Huge comeback announcements!

 Thursday – 10th January 2013 – the day of the big announcements

First up we have Justin Timberlake who made his comeback announcement in the morning releasing a video oh himself in the studio.

Watch the video here! 

You see him walking in a studio and at the end of the 1 minute video he says “I’m ready” & so we are!

I’m really looking forward to his new project and it seems like we get something new, maybe even a single today! There is a countdown on his official countdown which ends in about 9 1/2 hours. We’ll see what justin has for us!

Check out my Twitter to get the latest updates about that!

But this was only the beginning of that thursday…
SO THERE IS THE OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT OF DESTINY’S CHILD COMEBACK…
in a certain way…

It isn’t a real comeback, the announced album, which they will release on January 29, contains 14 songs & only of them is new.
The new song is called “Nuclear” and already got released online:
Listen here!

Lemme be honest, I don’t really like this song! It could be a song released by ANY artist, it hash’t this DC-epicness! But it does shows something: This “Comeback” is perfect promo for Beyonce’s Super Bowl Performance in february and a reunion there would be perfect!

We won’t get anything else than this “album” this year by them because it’s Beyonces year, she works on her 5th solo album, she’ll promote it & maybe (hopefully) will go on Tour! But I do hope that maybe next year they’ll start a real comeback with a whole new album with timeless songs which you can count in one sentence with Survivor, Independent Woman, Emotion, Lose My Breath, Say My Name, Bills Bills Bills and many more!

So let’s stay excited for Beyonce’s Super Bowl Performance where she will perform her greatest hits, DC songs (including Nuclear) and her 1st single from her 5th album!

Top 3 Albums 2012

Going to present you my 3 favorite albums of this year!

1. “Unapologetic” by Rihanna

Best Album of 2012 for me is Rihannas new LP called Unapologetic.
With all my heart and soul I’m Rihanna Navy and this album makes sooo many things right.
Even though I can’t say that it’s her best, king Rated R isn’t her to get replaced, but it’s in the Top 3 out of 7 amazing Albums.

Unapologetic starts out loud, in every way, and has no intense in getting quite, at least not in meaning filled lyrics! There are these urban songs just like Phresh Out The Runway(check out her victoria Secret Performance), Pour It Up & Numb (featuring Eminem). Then we have these many beautiful ballads which are loud and with much beat (Diamonds, What Now, Half Of Me & Love Without Tragedy) & the ones who are much quieter but not less amazing (Stay & Get It Over With). With Loveeeeeee Song & Nobody’s Business 2 amazing R&B songs! And for sure the songs which Rihanna is known for, amazing uptempo songs(Jump, Right Now and Lost In Paradise). Last but not least we have a really, really amazing Reggae Song which is called No Love Allowed!

Check out my whole review about “Unapologetic“

So there we are 15 tracks – everyone special in it’s on way.
Dubstep, rap, pop, electro everything combined in this piece of art.
There are 2 things which can’t make this album my fav Rihanna Album:
1) Many songs have like only one verse and then the hook repeated many times. The album wash rush produced so there wasn’t much time to make 15 full tracks. That’s why I was here for an album release in spring 2013 but it’s none of my business to decide that. I’m just happy it wasn’t that rushed as Talk That Talk ( & it’s non-existing Era)!
2) For me it isn’t that much an album which is inherently consistent like LOUD & mainly Rated R are. Even though I’m more happy with the system than with TTT  it still disturbs me.

Conclusion: Best Album of the year because it’s one of the best albums by my favorite artist in this world! *stans*

2. “Strange Clouds” – B.o.B.

 If you would have asked me in the beginning of 2012 who I think will be in my list of my favorite albums 2012 I would never answered you B.o.B.
I liked Nothin’ On You & Airplanes but I wasn’t really into him. But Strange Clouds is toooo good! It’s a perfect rap album which shows what a genius B.o.B is.
He knows exactly how to mix Rap with Pop elements. His lyrics are honest, beautiful, well-thought and great written.

