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B2K And Diddy 'Bump' Their Way To The Top: Wake-Up Video

Posted 1/26/11 8:30 am EST by in Wake-Up Video


B2K will primarily be remembered as the jumping-off point for Omarion's career, but most people forget that the group did have a series of hits during their peak. And of those singles, they all bowed down to the greatness of "Bump, Bump, Bump," which ascended to the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 on this day in 2003.

The group — consisting of Omarion, Lil Fizz, Raz-B and J-Boog — first began to make noise in late 2001 with the single "Uh Huh." B2K's sound wasn't straight pop (they borrowed a lot from hip-hop-influenced R&B groups of the late '90s like Jagged Edge and 112), but they were presented as the urban alternative to the glut of boy bands (who were still in steady command of the pop charts even after the turn of the century). Their self-titled debut hit in early 2002 and scored the group two more singles, but their big breakthrough came following the release of their second album Pandemonium! in late 2002 (just after the release of the group's Christmas album Santa Hooked Me Up, perhaps the most awesomely-titled holiday collection of all time).

With an assist from Diddy, "Bump, Bump, Bump" climbed up the Billboard Hot 100 until it finally reached the top, finally ending the reign of Eminem's "Lose Yourself" (which was on top for a staggering 12 straight weeks). Unfortunately, the stay at the top for "Bump, Bump, Bump" was only temporary, as it stepped aside in favor of Jennifer Lopez's "All I Have" after only one week (the Lopez song, featuring a guest verse by LL Cool J, was in the number one position for four weeks before ceding it to 50 Cent's "In Da Club"). For a brief moment, B2K were on top of the world (though they broke up shortly after), and they have the video for "Bump, Bump, Bump" to remember their time in the sun.


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'Yo Gabba Gabba' Welcomes The Killers Back To The Fold

Posted 1/25/11 5:30 pm EST by in Music


If rock bands want to pick up a little exposure on television, there are a handful of shows they can visit that will guarantee them effective time on the air. There's the always music-minded "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon," the dorm room favorite "Conan" and the indie-friendly, headline-grabbing "The Daily Show." But for some real cross-generational promotion, Nickelodeon's "Yo Gabba Gabba" is the only game in town. The show returns for its third season on Monday, February 7 (the day after the Super Bowl), bringing with it a very special musical guest on its premiere episode. Even though they've been on hiatus for the better part of a year, the Killers will take the stage on the show to perform a tune called "Spaceship Adventure," which plays into the episode's treasure-hunting theme. The nod to Chewbacca is especially fantastic.

The Killers have been officially on hiatus since the beginning of 2010, but they've been pretty prolific anyway. Frontman Brandon Flowers may have recorded and released a solo album (the criminally underrated Flamingo), but the band did manage to get together a handful of times over the course of the year (including a high-profile gig on the lawn of the White House as part of President Obama's Fourth of July celebration). They also recorded and released their annual Christmas single (this one was called "Boots" and was one of the finest in the band's history).

Having rocked Yo Gabba Gabba, the Killers will next make their way into the studio in May of 2011 to work on their new album, which would be their fourth (following 2004's Hot Fuss, 2006's Sam's Town and 2008's Day & Age).

What do you think of the Killers' performance on "Yo Gabba Gabba"? Let us know in the comments!

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The Oscar Nominations: Handicapping The Best Original Song Category

Posted 1/25/11 2:30 pm EST by in Music


Now that the nominations for the Academy Awards are out, it's time to start handicapping. But no matter what anybody predicts today (or for the next month), we won't know whose hand will be raised in victory and given a little statuette until the show airs on Sunday, February 27. Until then, you can stay tuned to MTV News for all the latest updates, analysis, interviews and predictions regarding the 83rd Academy Awards.

(Click here for photos of the 2011 Academy Award nominees, including Natalie Portman, Christian Bale and Jesse Eisenberg!)

Despite the eclecticism of the field and the surprise entries in the field, it seems like a lot of the categories are already wrapped up (people already seem to be handing Colin Firth the Best Actor prize for his performance in "The King's Speech," and it seems inevitable that Aaron Sorkin will be walking away with the Best Original Screenplay prize for "The Social Network"). One of those sure shots? Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who will almost certainly be taking home the award for Best Original Score for their soundtrack contributions to "The Social Network" (which would put Reznor half way to getting his EGOT). But who will win the other big music-based award — the one for Best Original Song?

Interestingly, none of the songs from "Burlesque" (one of which won a Golden Globe) were nominated for an Oscar. Instead, the nods went to "Coming Home" (from "Country Strong"), "I See the Light" (from "Tangled"), "If I Rise" (from "127 Hours") and "We Belong Together" (from "Toy Story 3"). Of those four, you can probably take out "If I Rise" (which we thought should get nominated for a Razzie yesterday). Either one of the remaining three could score a victory, though it seems like the songs from "Tangled" were especially loved by fans of the movie, so perhaps the money should be on that.

