They don’t call Mariah Carey the “Queen of Christmas” for any ol’ reason. Her entire holiday canon has become a market for success, and her ever growing power during the holiday season only snowballs year after year. The key to her yuletide fortune, though, is a song she wrote back […]
In 2001, Destiny’s Child were on top of the world. In May, they released their third album Survivor which had record-breaking first week sales, two #1 singles and two more top 10 hits. They headlined MTV’s TRL tour that summer, and were literally everywhere. That fall, they announced that they would embark […]
Merry Christmas II You In 2010, Mariah Carey was pregnant with her twins, Monroe and Moroccan, and decided that creating two human lives wasn’t enough. No, she would also craft her second Christmas album: Merry Christmas II You. The lead single from the set was entitled “Oh Santa!” and was released […]
November 20, 2001, Enter M!ssundaztood Alecia “P!nk” Moore hit the scene in 2000 with Can’t Take Me Home, her debut album that was largely a pop-tinged R&B affair. Led by the She’kspere produced “There You Go,” plus “Most Girls” and “You Make Me Sick,” P!nk seemed to be yet another addition to a […]
“I want to have fun” Janet Jackson says on the introduction to 2006’s 20 Y.O. The album’s album cover reflects that sentiment. It’s the third consecutive Janet Jackson album to feature a beaming Jackson on the cover. These jovial covers contrast the quad of classics that all feature a more serious […]
By 1981, Aretha Franklin was finding her musical footing again. The 70’s had started strong for Aretha, producing some of the most significant work of her career, but they ended dismally. After departing Atlantic Records for Clive Davis’ Arista Records at the turn of the decade, Aretha opted for a […]
In 2009, Maxwell made a triumphant and long-awaited return to music with BLACKsummers’night, his first album in 8 years. The melancholic lead single “Pretty Wings” soared, proving that Maxwell just gets better with time. To the delight of fans, he announced that BLACKsummers’night was the first installment in a trilogy […]
What You See Is What You Sweat isn’t at the forefront of the Aretha Franklin canon. In fact, the 1991 album helps bring up the rear, and there’s been very little written on it since its release. It’s just not a solid representation of the tenacity of Aretha Franklin musically […]
Once upon a time, there was a young multi-racial, multi-talented girl from Long Island, New York. Born to an Irish-American mother and an Afro-Venezuelan-American father, she would grow up to have one of the best voices the music world would ever hear, a witty way with words and a masterful gift of […]
“She was afraid she didn’t belong there,” Aretha Franklin’s producer Jerry Wexler told David Ritz in Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin. That was Aretha’s mentality about staging a show in the heart of the hippie revolution: San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. For all her hesitance, Aretha Franklin was sitting on […]
