Maroon 5

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 >>

SNL Sound-off: Kendrick Lamar's "Poetic Justice" and a Lonely Island Cameo

In the first two weeks of its new season, Saturday Night Live has given us a pair of polar opposites for musical guests: The Lumineers and Kendrick Lamar. The dichotomy goes beyond differences in genre and has more to do with the fact that one band showed up to work on a Saturday night and one didn' ... More >>

Radio Hits One: Nine Songs From 2012 That Should Have Been Huge

The term "flop," in a musical context, usually refers to an unsuccessful album. Though singles constantly perform above or below expectations, a song will rarely get a reputation as a flop unless there's a lot riding on it, such as a pre-release single from a big-name album. In 2011, Beyonce's "Run ... More >>

Radio Hits One: Will Grouplove And Walk The Moon Follow fun. And Gotye On The Crossover Path?

Both fun.'s "We Are Young" and Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know." topped the Hot 100 and the Alternative Songs chart, and did so in quick succession. The success of both those songs after a number of years when songs from the Alternative Songs chart seemed to be almost completely absent from po ... More >>

Radio Hits One: Bruce Springsteen And Mick Jagger Stop Making Pop Hits, Start Inspiring Them

It's been a busy year for Bruce Springsteen. In March, he released Wrecking Ball, his seventeenth studio album and tenth release to top the Billboard 200, and after packing in arenas across America throughout the spring, he took the E Street Band to Europe. His name is also in a top-40 entry on the ... More >>

Live: Mariah Carey's Grand, Real-Talk-Filled Return To The Stage At Gotham Hall

Mariah Carey w/Diddy Gotham Hall Thursday, March 1 Better than: A promotional tote filled with branded swag. Initally, some words about Diddy's performance were going to open this review, but when Mariah Carey hit the stage after him, his portion of the show was all but forgotten. Still, for the ... More >>

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 >>

On Mirel Wagner and the Alleged Death and Apparent Spread of Freak Folk

Scattered cosmic dust

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: Who Will Win This Year's Best New Artist Trophy At The Grammys?

In this week's Voice I wrote about Skrillex, the emo-dude-gone-dubstep-auteur who's spawned a bunch of funny-Photoshop blogs and garnered five Grammy nominations. One of the categories he's nominated in is one of the Big Four—Best New Artist, which seems to have shaken off its "one-way ticket ... More >>

Radio Hits One: Foster The People, Cage The Elephant Lead The Charge Of New "The" Bands

Back around 2001, a Transatlantic cabal of music critics led a media hype machine declaring that rock was "back." To further this thesis, it grouped together a disparate set of bands offering variations on the stripped-down "garage rock" template who were often cheekily referred to as the "The" Band ... More >>

The 11 Most Infuriating Songs Of 2011, No. 3: [White Person], [White Person Cutely/Seriously Performing Urban-Radio Hit]

The Songs: Karmin, "Super Bass" and "Look At Me Now" and way too many others; Mac Lethal, "Cook Wit Me Now"; Jackson Foote and friends, "Get Low"; Sophia Grace, "Super Bass"; probably more that are shooting up the Reddit charts right now. The Crimes: Anti-pop snobbery; humorlessness in the name of ... More >>

The 11 Most Infuriating Songs Of 2011, No. 2: Lana Del Rey, "Video Games"

The Song: Lana Del Rey, "Video Games." The Crimes: Irritated-alley-cat vocals; overwrought harps; fundamental misunderstanding of whether or not ironic critique of male-female mores can exist in the Hipster Runoff age; this poor girl's right thigh. In 2011 the phrase "Lana Del Rey" wasn't just the ... More >>

The 11 Most Infuriating Songs Of 2011, No. 1: Jessie J Featuring B.o.B, "Price Tag"

Ahhhh!! ​The Song: Jessie J, "Price Tag" The Crimes: Using what might be the entirety of her label's marketing budget to convince the world that she actually functions on a higher, post-capitalistic level; "video hos"; "ch-chang-cha-chang"; "bla-bling-bla-bling." The year's most grueling pop ... More >>

The 11 Most Infuriating Songs Of 2011, No. 5: Rihanna, "S&M"

The Song: Rihanna, "S&M" The Crimes: Dressing a bloodless ode to kink up by saying it's actually about the media? Na na na na na na, come on, girl. Pop stars need their personas as much as they need the songs that take them to the top of the charts—and lest you think that need exists in a va ... More >>

The 11 Most Infuriating Songs Of 2011, No. 6: Bon Iver, "Holocene"

The Song: Bon Iver, "Holocene" The Crimes: Shapelessness, "atmosphere," wondering if we're all just particles, man, invoking existential music-listening crises. Many of this year's most risible songs had clear reasons for being as irritating as they were—self-impressed "punk"dom, grating whi ... More >>

Was Alexandra Stan's "Mr. Saxobeat" The Most Anonymous Hit Of 2011?