What should win the Oscar for Best Original Song? Let us know in the comments!

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Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth And Anthrax Will Finally Rock The U.S.

Posted 1/25/11 1:30 pm EST by in Music


Last week, the official lineup of the 2011 Coachella Festival announced to the world that the summer concert season is closer than everybody thinks (this despite the fact that snow continues to fall at an alarming rate in most of the country). Only a week later, the Coachella lineup has already been upstaged by another concert that happens to be going down a week later at the very same venue. On Saturday, April 23, Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax will come together at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California for a one-day-only event that is unprecedented in the world of metal. Though the "Big 4" have played a handful of shows in Europe, this is the only show they'll do in the United States, and it promises to be a huge day for anybody who has ever banged his or her head to some classic metal riffs.

Interestingly, it has been a while since we've heard fresh music from each of these bands. Metallica have been relatively quiet since the 2008 release of their ninth album Death Magnetic, though they have been sporadically touring since the album's release. Slayer released their 10th album World Painted Blood in 2009, while Megadeth was last heard from with 2009's Endgame. Anthrax recently reunited with singer Joey Belladonna and have an album coming out in 2011 (though anybody looking for guitarist Scott Ian's six-string stylings should check out the album he put out with the Damned Things last year). The Big 4 concert seems like it will be full of new material and experiments from all four bands and promises to be the year's biggest metal event.

In honor of four of the loudest, hardest, best bands in the history of metal coming together for this show, check out the videos below. Enjoy Metallica's hard-hitting "Sad But True," then move on to Slayer's "Seasons in the Abyss," Megadeth's "Symphony of Destruction" and Anthrax's "Black Lodge."

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Iron & Wine's Kiss Each Other Clean: The Reviews Are In!

Posted 1/25/11 11:45 am EST by in Music


On first glance, Sam Beam (the man behind Iron & Wine) doesn't look all that much like a rock star. Pasty-skinned and profoundly bearded, Beam looks more like a mysterious mountain man than a prolific, transcendent songwriter. Clearly, looks can be deceiving, as Beam has taken his project from humble roots to incredible heights over the past decade or so. Through three studio albums, a handful of EPs and a number of singles and compilations, Iron & Wine has pushed its base sound (a sleepy-eyed, psychedelic take on singer-songwriter tropes) into the ether, welcoming in all sorts of new sounds and more melody.

Beam's new album Kiss Each Other Clean (which hits the streets today) is his most ambitious yet, dragging in pieces of soul music, experimental rock and classic '70s AM singalongs with nary a folk strum in sight. It seems to be ushering in a new era for Iron & Wine, but will Beam alienate his core audience? Or is he still worth listening to?

Based on the first round of reviews, it appears as though people are willing to follow Beam on his journey. "Beam's headed someplace, and it's worth following," wrote Jody Rosen in his three-and-a-half star review in Rolling Stone. "Beam's lovely voice anchors melodies of crystalline clarity and unshakable catchiness. But the music won't stay still, moving from stormy psychedelic rock to white-guy funk to what sounds like a Beach Boys version of a country-western ballad."

In his review for Entertainment Weekly, Simon Vozick-Levinson didn't think that everything worked on Kiss Each Other Clean, but agreed that there was way more good than bad on the eclectic album. "Over the course of 44 minutes, [Beam] tries out unexpected effects like whining guitar, mildly skronky horns, burbling electronics, and occasional profanities," he wrote. "Not all of the new sounds enhance Beam's lovely melodies, but they rarely obscure those underlying charms, either."

The Los Angeles Times was far more enthusiastic, already talking about Kiss Each Other Clean as one of the best releases of the young year. "Beam's evocative folk has evolved into incorporating dips into soul, woozy R&B and loose-limbed '70s rock," critic Chris Barton wrote. "The driving funk of 'Yr City Is a Sucker' features high-pitched choruses and jazzy brass reminiscent of early Chicago that builds to Beam ranting like an end times prophet who can see the walls crumbling. It's not always the stuff of angels, but it's something far richer."

Spin also got on board with the idea that the album will almost certainly end up on best-of lists in 2011. "Kiss delivers plenty of unexpected layers, employed judiciously in service of Beam's usual ruminative ideas about good and evil, love and death," wrote critic Josh Modell. "The wheat-colored troubadour hasn't disappeared completely, but even the acoustic-rooted tracks are flecked with new hues."

