Bruno Mars

We Need a Young, Sexy Pope With a Great Brand and Killer Social Media Presence

Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world today when he announced that he will be resigning from his post on February 28th. Speaking in Latin to a group of cardinals, he said, "Before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise. ... More >>

Hot 100 Roundup: Jerrod Niemann Gets Happy, Passion Pit Tells A Sad Story, Karmin Remains Annoying, And More

This week the new entries in the Hot 100 attain a near-perfect balance: Two good to great records (Passion Pit and Jerrod Niemann), two terrible ones (Karmin and Macklemore), and a bunch of mediocre stuff in the middle. Over the course of a year, the quality of the Hot 100 usually settles into a nor ... More >>

Trey Songz Opens A Much-Read Book To Chapter V

Much of R&B has been devoted to negotiating the relationship between men and women, and Trey Songz has always been traditional in that regard. His new album, Chapter V is organized neatly into three sections. The first and longest section is a hedonistic celebration of the player lifestyle (note the ... More >>

The Very Best

Three Other Reasons Why Sales Of Old Records Are Outpacing Sales Of New Ones

This week the news came out that sales of catalog albums outpaced those of new records during the first six months of 2012. Current (less than 18 months old) albums sold 73.9 million copies between January 2 and June 1, down from 82.8 million in the first six months of 2011; catalog albums sold 76.6 ... More >>

Cris Cab

Drinking With Rich People As The Recession Lifts

Hanging with the upper crust as the recession finally lifts

'The Revlon Concert for the Rainforest Fund'

Radio Hits One: Drake, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, And The Era Of The Hit Bonus Track

Superstar pals and Young Money labelmates Lil Wayne and Drake released two of the biggest albums of 2011—Tha Carter IV and Take Care—and both are still spinning off hits well into 2012. But a look at the singles charts reveals something odd: the biggest current hits off both albums aren' ... 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 >>

Oddsmaking: Will Mumford & Sons Upset "Rolling In The Deep" In The Grammys' Record Of The Year Race?

Every year, when I get involved in Grammy debates with my cooler friends, I tell them the problem with the awards isn't that they reward mass-appeal schlock. If the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences is doing its job right, it should be rewarding popular, undeniable, and somewhat unhip ... More >>

It's Adele vs. Gaga At The Grammys Sunday

And that's good because it'll take some of the heat off Gaga vs. Madonna. But who do you think will win the Grammy for Album of the Year?

Oddsmaking: Should The Grammys Just Give The Album Of The Year Award To Adele Now?

For the last twenty years, the award for Album of the Year, the biggest Grammy honor of them all, has tended to go to two types of people: young women and old men. Female solo artists under 30 (Lauryn Hill, Taylor Swift) and male veterans over 40 (Tony Bennett, U2) have dominated the category for tw ... More >>

Oddsmaking: Will Adele Go "Rolling" Over Her Song Of The Year Competition?

The Grammys have a determinedly behind-the-times history, and Song of the Year is one of the ceremony's most reliably old-fashioned categories. It's given to the songwriter—even though what constitutes a "song" today is a lot different than when the Grammys began in 1959, back when sheet music ... More >>

100 & Single: Can Katy Perry Turn The States' Post-Christmas No. 1 Race Into Something UKrazy?

​Thanks to her husband, Katy Perry considers herself as an honorary Brit. But as the most frequent current inhabitant of the Billboard charts, she must wish we were all anglophiles. If only America had a Christmas No. 1 competition as rabid and media-fueled as Old Blighty's! Katy would have t ... More >>

Radio Hits One: How The Whistle Became Pop's Secret Weapon Of 2011

​After Billboard released its 2011 year-end charts on Friday I pored over them, looking for patterns and trends with which I could make sense of the year in pop. If someone asked you to pinpoint "the sound of popular music in 2011," there are countless fads and running themes that you could po ... More >>

100 & Single: A Dozen Contenders For Billboard's Year-End Top 10, And Their Fight Against The "Last Christmas Effect"

​Later this week, Billboard is expected to announce its tallies for the biggest hits of 2011. And what a year for music it's been. Remember all those big hits: "Like a G6," "We R Who We R," "Raise Your Glass," "Fuck You!" and "What's My Name?" What's that—you say the songs I just rattle ... More >>

Will Bon Iver Be The Arcade Fire Of 2012? And Other Pre-Grammy Nomination Show Questions

Tonight's Grammy nomination concert, airing at 10 p.m. on CBS, will not only jam-pack a bunch of performances by the likes of Lady Gaga and Jason Aldean into its 60 minutes, it'll also let us know which artists will be prostrating themselves in front of the globe and thanking their families and God ... More >>

Heavy Atmosphere

B.o.B. brings ‘Strange Clouds’

The American Music Awards Nominations: Hey, Did You Know Adele Sold A Lot Of Albums This Year?

