Cute & sweet singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles released her sophomore album Kaleidoscope Heart this week, stopping by the Today Show yesterday to get in a little promo by performing the album’s first single “King of Anything”.

Vocally, the performance was perfect, and if you weren’t watching the video it’d be pretty easy to mistakenly think that you were listening to the recorded version of the song blasting from the radio. Besides performing, Sara also had a chat about her fear of suffering the sophomore slump, as well as the true meaning behind “King of Anything”.

So far, “King of Anything” has peaked at No. 51 on the Hot 100, No. 6 on the Billboard Adult Pop Chart, and No. 17 on the Adult Contemporary charts. “King of Anything” is the type of song you’d expect to go a lot higher on the AC Charts, but they usually pretty slow with getting songs up there, so there’s still plenty of time yet. I mean, Kelly Clarkson’s “Already Gone” is still top ten on the AC, so you get the picture.

Peep the performance below.

The “CMA Music Festival: Country’s Night to Rock” TV special aired last night, and just-so-happened to feature Taylor Swift’s very first performance of her new single “Mine”.

The last time we saw Tay-Tay lighting up the stage was during her off-key Grammy’s performance with Stevie Nicks, that ended up leaving most people wondering whether she could even sing or not. Luckily Taylor’s sake, she made up for it with this rendition of “Mine”, hitting most of the notes just as they are on the studio version. She’s clearly no Carrie Underwood when it comes to vocals, but seeing that she can carry a song live (that she solely wrote) while playing an instrument and engaging an audience, deserves some props.

As of this week, “Mine” is officially back in the top ten of the Hot 100, climbing from 14-9. The slight rebound is probably due to the song’s music video being released last week, but with some more performance and increased radio play, “Mine” will probably be able to linger within the top twenty for a while to come.

Mah man Kid Cudi has been out on the road to promote his new single “Erase Me”, and during a recent show at the University of Buffalo, he managed to find a second in between songs to explain the reason why his sophomore album, MOTM2: The Legend of Mr. Rager, has been pushed back several times.

“Let me explain why I pushed it back: I spent so much time making these records for y’all, that I forgot to do all the other shit for my album. Like artwork, all the important shit you’re supposed to do. And I really wanna include a lot of dope shit in the packaging, and like, really put y’all up on like, what this is all supposed to be about: music, packaging, vinyls. Just bring art on all levels — musically and visually with the packaging. Not a lot of artists get the chance to do that… Another movie poster will be in the packaging, we’ve got DVD footage, we’ve got the deluxe version, we’ve got the regular version.”

“And then also, I’m dropping another album. I’m doing another album and I’m dropping it this year with [producer] Dot Da Genius. Me and Dot, we go back, we made “Day ‘n’ Nite’ together, we’ve got a crazy chemistry together… I’m thinking about dropping it around the time that Man on the Moon comes out, so y’all can just have a shit load of Kid Cudi music.” {source}

My baby is so eloquent and refined. I’m glad that he’s decided to bless the world with not one album, but two. The more the merrier.

By the way, his new single “Erase Me” is shaping up to be a bit of a hit, and is the highest entry on the digital songs chart this week, coming in at #11 with 99k sold. That should be enough for a very nice debut on the Hot 100 when the official chart is unveiled tonight (Australian time).

You can check out Cudi performing the single, below.

Singer JoJo proved over the weekend that her trademark power pipes haven’t been lost to autotune and whispers, when she performed an acoustic rendition of her leaked song, “Safe With Me”. As always, she nailed it. Not only is JoJo a great singer from a purely technical standpoint, but she’s also got so much genuine soul, which is something that even some of today’s top vocalists are lacking.

Meanwhile, her new mixtape single “In the Dark” has been making waves across the internet since it’s release on Monday, and is currently the most read article on urban bible Rap-Up.com where it premiered, raking in over 125 comments and counting. It must be great for JoJo to see that there’s still so much public interest in her, despite being off the scene for four years and technically only having two real hits to her name.

JoJo is back, and no wig is safe!

