like to see this plotline go, and what you're anticipating on the next televised season of The Office.
With Amy Winehouse's Back to Black still residing among Billboard's Top 100 albums after 66 weeks on the charts, and Duffy's "Mercy" turning into a solid radio staple, who knows if America is ready to embrace yet another retro-soul diva. But as far as I'm concerned, it'd be a shame if Kreesha Turner's gorgeously melancholy "Don't Call Me Baby" (embedded below with fan-made slide-show) doesn't get a chance to enter the Thunderdome and fight it out as an official candidate for Song of Summer 2008. That falsetto breakdown before the final chorus — where Turner asks "What you gonna say this time? What's your excuse?/ When you gonna break my heart? When you gonna break?/ Nobody hurts like you" — gives me chills (on repeat loop). In fact, not since "Irreplaceable" has a defiant goodbye to an errant lover hurt so bad.
What say you, PopWatchers? Are you ready to hop aboard the Kreesha Turner bandwagon, or should the lady take a number and get in line for my iPod's "Home for Tragic Divas" playlist?
It's not great TV, but it is different. On the premiere of NBC's Celebrity Circus, we got shirtless Antonio Sabato Jr. wearing some freaky/hot eyeliner and shadow; judge Louie Spence flirting with Sabato and Christopher Knight (and, okay, Stacey Dash); and defensive Blu Cantrell mouthing off to judge Aurelia Cats. We also got MITCH GAYLORD, the 1984 Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast who lured me into early puberty, serving as the Paula of the panel. Maybe now, we'll finally get American Anthem on DVD! (Kurt Thomas' Gymkata is on DVD. Fair is fair!) But back to the Big Top. Let's break it down, act by act, broken bone by broken bone...
ANTONIO SABATO JR. (pictured, left) First act: Flying Silks. You soar through the air, supporting your own body weight by wrapping your hands, arms or torso in two thin sheets suspended from the ceiling. Apparently, this takes muscle and the making of a few not-so-attractive faces to accomplish. There is no net. Sabato, did, however, have a story: He was in a love triangle, with two other performers who occasionally shared his sheets. HOT. Strengths: His physique, which both Aurelia, a world renown trapeze artist and judge of circus festivals, and Louis, a famed choreographer and judge of the UK Celebrity Circus, thanked Sabato's mother for birthing. Weaknesses: Expectations will be high because of that body, as well as the fact that his mother and grandfather have circus backgrounds. Judges' average score: 7.7 (Viewers' votes will determine who gets eliminated each week. We expect him to be around awhile... and to be shirtless at all times.)
RACHEL HUNTER First act: Cerceau. It's like a swinging Hula Hoop in the air that you can sit in and spin, or suspend yourself from and spin. Spinning is very big with Cerceau. Strengths: No one, in the history of ever, has pointed their toes better than Hunter. Her line is stunning. Weaknesses: As Gaylord noted, God blessed her with natural beauty, but maybe not natural athletic ability. She'll have to work, but she doesn't seem to mind that. Even nursing three herniated disks. Judges' average score: 6.7 (They want more choreography in her next routine. They should definitely get a chance to see her perform it.)
WEE MAN (pictured, right) First act: Wheel of Death. The hardest apparatus to learn (it was banned from the circus for 20 years), it's like a large, rotating, two-pronged hamster wheel that the performer walks inside of. For added danger, he or she can walk outside, on top of the hoop, which 4'7"Jackass daredevil Wee Man did. For two rotations. Strengths: He's fearless, which serves him well. As does the balance he must have acquired as a professional skateboarder. Weaknesses: His strong personality could rub his fellow contestants, with whom he trains, the wrong way. Ditto the judges and the voting public. (Presumably, he wouldn't be on the show if his stature raised serious performance issues). Judges' average score: 6.7 (Louie gave him a 5. Huh? He said he wasn't wowed, that he didn't feel the danger. There was at least one little girl in the audience whose mouth was hanging open. Two, if you count me. He lost his footing at the end, sure, but that was at least a 7.)
After the jump, a broken rib, a broken arm, and an almost busted lip!
Looking at the trailer for J.J. Abrams' new fall Fox drama Fringe (h/t to Wired's Underwire blog), my first thought was: Are you sure it's not supposed to be called "Syringe"? Look, there's a guy injecting himself with some horrible flesh-eating plague — on an airplane full of passengers! (Guess it costs extra to sit in the no-plague section.) Look, there's newcomer Anna Torv, as a persistent FBI agent, getting strapped to electrodes in some Frankenstein lab! Look, there's Blair Brown from Altered States! It looks like Abrams has tossed the intrigue and paranoia of his Alias and Lost (hey, there's Lance Reddick, Lost's creepy Matthew Abbadon!) into a blender with the clinical gore and putrefaction so casually displayed on shows like the CSIs and House. Fun for the whole family! I dunno, this could be interesting, and it's always good to see Brown, and it'll be nice to see Joshua Jackson playing a grownup, but I lost interest about a minute-and-a-half into this trailer. Guns, gene-splicing, paranormal abilities — been there, done that, much of it on a little show you may have heard of called The X-Files. Got something else, J.J.? Don't hold out on us.
