Fleur East sings Bruno Mars & Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk on the semi final of the UK X Factor 2014. If you haven’t watched this stunning performance of Uptown Funk on the X Factor yet – you need to see it! East has yet to secure a record deal – but she’s already nabbed a Nº1 single! For the few minutes that she performed on Saturday (December 6) the X Factor achieved something it hasn’t done in years – it wasn’t terrible! Her performance galvanised the show!
The 26-year-old’s version of Uptown Funk shot to the top of UK iTunes chart on Monday morning. In the wake of the performance, the UK release date for Mark Ronson’s single has been brought forward by 5 weeks. Now, the original version has leapfrogged East’s version and the song occupies the Nº1 and Nº2 spot on the iTunes chart!
Simon Cowell said that Easts version of the track was “one of the top three performances” in X Factor history. East has earned herself a place in this weekend’s final where she will compete against Ben Haenow and Andrea Faustini for this year’s title.
Sir Paul McCartney stars as a hologram in the 28th century universe of the video game Destiny for his latest music video for Hope For The Future – a brand new song for Destiny’s soundtrack. Recorded at Abbey Road with a 120 piece orchestra, it’s a cinematic, sweeping piece of music, which matches perfectly the awesome landscapes.
In the video above you’ll see Sir Paul serenading various Guardians via projection from a Ghost AI assistant. “Hope for the future, it’s coming soon enough,” Sir Paul sings in the chorus, “How much can we achieve? / Hope for the future, it will belong to us / If we believe; if we believe.”
Sir Paul wrote Hope For The Future exclusively for Destiny, working with producer Mark “Spike” Stent. Along with composers Marty O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori, he also composed an additional 50 minutes of music for the soundtrack. Interestingly, he wasn’t paid for the project, taking part solely for “the creativity.” A representative from the game’s developers Bungie commented, “There was no check involved, big or otherwise, he’s in it for the creativity. He got a wonderful opportunity to reach an audience that wouldn’t typically be immersed in Paul McCartney. They might hear the name — of course he’s everywhere, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the Olympics, obviously he’s touring and recording nonstop — but he sees it as a way to reach a new audience that might not otherwise hear his music.”
This week, McCartney released the track in standalone form, paired with four remixes.
It seems that McCartney is definitely into the virtual world and becoming more than just tech savvy. He recently teamed up with Jaunt for an innovative app that allows fans to view a performance of Live and Let Die from every imaginable angle. The footage was filmed using stereoscopic 3-D cameras during the last-ever concert at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, where McCartney played in August – nearly 48 years after the Beatles played their final official gig at the venue.
Onika Tanya Maraj better known by her stage name Nicki Minaj turns 32 today! Not only is she the most influential female rapper of all time, she’s quite funny too – check out her hilarious impersonations on Saturday Night Live this weekend.
(To watch these videos in Creation 5, just tap on the titles.)
For the musical part of the evening Nicki and Skylar Grey performed their collaboration Bed of Lies. Wearing tight red spandex crop top and leggings she certainly stood out against the cool blues of the SNL stage set.
Then for her closing song of the night she sang a medley of Only and All Things Go – the later is the most recent single from her upcoming album The Pinkprint and deals with a former engagement, death of a cousin and pregnancy scare. As always she brought her famous attitude with her – calling out to the audience a few times saying “Where’s my bad girls at?”
Minaj was the first female artist included on MTV’s Annual Hottest MC List, and it was The New York Times that said she is “the most influential female rapper of all time”. Her rapping is distinctive for its fast flow and the use of alter egos and accents, primarily British cockney. In April last year, she became the most-charted female rapper in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, with over 44 appearances. Minaj has endorsed Adidas, MAC Cosmetics and Pepsi. She has won four American Music Awards, eight BET Awards, two MTV Music Awards, an MTV Europe Music Award, five Billboard Music Awards and Billboard’s 2011 Rising Star award.
The superstar releases a new album and the hype around it is as epic as the disc itself. First, Eminem gives the fans a clue by appearing on the Monster tour with Rihanna in August wearing a T-Shirt depicting the words Shady XV. He then also tweeted a photo of himself wearing the same shirt. The next clue was on the night of the MTV VMAs, when he again used Twitter to build up the mystery. Eminem tweeted a trailer for Shady XV and noted the project would arrive on Black Friday. The trailer didn’t exactly reveal what Shady XV actually was, but it did flip through images from Eminem’s past, including some D-12 snapshots and a 50 Cent cameo or two.