Fans attending Lady GaGa’s Monster Ball in Minnesota last night were in for a treat when the Lady herself decided to perform a brand new song, “Living on the Radio”. The piano-led ballad plays out like a personal pep talk, with the superstar telling herself that even when all her friends are gone, she’ll still be OK because she’s got fame and fans, and has accomplished her dreams of success by getting her songs “on the radio”.

“Baby, you must be free / Keep living on the radio / That’s your dream / Baby, you’ve got a friend / And so many little monsters / Keep living on the radio / And when there’s nowhere to go / And all your friends are gone / And you’ve only got your daddy to call / You’re gonna be alright, honey / Because your songs are on the radio”

I’m not exactly sure whether she’s being tongue-in-cheek or dead serious. With GaGa it’s hard to tell. Either way, the song rocks.

It’s unknown yet whether or not “…Radio” and GaGa’s other new song, “You & I”, will make the final cut for her third album, but if they do, then her next record could mark some real growth for the Lady. Musically, lyrically and vocally, GaGa really shines when she’s baring her soul on the rock & roll piano tunes that were her original passion before she discovered that she needed to wear a blonde wig and sing catchy pop songs to become a star. It’ll be interesting to see how much of it ends up on her next record.

Nelly Furtado headlined the Orange Warsaw Festival in Poland over the weekend, where she played a selection of her biggest hits to a huge, sold-out crowd. Amidst performing her chart toppers, Nelly also played “Girlfriend In This City” and the Salaam Remi-produced “Free”, both of which are slated to appear on her upcoming fourth English album, Lifestyle.

Speaking of her next album, it looks like it could be even longer than expected until it arrives in stores, since  Nelly didn’t seem too enthusiastic about the whole thing while discussing her current and upcoming projects.

“I’m taking my time, enjoying each thing, each project. I don’t really put a lot of pressure on myself,” she said from the press room of the Orange Festival this weekend. “Just continuing to promote my Spanish album, working on other material. And working on my label called Nelstar Music, out of Toronto. Yeah, working on that project, working with other artists, producing, writing, trying to build the label a little bit.” {source}

Take your sweet time, why don’t you. It’s not like you have millions of fans shaking, crying and salivating at the very thought of you returning with another pop classic!

Watch Nelly performing her two new songs, below the cut. Thanks to Mary Mag for sending these in.

Read more »

Sky Ferreira performed live on Studio Five over the weekend as part of the UK promotional trip in support of her international debut single, “One”.

Once again, Sky skipped a lot of the auto-tune from the song and actually focused on her vocals for the performance, while also finding ample time to continually sneer and play with her hair. Sky is still finding her groove as a performer, but considering this is probably her second live televised performance ever, she’s doing quite well.

In some not-so-good news, the official UK charts are in — and they’re not in Sky’s favor. “One” has only managed to scrape into the charts at a disappointing #64, which must be a blow to her label Parlaphone, who have been trying their best to promote Sky as the next ‘it’ girl. It won’t be long now until Sky’s in the States promoting her Ryan Tedder-produced US single “Obsession”, so it’ll be interesting to see how the much more mainstream-sounding song will go over with the public, in comparison to the much icier “One”.

“One” deserved to be #1! Instead, Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite” sits at the top of this weeks UK singles chart. SMH.

Hannah Montana star Emily Osment’s Radar rip-off “Let’s Be Friends” got a surprisingly good reaction from you guys when I posted it earlier this month, so here’s a follow-up post with Emily’s very first ‘live’ performance of the song at The Dome 55 in Germany.

The 18-year-old did her best Britney-impression by simply miming the words as the CD played along in the background, and also took some cues from another pop superstar, Rihanna, by strutting up and down the stage and pretending that she’s a rockstar.

In other words — it was fabulous!

I’ve recently discovered a newfound appreciation for Miley’s underrated flop album, Can’t Be Tamed, but I think I have room to stan for Emily as well. If you’re bitter that Britney’s “Radar” was chart poison, then rewrite history by heading over to iTunes and buying “Let’s Be Friends”. It’s basically the same thing.

