Ne-Yo

Let Them Eat Cake

You are cordially invited to the week’s best birthday party

Nashville Songwriter Luke Laird Talks Kacey Musgraves, Eric Church, and Kendrick Lamar

Since contributing to Carrie Underwood's 2007 "Last Name," 2012 BMI Country Songwriter of the Year Luke Laird has netted almost a dozen chart-toppers, penning hits for everyone from Eric Church to Little Big Town and Miranda Lambert. This year, on top of work with Tim McGraw and Little Big Town, he' ... More >>

The Ten Best Concerts in New York This Week, 12/3/12

Here are the ten best concerts around the city this week, in no particular order.

'Z100 Jingle Ball'

Crossing Over: Michael Jackson, Ne-Yo, and the Sound of Pop in 2012

This Week In The Voice: Ne-Yo's Spin On Pop; TEEN's Sibling Revelry

In this week's Village Voice, out now: I listen to the shifting sounds of pop music in 2012 as epitomized by the R&B singer Ne-Yo's recent releases; and Chris Chafin talks to the sister act TEEN.

Live: Pepsi Throws A Birthday Party For Michael Jackson; He's Unable to Attend

Bad 25: Ne-Yo, Melanie Fiona, Swizz Beatz Gotham Hall Wednesday, August 29 Better than: an easy hair-burning joke. "You just don't do a Michael song—you try and do the best you can." So said Ne-Yo, dabbing at his forehead, having sweated through his "Smooth Criminal" costume. On screens behi ... More >>

Hit Machines: The Ten Best Singles Runs From Post-Confessions R&B Albums

In his recent review of R&B singer Miguel's fantastic Art Dealer Chic series of EPs, The A.V. Club's Evan Rytlewski explained the singer's rise in popularity by floating the idea that his 2010 album All I Want Is You contained "arguably the most engaging singles run of any R&B album since Usher's Co ... 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 >>

Announcing Sound Of The City's March Madness: A Monthlong Tournament To Crown The Quintessential New York Musician

Today is the first of March, a month that brings lions, lambs, ominous midpoints, yummy Italian pastries, and people grossly stereotyping the Irish by drinking cheap beer until they get shitty drunk. It also is the month for March Madness, the 6468-entrant (thanks Turner and CBS) tournament of colle ... More >>

53 More Great Songs From 2011

Earlier today, Maura offered a list of the 47 songs on her "2011 Awesomeness" Spotify playlist; to complement that, here are the 53 songs from my less cleverly named playlist, "2011." As is the usually the case with these mega-lists, I compiled mine a bit haphazardly, throwing together a substantial ... More >>

Live: Wale Brings Lots And Lots Of Friends To The Highline Ballroom

Wale Highline Ballroom Wednesday, November 2 Better than: watching next week, when the show will air on MySpace. The line had packed itself six-deep, turning the long sidewalk from the Highline Ballroom to Ninth Avenue into a traffic jam of Wale fans. Or maybe just fans of events. Or maybe sheep. ... More >>

Get Ready for a Coconut Rum-Tequila Mutation; Get to Know Calvados This Fall

​Now that Halloween is over, it's time to note that Thanksgiving is only 24 days away. Pumpkin martinis with your turkey? [Washington Post] Glenfiddich is releasing 11 special bottles to mark the 110th birthday of the distillery's founder's granddaughter. [Drinks Business] Ne-Yo, the R&B sin ... More >>

12 Albums From The Past Decade That Are Way Better Than Is This It

...despite these black marks, Is This It was a decade-defining record that set the agenda for how rock sounded and even looked throughout the aughts. More importantly, Is This It remains (takes deep breath, steels self for commenter rage) the single best album released in the past 10 years." — ... More >>

Ne-Yo Fancies Himself A Fantasy Object On His "Motivation" Flip

​Singer/songwriter/all-around smoothie Ne-Yo is spinning the success of the very-beneath-him-but-still-huge Pitbull "Give Me Everything" into the release of a mixtape sometime later this month. Last week to give people a taste he released his take on Jay-Z and Kanye West's "Try A Little Tender ... More >>

The Top Ten "Otis" Freestyles

​ In the run-up to yesterday's release of Watch The Throne, the project's first official single, the Otis Redding-sampling "Otis," was re-done and freestyled over by many a rapper. So to tide you over until the physical version of Watch The Throne (packaged with a bonus CD-ROM containing a vec ... More >>

The Voice Feels The Pressure Before Its Big Finish

via Rickey​ Already, The Voice is just about over. Tomorrow, the field of four contestants gets wiped away and we get a winner. This show could've kept going for another three months or so if it followed a less fucked-up elimination schedule, but maybe NBC didn't realize they had an actual hit ... More >>

The Most Overlooked Tracks of 2010: El Debarge Featuring Fabolous, Quadron, Travie McCoy Featuring Cee-Lo

​Our look back at all things 2010 continues this week as we highlight some of the year's most overlooked tracks. In this edition: different shades of soul.

