Rihanna

Godmother of Punk Patti Smith Talks New Album, Book and Burroughs: "I wanted to come to St. Louis because I just wanted to say hello to William."

Patti Smith reads from her poetry and performs a rock set at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (3750 Washington Boulevard; 314-535-4660 ) Sunday at 7 p.m. Tickets are $30. There's no simple way to describe Patti Smith, the profoundly influential, incantatory songstress, poet, artist and writer ... More >>

Kendrick Lamar Brings the House Down at the Chaifetz Arena 4/17/13: Review and Setlist

Compton's new "King of West Coast Hip-Hop" (so dubbed by the likes of Dr. Dre, the Game and Snoop Dogg) made a stop in St. Louis last night to a packed Chaifetz Arena. The prodigious, fan-favorite rapper was welcomed by a rabidly excited crowd, and performed with the confidence of a veteran, rather ... More >>

Dating 101

The Top 10 Rappers to Whom You Can't Tell Nothin'

By Jennifer Swann  In Macklemore's forthcoming single, "Can't Hold Us," he raps, "Nah they can't tell me nothing," thus continuing a long line of rappers to whom one can not tell nothing. It makes one wonder: Why are people always trying to tell rappers something? Why do the rappers refuse to li ... More >>

The Six Most Absurd Pop Songs Of 2012

Editor's Note: The end of 2012 is upon us, so we thought we'd put a cap on things by sharing some of our personal favorite shows, albums, events and general shenanigans. Join us as we indulge in some navel-gazing! To wrap up the end-of-year coverage for Nitpick Six, here are the six most absurd pop ... More >>

Madonna at the Scottrade Center, 11/1/12: Review, Photos and Setlist

Madonna is considered a living legend, a cultural icon and one of the best performers of her time. She is one of the most influential artists in the history of American music, and last night at the Scottrade Center we found out why: hard work and natural charisma. If we are to believe any of the pe ... More >>

Six Best Hairdos of St. Louis' TV Personalities (Female Edition)

We admit it. We regular St. Louisans are often guilty of being a year (or three) behind on the latest hair-style trends. Not so our television personalities -- especially our female stars. Just turn on the local newscast and you're likely to see some of the most fetching coiffures this side of India ... More >>

How Violent Idiot Chris Brown Continues to Play the Victim: A Timeline

As a reader of music blogs, you have by no doubt by now heard that violent idiot Chris Brown has done (another) stupid thing by getting a tattoo on his neck that looks suspiciously like a battered woman. Like, you know, the woman he battered in 2009. He claims it's actually a sugar skull -- an icon ... More >>

The Ten Black Pop Stars Who Should Go Country

[Editor's note: Country Time is a new biweekly column for our sister music blog in Seattle, celebrating that city's favorite musical genre: mainstream country.] By Mike Seely With the nation's major-party political conventions drawing to a close recently with a rousing reelection appeal from the n ... More >>

VMA Awards 2012: Handicapping the Video of the Year Nominees

The 2012 VMA nominees are out, and while there are certainly plenty of big names and obvious choices, there are a few surprises buried in there. Frank Ocean gets a nod, as do A$AP Rocky, Jack White and Regina Spektor. But those are curiosities -- Rihanna, Drake, Katy Perry et. al. get the lion's sha ... More >>

The (Peep?) Show Goes on at Jumpin' Jupiter, Despite Budget Cuts and Tax Issues

Jumpin' Jupiter, a neo-supper club in Maplewood, narrowly evaded eviction this weekend after owner Jim Callahan settled a dispute with the state for $28,000 he owed in sales taxes. The city of Maplewood agreed to renew his business license on Friday, but the raunchy Saturday night show wasn't exactl ... More >>

"Call Me Maybe": Pop With Rock & Roll Characteristics

I may have been the last person to notice this--surely Carly Rae Jepsen noticed it first--but here's when I noticed it: Rihanna released "The Only Girl in the World," and I was briefly convinced I'd accidentally set the satellite radio to one of those Europop stations where the DJ is broadcasting fr ... More >>

EDC 2012: Calvin Harris Plays CDs of Himself Singing

Dance music is fighting for its soul. The charts are filled with tracks (Rihanna, Flo Rida) that borrow from the ecstatic trance and pulsing grooves of electronic dance music. The last time pop was so infatuated with the dance floor was 1979, the year disco died. This time around fans are more sa ... More >>

From Rihanna in Battleship to Will Smith in Men In Black III: Some Notable Music-to-Movie Mistakes

