Alicia Keys

The Ten Best Concerts in New York This Week, 4/8/13

Here are the 10 best shows around the city this week, in no particular order.

The Ten Best Concerts in New York This Weekend, 4/5/13

These concerts are all certified "Best of Weekend" by the mayor's office. We bring them to you by court order.

The Five Worst Cover Songs Of All Time

Taking a classic song that's perfectly fine as is and exhuming it for financial gain is awful enough, but when the result comes out sounding excremental, you want to cover the new artist with a blanket and make them stop. Here are my 10 least favorite cover tunes: (1) Britney Spears, "(I Can't Ge ... More >>

The Best Tweets and Photos From Last Night's Grammy Awards

Last night, during the 55th Grammy Awards, we trudged through the bile and self-loating of angry would-be comedians and critics who took to Twitter to tell Jack White he looks like Edward Scissorhands and Johnny Depp he looks like the butt baby of Jack Sparrow and Steve Tyler and Adele she was dress ... More >>

Here's The Stellar Lineup For The Inauguration! What A Concert!

What was supposed to be a simple inauguration for President Obama's second term is turning into the concert of the year. Kelly Clarkson will do "Breakaway." Usher's crooning "Something Special." Katy Perry will belt "Firework" one more time. John Legend is set to perform "Ordinary People."

New York Fashion Week SS13: Liberty Ross Models at Alexander Wang's Glow-in-the-Dark Show; Edun Attracts Alicia Keys, Michael Stipe, Gina Gershon, and a Couple of Strokes

"Alicia! Alicia! Over here!" shouted the front-row photographers at Alicia Keys, who had just arrived at Moynihan Station to see the EDUN show. Decked out in sunglasses, a white blouse, and white jeans with black tuxedo stripes, she pulled another woman with long brown hair into the shot. "Who's th ... More >>

100 & Single: Answering Questions On Adam Lambert's Historic Chart-Topping Album

I've never been happier to be wrong about something. Two weeks ago, the last line of my column read: "Probably won't happen. But wouldn't it be fun if it did?" The event I didn't think could happen was Adam Lambert scoring a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 album chart with his second disc, Trespas ... More >>

VOTE NOW: Will John Coltrane Or Blondie Make It To The Finals In Our Quintessential New York Musician Search?

As March comes to a close, so does our month-ish-long battle royale between 64 New York musicians, all of whom were put in the mix to decide which one best embodied the spirit of the city. Each of the divisions—Uptown, Queens, Downtown, and Brooklyn—has now crowned a winner, and for our ... More >>

Live: L'Arc-En-Ciel Land At Madison Square Garden

L'Arc-en-Ciel Madison Square Garden Sunday, March 25 Better than: Hearing critics just talk about weird foreign scenes and stylistic blends and collisions at the EMP Pop Conference. Japanese hard rock band L'Arc-en-Ciel have been in well-deserved self-celebration mode of late. They celebrated thei ... More >>

SOTC's March Madness: The Quintessential New York Musician Tournament

Sound of the City's monthlong tournament to determine the quintessential New York City musician (since 1955, the year of the Village Voice's founding) is taking over our site all March. The full schedule and results (as of March 23) below; you can also follow along with our bracket.

Whitney Houston's Funeral: Make Sure To Watch

This is the biggest must-see tragic viewing since Michael Jackson's memorial (though her family wants quite a different feeling -- something smallish and intimate). It will be poignant, tearful, and filled with people who loved and felt for Whitney, as well as some who probably asked too much of he ... More >>

Live-Blogging The 2012 Grammys: Tributes, Tribulations, Skrillex, And The Return Of Adele

via Cats Who Look Like SkrillexWill this cat win Best New Artist?​Welcome to Sound of the City's liveblog of the 54th Annual Grammys, coming to you live from a couch in Astoria. There are quite a few questions lurking around tonight's ceremony. Will Adele sweep the three major categories in wh ... More >>

Living Colour

Radio Hits One: VH1 Takes On The '00s Pop Canon

VH1 spent last week counting down what the channel, and its panel of celebrities and "experts," consider The 100 Greatest Songs of The '00s. They certainly haven't been the first to assemble such a list—Rolling Stone and Pitchfork and every blog under the sun had their say about two years ago, ... More >>

Radio Hits One: The Elusive Superstar Duet (Or Three-Way)

​ In last week's breakdown of Lil Wayne's chart ubiquity, I noted that while Lady Gaga's Born This Way and its singles seemed to be everywhere, she hasn't staked out much additional Billboard territory with collaborations. Her only charting collab of late is "3-Way (The Golden Rule)," a little ... More >>

Radio Hits One: The Disappearing Urban Crossover Hit Says "Look At Me Now"

​Chris Brown's "Look At Me Now" has topped Billboard's R&B/Hip-hop Songs chart for seven weeks in a row, and it recently peaked at No. 6 on the Hot 100. In terms of Brown's career, it's notable for being the singer's first top 10 hit in the two years since that whole violent incident with then ... More >>

Live: Stepkids Throw A Startling Psych-R&B Dance Party At Mercury Lounge

Pics by Sophia Betz​The Stepkids Mercury Lounge Thursday, March 10 Better Than: Being dry. Maybe. "I couldn't believe it, bro! "My mouth was hanging open the whole time!" Down in the basement dressing rooms of Mercury Lounge, a childhood friend of Connecticut band the Stepkids is trying t ... More >>

The 20 Worst Songs of 2010, #5: Artists for Haiti, "We Are The World 25 For Haiti"

F2K10 is a countdown of the 20 worst songs of 2010. Track our progress here. ​In 2010, when pop musicians are struggling to have half the visibility of the latest news-cycle-spawned entrant into Google Trends, it's hard not to see charity endeavors as ego extensions. Recall "Just Stand Up!," ... More >>

Glee's Ten Most Cringe-Worthy Rap Moments

​The phenomenally successful Glee kicked off its second season earlier this week, with Jay-Z and Alicia Keys' home-town anthem "Empire State Of Mind" showcased in the opening song spot. But while entire episodes of the show have been effectively hooked around the music of pop icons Madonna, La ... More >>

Jay-Z And Eminem Will Probably Be Bringing A Shit-Ton Of Famous People With Them To Yankee Stadium

​Jay-Z and Eminem began their triumphant two-city, four-show run last night at Detroit's Comerica Park, and if that show's any indication, when they show up at Yankee Stadium September 13 and 14, they'll be bringing along every famous rapper they (or you) can think of.

