day 3.42

p!nk is "f*ckin perfect"

day 2.340

p!nk, p!nk and more p!nk

p!nk's greatest hits compilation drops next week, but a few of the new songs from the album have already leaked. in addition to the previously released "raise your glass" and "fuckin perfect," check out p!nk's "heartbreak down," and "whataya want from me?" which p!nk wrote, but adam lambert released earlier this year.

day 2.334

p!nk can do no wrong

check out these two new songs from her upcoming "greatest hits" collection.

day 2.76

grammy oh grammy

last night, cbs aired the 52nd annual grammy awards and they were no disappointment. while the show is supposed to be about the awards, it was really the performances that made the special, well, special. lady gaga opened the show in true lady gaga fashion, including surprise guest elton john. it was over the top and theatrical, just the way to kick off an awards show. people say they're getting tired of gaga and her theatrics, but had the opening number been a bland stand-there-and-play-guitar type thing, the night wouldn't have gotten off on the right foot.

after gaga, everyone from pink to beyonce and bon jovi took the stage. pink's number, "glitter in the air," was proof that lip synching is dead. dead dead dead. if pink can do aerial stunts and sing live, anyone can. sorry, britney, but you're going to have to get your voice together.

speaking of britney, she was nominated for best dance recording for "womanizer." not surprisingly, she didn't win. but she did show up - after an 8 year hiatus from the show - in a crazy fishnet dress. i think it's pretty obvious why she skipped any press before the show.

beyonce was another great performance, though it was disappointing she didn't sing the song that made her year what it was - "single ladies." miss knowles did, however, cover alanis morisette's "you should know." it's weird to think about beyonce singing about uncle joey from full house (that's who the song was - allegedly - originally written about, fyi), but whatever.

taylor swift, who took home four of the night's big awards, performed on stage with fleetwood mac legend stevie nicks and, well, it was less than impressive. i've said it before and i'll say it again. and again - taylor has an issue singing live. it's usually better when she has the guitar in front of her, but last night it was just flat. flat flat flat. the one thing that saves taylor is that she's a good song writer, which is sure to keep her foot in the door of the industry for the rest of her life. she just needs to start focusing on more adult material and not sing every single song about puppy love and fairytales. the girl turns 21 this year, come on. it didn't help that taylor's breathy voice was backed up with stevie's husky one. it was just kind of a mess. the one plus was that the duo sang one of my faves from stevie's fleetwood days, "rhiannon." why stevie played the tambourine randomly during the performance is beyond me.

the most star-powered number of the night came during the michael jackson tribute, the final imagining of his "earth song" performance form what was to be the "this is it" concert series. the thing that annoyed me most about this performance was that it was in 3d - i know i wasn't the only one not to get the memo about needing glasses. hello, grammy people, not everyone just has those lying around. had they sent them out in the mail or in tv guide, i could understand it. but the award show expected people to go to target or kmart and pick up a pair. why is this '80s technology back with such full force? it's not like they've improved on it or like it's actually there in front of you. 2d is just fine by me. the "earth song" performance featured celine dion (surprisingly tame), usher, carrie underwood, jennifer hudson and smokey robinson. i understand this was michael's favorite song from "this is it," but i would have much preferred a medley of his hit songs.

after the performance, michael's son, prince, and daughter, paris, accepted the lifetime achievement award for their father. for some reason, they were joined on stage by their cousins (there's no question in my mind that this wasn't some way to promote the cousins' fame) but not little brother blanket. where the hell was blanket? prince gave most of the speech and the way he spoke was almost identical to the intonations and inflections in his father's voice. it was almost creepy.

the worst performance of the night has to go to jamie foxx, who didn't seem able to keep up with his backing track for "blame it." the fact that the song is so autotuned made it even harder. watch with your own discretion - let me warn you that the performance starts out with a hokey opera skit.

now to the night's winners and what i think of them.

• album of the year: taylor swift, fearless - while it was a huge hit, i don't know that fearless made enough advances or impact in the history of music. i'm not saying taylor isn't deserving - she works hard and have made people pay attention to country music again - but lady gaga had the most hits and innovation of any other artists. the biggest disappointment is that gaga was shutout of the best new artist category because of a single nomination in the dance/electronica category next year.
• song of the year: "single ladies," beyonce - deserved, deserved, deserved.
• best new artist: zac brown band - did i call it or what? there really wasn't much else to choose from this year so the country group who writes their own stuff was the top pick.
• pop vocal album: the black eyed peas, the e.n.d. - surprising, but their innovation makes it worth it. the peas are another group that can't really perform live. here's their performance.