Last week, Battleship, a movie based on the movies based on Transformers and a board game starring a bunch of plastic pegs that really suck to step on by accident and Rihanna, opened to $25 million. This week, Men in Black 3, starring noted pop-rapper Will Smith, will open to significantly more than ... More >>

Battleship: Because every generation needs an Armageddon

Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault "Jokes" Stir Outrage, Not Food and Drink Sales

Gut Check tries to deal with the inanity of contemporary society through laughter, snark and the well-timed roll of the eyes. Every now and then, however, we see something that causes us to throw up our hands and shout, "What the fuck were you thinking?" Today, sadly, we've encountered not one, but ... More >>

The Best of SXSW Music: Wednesday 3/14/2012

​If you're familiar with chaos theory, which in its basic form is the attempt to find patterns in the random acts of shit on Earth, then you may understand the difficulty that comes with describing a full day at SXSW. To break down the bright, scintillating chaos, Village Voice Media's roving musi ... More >>

Grammar Heroes: Four Artists Who Know Their Its From It's

We're exhausted after a long week of running around town, correcting greengrocers' apostrophes in honor of National Grammar Day, which was March 4. (Punctuation over punctuality, we always say!) It's easy to blame technology for society's lazy spelling, but music is also complicit in this pandemic: ... More >>

Kanye West's Snub and the Proud History of Grammy Incompetence

Homer Simpson proudly displays his Grammy Award for Outstanding Soul, Spoken Word or Barbershop Album.​Adele could soon become a Grammy paper champion. Oh sure. 21 is a worthy entrant for the coveted Grammy for Album of the Year. "Rolling in the Deep," after all, topped the 2011 Pazz and Jop P ... More >>

St. Louis Production Crew StarStrukk Sues Andy Samberg; The Lonely Island

Phenomenal Multimedia​Saturday Night Live star Andy Samberg and his Lonely Island group are at the center of a copyright and royalty lawsuit filed by the St. Louis-based production group StarStrukk.The lawsuit filed in federal court in New York by Aleric "Rick Tha Ruler" Banks and Monique Hine ... More >>

Ten Musicians Wearing Vans: R.I.P. James Van Doren

Roy Basten​Vans co-founder James Van Doren died in October at his home in California. The news went public last week; he was 72 years old. James started the company that made the essential skate shoe with a group including his brother Paul back in 1966. Vans are among the most iconic shoes ... More >>

2011 World Series: Demi Lovato and Joe (Singer), or, Baseball Doesn't Get Its Target Audience

This is the face of true baseball fandom. ​Say what you will about the Black Eyed Peas, but its appearance in this year's Super Bowl made perfect sense, in a lot of ways, because it is the Super Bowl of music acts -- incredibly loud and expensive, bombastic, followed out of a strange sense of ... More >>

What Is That Smell? The Five Most Inexplicable Musician Fragrances

Kholood EidIs this woman supposed to me his mom? Creepy.​Launching a fragrance has become part of the formula for marketing oneself today. It just seems to be a natural step managers are now pushing their clients to pursue. It's all a part of some weird pursuit of going from a person to an act ... More >>

Local Christina Grady offers an inside perspective on Hollywood pop

Rihanna Is a Badass, Not a Bad Egg

Image via​First, let's cover the obvious: Rihanna is a badass. Since hitting the scene in 2005, the reggae-revival ingenue has reinvented her own sound and the implications of modern pop almost as many times as she has reinvented her hairstyle (approximately 1 gazillion). The 19-year-old who s ... More >>

New Release Highlights for March 22: The Strokes, Panic! at the Disco, Jennifer Hudson and More

(New albums are typically released on Tuesdays, i.e., today. What can you spend your hard-earned pennies on this week? Find out below.) Acid House Kings' Music Sounds Better With You​*Acid House Kings, Music Sounds Better With You TheLineofBestFit reviewed Music Sounds Better With You: "This ... More >>

The Ten Best Moments of the 2011 Grammy Awards

​Miss the Grammys telecast? Couldn't care less about the awards? Either way, A to Z watched the entire show - and even some of the pre-show -- so you didn't have to. Here are ten highlights from the night. Mavis Staples winning her first Grammy If you weren't watching the pre-show telecast, y ... More >>

Show Announcements: Week of January 27

image viaZola Jesus is Nika Roza Danilova, the 21 year old's operatic tenor and tender age make her Rihanna among noise makers, but Danilova's emotion isn't borrowed, it's wrenched. With Cult of Youth at the Billiken Club April 14.​ 2720 Cherokee *Anthony B, February 2 Atomic Cowboy *Sarah an ... More >>

