Madonna' Celebration a fine collection

To act like 27 years of work can be put into one or two discs of material is easily one of the most fruitless and soulless exercises the record industry has ever come up with. The very nature of the term greatest hits says that certain songs are lesser, but who judges the greatness of the song?

Sometimes it is the artist who chooses his or her own greatest hits. Through that process, the artist admits some of the songs are meaningless, didn't have their complete effort or just aren't as good as their other material.

Most of the time, the label chooses an artist’s greatest hits, by virtue of their sheer success at making people dance.

I guess this is fruitless to talk about when bringing up Madonna's final release for her longtime label Warner Bros., the greatest hits compilation Celebration, which comes in single-disc and two-disc deluxe edition forms. After all, Madonna's whole nature was to make songs that did not relate to her but related to her audience. This became the nature of pop music, of course, and it became the nature of Madonna's own many shifting personas, each with a representative track on this collection.

There is of course the simple post-Michael Jackson pop of her 1980s work, with songs like Like A Virgin, Holiday and Material Girl running on such a simple palette that they became staples of an era. While they are hardly brilliant songs, they are relics of a different time and place.

In 2009, these songs are a bit tiring, though. Holiday runs six minutes in length in both album skews, way too long for an era where even Thriller was edited down in length for radio play. Other than Like a Prayer transforming her into a controversy queen, not much of this era might be worth remembering.

The 1990s were both the most fascinating era of Madonna's music and, arguably, the best.

While her 1980s material was fanciful pop, the 1990s really showed a push in boundaries for the artist.

She also made an obvious push for sexuality in the 1990s, but this push is conspicuously absent from the single-disc skew. Presumably, this omission was made to avoid isolating cheap buyers who want to skip the overtly sexual Erotica and Justify My Love.

However, the late 90s gave us a Madonna complemented by gorgeous instrumentation. The video for Frozen famously shows a nearly 40-year-old Madonna dancing in a black dress with dyed black hair on, well, a frozen landscape. Madonna, the woman who had given us pop that was way too innocent and overt, had grown into a chameleon who favored dark-tinged dance songs that she even semi-betrayed with her new millennial output.

So, naturally, only one of these mature numbers is on Celebration. Sure, there is Ray of Light, the title track of the same album that gave us Frozen, but The Power of Goodbye is absent, which is strange when La Isla Bonita does make the listing.

While both skews are fine, something about these collections rings hollow. There's so much work that legitimately deserves to make it, namely Madonna's work from Evita or the aforementioned song from Ray of Light. Simply put, it is a fine collection of songs and you will enjoy it, but you can't put Madonna's 27 years of work into two full discs. It feels less like a celebration and more like a final cash grab.

Tennessee Music Conference and Hip Hop Awards

According to Robert "Robski" Grady, founder of Nashvillerap.com and co-founder of the inaugural Tennessee Music Conference and Hip Hop Awards, the local rap scene is "in a state of emergency."

"You've got guys in the business that live like a two or three block radius from each other," he says, "and they don't even mess with each other."
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It's a common complaint from voices in Nashville's diverse urban music community that few among its ranks are interested in working together to better everyone's fortunes.

Grady's hope is that the Conference and Hip Hop Awards today and Sunday at the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel and Gaylord Opryland Convention Center might change the outlook of local urban artists and help guide them toward building a more collaborative, community-based foundation.

Grady got his start in the industry as an intern at local urban music stations, then moved into booking and promoting shows for artists such as Nashville rap success Young Buck, who will co-host the awards show with DJ Freddy Hydro and fellow local rapper All Star.

After seeing similar events impact other cities' communities, Atlanta-based Ozone Magazine's Ozone Awards among them, Grady wondered what he could do for Nashville.

"I went to other states' award shows and watched how they did it," Grady says. "And I thought it was about time for Tennessee to do one."
Old, new artists mingle

Grady describes the conference as a "big networking event," and he hopes it will help "educate all the up-and-coming artists trying to make it in the business." The awards show will honor new acts and pay tribute to Tennesseans such as Young Buck who have already impacted hip-hop culture on the national stage.

