Wed. January 6, 2010
By DJ Plez
Stone In Love
Lord knows I love me some Angie Stone and so her brand new album, Unexpected, gives me even more reasons to express my adoration. The neo-soul songstress, whose 2002 "Wish I Didn't Miss You" still makes me tingle, has produced an outstanding album that is, as its title suggests, unexpected. The 12-track LP features Stone presenting a more contemporary R&B style that feels natural and right for her. She effortlessly demonstrates an ability to push past her own artistic limits, bringing joy to her legion of fans and impressively reaching out to those who may be new to the fold.
Grammy Nods for Guetta
Superstar DJ/Producer David Guetta has had a huge year and it got even better a few weeks ago when he earned five Grammy nominations. He picked up two of them in the Album Of The Year and Record Of The Year categories as producer of the Black Eyed Peas monster smash "I Gotta Feeling." His own album One Love, earned 3 nominations: Best Dance Electronic Album Of The Year along with Best Dance Recording and Best Remixed Recording for the album's first single "When Love Takes Over" featuring Kelly Rowland. For a dance artist to have such success in the Grammy world is indicative of just how intertwined dance is becoming with pop, hip-hop, R&B, and other genres. Congrats to Guetta!
The Oughts' Top-Sellers
All the decade lists are coming out and it appears that Eminem took the title of Best Selling Artist of the Decade thanks to two of his albums being in the Top 10 of Best Selling Albums of the Decade: The Marshall Mathers LP (10.2 million records sold) at #4 and The Eminem Show (9.8 million) at #5. That album list was topped by 1 by The Beatles (11.5 million), followed closely by *NSYNC's No Strings Attached (11.1 million) and Norah Jones' Come Away With Me (10.5 million) … As for downloaded singles, the Top 5 for the decade: Flo Rida - "Low" (5.2 million downloads); Lady Gaga - "Just Dance" (4.7 million); Jason Mraz - "I'm Yours" (4.6 million); Timbaland feat. OneRepublic - "Apologize" (4.4 million); and The Black Eyed Peas - "Boom Boom Pow" (4.3 million)
Mr. Gaga?
As Lady Gaga has been riding a rocket ship to stardom this past year, her DJ and collaborator, Space Cowboy, has also seen his profile grow tremendously. Already well-established as a unique DJing talent in the U.K. before he met Lady, Space Cowboy is best known for his melding of techno, rock, hip-hop, electro, and dance into a cohesive sound. In 2006 he released his first album Digital Rock, and is now poised to follow it up with Digital Rock Star, a 12-track CD that is essentially part 2 of his "Digital Rock" opus. While it is easy to be dismissive of Space Cowboy as someone who is simply riding the coattails of Lady Gaga, the truth of the matter is that he is a influential figure in today's pop music and should not be ignored.
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