Eminem’s camp soon confirmed that Shady XV would be the two-disc compilation spanning the greatest hits of Eminem’s Shady Records. The Roman numeral title represents that it is the fifteenth release from the label on its fifteenth anniversary.
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The next lure and snippet to keep the fans on their toes came two weeks before the album’s release when Eminem made headlines for a lyric he dropped as part of a promotional cypher featuring himself, Slaughterhouse and Yelawolf. The cypher was a nearly nineteen minute long video of the stars giving us a cappella lyrics with the backdrop of their home towns. The rough and ready Shady Cxvher includes Eminem talking about punching singer Lana Del Rey like he was Ray Rice, (the Baltimore Ravens running back who was suspended for domestic abuse) amidst a lot of other tumultuous insults and lyrical mastery. His talents run riot here as he runs rings around his counterparts for delivery, timing and flow. See for yourself…
Eminem also sent out a series of short videos to promote the album which depicted old black and white cartoon like clowns juggling chainsaws and little girls wielding machine guns! Not your average cartoons to say the least. Coordinating with the new album title the series is appropriately (or inappropriately if you like) named Shady XV Quinceañera, which means the celebration of a girl’s fifteenth birthday – Shady Records turns fifteen this year.
Leading up to Shady XV’s release, Eminem also shared a demo version of his iconic track Lose Yourself where the rapper revealed that he can’t even recall recording it. “I don’t remember where I was at when I recorded it,” he said. “I don’t remember any of the first verse.” Dr. Dre had to remind him of the song’s existence! This is the one they didn’t release…
Never has a greatest hits album been so highly anticipated, as this one comes with a whole disc of original music to boot. To add to this Eminem is currently the second-highest selling male artist of the modern era (second to the talents of, believe it or not, Garth Brooks!) and therefore anything new coming from the house of Shady is going to be met with seriously high expectations. The album was released on November 24th; Shady XV is a two-disc compilation that features both new and classic tracks from Eminem and members of his Shady Records label roster.
All of the new music on Shady XV lives on the first disc featuring twelve tracks from Eminem, Yelawolf, Slaughterhouse, D12 and more. Eminem serves as the executive producer of the entire project and features on most of the tracks on Disc one. There are many collaborative moments on the first disc; the debut single from this was Guts over Fear starring the haunting vocals of Sia. The track was released on the same day as the album and features on Denzel Washington’s new film The Equalizer. Hear it now…
Paul Rosenberg (Eminem’s manager and co-founder of Shady Records) commented on the idea behind the new album in a recent interview with Music Times; “One day we were sitting talking about what we were gonna do this year. We’ve starting rolling out the Yelawolf album, that’s going to continue this year, and Slaughterhouse is still working on their project, so we were like, ‘Alright, we want to get something out this year because it’s the 15th anniversary of the label,’ and then it dawned on us that this would actually be the 15th project we’d be releasing, which just sort of lined up nicely. So we thought it would be a good time to go back and do a retrospective on the ‘greatest hits.’ They’re not gonna all just be hits like, Lose Yourself and In Da Club, these massive songs, but some of the sort of favorites of the fans and ourselves as well. And then also the chance to put out some new music, as well, because we just want to keep releasing stuff. So there’s gonna be a compilation of new music from the artists on the label as well.”
The second disc is a showcase of the best artists on the Shady Records label including some classic tracks by Eminem, 50 Cent, Slaughterhouse, Yelawolf, D12, and more. Joe Budden (Slaughterhouse member) expressed gratitude for being included on the album. “We’re all really happy to be a part of it,” he said “I, for one, am extremely blessed to be a part of such a consistent, dominant label with a label head who’s one of the greatest MCs who has ever graced the microphone.”
Due to there being extensive material on the label, a lot of tracks could not be included on the second disc of the Shady XV album. This gave rise to the release of the Shady Classics compilation; a 66-track, three-hour mix-tape of previously released material that is now mixed together for the first time. This archive of the Shady Record label’s legacy is also available now.
