Music Hype

Having become famous nine years ago, 50 Cent was having a retrospective concert, containing tracks from his previous albums. Having been put in the mainstream eye by Eminem, the hip hop producer was invited to perform together with 50 Cent, and celebrate the release of his new work.
The both having had many setbacks and tumultuous beginnings, they feel connected and have been friends for a long time. Eminem living up in a rough neighborhood and finding it hard to find success, and 50 Cent being shot multiple times and living to tell about it, causing him to wear a bulletproof vest for a while after.

Santigold, the quirky singer from Brooklyn, has invited fans to join her on stage, and made her concert performance into an interactive experience, allowing various fans to dance to her music on stage, and perform alongside her. Her upbeat performance was also used to debut new tracks from an album she is just releasing, Master of My Make Believe, which is expected to be shipped to stores May 1st.
But it seems the live experience is where it’s at, containing band members dressed as Egyptians, and backup dancers performing the weirdest dances they can come up with, turning each performance into what resembles a block party.

Jack White, famous for being one part of the duo The White Stripes, has said that he’s taking a look back on his career, now that he has started performing solo, and branched out to other musical occupations, such as owning a record label.
His solo concert, lasting an hour and a half, featured material from both his solo work and his collaboration with other artists as part of a band, or the famous duo The White Stripes. It isn’t clear what White will do next – his record label takes a considerable amount of his time, not leaving him much time to create. But it seems he’ll continue pursuing a solo career for now, and possibly creating another group in the future.

Grammy Award winner Lionel Richie might be branching out. In an interview with the famous singer, he has stated that he’s looking forward to trying new things, starting out with Tuskegee, a new project for Lionel, which is set to debut on the 26th of March. The album, which is a collection of Richie’s work so far, focuses on his duets and collaborations with musicians of the country genre, focusing on one aspect of his career. Country isn’t exactly what people think when they hear Lionel’s name, but the singer has been long enough to collaborate with a large amount of people, and create various styles of music, despite being known mainly for heartful ballads.

Lionel said that the idea at first was to just do a couple of songs in a country style, but then he wanted to do a country album and try something new, but decided to start out by releasing the work he already did with country musicians, and continue from there. It’s an interesting way for the much beloved artist to evolve, and branch out, but it isn’t clear if Richie will continue in a trend of renewal, showing other sides of his work for people who might not have known his work up until now.

It’d be interesting to see other sides to Richie’s work, especially considering he’s a gifted singer with an iconic voice heard in his many hit singles. But it seems like Richie is adamant to get back to the spotlight, starting out with live performances broadcast on TV, and continuing with the release of new albums. Lionel Richie has had much success up to this point, but it still going strong, trying to reach new levels.
It’d be interesting to see what the newer generation thinks of his work – country music isn’t exactly mainstream, and is considered old folks’ music, so it might not be a success among young folks after all.

Famous Cleveland rapper, Kid Cudi, and producer Dot Da Genius, have started to collaborate together in an experimental psych-rock genre, and have released WZRD to stores just recently. It isn’t clear whether their collaboration will last a long time, since both aren’t known for their work in the genre, and feel more comfortable elsewhere, but it seems that their efforts are already bearing fruit, with a number 3 album at the Billboard 200 rating, selling 66,000 copies so far.
The large amounts of success have led Kid Cudi to publicly slam his record label, Universal Republic, for not anticipating the success of the album, and of shipping far too few physical copies to stores in the first week of its release, possibly hurting the album’s sales.

So many albums nowadays are made available in download networks so quickly after an album’s release, you need to use the most out of that first week of physical sales when the album might be available digitally, but isn’t all over the place. New released being first released at select torrents, FTPs and websites, they eventually find their way to the ones open to the public, causing everyone interested in a copy to get it within several minutes – no more than an hour.
It isn’t clear whether the sales will start to decline as a result of his record company not meeting demand, but it’s pretty clear it’ll hurt it in some way.

Hopefully now that everyone heard about it, they’ll want to get their hands on it, and a forced shortage in albums might drive demand up, at least for a couple of weeks afterwards. But regardless, the co-operation between the two seems to be working, and a second album might be on its way, leading to Kid Cudi exploring more in various genres. It’d be interesting to see what the two might bring next, as a duo or each to his own.

