Bark + Bite

Rihanna did on X Factor UK what she should've done on SNL

2012-11-26T00:38:52-05:00

This stunning performance of "Diamonds" was full of the power, drama and elegancy that most of us were looking for from Rihanna's SNL performance. Instead, we got that bizarre, G.I. Joe meets Afghanistan Atari nightmare.

Question everyone is probably wondering: How the hell did all of that water not impact her voice or the mic not one bit? Is it lipsynching or has audio technology made significant advancements in waterproofing?

SOURCE: Mr. World Premiere

Bruno Mars has a gorilla on his Unorthodox Jukebox album cover

2012-10-25T00:40:51-04:00

Continuing with his trend of not putting his mug on his album covers, Bruno has revealed the cover for his sophomore album, Unorthodox Jukebox, and it shows a gorilla playing his favorite songs.

As random as this might seem, there IS a song on the album called "Gorilla," so it's not that far fetched.

The album is a short one, rounding out at 10 tracks. Here's the tracklisting:

1) Young Girls

2) Locked Out Of Heaven

3) Gorilla

4) Treasure

5) Moonshine

6) When I Was Your Man

7) Natalie

8) Show Me

9) Money Make Her Smile

10) If I Knew

Bruno Mars Takes SNL to Paradise

2012-10-22T01:34:09-04:00

Bruno Mars got his Justin Timberlake on over the weekend as he successfully pulled of a hosting/musical guest double duty on SNL. He got to dress up as a girl and play an intern at Pandora, impersonating Michael Jackson and Billy Joe of Green Day.

But he had plenty left in the tank for his musical performances. In fact, his performance of "Locked Out of Heaven" was so pulse-pounding that it looked like his band was doing Zumba and playing at the same damn time.

He also unveiled a new track from his upcoming album, Unorthodox Jukebox, called "Young Girls." The heartfelt ballad told the story of Mr. Mars falling under the alluring spell of young, wild and free ladies. No Chris Hansen though.

Watch Bruno's SNL performances below

Locked Out of Heaven SNL

Young Girls SNL

SOURCE: Mr. World Premiere

Brandy takes over New York's Best Buy Theater

2012-10-19T07:30:00-04:00

Grammy winning R&B performer Brandy, took over New York's Best Buy Theater on Monday (October 15), giving those in attendance an intimate, energetic performance. The show, which was hosted by Power 105.1 and RCA Records, allowed Brandy to celebrate the release of her latest album, Two Eleven, with fans.

After Roc Nation's Bridget Kelly and Hal Linton warmed up the crowd as the opening acts, Brandy hit the stage dressed in all black, raising the energy in the room with "What About Us" and "Full Moon." Brandy then took the crowd back a few years to her early and mid 90s classics with "Top of the World," and earlier hits "I Wanna Be Down", and "Baby" while moving across the stage, showing off smooth moves which flowed with the songs.

While Brandy left the stage for a quick outfit change Luke James sang his hit "I Want You" to the ladies in the crowd.

But Brandy wasn't gone for long before kicking off the second half of her set with a tribute to the memory of her idol and mentor Whitney Houston. The tribute reached full steam by the time she got to performing Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," which found Brandy embodying her late mentor's bold and fiery spirit.

It was after this segment of the show that Brandy took some time to ask for a moment of silence to remember Whitney and shared her love for Houston and how the album's title Two Eleven was inspired by Houston's untimely passing.

After performing for almost an hour, Brandy wrapped up her set with her latest single " Wildest Dreams," and revealed that she would be previewing a clip from the song's music video on 106 & Park. Before Brandy left the stage for the night she "Put It Down" on the crowd with her neck-snapping, trunk-rattling single. It was a noisy but fitting finale to Brandy's monumental comeback campaign so far.

Brandy's latest album, Two Eleven, hit stores October 16, and is available on iTunes.