Have you bought your copy yet? (Give it time.) ​You can have your Grammys and your Mercury Prizes and your Polaris Prizes and whatever other musical prizes honor things like "talent" and "artistry"—the most honest awards show in pop music, though, is undoubtedly the American Music Awards ... More >>

100 & Single: The Increase In Hot 100 Rebounders, And The iTunes-Radio Tug Of War

​The first week I remember ever hearing American Top 40 with Casey Kasem on the radio, back in the summer of 1981, the No. 1 spot was a real cliffhanger. As Kasem explained, the week before, Kim Carnes's synth-pop smash "Bette Davis Eyes" had ceded the top spot after about a month, to a song ... More >>

TASTY DELIGHT

Action Bronson spices things up

Live: People Gather To Watch Jay-Z And Kanye's Throne, See The Stars

​ The Throne (Watch The Throne listening session) Hayden Planetarium Monday, August 1 Better than: any listening session I've ever been to. Album listening parties have almost always existed as excuses to drink on the record company's dwindling dime, the music itself largely ignored; backgro ... More >>

50 Cent Is Done With The Album-Releasing Game

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The Video Music Awards' Nominations Play To The Internet (Again)

​Last night MTV announced the nominees for this year's installment of their annual pseudo-event extravaganza, the 2011 Video Music Awards, and once again, the nominees for Video Of The Year have three pop picks ("Rolling In The Deep," "Firework," "Grenade"), one sop to the olds in the crowd wh ... More >>

What The Lineup For Clear Channel's iHeartRadio Music Festival Says About Radio Formats In 2011

Lady Gaga.​Today the radio behemoth Clear Channel announced a festival celebrating the relaunch of its online service iHeartRadio, which currently allows listeners to tune into the chain's terrestrial-radio outlets from all over the country (as well as about 150 digital-only stations) and whic ... More >>

The Top Ten Failed First Singles Off The Game's The R.E.D. Album

​This list began as a joke, but the longer I contemplated it, the more depressing its basic concept became. Consider: not only could I easily string together ten of Game's fruitless attempts to force label executives to release The R.E.D. Album, his followup to 2008's LAX; I had to make decisi ... 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: Bruno Mars And Janelle Monáe Dance It Out At Roseland

The Hooligans in Wondaland Tour Bruno Mars/Janelle Monáe w/Plan B Roseland Wednesday, May 4 Better than: Waiting for "Grenade" to come on the radio. The co-headlining tour starring sweet-voiced android Janelle Monáe and uxorious pop crooner Bruno Mars kicked off at Roseland last night, and why t ... More >>

Live: Bamboozle Stimulates Every Sense (And Then Some)

So much to see, everywhere. ​The Bamboozle Meadowlands April 29-May 1, 2011 Better than: Watching scene reports scroll by on Twitter. In a lot of ways, the Bamboozle is a festival tailor-made for the current moment of constant distraction. The festival's running time over three days totals ... More >>

American Idol: Casey Abrams Gets Sent Packing, This Time For Good

Michael Becker/FOX​ For the second time, Casey Abrams got voted off American Idol, and I honestly don't have a thing to say about it. I liked him at first, and then I got sick of him yelling and scatting at me. He ended things nicely, screaming and grunting while running around and singing "I ... More >>

Q&A: Insane Clown Posse's Violent J on the Great Juggalo Return to New York City

"Encyclopedias of rock, rap--I see them all the time at the bookstore. Like, when you look at the 'I's and you get to the 'In's and you see 'Incubus,' just to see our name included in there would be so cool." Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope. . . on a boat. It's been since six months a certain Village ... More >>

WONDERLAND BLUES

Mars and Monáe unite and conquer

My Cameo In Music Video Spawns Some Press

​Paper magazine astutely noticed me and Murray Hill in a video for the Brooklyn band TV On The Radio (one in a cycle of 10 videos they've put together all at once) and promptly did an in-depth interview with me and filmmaker Amy Davis about it.

