Ke$ha

Defend Your Ballot: Rob Harvilla, Pazz and Jop 2012 Contributor

You can't really know where you're headed unless you know where you've been. For that reason, we're taking a look back at Pazz & Jop 2012 to drill down into the ballots of contributors and voters who participated. Maybe amongst the rubble we'll find clues about what lies ahead for music lovers in 20 ... More >>

Wild, Obsessive, Lustful Love: Inside Tegan and Sara's New Heartthrob

"I recognize that this album is different, even a 'departure,' as some journalists are calling it, but I think we've done it without compromising or undermining our integrity and quirkiness," says Sara Quin. "I want to believe that it's still Tegan and Sara while being something completely unexpecte ... More >>

Solange - Bowery Ballroom - 12/18

About halfway through her set at the Bowery Ballroom last night, Solange unhooked the mic from behind her ear, gently disentangling it from her signature cloud of hair before slipping into "Cosmic Journey," an ethereal waft of a song from a few years ago. "Where do we go, on this wide and traveling ... More >>

Toronto's Metz: The Complete Inversion of the Post-Arcade Fire Canadian Music Glut

We caught up with Toronto punks Metz just after they crossed the border of their Canadian homeland down toward New York where they play Wednesday night at Music Hall of Williamsburg. They had just been pulled over, which they say happens a lot when they border hop. So far they haven't had any major ... More >>

The Best Albums Pitchfork Hated This Year

Since Purity Ring, Death Grips and Tame Impala didn't exactly take off this year like Arcade Fire or Animal Collective, Pitchfork's cultural influence might be cooling off, which is bittersweet since their writer stable is probably better now than it ever was (some of us don't miss those novelty rev ... More >>

The Antlers, Grizzly Bear, and Sleigh Bells - Terminal 5 - 12/14/12

Better than:Cinderella "It feels amazing to be here tonight," the Antlers' Peter Silberman announced to a packed Terminal 5 on Friday night. "This is such a well-put-together event." It felt pretty amazing for me, too, since up until an hour previously I didn't think I was going to get on the press ... More >>

The Eight Best Concerts In NYC This Week

These are the eight best concerts in NYC this week. And if you don't know, now you know.

Exclusive Interview: Dethklok's Skwisgaar Skwigelf Makes Fake Boobs Explode

Devotees of Metalocalypse, the Adult Swim animated series created by Brendon Small, know that death metal band Dethklok--performing at the Roseland Ballroom tonight--are at a pivotal point in their career. Last season, after warring egos nearly dissolved the band, we learned that the Metalocalypse h ... More >>

Royal Thunder's MLNY Parsons Kicks Ass, Drives A Haunted Van

Back in November at Saint Vitus, we were enchanted by Atlanta rock/metal band Royal Thunder (who play the Music Hall of Williamsburg tonight). After their set, we asked lead singer and bass player MLNY Parsons to chat with us. It was cold outside and loud inside the bar, so she invited us to sit in ... More >>

Nada Surf Celebrate 20 Years With NYC Sold Out Homecoming

If you can pay rent with the money you make doing what you love, you're lucky as hell--and this isn't lost on the guys of Nada Surf, who are celebrating the two loud and fast decades they've spent together making that dream a reality. "We really love playing together," says lead singer Matthew Caws, ... More >>

Soul Khan Makes Music For the Audience, Not Himself: "It's Not My Journal"

Soul Khan, one of the fastest rising stars in the New York hip-hop indie-ground, is preparing to add one more entry to his already prolific catalog with his Psalm EP. It's the fourth and final part of his Love Supreme series, with this installment produced entirely by Abnormal. It's out today, and t ... More >>

This Week In The Voice: Hunters Kill, Dan Friel Feels, and Musto Hates Music

In this week's Village Voice, which you'll find in beat up, plastic red boxes across the city right. fucking. now.: >> I use words like "raw, sexy, scary, fuzzy, fun, fucked up" to describe Brooklyn's Hunters for this week's cover story. The quick highlights: champagne bottle to the face, blood, p ... More >>

The Top Six Contenders For 2012's Song Of The Summer

Now that the calendar has flipped to May, and the schedules for the area's big sheds have been announced, and the Hot 97 Summer Jam lineup is on the verge of being made public, it's time to think of other musical concerns related to the year's hottest months. Today, let's wonder about what song will ... More >>

Hold The Phone: Here's A New Song With Paris Hilton On Vocals (And It Isn't Terrible)

​Welcome to Musical Math, a new feature where we try to pick apart a new pop song's origins. For our first entry, we have the musical return of one of the last decade's most controversial figures, in both pop and the tabloids. In what's either a bid for notoriety or a genuine appreciation of ... More >>