R&B Serenity Now: R. Kelly, Ne-Yo, and Others Keep the Quiet-Storm Flame Alive

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 >>

This Week's Voice: Diddy, R. Kelly, Justin Townes Earle, and More

Request "Ass on the Floor." Photo by Travis Shinn.​In this week's Village Voice, Brandon Soderberg chats with Diddy on the eve of the release of his long-awaited Last Train to Paris, Mikael Wood rounds up the current crop of 2010 quiet storm r&b (R. Kelly, Ne-Yo, Jamine Sullivan, Faith Evans, ... More >>

Is "Classy Downtempo Music" Really More Appropriate For Children Than "Gangster Rap"?

And so children's day continues at SOTC...​Yesterday an entertaining screed penned by an outraged tenant of the Financial District luxury palace 90W and posted on StreetEasy made the rounds, causing great mirth. "Here's a review of my horrible experience living at 90 Washington Street," it beg ... More >>

I Went To Michael Bolton's House In Connecticut For A Cocktail Party

Our host, in his element​Look, when you get an email with that offer, you say yes. It's just a fact. And thus do I find myself on a bus yesterday evening with 20-odd publicists, journalists (OK!, In Style, Vibe, Entertainment Weekly, etc.), and TV/radio people, a merciful lack of ironical "LOL ... More >>

On The New Rihanna Song, "Russian Roulette"

​Listen here. Written by Ne-Yo, first single off Rated R, out November 23, and not, alas, a track-by-track cover of the Queens of the Stone Age album. Don't tell me that wouldn't be awesome. But we digress, if only because this is very lovely, and very boring. The problem here is Rihanna is wa ... More >>

In Honor of Matador's Gerard Cosloy, A Fuck Victory Records Playlist

​ Tony Brummel, the iTunes/Ne-Yo-despising Victory Records proprietor and bete noir of DIY hardcore since time immemorial, appears to have crossed yet another line. Gerard Cosloy, whose Austin home burned to the ground completely in the early hours of Tuesday morning, took the Matablog today ... More >>

Who Is Fabolous?

On a constantly-on-the-brink Brooklyn rapper and perils of undersharing

Sporadically Vibrant Reports From the R&B Salt Mines with Ciara and Chrisette Michele

New jams for low-riders and supper clubs, respectively

The-Dream's Logic

How his pop megahits are like iPhones, or maybe like swinging belts

Grammys Fawn over Coldplay and Plant/Krauss, Set Race Relations Back 20 Years

Good for you. As any self-respecting Grammy live blog will have told you by now, the highlight of last night's occasionally lively fiasco was undoubtedly the "Rap Pack" black-and-white "Swagga Like Us" blowout, ostensibly starring Jay-Z/Kanye/Wayne/T.I. but dominated by a stupendously pregnant M ... More >>

The 100 Problems of Kanye West

At least rap's most troubled superstar is talking about his feelings,ugly as they may be

Pete Townsend, Other Oddities at Kennedy Center Honors

Photos: Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Ne-Yo, DJ AM at the Izod Center

GO HARDER

Two Carters: one young, one old�both dominant

This Week's Voice: Playing Metallica's New Death Magnetic on Guitar Hero, Chuck Eddy on Folk Singers in Denial, Ne-Yo, Phillip Roth's Newest, and More

Ne-Yo's Fantastic R&B Finds Strength in Vulnerability

The Year of the Gentleman proves soft is the new hard

Ah Crap, Isaac Hayes Died

The BET Awards: A Running Diary

Wednesday

Return of the Hustle

The Summer-Jam Report: Fabolous and Ne-Yo's "Make Me Better"

Wayne Wonder's Foreva and Da'Ville's On My Mind

Top-shelf reggae cheese, by overwhelmingly popular demand

The BET Awards: A Running Diary

Live: Hot 97's Summer Jam

Cuffed and Whipped

Sensitive souls done wrong by cheating lovers, or maybe the cops

Things I Learned Watching Stomp the Yard

A For-the-Ladies Slow-Jam Report Card

Hip-Hop's New No Wave

Downtown's odd relationship with rap bravado continues this fall—now with Muppet costumes

Alicia Keys Ruins Everything

Status Ain't Hood Does Summer Jam

Surgical Strikes

R&b hitmakers attack with precision, be they vulgar or merely lonely.