Shady XV Tracklist Disc 1 1. Eminem, “ShadyXV” 2. Slaughterhouse, “Psychopath Killer” (feat. Eminem and Yelawolf) 3. Eminem, “Die Alone” (feat. Kobe) 4. Bad Meets Evil, “Vegas” 5. Slaughterhouse, “Y’all Ready Know” 6. Eminem, “Guts Over Fear” (feat. Sia) 7. Yelawolf, “Down” 8. D12, “Bane” 9. Eminem, “Fine Line” 10. Skylar Grey, Eminem, & Yelawolf, “Twisted” 11. Eminem, “Right for Me” 12. Eminem, Royce Da 5’9″, Big Sean, Danny Brown, DeJ Loaf & Trick Trick, “Detroit Vs. Everybody”
Disc 2 1. 50 Cent, “I Get Money” 2. D12, “Purple Pills” 3. Eminem, “Lose Yourself” 4. Obie Trice, Kuniva, Bobby Creekwater, Ca$his & Stat Quo, “Cry Now (Shady Remix)” 5. Yelawolf, “Let’s Roll” (feat. Kid Rock) 6. Slaughterhouse, “Hammer Dance” 7. 50 Cent, “P.I.M.P.” 8. Eminem, 50 Cent, Ca$his & Lloyd Banks, “You Don’t Know” 9. D12, “My Band” 10. Obie Trice, “Wanna Know” 11. 50 Cent, “Wanksta” 12. Obie Trice, “The Setup” (feat. Nate Dogg) 13. 50 Cent, “In Da Club” 14. D12, “Fight Music” 15. Yelawolf, “Pop the Trunk” Bonus: Eminem, “Lose Yourself” (Original Demo Version)
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The annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show was held in London last week (December 2nd) and while we wait for it to air on TV we take a look at the stars of the show, or rather the bras of the show. The Dream Angels Fantasy Bras took centre stage and were worn by top Brazilian models Alessandra Ambrosio and Adriana Lima. Each of the bras were made by Mouawad jewellers and have an incredible 16,000 rubies, diamonds and sapphires strung together with 18 karat gold. These are lingerie sets so luxurious that they need their own bodyguard!
These amazing pieces of art (can they really be called bras?) took the designers more than 1,380 hours to make. Lima, 33 wore the blue and silver bra and Ambrosio, also 33, wore the red bra.
Ed Sheeran was the lucky artist to be performing whilst these sexy models made their way down the runway with 4 million dollars worth of bra’s and panties strung to their beautiful bodies.
Last year, Candice Swanepoel had the pleasure of showing off the Fantasy Bra, the 2013 version costing an incredible $10m.
The annual fashion extravaganza is the biggest fashion event worldwide – merging fashion, fantasy and entertainment into a runway spectacle, the company says. The 40 richest models in the world strut their stuff accompanied by the world’s top music artists. This year we will be able to watch Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande and Hozier.
Tune into to CBS on Tuesday December 9 to catch the show. In case you miss it, don’t worry, we will be posting a full length video of the show next weekend.
Trey Songz invites you to explore his fantasies in his new interactive video for his chart-topping single Touchin, Lovin featuring Nicki Minaj. In a recent interview with Buzzfeed, Songz commented, “I have a personal connection with my fans and I wanted this interactive video to be a way for them to get a glimpse into my world and my fantasies in a new way.” The song incorporates Fuck You Tonight, written by The Notorious B.I.G, Daron Jones, Sean Combs and R. Kelly.
Last week the R&B star, who is currently on tour with Chris Brown and Tyga, dropped this video for his hit single. Directed by Jason Zada, the interactive version of the video opens with the caption “To Explore Trey’s Fantasies,” and at different points in the video fans can choose different options for Songz, giving each viewer a tailored video-viewing.
Before the video is over Nicki Minaj appears on a throne, just to remind everyone that she reigns as the Queen of Rap. Her last collaboration with Songz was Bottoms Up in 2010.
Two interactive videos have been released in the last two weeks, this one and Coldplay’s Ink, which has 300 possible outcomes. It seems that these choose-your-own-adventure formats are becoming all the rage but actually they have been around for the last 10 years. It’s quite surprising really that in this digital age these interactive video formats have not taken over completely.
Touchin, Lovin is track 4 on Songz’s sixth studio album Trigga, which was released for streaming on June 24, along with the full album on MTV’s website.
To get the full interactive experience of this video visit Trey Songz’s website.
Alicia Keys has released a beautiful, heartfelt new song and music video calling for unity, strength and love in the wake of Ferguson protests. The video includes heavy Ferguson-related imagery – like photographs of police officers confronting protestors – combined with archive footage of Ghandi, Martin Luther King and some famous quotes from these iconic civil rights activists. Keys released the video on Twitter this week following the grand jury’s decision in New York not to indict officer Daniel Pantaleo for the chokehold death of Eric Garner.