The 10 Best Live Shows of 2011

The best stuff we saw on stage this year, from thrash to Kpop

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 >>

12 Supporting Characters From Music Videos Who You Can Use As Quick (And Cheap) Inspiration For Halloween Costumes

Picturesque Americana or pop-cultural moment waiting to be ripped off? It's your call! ​Halloween is coming! In case you're someone who doesn't have the time or money—or patience—to head out to the costume shop and figure out what alter ego you're going to take on during this weeke ... More >>

Kelly Clarkson Is Apparently Proof That Men Have It Really Hard On The Pop Charts These Days

Big news about pop music on MSNBC.com: Apparently songs like Kelly Clarkson's new track "Mr. Know It All" (above), as well as older invective-filled songs like "U Ur Hand" and "Before He Cheats" and "the not-even-that-big-hit "According To You"—songs in which wronged women sing about the me ... More >>

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 >>

Live: Unknown Mortal Orchestra Make A Name For Themselves At Glasslands

Unknown Mortal Orchestra w/Man/Miracle, Blouse, and Hospitality Glasslands Thursday, September 15 Better than: The cab ride from the West Village to Williamsburg. "Let me introduce you to my friends," Unknown Mortal Orchestra lead singer Ruban Nielson told the full house at Glasslands on Thursda ... More >>

Rebecca Black Tries To Prove That She Is An American Who's Got Talent

​If you get into work today and hear people chattering about a young singer named Rebecca Black, no, you haven't been time-warped back to March; the California teen made the jump to the big screen last night, performing an under-two-minute blend of "Friday" and her jab at her detractors "My Mo ... More >>

Free Will Astrology: July 27 - August 2, 2011

Lloyd's "Dedication To My Ex (Miss That)" Is Gleeful, Profane, And Completely Great

​ Next week King of Hearts, the new album by Atlanta R&B crooner Lloyd, comes out after what seems like a really really long time since he provided the hook to the near-chart-topper "BedRock." (Early 2010 wasn't that long ago in real terms, I know.) Last night "Dedication To My Ex (Miss That)" ... More >>

Live: Katy Perry Is Soaking In It At The Prudential Center

​ Katy Perry w/Robyn Prudential Center Sunday, June 19 Better than: Being sent to bed without dessert. Pop music can be a funny thing sometimes. So often, the factors that divide fandom from outright loathing can be completely extramusical, yet they can still inspire frothing at the mouth/ ... More >>

The Voice Keeps The Niceness Quotient High

via Rickey​After the first of its live shows, some real problems have emerged with The Voice. Similar to the last season of American Idol, none of the celebrity panelists is willing to say anything remotely critical, although that reluctance at least makes more sense here because they're suppo ... More >>

A Brief List Of Female Singer-Songwriters Who Might Not Fit The "White Girl With Acoustic Guitar" Mold, But Who Certainly Shouldn't Be Ignored By Overly Strict '90s Revivalists

Where, indeed. ​Hey, so the new Jane Pratt venture XOJane launched today! And one of the Sassy granddaughter's first music-related articles is Yet Another Thing About The Now Gingrich-Assisted '90s Fetishism Happening Right Now, in which Emily McCombs pleads, "Can the '90s Revival Include Fema ... 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 >>

Coming To The Local Sheds This Summer: Lots Of "Heritage Acts" And Country Stars (And Yeasayer)

Yeasayer. Here's hoping things are a bit warmer than this for their shows this summer. ​Today Live Nation announced a slew of shows at Long Island's Nikon at Jones Beach Theater and New Jersey's PNC Bank Arts Center, and in addition to the many classic rock acts (with "classic rock" now being ... 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 >>

WNBC Blows The Lid Off The Whole Auto-Tune Story

"From Ke$ha to Indie singer Bon Iver to reality sensations like Rebecca Black and Real Housewife Kim Zolciak," notes WNBC reporter Katie Tur, "artists across the board are using Auto-Tune -- that handy audio tool that makes even the most dreadful voices sound musical -- and other devices to either s ... More >>

Pazz & Jop Stats II: Calculating Enthuasiasm, Hipness, Metalism, And, Uh, Kvltosis

Time to learn about this album​Pazz & Jop's album chart is officially ranked by points: Each voter has 100 to hand out, with no album receiving more than 30 or less than 5. There are, of course, a bunch of ways to turn that mass of music data into revealing lists. Here are four of them.

Cee Lo Green and the Year of "Fuck You"

Summing up 2010 in two little words

The Six Most Decisive Wins In Pazz and Jop History

Not quite​Having spent the last two weeks poring through Pazz & Jop 2010, I've learned everything from the two albums most statistically similar to a bootleg compilation of early Bob Seger (those would be Flockaveli and Ke$ha's Animal/Cannibal combo) to the number of writers who ended their co ... More >>

Tiffany And Debbie Gibson Are Performing Together At The Canal Room Later This Month

We are never truly alone, Tiffany. So here's a real thing you can pay money to go see: bygone '80s teen idols Debbie Gibson and Tiffany, on one night on one stage, specifically the Canal Room's, as part of another Back to the Eighties fete also featuring an era tribute band reasonably named Rubix ... More >>