• best pop vocal performance (female): beyonce, "halo" - duh.
• best pop vocal performance (male): jason mraz, "make it mine" - must have been slim pickings
• pop collaboration with vocals: jason mraz and colbie caillat, "lucky" - colbie may have been the nights most surprising winner because she won on others' coattails. she helped write and sing on taylor's record, garnering herself a grammy for record of the year.

i'm not going to go into all the other categories, but just know that gaga wasn't completely shut out - she won the 2 awards in the dance category: one for "poker face" and the other for her album, the fame. other winners included beyonce in the r&b category, tswift in country, kings of leon and green day (who previewed their broadway musical, american idiot, at the show) in the rock category and jay-z, rihanna and kanye in the rap category for "run this town."

and, because you read this whole, long blog, a treat: my favorite picture from the night, ke$ha and justin bieber. she could eat him.

day 301

the vma's

taylor swift doesn't care about black people. okay, that's not true, but that's all i could think of last night when kanye west rushed the vma stage during taylor swift's acceptance speech for "female video of the year." if you didn't get a chance to see the moment, here it is.

taylor looked dumbfounded and beyonce looked mortified. way to go, kanye. way to go. kanye and his lady friend, amber rose, were escorted out of radio city music hall soon after the debacle, but that didn't stop from people booing kanye anytime his name was mentioned for the rest of the show. this morning, pink popped up on the today show and got a chance to talk about her thoughts on the whole situation, managing to call kanye a toolbox in the process. here's the video.

i liked pink before, but now i like her even better. pink was able to rock radio city last night do, doing a crazy cirque du solei style take on her hit "sober." after this, i don't want to see any star lip sync because if pink can fling her body around in the air while singing live, britney spears should be able to, too. she's just doing a little choreography. pink was risking her life.

pink wasn't the only star to perform or stand up for miss swift, either. beyonce took the stage to perform the routine from "video of the year" hit "single ladies."

my only complaint with the performance is that beyonce chose the closest tone-deaf girl in the audience for the audience participation portion. or should i say sasha fiece chose the girl? i don't know. anyway, over all the performance was ridiculous but some more effects - like in the solo in the beginning - would have been cooler to watch. plus, the back-up track was kind of annoying when beyonce decided to just focus on choreography and not at least pretend to sing. we've all seen the routine umm...i don't know? umpteen times. mix it up and sing! or add some new steps, please. i wonder if she's tired of this choreography yet. i know i would be. when "single ladies" took home the night's top moon man, beyonce was the ever-gracious recipient and gave up her speech time to give taylor her vma moment.

that really is a once-in-a-lifetime, first time experience and beyonce gave taylor exactly what she needed and deserved. if you didn't like beyonce before, you most definitely do now. though, taylor's speech 2.0 really didn't add anything to what she got to say the first time, so it was kind of a lost moment. kanye attempted to apologize for what he did on his official blog by saying he didn't mean to take the attention away from taylor, but was just trying to give credit to the appropriate artist...um, that's the same thing kanye. he also proceded to remind up that when he won his moon man, he gave it away to outkast because they deserved it over him. dear kanye, what you think is right is not necessarily the popular outcome. people have opinions. this is a viewers choice award...you should have voted for beyonce if you really wanted her to win. people most likely chose taylor - and britney spears in the "pop video" category - over beyonce because they knew they were voting for her to take home the top prize. duh.

okay, the other memorable person from last night was lady gaga. she is one crazy artist. not only did she dress up as little bunny foofoo, an eskimo and some crazy pile of bloody lace, but she took to the stage to perform a "poker face"/"paparazzi" medly that was more performance art than performance. if you haven't seen this yet, i recommend not watching if you're squeemish. one word: blood.

if this is any indicator of what a lady gaga concert is like, i don't know that i ever want to go to one. gaga took home the award for "best new artist," which is deserved because she was bigger than anyone else nominated, but that performance made me very uncomfortable.

the show had two michael jackson moments. the first was the opening number, which was introduced by madonna in her fake british accent. while madonna was looking good for being 50+, her monotone delivery was anything but entertaining. i know she's the queen of pop and all, but she didn't really seem to know michael, other than one meeting where she told him he looked like a limo with sunglasses on and then proceeded to make the entire audience uncomfortable by saying that her 4 year old son likes to grab his crotch. the michael jackson tribute was very tastefully done and didn't make me want to shoot myself, which is surprising because everything else michael jackson has been getting on my nerves. michael's sister janet performed alongside her brother (digitally, of course) one last time to their duet "scream." while the performance was awesome, janet seemed like she was trying to imitate her late brother's voice rather than just perform. check it out below.