The British press also fell head over heels for Iron & Wine's new album. NME declared it "a surprising and majestic triumph," while The Guardian gave it four stars and said, "Beam comes across as a latter-day prophet, casting his gentle eye over capitalist, warmongering western society with sorrow and kindness. His eccentric experimentation does much to temper the earnestness of his endeavor — and makes you appreciate all the more the direct loveliness of piano ballad 'Godless Brother in Love' and the honeyed nostalgia of 'Tree By the River.'"

What do you think of the new album by Iron & Wine? Let us know in the comments!

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The 2011 Oscar Nominations For 'The Social Network' Are Full Of Music History

Posted 1/25/11 10:45 am EST by in Music


The excellent year in film that was 2010 is about to formally come to a close, as the nominations for the Academy Awards were announced this morning. As always, there was a healthy mix of the expected ("The Social Network" scored eight nominations, while "The King's Speech" took home 12 and "The Fighter" nailed down seven), the unexpected (after being ignored by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, "True Grit" picked up 10 nominations, including a Best Supporting Actress nod for 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld) and some snubs (Ryan Gosling was denied a nomination for his work in "Blue Valentine" and Christopher Nolan was not nominated for Best Director for the mind-bending, envelope-pushing "Inception").

But clearly the highlight for the MTV Newsroom Blog is the nomination that Trent Reznor picked up for Best Original Score for his work on "The Social Network" (with partner Atticus Ross). Of course, "The Social Network" is full of people who have had extensive work in the music world. Director David Fincher (nominated for Best Director) began his career as a music video director (he took the lead on such classics as Madonna's "Vogue," Paula Abdul's "Straight Up," Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun" and George Michael's "Freedom 90") and was one of the first artists to make the transition from videos to feature films. Director of Photography Jeff Cronenweth (nominated for Best Cinematography) started his professional life in music videos, shooting clips like Nine Inch Nails' "The Perfect Drug" and Eels' "Novocaine for the Soul."

Plenty of the people who weren't nominated were involved as well. Star Justin Timberlake of course began his public life as a musician, first as a member of *NSYNC and then as one of the most dynamic solo performers in pop. And co-star Andrew Garfield (who was totally robbed during the awards season) brushed up against the music world when he served as director Terry Gilliam's assistant while Gilliam worked on a live webcast of an Arcade Fire concert in 2010.

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Happy Birthday, Alicia Keys!

Posted 1/25/11 9:30 am EST by in Music


Back in October, Alicia Keys celebrated a very important birthday — that of her son Egypt Daoud Dean, her first child with husband Swizz Beatz. But today she gets to celebrate her own birthday, as the Manhattan-born Keys is now 30 years old.

Astonishingly, Keys has been a player in the music game for a decade now, as her debut album Songs in A Minor came out way back in 2001. She made an immediate impact with her unique sound, which took the tropes of bohemian R&B and blended in organic funk, coffeehouse folk and just a little bit of flashy vocal pizazz. Keys' early singles ("A Woman's Worth," the Prince cover "How Come You Don't Call Me" and especially the infectious smash "Fallin'") were all refreshing and thrilling, and her sound only evolved from there. Her 2003 album The Diary of Alicia Keys not only expanded the boundaries of her sound but also blew open the scope of her lyrics. Tracks like "If I Ain't Got You" and "Karma" not only attacked the Billboard charts but also sought to reinvent the genre in real time.

The hits kept coming, as 2007's As I Am yielded the huge singles "No One" and "Teenage Love Affair," and 2009's The Element of Freedom gave way to "Empire State of Mind (Part II) Broken Down" (a sequel to her chart-topping hit with Jay-Z) and "Un-Thinkable (I'm Ready)" (a tag-team with Canadian hip-hop superstar Drake). But perhaps Keys' greatest song came early in the cycle for The Element of Freedom in "Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart," which is probably the best Prince song the Purple One never wrote.


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Alice In Chains Drop A Jar: Wake-Up Video

Posted 1/25/11 8:30 am EST by in Wake-Up Video


Whenever people talk about the biggest bands of the grunge era, it always comes down to the quartet known as the "Big Four," consisting of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. The latter always comes at the end, mostly because they were never quite as good nor as culturally transcendent as the other bands on that list. However, in many ways, Alice in Chains defined that era better than anybody, as they combined the thick sludge of Sabbath-inspired metal and crossed it with a freewheeling sense of fun that left room for punk explorations, noise jams and acoustic experiments alike. On this day in 1994, Alice in Chains released one of the key collections of the era in the Jar of Flies EP.