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 >>

Carlos Santana Needs To Be Stopped

​If you happened to watch last night's American Music Awards, well, I'm very sorry. If you didn't, our good friend Maura provides an in-depth live-blog summary over at the Awl, but here's the gist: Justin Bieber reigned supreme, Katy Perry wandered so far off key she made Taylor Swift sound li ... More >>

Top Five Beatles Songs Guaranteed Not To Top The iTunes Singles Chart Today

​So the Beatles catalog is now available on iTunes. This is, contrary to your attempts to be contrary, A Big Deal. You may naturally (and not unreasonably) assume that everyone in the world already owns all the Beatles songs they'd ever care to own. You are mistaken. The iTunes chart run desti ... More >>

Live: Mike Posner Serenades A Roomful Of Screaming, Brawling Ladies At Irving Plaza

A bout of roadie-assisted crowd-surfing, and why not. Pics by Rob, more below.​Mike Posner/Far East Movement Irving Plaza Tuesday, October 12 Better than: Going to Duke Within five minutes of Mike Posner taking the stage, a full-scale omnidirectional brawl between at least eight remarkably p ... 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 >>

Drake Concert Debacle Now Causing the Cancellation of Other Free New York Shows

Aftermath of a free Drake concert. Photo by Rebecca Smeyne​It was inevitable that the city of New York would begin to crack down on the plethora of free, sometimes anarchic summer shows around the five boroughs after Tuesday's Drake concert degenerated into a near riot. Now we have the first o ... More >>

Nikon at Jones Beach 2010 Summer Schedule Proves, Once Again, That All Under-40 Adult New Yorkers Are Drunks

Jones Beach With the Rihanna/Ke$ha bill already announced for Nikon at Jones Beach Theater this summer, a pop-superheroine double-threat that Nicki Minaj sadly abandoned, there was a momentary glimmer of possibility that the Lon Guyland outdoor amphitheater's other bookings would give metropolitan ... More >>

Watch: New Yorker Poetry Editor Paul Muldoon Critiques Ke$ha's "Tik Tok"

Normally we have a zero tolerance for LOL-pop-music-type gags, in which someone old and stentorian soberly reads some silly Soulja Boy versa with a bunch of misplaced gravitas and strategic confusion, but let's make an exception here for the virtuoso poet and aging hipster Paul Muldoon, whom the P ... More >>

Music Sales Are In Free Fall Right Now, and That Fact Still Matters

Can this man get Ted Leo paid?​This week's album chart is topped by Justin Bieber, with the Canadian idol's My World 2.0 bubbling back into the No. 1 slot despite a 65% sales drop from the previous week. World moved 102,000 copies, enough to best last week's No. 1, Usher's Raymond Vs. Raymond, ... More >>

Aw Man: Nicki Minaj Drops Off the Rihanna/Ke$ha Tour

Well, that took a dispiritingly short amount of time. No sooner did future-of-rap-in-2010 goddess Nicki Minaj announce a summer tour with Ke$ha and Rihanna--this literally happened on Monday--did she call the whole thing off, tweeting: "Barbz I'm sorry 2 say I will not be going out on RiRi's tour. ... More >>

Why M.I.A. Thinks Lady Gaga Is Biting Her Style

Because of a Wale song called "Chillin." Listen to it (above) and realize--as Ryan Dombal pointed out more than a year ago--that M.I.A. has a pretty solid case here. The context? An interview the singer just gave to NME--which, given the fact that it's been typed out of a magazine and onto ONTD, ... More >>

Photos: Yeasayer Rock ABC Carpet and Home for Erin Wasson; Ke$ha Gets a Front-Row Sofa

David Wentworth​Though we're not positive, we have a feeling Yeasayer can claim the title of being the first band to have ever rocked ABC Carpet and Home, land of $40,000 rugs and fancy home furnishings. Model turned fashion designer Erin Wasson hired the band to play her boho-themed Fashion W ... More >>

Jared Leto Likes Erin Wasson X RVCA; Hex Message Play Rachel Comey's Show

Photo by David Wentworth​ Last fall, Erin Wasson, a model turned fashion designer, held her show at the Tents in Bryant Park. We mean it in the best possible way when we say it was a little too glamorous for her. The woman, after all, has told reporters that she thinks homeless people have "t ... More >>

Week in Review: An Extra Side of Arrogance

R.I.P. Jay Reatard. Photo by Rebecca Smeyne.​In the week our American Idol recapper made it all the way to the BBC for calling Victoria Beckham's face "too crazy", we also tossed epithets in the direction of the Times, in solidarity with M.I.A., and toward Esquire, who this week were forced to ... 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 >>

The 50 Worst Songs of the '00s, F2K No. 5: Alvin & The Chipmunks, "Get Munk'd"

F2K is a countdown of the 50 worst songs of the decade. Track our progress here. Watch out, 'cause here they come... and it would seem that they're kinda horny.