It seems John Mayer can’t catch a break. Having been forced to delay the release of his new album, meaning delaying his tour of said album, due to battling granuloma, throat problems threaten to cause the tour to get cancelled altogether. It seems due to the singer’s throat condition, his tour will get delayed and the singer will take an indefinite break from live performances. It isn’t clear what will become to people who already purchased a ticket, or to the fans looking forward to seeing a John Mayer performance only to get constantly disappointed following endless bad news.

But because of such a big delay in the tour and the reported album, Mayer has stated that the album will be released as planned. The album, his fifth studio one, is said to be released on May 22nd via Columbia Records, but the tour to support the album, planned to start on April 9th, might suffer as a result, and completely disappear. Things are so bad it’s a possibility the tour might not happen at all.
The problems are due to the granuloma growing back after being removed, forcing the singer to take more extreme measures to become healthier and be able to continue to perform.

It seems the album got delayed to 2012 from a fall 2011 release, due to the singer’s condition, and that now it might affect future plans. The singer’s condition requires further surgery as well as further recuperation, allowing the singer time to work on a follow up to his fifth studio album.
But despite problems, Mayer is going forward with releasing singles from his new album, starting with Shadow Days available in iTunes. Reportedly, the singles will feature work by David Crosby and Graham Nash, and the album features further collaborations with artists Mayer said he was lucky to get.

Having fired two judges and the show’s host, Simon Cowell is desperate for replacements. But it seems a lot of people are jumping on the opportunity to judge and host The X-Factor, seeing Jennifer Lopez is hosting American Idol, allowing her to branch out even more, and stay in the limelight. Reportedly a new judge is going to be Britney Spears, but it isn’t certain who the second judge will be. But if the rumors are true, the show isn’t going to feel desperate anymore. Once Spears signs up for as little as one season, I imagine a lot of people will be eager to judge by her side.
An interesting suggestion and somewhat of a rumor has surfaced recently, stating that the duo LMFAO might get involved with the show in some way, mimicking the British equivalent.

But whether backstage or as judges, on this show or another, they’d be an interesting judge to watch, allowing the show to move away from predictability, and be a bigger draw based on fun factor. People famous for singing as judges isn’t a new idea, so it’d be nice to see someone try to mix things up.

But back to spears, according to official sources she’s in talks but expects to sign a deal as early as next week, which is just a few days away. Spears’ record label is Sony’s RCA, who holds exclusive rights to X-Factor’s artists, so it would be a nice way to create a collaboration between judges, contestants and record companies, allowing the show to give its winners more than just a record deal.

Although Simon Cowell didn’t agree to confirm or deny Spears as a possible X-Factor judge, he has stated that the next few weeks will be full of announcements and twists, so stay tuned.

Davy Jones, age 66, died of a heart attack and stroke after complaining about chest pains, and difficulty breathing. After Jones was rushed to the hospital, doctors could no nothing but pronounce him dead, shocking Monkees fans and fellow band members, and stopping any rumors about a possible reunion.
Jones is survived by Jessica, his widow, and his four daughters.
Having had a love for horse racing, and even winning a few races as a jockey, the race track Jones sponsored and competed in has said that they will erect a plaque in his honor, and plant what is commonly known as a monkey puzzle – a very unique tree bare of branches, except for its very top. They will also play Monkees songs after a commemorative race, and name a couple of races after Jones, to honor his legacy.

His sudden death, at the age of 66, was a shock to both fans and friends, and left no room for a possible Monkees reunion. Band members have already stated that without Davy it wouldn’t feel the same, and that they aren’t interested in pursuing a reunion of sorts without him. But despite such grim news, Peter Tork, another Monkees band-member, has stated that a reunion isn’t entirely out of the question, but that following the news it “doesn’t seem very likely”.

But the Monkees have performed as a threesome in various concerts, during the last 20 years, so there’s a big chance they’ll continue the tradition, starting with a concert in his honor. The last time the Monkees toured was during 2011, for their 45th anniversary tour, which included Jones, but lacked Nesmith, which has stayed away from any Monkees reunion besides a couple many years ago. Now we’ll have to see whether he’s going to join his band-mates in a new Monkees tour, or if the tour will only include two of the Monkees’ founding members.