Bruno gets funky and retro in "Locked Out of Heaven" video

2012-10-16T09:15:32-04:00

Instagram isn't the only one who can do stylized retro aesthetics really well. Bruno Mars unveiled the video for his new single "Locked Out of Heaven" yesterday, and it's a throwback clip, that looks like it was recorded in 1987 and played on a VHS tape.

We shouldn't be surprised though. Bruno showed off his love for old-school technology with the video for his first single "Just the Way You Are," which used cassette tape film throughout it. At this point, we can only assume that Mr. Mars will be integrating the beeper somehow in his next video.

In the clip, Bruno mostly performs in what looks like a rowdy hole-in-the-wall club. The girls in the audience get wet and sexy to the music, while clips of Bruno hanging out with his posse are shown. He's seen smoking in several of the scenes.

It's all very rock'n'roll and Rat Pack.

Check out the video for Bruno's new single below

Top 10 Songs in the US

2012-10-12T07:10:00-04:00

1 MAROON 5 / ONE MORE NIGHT
- A song about sex with regrets. Sounds like Adam documented a one-night stand with his Voice co-star Christina Aguilera.

2 PSY / GANGNAM STYLE
- Psy is the biggest piece of Korean culture to storm America since Tae Kwon Do.

3 ONE DIRECTION / LIVE WHILE WE'RE YOUNG
- This song is drier than toast but this is like 5 Biebs for the price of 1, so the little girls love it.

4 FUN. / SOME NIGHTS
- If the men of fun. have 1/3 of the staying power of their hit songs in the bedroom...

5 TAYLOR SWIFT / WE ARE NEVER EVER GETTING BACK TOGETHER
- Isn't Taylor a bit young to be taking cues from Cher from Clueless? This sounds like something she'd write.

6 TAYLOR SWIFT / RED
- Blue. You're it, Taylor.

7 JUSTIN BIEBER FEAT BIG SEAN / AS LONG AS YOU LOVE ME
- Big Sean probably doesn't know what to do with the barrels of cash the Beliebers are earning him buy racking up on the digital downloads for this track.

8 ADELE / SKYFALL
- She's baaaaaacckkkkk!

9 PINK / BLOW ME (ONE LAST KISS)
- Can we blow one last kiss to this old ass song?

10 ALEX CLARE / TOO CLOSE
- You probably heard this song in a commercial before it made its way to radio.

SOURCE: Billboard Hot 100

Bruno Mars wants the keys to the kingdom on "Locked Out of Heaven"

2012-10-03T00:50:37-04:00

Bruno's first single "Just the Way You Are" from his debut Doo-Wops and Hooligans was a doe-eyed, innocent ode to a true love. His new single "Locked Out of Heaven," which does have angelic undertones since it references heaven, is the complete opposite as it juxtaposes purity with sin and sex with addiction.

In essence, this good boy has definitely gone bad.

"Cause your sex takes me to paradise / Yeah your sex takes me to paradise," Bruno chants as the Mark Ronson/Jeff Bhasker production swells with soul claps.

Not to get too crude here, but it sounds like Bruno might be a little p**sy-whipped. Every guy can probably relate because there's always that one sex bomb have leaves you begging for more. She'll have you doing crazy things like get married in Vegas without a pre-nup or agree to appear on reality TV together in a public campaign to declare your love.

The new single largely builds on the throwback sounds that Bruno showcased on his debut. This has a decidedly rock edge, as Bruno takes strong cues from The Police/Sting, but there's also that ever-present James Brown funk influence at work.

Jeff Bhasker, the producer behind fun. and Lana Del Rey, lavishes the song with arena rock flourishes too. The hook actually bombards the listener's ears with drums that sound pelt the air like boulders, while fuzzy synths help numb the whole thing over nicely.

Listen to Bruno Mars' new single below

The Spirit Indestructible: How did it all go so wrong for Nelly Furtado?

2012-09-28T10:13:00-04:00

The news of the sales count for Nelly Furtado's latest album The Spirit Indestructible must have hit Nelly fans like a ton of bricks. Then again, there obviously aren't that many Nelly fans left to begin with, because according to SoundScan sales, she only sold 5,731 copies of her new album.