She told the New York Times that she wrote the song after being moved by the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Garner in New York, who both died at the hands of white policemen. “We absolutely feel disregarded as human beings,” said the 33-year-old singer. And even though Keys is 9 months pregnant with her second child she expects to join the protests on the ground. “We will continue to be loud,” she said. “I hope that this is our 21st-century civil rights movement. You shouldn’t be surprised if you see me out there. The most important thing is that we look at each other and see these magnificent beings that can create the changes and movements we dream of,” she said.
J.Cole also released a song in response to the situation in Ferguson called Be Free – but while his song is wholly despairing, Keys mixes sentiments of strength and faith and declarations of self-affirmation that brings a hopeful message, “We are extraordinary people / Living ordinary lives.”
We Gotta Pray is a completely homemade production – “I recorded the song in a room one night, all alone,” the R&B superstar said. The song is currently at Nº6 on the Billboard + Twitter Trending 140.
Kina Grannis burst into the world of YouTube in 2007, when her video for debut single Message From Your Heart won the Doritos Crash Superbowl contest and aired to nearly 100 Million viewers during Superbowl XLII. Shortly after, Grannis released her first full-length album Stairwells and on the strength of the record, played sold-out across the globe. In the fall of 2011, Grannis was catapulted into the limelight again when she released a stop-motion music video for In Your Arms off of Stairwells. Made with more than a quarter of a million Jelly Belly Jelly Beans, the video went viral and has since amassed more than 11 million views. This May, Kina returned with her sophomore full-length effort Elements. Elements landed in the Top 50 on the Billboard 200, #4 Folk Albums (Billboard), and #2 Singer-Songwriter Album (iTunes). Recently, Kina broke the 1 million subscriber mark on YouTube and boasts an incredible 150,000,000+ views.
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Kina, you’ve just wrapped up the first leg of your Elements tour. You’ve been all over Europe meeting fans and giving intimate performances. You’re now back in the states and gearing up for more shows. Tell us what shows you have lined up for this last month of 2014 and what you loved about your tour time in Europe? December should be a great month! I’ve got a short run of shows down the west coast of North America that I’m really looking forward to. After that, it’s basically straight into Christmas time! I’m very much looking forward to having some down time at the end of the year with my family.
The Europe tour was one of my favourites yet. We had just enough time to wander and explore in all the cities, which was amazing, and the crowds were just the best I’ve ever had. So much fun!
Our most favourite thing we’ve read about you is that you first debuted your performance skills in front of stuffed animals at the adorable age of 4. Now you’re touring the world and practically becoming your own brand. When did what you love doing turn into a career? Haha, yes, that was certainly a favourite pastime. Music didn’t become my career, however, until about a year after I graduated from college when I started sharing my music on YouTube for the first time. From there, things really took off.
Your YouTube channel has some crazy numbers going on. Right now you’re at almost 159 million video views and over 1 million subscribers. How long has it taken for these numbers to get to where they are today? It’s definitely been a slow and steady. I started my YouTube channel just over 7 years ago. For my first 2 months on YouTube I did a video a day, and then switched to a video a week for a long time.
How many original songs have you made since you were first capable of creating, writing and recording your own material? There must be a few hundred at this point. (Most of which no one will ever hear.)
Out of all of these songs, which is your favourite at this point? Can never pick a favourite. They’re all just parts of me.
It’s interesting that your new album is available on vinyl. Why did you decide to have this option available to fans, and do you plan on releasing more material on vinyl in the future? People had been requesting vinyls for some time, and I personally had always wanted to release something on vinyl as well – it just seemed like the right time. The problem is that pressing to vinyl is a lot more expensive. I hope I get to offer more music on vinyl in the future.
Can you tell us a bit about the triangles featured in the artwork of your new album Elements, how the album title came about, and how it all relates? The triangles are the symbols for the 4 elements – earth, air, water, fire. The album logo is actually a combination of all 4 (and just so happens has a K in the middle of it as well). The name Elements came to me very naturally when I was driving one day. I was thinking about the song titles – winter, dear river, the fire, write it in the sky, and I realized that there were a lot of natural and elemental themes in the songs. On top of that, these songs are really about what’s most important – love, loss, future, past, growth, beginnings, endings – all the many elements of life.
Speaking of your music videos, the emotion filled vid to your song My Dear shows beautiful clips of your wedding day. We are assuming the song was written about your husband, Jesse Epstein. When you wrote the song, had you already planned out how it would be filmed? Or was it the other way around? Also, how did Jesse react to it all? The idea for the music video for My Dear actually didn’t come to be until long after the wedding. We’d had all that footage taken for ourselves to look back on, and at some point it just seemed like it would be a really special thing to get to share it with everyone. Jesse and I made the decision together, he’s always been very supportive of me, whether it’s wanting to keep things private or share things.