Ten Girl Talk Mashups That Should Exist

Tonight, Girl Talk returns to the Pageant for what will inevitably be a sweaty, calorie-burnin' good time for those who possess an affinity for pop culture and a lack of attention span. In light of this event, A to Z was contemplating the (debatable, perhaps illegal) art of the mashup, and came up w ... More >>

Gregg Gillis talks about the continuing popularity of his mashup project, Girl Talk

Ten Mini Local-Album Reviews

​We receive dozens and dozens of local CDs a year at the RFT. Although we review many in our weekly Homespun column, there just isn't space to touch on all of them. To remedy that, here are brief reviews of ten more releases that crossed our desks this fall. The ChalkBoyz Chalk Dirty to Me Be ... More >>

Last Collector Standing: Helen Petty on Rock & Roll Hair and Dance Parties With Her Son

Jon Scorfina​The cultural importance of records extends beyond the music within their grooves. Generation after generation has defined itself by its vinyl aesthetic. From Elvis Presley to The Beatles, The Sex Pistols to Madonna, the album cover has become a cultural landmark that encapsulates ... More >>

New Release Highlights For November 16: Local Boy Nelly Returns With 5.0

(New albums are typically released on Tuesdays, i.e., today. What can you spend your hard-earned pennies on this week? Find out below.) Cassidy's C.A.S.H.​*Cassidy, C.A.S.H. The once gold-certified rapper returns with a new studio album. Stream the C.A.S.H. in full here. *Crushed Stars, Con ... More >>

Producer Trifeckta Talks His Music and Tonight's Red Bull Big Tune Battle at Pop's

courtesy of Trifeckta​A regional bracket of the Red Bull Big Tune "Head to Head Producer Battle" takes place tonight at Pop's. The event is "inspired by the spirit of the Jamaican reggae/dancehall culture," specifically the soundclashes which pitted talented DJs against each other. In Red Bull ... More >>

Five Epic Moonwalk Fails

After hearing the rumors that former President Bill Clinton busted out the moonwalk at his daughter's wedding a couple weeks back, we started wishing that some video would surface. Why, because odds are that it was an epic fail. That got us thinking. What other moonwalk fails are lurking out there? ... More >>

Pale Divine: What Have They Been Up to in 2009?

In this week's paper, the members of Pale Divine were kind enough to indulge questions about their favorite cover songs -- you see, their second-annual reunion show tonight at the Pageant will feature them doing two sets and tons of old covers. But the band's been quite busy in the last year since w ... More >>

The Dream

7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 11. The Fox Theatre, 527 North Grand Boulevard.

Ne-Yo

7 p.m. Sunday, March 1. Fox Theatre, 527 North Grand Boulevard.

Open Comment Thread: The 2009 Grammy Awards

Because I'm on vacation, I'm writing this FROM THE PAST (ooh, spooky), and there won't be any live-blogging about Sunday's Grammy Awards broadcast from me this year. However, consider this post an open commenting thread for the show. According to Grammy.com, the list of performers is crazytown:Curre ... More >>

Girl Talk's Gregg Gillis tells B-Sides how not to be a douchebag at his sold-out Pageant show, while hip-hop producer D Scorch'd of the Bakery Productions reveals what he's cooking up

Straight to Hello: Beloved local rockers Pale Divine reunite for a show. This is their story.

We made you a mixtape! 2008: The year in music.

51st Annual Grammy Awards Announced: Lil Wayne, Radiohead, Rihanna, Daft Punk, etc.

The 51st Grammy Award nominations are in -- and are quite interesting. No, really. The entire list is here, but some highlights. And no, a highlight is not Paul McCartney earning a nomination for "I Saw Her Standing There." REALLY? Or Ministry earning a nod for a Stones cover of "Under My Thumb" -- ... More >>

Video Obsession: Pitbull featuring Trina and Young Bo$$, "Go Girl"

Maroon 5, Counting Crows and Augustana at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, Saturday, September 27

2008 Music Award Nominees: Best Pop Band

Mika and Beth Ditto, Kylie Minogue, Kaiser Chiefs, Rihanna with Klaxons at the Brit Awards

2008 Grammy Awards: The Liveblog

Face the Nation

We find out what rocked across the country in 2007.

2007 MTV VMAs Wrap-Up: Stream-of-Conscious about Britney, Timberlake and more