​The incredibly useful hey-what's-that-song app Shazam has released its most-queried songs of 2011, and it's both surprising and not that Adele's "Rolling In The Deep" topped the list. (Not surprising because Adele's bombastic breakup anthem was pretty much everywhere over the course of the ye ... 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 >>

100 & Single: Rihanna's Post-Millennial Strategy For Setting Chart Records

​Pop-chart record-keeping can be as contentious as baseball's, and we've got quite the steroids-style asterisk forming atop Billboard's Hot 100. On the most recent chart, the most pervasive radio star of the last half-decade brushed past a couple of legends into the hall of fame. And like Barr ... 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 >>

The Rapture Talk Baseball, Seattle, Postpunk Redux, And Their Difficult Second Album

​In this week's Voice, we profiled the Rapture, recently re-signed to DFA Records. Luke Jenner, Vito Roccoforte, and Gabriel Andruzzi are voluble guys, so there was plenty of material that we couldn't fit into the story. Here are a few pieces from our interviews that touch on the band's early ... More >>

Radio Hits One: Adele Brings The Ballad Back To No. 1

​Adele's 21 has ruled the American charts for most of 2011, and it's done so almost entirely on the back of one song: the lead single "Rolling In The Deep." While the British singer was topping charts in her homeland and several other countries with the follow-up single, the ballad "Someone LI ... More >>

The Voice: The Dominance Of Javier, The Rise Of Vicci

via RickeyVicci Martinez performs "Dog Days Are Over."​I wish Game of Thrones was still on. It isn't. But hey, The Voice is still on! On last week's show, it seemed pretty obvious which four singers would make it through and which ones wouldn't. On Team Cee Lo, for instance, it was absolutely ... More >>

The Voice: Cee Lo Wigs Out, Adam Levine Gets Inspired By Old VH1 Playlists

via Rickey​Hey, The Voice! It's still pretty good! And right now, there's pretty much nothing else on TV except for Game of Thrones! On last night's episode, Carson Daly, you'll be happy to learn, moved on from the detestable suit-with-sneakers look he was rocking last week. Unfortunately, he ... 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 >>

Radio Hits One: Shinedown's Marathon Of Rock-Radio Domination

​ One of Billboard's biggest recent chart records was set last week, when Katy Perry marked 52 consecutive weeks in the top 10 of the Hot 100. She became the first artist to stay there for the entire year thanks to four singles from her sophomore album Teenage Dream, all of which peaked at No. ... More >>

The Voice Gets Ready To Rummmmbllllleeeeeee

Lewis Jacobs/NBCMichael Buffer might have sold that a little better, dude. ​ A couple of weeks in, The Voice is already turning out pretty great. The singers, at least thus far, can all actually sing, the coaches all have sharp and productive things to say, and the show's setup provokes more a ... More >>

The Voice: Blake Shelton Is Unimpressed, Xtina Likes To "Woo"

​A week into The Voice, and some problems are starting to materialize. During backstage interviews, Carson Daly doesn't just stand there; he hovers. I can't imagine ever feeling comfortable around that guy. Christina Aguilera's mentoring style, right now, seems to be limited to raising both he ... More >>

Q&A: Singer Angela "Mecca" Scott, Star Of Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt, On Working With Jay, Big L, And A Real Housewife Of Atlanta

"I was before my time, as the record labels would say." ​At 17, Angela "Mecca" Scott was beckoned by producer Ski Beatz to fly from her Virginia home up to New York City to sing on a track for an up-and-coming Brooklyn rapper named Jay-Z. Over a beat based around a sample from jazz pianist Ah ... More >>

Hannah Montana Upstaged by Sea Turtles in The Last Song

Bernie Madoff Mocked at Party!

Fortunately, lots of people—well, gay people—still care about Broadway.

Hot 97's Summer Jam: A Preview

The VMAs: A Running Diary

The Grammy Awards: A Preview

I Am . . . I Said

Real-deal emo-soul-folk-pop posers trip over their introspection while posing tautologies