The album consists of 20 songs, every song is unique in its own way.
I would love to say something more about 1 song: “Where Are You”
This song is for all the haters & for all the people who said that he changed to much since his first mixtapes.
In the first verse he’s talking to Bobby Ray, to the old himself who he was before he became famous. In the second verse he’s talking to B.o.B the one who is famous, who sells out shows & who has money. In both he speaks badly about the persons he is.
The third verse is like a breaking free! This song transports you in his mind & you really feel him. You understand why he is tired of all the media, the haters & all the people who think they have the right to judge him.

Maybe after you have listened to Where Are You you can understand better why I started to stan so much for him! & this song is by far not the only good one on the album! You find the apocalyptical “Bombs Away” (featuring Morgan Freeman (!!!)), the feel-good dance song “Ray Bans”, the beautiful R&B Ballad “Castles” (featuring Trey Songz), the more-than-crazy “Out Of My Mind” (featuring Nicki Minaj) and the lead track of the album “Strange Clouds” (featuring Lil Wayne).

Conclusion: The best Rap album of the year by a genius called Bobby Ray aka B.o.B

3. “Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded (- The Re-Up)” – Nicki Minaj

Nicki Minaj’ sophomore album comes in at #3
I love Nicki since her Beam Me Up Scotty mixtape, much has changed since then with Nicki.
She released her debut album Pink Friday which is for me one maybe even the best debut album ever. For sure it’s her best work so far.

PF:RR isn’y by far Pink Friday & it isn’t even really Roman Reloaded.
The first half of the album we have these rap tracks just as I Am Your Leader, Roman Holiday (remember the amazing Grammy Performance?), HOV Lane, Beez In The Trap and some more. Then we have 3 R&B tunes featuring a lot of people (Chris Brown, Drake, Lil Wayne,etc) and after that “STARSHIPS WERE MEANT TO FLYYYYYY” lol You know how that continues. And then we have the 2nd half with these europop songs like Starships, Pound The Alarm, Whip It, Automatic & Beautiful Sinner. After that the electro beat goes away and we have 3 quite beautiful pop ballads: The one Marilyn Monroe, maybe her best ever written (pop-)song and then ” the most shameless Rihanna-wanna-be song ever recorded” (Quote: Rolling Stone Magazine), Young Forever. The third one is Fire Burns which is really honest and as Nicki said one of her most personal songs which she really relates a lot to.
After that this crazy Reggae-type of song “Gun Shot” (Featuring Beenie Man) and at the end of the standard edition we have the more then crazy Stupid Hoe, which got a lot of hate and which video is one of the most disliked on youtube.

After the there was a deluxe Edition with 3 additional songs: Turn Me On (everyone know that from David Guettas Album), Va Va Voom (was a single later and one of my fav pop Nicki songs) and Masquerade (Adidas Commercial Song)

I need to say that at the beginning I was quite disappointed by the concept of the album, I was here for a real rap album (I still AM) but right now I basically like every song on the album no matter rap, pop or something in between that. But it’S no competition to Pink Friday.

In addition to the album Nicki embarked her Pink Friday (Roman Reloaded) Tour(s). I have seen her in Berlin and it was amazing.
You’ll soon find an article about my experience there here on “Arthurs View”

Soon after the album has been released she already announced the Re-Release called PF:RR – The Re-Up!

Further 8 or better 7 songs have been released back in November. Unfortunately the re-release flopped hard.
Not even 1k copies have been sold in the UK (939 to have the exact number) & only around 30k in the US.
But the Re-Up is doing many things great: Besides VVV (which was already on the deluxe edition of the original album) we have 7 more or less great rap songs with pop elements but no pure pop songs. I like all 7 new songs some of them I even prefer over the rap songs on the original album.

Conclusion: 29 songs – & still no competition for Pink Friday but a more than solid Nicki Album

P.S. I hope Nicki will take some time for the next album & maybe will release a mix tape!

So these are my 3 favorite albums of the past year! Stay tuned for upcoming reviews!