This is heartbreaking. Nelly's last English-language album, 2006's Loose, was a blockbuster. It sold 219,000 copies the first week and went on to sell roughly 2 million copies in the U.S. alone. The gap between the first-week sales of Loose and The Spirit Indestructible is not just a drop in record sales, it's an evaporation of a fan base.

Yes, record sales have been on the decline in the industry for some time, but there's no sales climate in which it's acceptable for a major-label artist to post numbers like that during the first week. Not after the label has dropped serious cash and resources pushing three singles ("Big Hoops," "The Spirit Indestructible" and "Parking Lot") that were basically declared dead on arrival.

Some might try to argue that Nelly would've been better off if she had paired up with Timbaland. Their chemistry in 2006 was undeniable, but given Timbaland's recent struggles with landing hits of his own, that's probably not necessarily the case in 2012.

Others might point out that Nelly's disappearance from the English-language pop scene for 6 years essentially made her irrelevant to today's crowd. Perhaps, but Nelly has always taken roughly 4-year breaks between albums. Alicia Keys also takes lengthy breaks between her albums and she just scored a hit with her comeback single "Girl on Fire". So, no, Nelly's absence alone doesn't explain the drop-off.

When Nelly embarked on the recording for this album, she said she hoped to recapture some of the fresh-faced spirit of her debut, Whoa, Nelly!. But if that was the aim, then Nelly's decision to tie her fate to Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins completely missed the mark. The two didn't mesh in any meaningful way on any of the singles they produced together and nothing approached the organic, authentic sounds heard on Nelly's debut.

"Big Hoops" was a fun throwback R&B/hip-hop track, but it felt woefully out of step with the times. It also seemed overly dense for no good reason and lacked a power pop hook. This is one instance where Nelly needed to strip away a few layers in order to really deliver what she was striving for, which was a care-free, express-yourself, celebratory anthem.

"The Spirit Indestructible" suffered from being overwrought and saddled with dated production. It's a little late for Nelly to jump on the "It Gets Better" bandwagon, but even the hokeyness of the self-love anthem could've been salvaged if the stale Miami bass production didn't kick in. The best thing that can be said about TSI is that it at least had a melody.

"Parking Lot," the album's latest and likely last gasp, is at least on trend. It sounds pretty similar to something M.I.A. would produce. Unfortunately, M.I.A.'s no hit-maker herself these days so perhaps she wasn't the best model to follow.

But again, the biggest hurdle to overcome here is the production. Whose idea was it to layer Nelly's droning vocals like that on the verse? And why does she sound like she popped a boatload of Ambien before she hit the recording booth?

The best proof of how salvageable "Parking Lot" could've been with some vocal arrangement tweaks and production adjustments is right there in her live performances.

Check out Nelly's AOL Sessions performance of the song which is far more tolerable and enjoyable. With Nelly singing with vibrance, melody and personality, "Parking Lot" suddenly has a youthful "Lucky Star" vibe to it.

The only hope left is that, by some miracle, "Parking Lot" goes from dud to stud. That's a tall feat since pop radio has done nothing but pay Nelly Furtado dust this entire project. Quick, is there a hit TV show or movie that she can attach this to for iTunes sales?

Fans of Nelly Furtado will inevitably blame Nelly's record label, Interscope, for dropping the ball somehow. After all, the label did decide to drop the album despite the obviously frigid response to Nelly's three singles. Then again, these same fans would cry foul if the label repeatedly delayed Nelly's album until she recorded new material and landed a hit. So there's no way the label could win.

Now, it's a question of moving forward. Will Nelly remain with Interscope after this? It's hard to imagine things will remain amicable between Nelly and her label with these kinds of numbers, so don't be surprised to hear word of her release in the coming months.

But regardless of whether she stays or goes, Nelly needs to reorient her musical compass. Cause it's off and she should've known that way before any music executive had to sit down and tell her the ugly truth.