Katy Perry and pop music

Katy Perry is enjoying her new found success so much, that she plans to never ditch her pop sound and move in a different musical direction.

Previously, the singer released a Christian album back in 2001, but after scoring a worldwide hit in the form of I Kissed A Girl, she intends to never change style.

"I love pop music," Perry is quoted as saying. "I've been around kids that hate selling records and enjoy being the starving artist."

"But I want to play stadiums. I want to sell records. I want to be a pop girl!"

Katy recently revealed that she is now bombarded by kiss requests from female fans, because of the lyrics to her hit single.

Parsippany hip hop dancer staging show with MTV

But when he was away from the rink, East, now 21, practiced his footwork in another area, honing his growing skills as a break dancer at clubs and studios in central New Jersey.

It was more or less a hobby, which a lot of people knew me for, the township resident said. It wasn't as serious until my senior year.

Three years removed from his high school graduation, East, a college student in Baltimore,, got the chance of a lifetime for a young dancer and the thrill of performing for a national televised audience.

As a member of a hip hop dance troupe that recently vied to be America's Best Dance Crew on MTV, East strutted his stuff with his five-member group, the Boogie Bots, while millions across the country tuned in.

The Washington, D.C.-based group was eliminated from the competition in the seventh episode, but East found the experience -- which taped on a Los Angeles soundstage over the past two months -- to be amazing and humbling.

It really was probably the biggest learning experience of my life, said East. We grew a lot as a group together; individually we matured a lot more and learned a lot about Hollywood ... everything that goes along with the entertainment industry, the good and the bad. We definitely had to deal with it.

The Boogie Bots' growth included enduring weekly criticism from the judges of the show -- hip hop choreographer Shane Sparks, rapper L'il Mama and pop star J.C. Chasez of 'N Sync -- as well as coping with their newfound fame.

We were the youngest group on the show and had the least amount of people, explained East. All the other groups had more members, and a lot of dancers were more established, in terms of their experience and training.

The format of the show, which airs on Thursday nights and is hosted by Dancing With the Stars alum Mario Lopez, allows viewers to vote for their favorite street dance crew.

The show, now in its second season, is produced by American Idol judge Randy Jackson. It began in June with 10 dance troupes who were chosen out of thousands who auditioned nationwide. The competition currently is down to the final two groups.

During the Boogie Bots' final week, the group performed with guest rapper Missy Elliott, but were physically and mentally spent by the grueling schedule, East said.

America's Best Dance Crew tapes two days before the show airs on MTV, and the time before and after the shoot is spent choreographing new routines to music selected by the producers for each weekly challenge, East said.

Depending on the challenge and the music and the story we were trying to tell, (choreographing) could take one night or a whole week, East said. It was 14-hour days and maybe four or five hours of sleep every night. You'd wake up and go back to dancing.

Each member of the all-male Boogie Bots brings his own specialty of hip hop to the group. For East, who was known as Boogiemind on the show, his forte is locking, a highly energetic technique that has its roots in Soul Train. Hip hop music in MTV

Boogie Bots member Miguel J Migs Almario said East has an innate sense for the music.

Pop music star Seo Tai-ji and his new album

“When asked about Seo Tai-ji, teens say, ‘Who is that guy?’ The name represents an icon for Korean teens… That means I’ve gotten old enough; still, I should know better.”

Korean pop music icon Seo Tai-ji held a news conference at a Seoul hotel yesterday morning to promote his eighth album ”Atomos Part Moai” released July 29.

As part of Seo Taiji and Boys, the singer enjoyed monster popularity in Korea in the 1990s. The progressive group was a pioneer of Korean hip hop, and its influence on the Korean pop scene is still felt today.