Arthur

Album Review: Unapologetic – Rihanna

Bajan-superstars 7th album – Unapologetic

“Unapologetic” is for sure my favorite album of the year.
It’s filled with so many amazing songs and that’s why I want to write something about every song.
So here we go:

1) Phresh Out The Runway: Robyn starts with a banger! POTR is urban, it’s dirty & it has a rapping Rihanna on it. And she’s doing her job well! The way that David Guetta produced it is quite unbelievably but true. And as Rihanna did a great job rapping he did a great job creating an urban beat.
It’s a great song to start an album, especially one like Unapologetic is! And if you have seen her performing this song at the Victoria’s Secret Show you definitely will love it!

2) Diamonds: I don’t think I need to say much about that song! It became immediately after it’s release one of my all time favorite songs. It’s great written by the amazing Sia Furler (Titanium) and Rihannas vocals are incredibly good. This song has everything to be a smash hit and obviously it is one! #1 in the UK, US, Germany, France & many more countries! It took over the world – well-deserved!

3) Numb (featuring Eminem): This song, probably one of the most catchiest songs on Unapologetic. It goes for straight 3.25min exactly like this: “I’m going, I’m going, I’m going Numb” in which Eminems part takes 29 seconds. The beat is sick and it could be huge but as Rihanna doesn’t have a “real” verse I feel like it’s lost potential.

4) Pour It Up: This strip club anthem is one of my favorite songs on the album ( & I’m not alone with this opinion). You could say Rihanna isn’t defining something new because like rapping about strip clubs & money & all that stuff isn’t new.
But there is a huge difference between this basic “Stripper”-songs & Pour It Up – a woman is singing & rapping it.  She’s alking about how she still got her money after staying in the strip club until 4 am.
I need PIU to become a single with a dope video in a strip club in which Rihanna is throwing her dollar bills in the air! And by the way…how dope would be a remix with Tyga???

5) Loveeeeeee Song (featuring Future): Lov7 Song is a beautiful R&B ballad with an auto-tune Future. It reminds me a lot on Jeremihs Birthday Sex. Rihannas & Futures voices harmonize perfectly with each other. I didn’t really liked Future before that song came out but it changed & as he announced another collabo with Rihanna for his album which comes out sometime 2013 I’m really excited! (It will also feature Kelly Rowland, Kanye West, Drake Jeremih, Lil Wayne & some more).

6) Jump: The Ginuwines Pony-sampling song “Jump” is my tune! It starts slowly, starts creating tension & then the BIG BANG, and a Skrillex-a-like dubstep-part starts! When you listen to it the first time you really don’t expect it to turn out like this! Amazing song to party hard! At the end of the songKevin Cossum has a rap-part  & if I wouldn’t know it better I would have said that this is Kanye West!

7) Right Now (featuring David Guetta): There we have a typical David Guetta club-song! To be honest there is nothing special about this song but as the song doesn’t aim to be something special it’s all good. It wants to be a fun song to which you can dance and have a great time – and it does its job quite well! This is the 2nd Guetta/Rihanna-Collaboration in which he’s “featured” and I need to say that I prefer the first one, which is Who’s That Chick, over this.

8) What Now: This is the most unexpected song on the whole album. After the snippets were released on iTunes What Now was one of the songs I cared less about. But then after the album has been released it became one of my favorite songs on the album! It’s an amazingly beautiful ballad, which has a dubstepish chorus, great lyrics and amazing Rihanna vocals!

9) Stay (featuring Mikky Ekko): Stay, maybe the most non-rihanna-song ever but when you get into it (and at least since her SNL Performance ) you’ll learn to love it. It a beautiful ballad which is as quite as no other Rihanna song so far but it does everything right. The lyrics are great, it fits perfectly with Rihannas voice and Mikky is doing his job great too. Stay is the 2nd single (at least for the UK where it’s already charted in the Top 5) of the album and I’m sure it will slay, maybe even as much as Diamonds did…

10) Nobody’s Business (featuring Chris Brown) So there we have the most controversial song on Unapologetic! I think everyone knows what happened with them two and I don’t really want to talk about that just one sentence: It’s not your business, its theres so let them be, let them do their thing & NO ONE has the right to judge them.
Let’s talk about the song: After their 2 collaborative-remixes back in february 2012 when Birthday Cake &  Turn Up The Music were released (not to buy only free download, in my opinion a message!) we have the the first collaboration between them on an album. NB is made in a 90’s style R&B Song sampling MJ’s The Way You Make Me Feel. The lyrics are clear in every way so as it nobody’s business just enjoy the song & move on!