janet's performance made me realize that i actually do like when she performs, we just haven't seen her do it since that little superbowl debacle. do people actually remember that? is it still stopping her from performing on tv? something to look in to...

the show closed with a preview of michael jackson's final memorial, the concert movie compiled from rehearsals for the this is it tour. the movie, which comes out next month, is sure to do well, but i'm thinking it will be really creepy to watch. all the recorded performances are audience-less, meaning each number will end with silence and not a roaring applause like a typical concert film would. can you say creepy?

and that's about it, folks. the whole show is viewable on mtv.com on-demand, so you can watch each piece individually and don't have to sit through all the lame acceptance speeches. russel brand was definitely not as big of a hit this year as he was last year - he looked like he accidentally wore a jonas brothers' reject suit - and all of his jokes bombed. they were all about having sex with random performers who didn't seem in on it. hopefully mtv will mix it up next year and find some new talent? yes, please. make sure to check out taylor swift's performance of "you belong with me," below, too. she didn't seem to let the whole kanye incident phase her, but i was kind of unimpressed. pre-recorded bits are fun and all, but an on-stage performance is way more entertaining. i still am waiting for her to top this performance of "should've said no," which is probably my favorite live performance ever at an awards show.

day 65

there's no doubt that paramore will be on tour

when a new official site launched around thanksgiving of last year, it was apparent that rock group no doubt would be heading on a tour.  and, now, that news is official.  gwen stefani will lead her 3 band mates across the country this summer.  and, the band's opening act will be female fronted, male backed (sound familiar?) group paramore.  while no official dates or cities have been announced, they should be announced in the near future.  gwen has said that this tour will allow the band to reconnect with fans - they haven't traveled since 2004 - and get inspired to write and record new material, not done since 2004 when gwen pulled a beyonce to record some solo material and become one of the biggest selling female pop vocalist of recent times.  this is good news for fans and, hopefully, the group will return to the ska roots that made them famous and fuse them with the reggae infused beats that relaunched the band in the late nineties/early 2000s.  

"never say never, but no."

while pink uttered the above statement many a time in interviews last year, it appears the star is investing more in the "never say never" part than "no." the singer is said to have reconciled with her ex-husband, stunt cyclist and tattoo enthusiast carey hart.  the couple have reportedly moved back in together to test the waters in pink's malibu home.  this week would have marked the couple's second wedding anniversary and thoughts of that date may have prompted the couple to try living together again.  the relationship broke up because of the couple's opposite work schedules and difficulty making time for each other.  but how are things going to change? pink and carey have always had a very odd relationship, with hart even appearing in pink's video for her song "so what," in which she bashes him, during the separation.  

crappy oscars. 

the razzi nominations were announced today and, no surprise, some of last years biggest bombs made the cut.  the razzies, for those of you who are uninformed, is an awards show which gives prizes to hollywood's worst offerings, with awards for all the main categories (like acting and direction, as seen at the oscars.  rarely do actors actually appear to accept their awards, with the exception of halle berry, who came to accept awards on behalf of her film, catwoman. some of this years nominations include paris hilton's the hottie and the nottie, larry the cable guy and eddie murphy for worst acting, kate hudson (for both my best friend's girl and fool's gold), and cameron diaz and ashton kutcher for their coupling in what happens in vegas.  mike myer's the love guru lead the pack with 7.  obviously, none of these cinematic masterpieces will be part of tomorrow's oscar nominations.  

casting coup

the twilight team may be getting a big name movie star to add to its roster of insta-celebrities. the role of jane, a member of italy's volturi (the most deadly of the vampires in the saga), is most likely going to be played by none other than dakota fanning.  the role was apparently offered the the pint sized star outright - no auditions and no other considerations.    this seems like stunt casting to me, but maybe it's a good choice? i don't read the books, so i'll need some other opinions.  but, from the character depiction, it seems like dakota fits the bill.  it makes sense to go with a young actress, as jane is supposed to be in the 4 foot range, with her fellow italian vampires being at least 3 times her size.  we'll see if dakota can pull off the role once filming begins in both the us and italy in march.