Seo, 36, has held two concerts despite his aversion to the public eye unless he releases an album. Thus speculation is growing over whether his lifestyle is a staged part of his “mysticism marketing.”

“When I got the spotlight, I was young and not prepared to face the public,” he said. “I chose not to hang out and stayed home instead. This has become part of my personality. It has nothing to do with marketing strategy. These days, I can hang around without getting much attention. I like it.” Seo Tai-ji is a leading pop music star today.

Great Legendary guitarists of 2oth century

Amongst the many legendary stalwarts, Jimi Hendrix undoubtedly tops the list of profiles of famous guitarists. A genius in its truest sense, the legendary Hendrix was born in 1942. An American by birth, the maestro was a singer and lyricist, and is considered around the globe as one of the most influential and enigmatic personas in the ambit of rock music. One of the milestones in his career was his 1967 performance at the Monterey Pop Festival which raised him to instant fame in the United States and was followed by many accolades.

The legendary musician started his journey in the world of music in 1946, and worked in the local R&B radio channel as a vocalist. However, soon after this he began recording under big names and became a prominent figure among the best musicians in the R&B music scene. Some of his greatest all time hits during this period include, "Whole Lotta Love," "Every Day I Have the Blues," "You Know I Love You," and "Please Accept My Love." Amidst his many achievements as a successful singer and composer, is included his most recent felicitation at the Three Deuces Building in Greenwood, Mississippi, for his maiden in radio broadcasting. Also, a grand memorial in the name of B. B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center is all set to be inaugurated on September 13, 2008, in Indianola, Mississippi. These facts are discussed in rock metal music forum in detail.

The very meaning of rock music becomes insignificant without the mention of B. B. King, the master craftsman in the art of music. An ingenious guitarist and singer-cum-song writer in the American Blues, B.B. King was considered the Third Greatest Guitarist of All Time in the 2003 listing of Rolling Stone magazine.

Acoustic piano drawbacks

Mostly, the drawbacks of an acoustic piano are matters of practicality, such as price. For what you could get a new, decent quality digital piano with, you’ll be dealing with a rather meager acoustic. This can encompass a number of problems. For instance, aside from any tuning it might need, the overall sound quality of a cheap acoustic piano can be quite poor. This may not just be an issue of old strings, but can result from an infinite number of possible factors arising from any of the complex mechanics of the piano being in disrepair. Other common problems of old pianos are broken keys and sticky keys, which is when the keys fail to spring up the way they should. There may also be faults with the framework that can range from nuisances to impending hazards. The trouble of a bad acoustic continues indefinitely, and the piano may need a decent amount of initial maintenance, in addition to periodic maintenance, which is likely to pull a few additional large bills out of your wallet right way.

Also, because of its bulk and weight, an acoustic may be a very difficult accommodation for people living in tight or elevated spaces, such as dorm rooms and certain city apartments. Some buildings may even prohibit pianos, particularly on floors above the ground level because the weight and bulk of pianos make them quite cumbersome and possibly hazardous to either the tenants or the buildings themselves. This raises the issue of portability as well. Do you gig? Do you relocate frequently? Toting a 500 pound upright piano isn’t possible for most people; moving one across the room is a challenge for most people. If your music needs to be ready to go, your hulking wooden companion is not going to be sympathetic. If you want to find more details about classical,jazz, hiphop, rap, pop, punk rock metal music you can find out here.

Acoustic pianos also lack the many features present in digital pianos nowadays that may be valuable tools to you. For example, volume control may be necessary in dormitory, or close living, situations. Newer digitals also come with a suite of onboard functions, including on-the-fly recording, voice customization, electronic metronome, and even music mixing features, which you won’t have. You will also lack the benefit of porting your music to your PC; a simple MIDI connector would feed your performance directly into your computer’s audio card without any ambient noise or loss of sound quality, which will probably beat any recording made with an acoustic piano and consumer grade recording hardware available at a neighborhood electronics store.