11) Love Without Tragedy/Mother Mary: Love without Tragedy was my fav song after the snippets have been released. I really thought that LWT will be the long song and Mother Mary the interlude BUT I was wrong! LWT is the interlude while MM is over 4 minutes long. I like Mother Mary, the lyrics are beautiful and it’s an anthem but LWT could be the best song Rihanna ever sang in her career if it wouldn’t be 2.06 min long… In every other way LWT is perfect: the mood, the lyrics, the vocals, EVERYTHING! But it is as it is and we have to live with it!

12) Get It Over With: It’s my least favorite song on Unapologetic. Even though I would say that the lyrics are beautiful but they tried to create an special atmosphere…and for me they flopped. The song doesn’t really hits me and I really don’t feel it. Maybe it will change with time, we’ll see. Maybe it will grow on me.

13) No Love Allowed: One of my favorite songs! No Love Allowed is a really really cool Reggae song. It has this typical Reggae vibe and you just really feel it! When you listen to it you see a dream beach and palm trees and the sea and relaxed people who are smoking something and you easily feel good! A 2nd really special thing about this song is something which I really love and she already did in Man Down (LOUD): She’s using her carribean, or better bajan accent which fits more than perfectly with this reggae anthem!

14) Lost In Paradise: The last song of the standard edition is a really fun dance song! It’s catchy, has an amazing beat and you want to know the lyrics as soon as possible! It’s great produced by UK Rapper & Producer Labrinth (Beneath Your Beautiful) and norwegian genius duo Stargate (Rude Boy, Only Girl, Take A Bow, Diamonds).

15) Half Of Me (Deluxe): With this song, which is only available on the deluxe edition of the album we have the perfect last song for Unapologetic. Rihanna said in an interview that she put that song on the deluxe edition because it says that everything you have heard on the album is only one half of herself. There always will be  one half we don’t know and to be honest don’t need to know. I think this songs speaks for itself! It’s beautiful, the lyrics are honest & Rihannas vocals are again on point! Only one negative aspect: It has only one verse after which the hook is repeating.

So that’s my review about every song on Rihannas Unapologetic. As I said it often for most of the songs the album is amazing. Only problem is that it was also rushed like Talk that Talk was. She took more time for it and she didn’t record it during touring but it still was rushed. If she would have released it in spring 2013 she would have had more time to record & there wouldn’t be half songs such as Numb or Half Of Me.
All in one I can say that I love Unapologetic and I only can recommend you to listen to it and entitle your own opinion about it. I’m sure you won’t regret it.

P.S. Can’t wait to see Rihanna performing with her Diamonds World Tour this June in Cologne & Zürich!

Arthur

Review: Music Year 2012

2012 – it’s been a good year for the music world.

Superstars, who are in this business for years, released great new projects such as Rihanna, T.I., Taylor Swift, Trey Songz, Usher, Chris Brown, Christina Aguilera and others.
Artists who joined the game 1-2 years ago released new albums like for example B.o.B, Nicki Minaj, Ke$ha and Tyga.
And we had much potential with Newcomers like A$AP Rocky, Frank Ocean, Kendrick Lamar, Rita Ora, Misha B, Lana Del Rey and german shooting star Cro.

Check out my post “Top 3 Albums of 2012“

With all these & for sure many other artist, which I can’t all name here, music got pushed forward. Great Rap, R&B & Pop Albums have been released all over this year.
And that the Grammys, which are without any doubt are the biggest Music Awards, recognizing & nominating many newcomers, like for example Frank Ocean who is amongst the artists who have received the most nominations, we can say that 2012 was a good year for music.

Stay tuned for upcoming reviews about Albums, Singles, Award Shows and many more!

Arthur