Live: Travie McCoy and Pete Wentz's Black Cards Get Emotional at the Gramercy Theatre

Maura Johnston​The Sgt. Schlepper's Who Needs Hearts Club Band Tour feat. Travie McCoy, Donnis, Black Cards, XV, and Bad Rabbits Gramercy Theatre Tuesday, March 24 Better than: Being broken up with by email. There was apparently some sort of apocalyptic weather going on outside the Gramercy ... More >>

Justin Bieber Is Your New Chart Overlord

​Good news: The music industry is starting to sell more records in 2011. Bad news: They're Now compilations and Justin Bieber remix records. The latter takes Billboard's top spot from the former this week, with Never Say Never: The Remixes selling a brisk 161,000 copies, and why not, since Nev ... More >>

Top Five Odd Future Songs They Couldn't Possibly Perform On Jimmy Fallon

Tame by comparison, believe it or not. Odd Future, a/k/a OFWGKTA, a/k/a Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, are a teenage L.A. rap collective who've been raising a ruckus for a few months now. Tonight they hit Santos Party House for their second-ever NYC performance, but tomorrow's the big one: Th ... More >>

The Fame Cookie: 2011 Grammy Awards Live Blog

It's the return of the most talked-about Grammy Awards live blog--a collection of quips, blips, and arguably insightful observations that dares to match the actual Grammy telecast in terms of pure spectacle and Justin Bieber mentions. Please join our hosts Tom Breihan and Ryan Dombal below, and keep ... More >>

Cee Lo Green and the Year of "Fuck You"

Summing up 2010 in two little words

Bruno Mars

Was 2010 The Best Year For Music Ever? American Idol Wobbles, R&B Thrives, And The '90s Rise Again

Welcome to Sound of the City's year-in-review rock-critic roundtable, an amiable ongoing conversation between five prominent Voice critics: Rob Harvilla, Zach Baron, Sean Fennessey, Maura Johnston, and Rich Juzwiak. We'll be here all week! At least one song on this record is really good!​Gent ... More >>

Was 2010 The Best Year For Music Ever? Throw Taylor Swift In A Well

Welcome to Sound of the City's year-in-review rock-critic roundtable, an amiable ongoing conversation between five prominent Voice critics: Rob Harvilla, Zach Baron, Sean Fennessey, Maura Johnston, and Rich Juzwiak. We'll be here all week! Pay Rich Juzwiak what you owe him, Jay Leno. Twitpic by Dav ... More >>

The Ten Worst Moments On Girl Talk's All Day

Greg Gillis in Williamsburg, summer of 2009. Photo by Sam Horine.​By now you've heard All Day, the fifth full length LP from Pittsburg's Greg Gillis--or, as he's known on chaotic, fan-filled stages around the world, Girl Talk. The record was released to minimal fanfare, at the low price of fre ... More >>

The Bieber Bowl: The 2010 MTV Video Music Awards Live Blog

Just how awkward will the awkwardly staged moment between Kanye West and Taylor Swift be? Will Eminem deign to smile? Which uncomfortable pop star will B.o.B choose to bring up on stage with him? And how will your hosts, Pitchfork's Ryan Dombal and eMusic's Sean Fennessey, make it to midnight withou ... More >>

This Week in the Voice: Infiltrating the Gathering of the Juggalos

​Pop culture -- especially music -- has always had its own respectively fringe and seemingly misunderstood populations. From Phish Phans, to Justin Bieber's bloodthirsty teenage following, and beyond, there always seems to be a group of people deeply saturated in a culture of fanatic obsession ... More >>

Bruno Mars Is Not Soft

2010's hottest guest star seeks marquee status, less wimpiness

Live: B.o.B Covers MGMT, Regales Thoroughly Soused Masses At Irving Plaza

He'll probably buy you a beer if no one else will. Pics by Rob Trucks, more below.​B.o.B/Yelawolf/Playboy Tre Irving Plaza Tuesday, August 17 Every single person at this show was underage and/or drunk, present company excepted. Multiple amorous young couples took turns making out in various ... More >>

This Week's Voice: Camu Tao, Keith Jarrett and Cecil Taylor, Bruno Mars, Justin Bieber, and More

Camu Tao: Doing good, even if he's not here to see it. Photo by TONE.​In this week's Village Voice, Phillip Mlynar remembers the departed underground rapper Camu Tao, Francis Davis reviews spectacular new works from Keith Jarrett and Cecil Taylor, Mikael Wood hangs with Bruno Mars out in Los A ... More >>

Will "The Ultimate Chart" Change The Way We Quantify The Ubiquity Of Eminem, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, And Justin Bieber?

​A common complaint about music charts in the post-sales age is that, with their reliance on SoundScan data and airplay numbers, they miss other avenues for popular consumption, from YouTube streams to--shh!--free downloads. BigChampagne, which started off as a service charting the popularity ... More >>