Alice in Chains were already cresting on a huge wave of success thanks to their breakthrough 1992 album Dirt, perhaps the greatest album about addiction ever written (even the songs that aren't explicitly about heroin, like the post-traumatic stress anthem "Rooster," still seem to be about an obsession with smack). Dirt was an exceptionally loud, punishing collection of tunes that still managed to pack in big hits (especially on the singles "Would?" and "Them Bones"). Following the 1993 Lollapalooza tour, the band decided to jam on some acoustic instruments in a studio for a few days as an experiment (the finished product was never meant to be released). The band's label liked the results and put together the seven song EP, which ended up becoming the first EP to ever sit on top of the Billboard album chart.

Jar of Flies ditched the feedback and sludge of Dirt but retained Alice in Chains' way with melody and its haunting sense of askew beauty. Without the crutch of the volume, the band was able to spread themselves out and experiment a bit more (which continued with their self-titled 1995 album), and there was plenty of strife, as the EP's breakout single "No Excuses" — perhaps the breeziest song the band ever recorded — was about the rocky relationship between the group's co-leaders Jerry Cantrell and Layne Staley.


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When Christina Aguilera Performs The National Anthem, Pittsburgh Teams Win Championships

Posted 1/24/11 4:30 pm EST by in Music


The teams are set, the halftime show is booked and now one of the last performance aspects of Super Bowl XLV has fallen into place. Christina Aguilera will be taking the field at the Super Bowl for the second time in her career, this time to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" before the game kicks off on Sunday, February 6 (she was last a part of the big game back in 2000, when she participated in a halftime show that also featured Phil Collins, Enrique Iglesias and Toni Braxton). Aguilera joins the Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC Champions), the Green Bay Packers (NFC Champions) and the Black Eyed Peas (mega-platinum halftime entertainment) as the main participants in the Super Bowl, which will be staged live at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

"The Star-Spangled Banner" is always a difficult song, though Aguilera's pipes should have no trouble with the tune's epic dynamics. In fact, it's sort of old hat for the singer, who first kicked off a sports event with the song back in 1992 when she performed it before a playoff game between the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins and Chicago Blackhawks.

Aguilera performed the song for her hometown Penguins, as she grew up in nearby Wexford, Pennsylvania, and the Packers should really consider her presence at the Super Bowl to be an unfair advantage, as the Penguins ended up winning the Stanley Cup (they swept the Blackhawks in four games thanks to incredible performances from Mario Lemieux and Kevin Stevens). Could her good luck extend to the Pittsburgh Steelers?

Who do you think will win Super Bowl XLV? Let us know in the comments!

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Where Are The Razzie Awards For Worst Music?

Posted 1/24/11 2:30 pm EST by in Music


The movie awards season always sets out to reward the excellence in the film world every year (culminating with the Oscars, whose nominations will be released on Tuesday morning, January 25), but considering most of the movies that come out over the course of a year are middling-to-terrible, there should also be awards that recognize failure as well. That's where the Razzies come in. For 31 years, the Razzies (or rather, the "Golden Raspberries") have been recognizing the worst in cinema every year. Past winners of Worst Picture include notorious busts like "Howard the Duck," "Hudson Hawk," "The Postman" and "Showgirls," and this year's nominees include problematic releases like "The Bounty Hunter," "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse," "Sex and the City 2," "The Last Airbender" and "Vampires Suck." There are also awards for Worst Actor and Actress, Worst Screenplay and Worst Director (in addition to the new-this-year Worst Eye-Gouging Misuse of 3-D, which features entries like "Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore" and "Clash of the Titans").

But strangely, there's no award for Worst Score or Worst Original Song. It wasn't always this way, as the award was given out from 1980 until 1999 (and then came back in 2002 — apparently just to take down Britney Spears' "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman"). Past "winners" of that award include Frank Stallone's problematic "Peace in Our Life" (from "Rambo: First Blood Part II"), MC Hammer's "Addams Groove" (from "The Addams Family") and Tag Team's "Addams Family Whoomp!" (from "Addams Family Values").

While 2010 was a great year for music in movies (lead by Trent Reznor's score for "The Social Network," which won the Nine Inch Nails founder a Golden Globe and will likely score him an Oscar), but there were plenty of messes over the course of the year. Here are what the nominees should be for Worst Original Song (each of which are taken from the shortlist for the Academy Awards).

Landon Pigg, "Darling I Do" (from "Shrek Forever After")
The "Shrek" series has a history of terrible music (including extending the careers of both Smash Mouth and Counting Crows), but "Darling I Do" is all sugar and no melody.

Alanis Morissette, "I Remain" (from "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time")
Instantly forgettable tune from an overdone mess of a movie.

Dido, "If I Rise" (from "127 Hours")
Another too-ethereal entry that actually ends up distracting from the slow-burning drama on screen.

Most anything from "Burlesque"
No argument needed.

What would you nominate for Worst Original Song? Let us know in the comments!

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