It’s pretty cool that Jesse is also very musically talented and you two have collaborations together. Is this how you met?
We actually met in high school at a community service event. I later taught him how to play guitar (and he quickly became better at it than me).
Speaking of collabs, you’ve done many which can be seen on YouTube with different artists. Do you have anyone on your wish list that you haven’t paired up with yet? The #1 collab of my dreams would be with Imogen Heap. I admire and respect her so much as a musician and I would just about die to be able to collaborate with her in some way or another.
Your song Little Worrier off of your new album is very nurturing. What inspired the lyrics to this song? To make a long story short, I went on a writing retreat by myself in the woods, the sun went down, I realized I am by no means brave enough to be alone in the woods at night, I heard footsteps downstairs, I was paralyzed and thought I was about to be murdered, and then… it was a mouse. The next day, I realized I’ve always been a worrier – whether about the past, future, friends, what other people are thinking, etc–so this song is a reminder to myself and other worriers out there to just let it go. Worrying doesn’t change anything, it just makes now more sad/stressful/scary.
Going back to your younger years, what were your earliest musical influences, and do you remember when you first discovered Indie music? My biggest early influence was a Belgian band called K’s Choice. None of my friends knew them, but they felt like my little secret. They taught me how important music could be to people (namely, me).
Your style seen on tour and in music videos is so trendy and wacky, yet entirely unique and simplistic. Where do you get your clothes and accessories? My current favourites are Topshop, Urban Outfitters and Madewell.
You have your own clothes/Kina merchandise available in your online store. Would it be a dream of yours to have your own clothing line some day? I think that would be incredibly fun.
2014 has kept you pretty busy with a new album release, loads of YouTube videos and touring. What is in store for Kina in 2015? That is something I am very interested in finding out, myself 🙂 I guess we’ll just see how it unfolds.
Elements (Deluxe Version) tracklist 1. Dear River 2. The Fire 3. My Dear 4. Winter 5. Oh Father 6. Little Worrier 7. Throw It Away 8. Forever Blue 9. Maryanne 10. Write It in the Sky 11. My Own 12. This Far 13. Sorry (bonus) 14. Home (bonus) Elements Extended Trailer Digital Booklet
An incredible new track has arrived from the a cappella sensation Pentatonix – Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy – taken from their latest album That’s Christmas To Me. Dressed all in black Avi Kaplan, Scott Hoying, Kirstie Maldonado, Mitch Grassi and Kevin Olusola show off their amazing vocal talents with this exceptional cover. The editing is fantastic – this is first class entertainment!
Every year we are treated to a new instant classic from Pentatonix, and this year, they’ve stayed away from carols and gone for this really classic seasonal favourite from The Nutcracker, Act 2, No 1: Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy.
The album That’s Christmas to Me is doing really well on the charts – it’s Nº1 on the Holiday Albums Charts and Nº2 on Billboard 200 Album Charts.
In a recent interview with Entertainment.ie the group were asked which was their favourite track from the album. Mitch replied “I think my original is Sugarplum Fairy, that got me pretty excited. I usually like darker music anyway, so that’s my favourite.”
The group have just announced the dates for their upcoming On My Way Home Tour on Facebook – “The first leg of our 2015 ON MY WAY HOME tour has been announced and VIP tickets are ON SALE NOW. Go to http://ptxofficial.com/tour for a full list of dates and to reserve your VIP tickets while they’re available! We hope to see you all on the road!!!”
Arnold Schwarzenegger is back! The first explosive trailer for Terminator Genisys has been released and it’s got it all – Arnold, T-1000 and some epic action sequences. This is not a sequel or a reboot, it’s a timeline shake-up – the first part of a standalone Terminator trilogy. The opening moments of the trailer feature the same set-up as James Cameron’s original entry.
There are some truly epic action scenes in the trailer – including a school bus falling off the Golden Gate bridge, a motorcycle jumping on top of a train and Schwarzenegger skydiving into a helicopter!
Directed by Alan Taylor (Thor: The Dark World) John Connor is the leader of the resistance against the machines in the year 2029. He learns of a plot to send a Terminator back in time to kill his mother and sends Kyle Reese to protect her, but the Sarah Connor that Kyle finds is different than what he expected.
Terminator Genisys stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Clarke, Emilia Clarke, Matt Smith, Jai Courtney, J.K. Simmons, and more! It is set to be released on July 1st, 2015.