A high quality version of Beyonce’s “Video Phone” performance from her “I Am…” world tour has surfaced online today, so in case you haven’t witnessed Bey performing her VMA-nominated flop yet, then here it is.

Kicking things off, Mrs. Knowles-Carter gets the performance started by urging all the “sexy ladies” in the audience to get their hands up, before calling out, “All my sexy fellas, I want you to put your camera’s in the air and press record!”. She then marches over to a tacky steel chair, plonks her big ass down, and begins to repeatedly open her legs and thrust her crotch like she’s auditioning for a role in Showgirls. The highly-sexual display continues as Bey momentarily gets down on all fours, then springs back onto her feet to dance provocatively with a male backup dancer, allowing him to rapidly and repeatedly poke his index finger into her, uh, tuna taco, like he’s testing the temperature of a freshly baked blueberry pie.

After educating the audience in the specifics of the female anatomy, Bey turns her attention to her famous rear-end, bending over to touch her toes as the same male dancer gets down on his knees and takes a few snaps of her bootylicious behind on his video phone. It’s then back into the steel chair for some more pussy popping from Bey, which reaches a sticky climax when she lets the male dancer put his camera phone so close to her sugar walls that the screen probably fogged up.

Classy!

There’s nothing wrong with raunchy, X-rated performances when it comes to pop, but it’s just funny that the Madonna’s, Britney’s and Christina’s are labelled as depraved sluts on stage, while a bogus perception of Beyonce as some kind of elegant, demure little flower has been planted into peoples minds.

Do you think that Beyonce is the most sexual performer in contemporary pop music today?

The Pretty Reckless performed their single “Make Me Wanna Die” live on Letterman, yesterday. As usual, it was another typical Taylor Momsen performance, which means amazing vocals, but with about as much movement and life as a garden gnome.

The band have also confirmed that their next single will be the title track from their debut album, Light Me Up. It has more of an authentic 90s feel than their current ravey-rock single, “Miss Nothing”, but still has enough of a hook to get played on MTV and to appeal to the Gossip Girl fans. The music video for the song has already been shot, but no release date has been scheduled yet.

Check out the Letterman performance below, and and then sink down even further to give their next single “Light Me Up” a spin.

Hipster vamp Sky Ferreira released her international debut single “One” earlier this week in the UK. With release week, comes promotion for the artists lucky enough to have support their label, which is how dear Sky ended up on Britain’s 5:19 Show this week for an interview, and also to deliver her very first televised performance.

Looking messy but absolutely gorgeous, Sky sat down for a chat with the hosts about how much she loves Britney Spears and rap music, before being asked a bunch of stupid questions, like which part of Robert Pattinson does she prefer (“the head or the body?“).

After chatting to the hosts for a good 10-15 minutes, Sky hit the stage to sing “One”. Since the song itself is so heavily auto-tuned, I was concerned that the performance was going to translate quite bad when performed live over television (Ke$ha anyone?), but Sky actually managed to do a surprisingly good job. She changed the delivery of the song a little for the live setting, choosing to actually really sing the verses instead of trying to ‘speak’ them like on the recorded version, and other than the fact that her mic wasn’t loud enough, she sounded fantastic.

By the way, is anybody else incredibly torn over her US single “Obsession”? After initially giving it a good review, I now think I kind of hate it. I really can’t decide.

Anyway, check out Sky’s 5:19 appearance below (warning: syncing is slightly off). On the first video, the interview begins around the 3:30 mark, and on the second video, the performance begins at 7:00.

Fashion icon Fantasia continues to promote her new album, Back to Me, with an appearance on George Lopez’s talk show, Lopez Tonight.

The singer seemed to be in significantly better spirits than when we last saw her, cracking a number of jokes with Lopez as she discussed her suicide, personal dramas and new music. After her sassy chat, Fanny stepped up on stage to do what she does best with a rockin’ performance of her new single “Man of the House”. It’s the second single to be lifted from her just released third album Back to Me, which is projected to debut within the top three of the Billboard 200 next week.

Check out Fanny’s wild performance and fun interview below.