Sunday Evening Link Dump: Lindsay Lohan's Meth Addiction and Sarah Palin's "Cojones"

Needs more meth​• Lindsay Lohan will head straight from jail to rehab at Morningside Recovery for 90 days, in order to be treated for addiction and bipolar disorder. According to a source, "methamphetamine and opiates are her 'drugs of choice,'" which makes cocaine and alcohol feel really le ... More >>

Live: LCD Soundsystem And All Their Friends Settle In At Terminal 5

​ I was there when they dropped balloons at the LCD show. Pics by Puja Patel.​LCD Soundsystem (Night #1) Terminal 5 Thursday, May 20 "We're here for four days -- tonight I will sleep in my own bed, and wake up and have coffee in my own house," announces James Murphy, with palpable relie ... More >>

Sex and The City 2 Spoiler: Carrie's Jihad on Islam?

​For years, HBO's Sex and the City made New York City an excitable frontier of moneyed men, inexplicably well-off women (despite shitty writing jobs that realistically pay nothing), and a world where everyone is someone else's plus-one. And that frontier was then seized upon by basically every ... More >>

2010 Tonys: Nominations Announced, Big on Idiot Material

​The 2010 Tony nominations are out, and the yearly ceremony that becomes more and more designed to persuade people from anywhere but New York City to spend money on theater is soon to follow. The idea behind the Tonys is simply to get Broadway to appeal to the rest of America in a big, fancy ... More >>

Ke$ha Takes Out Susan Boyle (Finally!), Claims the #1 Spot

​It took six weeks and over 3 million records sold, but Susan Boyle has finally bowed out of the #1 spot. Please welcome your new chart overlord, Ke$ha. Her Animal moved a modest 152,000 copies, good enough to rule an early January slate. In pointed contrast to Boyle's defiantly non-tech savvy ... More >>

Deer Tick's Wild Year Ends With An Access Hollywood (?!) Co-Sign

​So first the Providence proto-folk band picked up the unlikely endorsement of Brian Williams, kicking off the newsman's "BriTunes" program in a kind of deadpan surrealist interview. Then a cross-dressed John McCauley was a surprise guest on a St. Louis stage, randomly filling in for King Khan ... More >>

Susan Boyle Now Making a Run at Taylor Swift for 2009's #1 in Sales

Because we just couldn't look at that Boyle record again​Yes that's right America, you've purchased a whopping 2,465,000 copies of Susan Boyle's I Dreamed A Dream in just four short weeks. How close is that to Taylor Swift, industry darling and seemingly uncontested 2009 sales titan? Pretty cl ... More >>

Let's Just Take the Comment Section Below the New York Times' "Empire State of Mind"/World Series Piece as a Sign of Progress, America

Whatever the official sports etiquette line is in terms of fair play and sportsmanship, we can safely say the Yankees organization crossed it, did a fake line off it, and then lit it on fire last night, parading Jay-Z (in a Yankee varsity jacket), Alicia Keys (purple), and backing band (Yankee jer ... More >>

A Suggestion to Remedy the Injustice of Jay-Z Performing "Empire State of Mind" at Game One of the World Series

​Is it Jay-Z's turn to ether a Philadelphia sports team? 76ers fans will not forget the day, back in 2001, when Beyonce and the rest of Destiny's Child emerged at halftime for Game Two of the Finals, IN PHILADELPHIA, wearing Laker jerseys--the prelude to first a tremendous amount of booing, an ... More >>

Bassam Saba & the New York Arabic Orchestra

Tyler Perry Assembles The World's Greatest Blactresses

​So Tyler Perry--you know, the Madea guy--is writing and directing a film called For Colored Girls, based on the brilliant series of monologues called For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf. (The play surfaced in '75, when you had to have long, interesting title ... More >>

Jay-Z's Blueprint 3 Tracklist Looks Like Mad Libs

​ The Blueprint 3 tracklist is out, and the stats are in: four solo Jay songs, at least one of which is nearly guaranteed to be Jay going not so hard (unless "Venus vs. Mars" is about something entirely different than we think it is), and another one of which is "D.O.A." There is indeed a son ... More >>

Live From a Somewhat Michael Jackson–Themed Amateur Night at the Apollo

Idol Gives Back 2: A Running Diary

TABLOIDED: The Grammys

Tom Petty's Super Bowl Halftime Show: Thoroughly OK

TABLOIDED: Who Got the NYPD Drug Scandal Exclusive?

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The VMAs: A Running Diary

King of Wreck

Hiphop can never die so long as Bob Dylan—with story in his voice and lust in his eyes—is alive

Glossing Big-Tymers

Touré indulges his writerly ego to insightful effect.

Kanye Protégé Belies Name, Keeps Swagger Humble Enough to Convince

Tusk! Tusk! Tusk! Tusk! Tusk! Tusk! Tusk! Tusk! Tusk!

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The 'Times' Records a Year of Bitterness

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