A decade ago, I wrote in a review of Beck's Mutations that it might win the prize for the best album of 1968 if the Grammys ever decided to give that award out again. Perhaps I should have saved that remark for Danger Mouse's Grey Album, his reimagining of The Beatles, (arguably) the actual best album of 1968. So maybe it was inevitable that Beck and Danger Mouse would bond over their shared love of psychedelia and create something like "Chemtrails," the moody, Mutations-esque ballad currently streaming at Beck's website (look for the boombox widget in the upper right hand corner). With Beck's falsetto floating dreamily over a foundation of grim, reverberating piano chords, the song sounds terrific to me (or, at least, the two-and-a-half minutes of it playing on endless loop at Beck.com sounds terrific); maybe Beck's forthcoming disc (still untitled, still no release date, though he'll be touring this summer to promote it) will be the best 1968 album yet from either of these guys.
Judging by the CW's new 90210 promo (below), which introduces the cast and characters of this fall's reboot, I'm guessing the show will please fans of the original more than the younger viewers who are its ostensible audience, since the whole thing has a squeaky-clean, sunny, turn-of-the-'90s vibe that recalls the old show's earliest years more than it does the mercenary, jaded, up-to-the-minute sensibility of Gossip Girl. Yeah, I know, the actors tell us that every character has a secret; I think the secret is that they're all clones of characters from old 90210 episodes and John Hughes movies. There's the fish-out-of-water nice girl dipping her toes into the supposed shark pool of West Beverly, her even fishier brother, the Heather, the goofy jock, the boho chick, the media-savvy ethnic striver, the cool mom, and the cooler grandma — thank heavens for Jessica Walter. (Alas, no sign of Melrose Place alum Rob Estes, whose casting as the cool dad apparently occurred after this promo was shot, or returning West Beverly grad Jennie Garth.) So the show could be really dated or really fun, especially if we raise a glass in honor of the former Lucille Bluth and start thinking up 90210 drinking games now.
And they said this day would never come. Axl Rose's magnum opus will be on Best Buy shelves across the nation this Sunday, all right, doubters be damned — and MySpace is doing us one better by streaming the whole thing for free as of right now. (MySpace is also streaming Paul McCartney's new project, which I personally just might be comparably psyched for.) And? Midway through my first listen, Chinese Democracy is sounding pretty cool, but I'm nowhere near close to being able to form a conclusive opinion on such a weighty matter. So I'll turn it over to those critics who've had a little more time to ponder the first original Guns N' Roses album in 17 years. Head over to GNR's MySpace to check out the album if you haven't heard it yet, and speak up: Do you think any of the reviews excerpted after the jump get Chinese Democracy right?
So here's what we know about the deal the Beatles 
In the spirit of the 
Back in the 1970s, Allen Funt, of Candid Camera fame, put out an R-rated feature film called 
One of the worst things you can call a TV show is "inoffensive." It's the equivalent of telling someone that you just want to be friends: "You're not horrible enough that I need to ban you from my life, but you offer nothing that I can't get somewhere else, so I'll just see you when I see you." Eleventh Hour — CBS' latest procedural, imported from Britain — is inoffensive. 
Come on. I know you’re out there. Kath & Kim fans? No, I’m not talking about the 
David E. Kelley, David E. Shmelley. Some assumed when the TV-guru left Life on Mars' production team the show was dead. Others thought it bit the dust when ABC reshot the pilot with a whole new supporting cast. I, for one -- being an anglophile who adores John Simm and Philip Glenister, the one two punch of the British original -- thought it was all over the day some fool got the crap idea to remake my favorite show. 
Like EW TV critic Gillian Flynn, I wasn't expecting to find CBS' latest procedural, The Mentalist, what's the word... necessary. If I want banter (and 
My favorite part of "Another Way to Die," the new James Bond theme song that just leaked, would have to be the lyric where Jack White attempts to work in the title of the movie — and can't quite bring himself to utter 
I was ready to declare the CW's new series 
Stuff I thought was cool in last night's pilot for 
If you, like me, flew through the 768-page behemoth that is 
TV on the Radio's 
Rejoice! The magnum opus that Dr. Dre has spent the past two years perfecting is finally here! No, not Detox — that won't be out 'til 
You know that old saying, "the villain is the hero of his own story"? 
We still have a few days to wait until Nas' new album arrives in stores, 
I'm sure this show, which pits 12 pooches, pictured, against each other for the title of "Greatest American Dog," sounded like a good idea to someone, at some point. Kinda like 
It's not great TV, but it is different. On the premiere of 
A decade ago, I wrote in a review of Beck's Mutations that it might win the prize for the best album of 1968 if the Grammys ever decided to give that award out again. Perhaps I should have saved that remark for Danger Mouse's Grey Album, his reimagining of The Beatles, (arguably) the actual best album of 1968. So maybe it was inevitable that Beck and Danger Mouse would bond over their shared love of psychedelia and create something like "Chemtrails," the moody, Mutations-esque ballad currently streaming at Beck's 