The Black Eyed Peas

The worst rock/pop lyrics of all time: 20-11

Join us as we go further down the rabbit hole of cringe-worthy rock lyrics, making our way through an underselling David Lee Roth, a culture war waged by Avril Lavigne, a melodramatic suicide note from Blink 182, some lumpy Black Eyed Peas and Chinese food that makes LFO sick, while Bob Dylan and th ... More >>

Here's what we're all listening to right now. What's rocking your world this week?

As people who think about, talk about, write about, listen to and make music, it's not surprising that the most common (and favorite) topic of conversation among us is the same: "What are you listening to right now?" Stick a quarter in us, and, boy, wouldn't you know it, off we go, on and on about t ... More >>

Chartbreaker: Lionel Richie bests Madonna and Nicki Minaj, Maroon 5's "Payphone" cashes in

See Also: • Madonna's MDNA falls harder than Lady Gaga's Born This Way did • Madonna's MDNA outsells Lionel Richie's Tuskegee (what year is this again?) Madonna and Lionel Richie -- who would have thought that after four weeks on the Billboard 200 albums chart, only Richie would remain in the t ... More >>

The Fray films video for "Heartbeat," the first single from its new album, Scars and Stories

Update (2/7/12): Isaac Slade and Joe King give a track-by-track breakdown of Scars & Stories, the Fray's new album. Update (11/22/11): The full "Heartbeat" video and the Scars and Stories cover art has been added below. And so it begins. The Fray is now in full-on promo mode, ramping up for the r ... More >>

360-degree music video from Craig Wedren blows that Black Eyed Peas app out of the water

​Just a few weeks ago we talked about the Black Eyed Peas' 360 degree music video, and subsequently, how disappointing it was, being that it was being presented by Black Eyed Peas and all. Thankfully, ex-Shudder to Think vocalist Craig Wedren went ahead and took the bulk of their idea and did ... More >>

Black Eyed Peas' 360 degree immersion iPhone video: cool idea, lame execution

​The increasingly taste-free will.i.am has put his brand behind a new company: will.i.apps. They, um, create apps. The first one, called BEP360, is basically a really high-budget ad for the band's shitty new album, The Beginning. The centerpiece of the app is a music video for "The Time (Dirty ... More >>

Rihanna, Gareth Emery, the fickle internet and the problem with Next Big Sound's Social Charts

Gareth Emery: Next big sound?​Billboard recently debuted a pair of new charts compiled by Boulder-based company Next Big Sound, the subject of a recent Westword feature. The charts, called the Social 50 and the Next Big Sound 25, track bands' online presence, whether it's Facebook "likes" or ... More >>

5 genres we're forcibly killing right now

Take that, Chillwave.​As we continue to look back on 2010, we are struck by how new labels for increasingly slippery kinds of music all sound like they were written by high freshman lit majors. Many of these attempts are merely useless, but some are worse than that: they wind up justifying shi ... More >>

How poop is smarter than Jesus: Google Reading Level ranks 100 random things

​​ Google introduced a new way of filtering search results last week: By reading level. You type something in and it tells you how many results fall into one of levels. Fair enough: if you're writing a research paper on sexual health or something, and thoughtful information would normal ... More >>

Next Big Sound: Billboard's new "Social 50" chart powered by Boulder music startup

​In October, we profiled the Boulder start-up Next Big Sound, which seemed poised to shake the struggling music industry by using social media sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter to discover break-out bands. Now that Billboard has unveiled its new "Social 50" chart powered by Next Big Sou ... More >>

Skrillex on his stage name: Blame AOL

Rihanna is a Singles Lady if there ever was one

​Last week in Poptimystic, we talked about Taylor Swift and her unparalleled ability to sell albums in the current music industry wasteland. But the album is not what it once was, and the ability to sell singles may actually be a better litmus test of an artist's influence. It remains the un ... More >>

Wolfgang Gartner at Skylab

Eminem's Emwow and five other (potentially) record-selling spoofs

The genius of Vince Offer's sales-pitch send-up of Eminem's Recovery -- and of most parodies, really -- is that it forces the record into a ridiculous context (a thing to "put on your hose," among other uses). And though the video may or may not actually help Marshall Mathers' sales figures, it d ... More >>

What would the industry do without Glee?

For the second week in a row, album sales reached their lowest point in the history of the SoundScan era. "Indie" bands, meanwhile, continue to chart unexpectedly high: This week, The Black Keys are number three, Band of Horses is number seven and LCD Soundsystem is number ten. But these are fl ... More >>

Who'd have thought Justin Bieber's My World 2.0 would prove an accurate title?

There you have it: Fourteen-year-old Bieber's debut full-length is on top of the Billboard album chart. His debut EP, meanwhile, is at number five. That one's called My World (get it?) -- can't argue with either title. This makes him the youngest chart-topper since Stevie Wonder, yet something te ... More >>

Caffeine, an Underwear Party, and Snuggies: Well, that was quite a weekend

Kate Levy​ Holy undergarments: That was one hell of a weekend. It started on Thursday with an underwear party at Tracks Nightclub (NSFW), and the Hip Chicks Out and Heaven and Hell parties. It continued Friday when Twiztid and the upstanding citizens of the ICP scene descended on the Ogden ... More >>

Underwear Party, Caffeine and Snuggies: Well, that was quite a weekend

Kate Levy​ Aaron Thackeray​Holy undergarments: That was one hell of a weekend. It started on Thursday with an underwear party at Tracks Nightclub (NSFW), and the Hip Chicks Out and Heaven and Hell parties. It continued Friday when Twizted and the upstanding citizens of the ICP scene de ... More >>

The Weekend Showdown: The (Andrea) Ball

​ We would hate for you to miss out on all the awesome that happens every weekend in our fair city, so we've decided to run down five of the best shows in one easy-to-swallow post, with video and audio. Tell us -- and the rest of the world -- what we missed in the comments. Andrea Ball's g ... More >>

This Just In: Black Eyed Peas, Ray Davies, Twiztid shows announced

​Quite a few shows announced this week that will be going on sale this weekend: The Black Eyed Peas, who just added another trio of Grammys to the three they already have, bring their E.N.D. World Tour to the Pepsi Center on Saturday, March 27. Ludacris and LMFAO open the show. Tickets for the tou ... More >>

We're speechless: A look at the year's most unintentionally funny lyrics.

Royce Da 5'9" remembers that new mom smell​The lowest common denominator having been achieved in 2005 with the release of the Black Eyed Peas' Monkey Business, popular musicians have had to work extra hard in recent years to find new and inventive ways to be inane. They found great success in ... More >>

Top Ten Songs from the '00s That Will Puzzle Future Generations

Wonder if whoever set these misfit creatures loose happened to notice their poker faces?​This last decade has seen several genres rise and fall on the Billboard charts and because of that we've had a weird array of singles briefly topping the charts. In ten years or so, when we look back on th ... More >>

The Music Industry's 11 Saviors of 2009

As with every year since 2001, the music industry in 2009 was kept barely alive by a ratag crew of baffling one-offs, mediocre hit makers and a few cameos from the dead. If dollars are votes, we have some weird taste in representation. In backwards order, this year's 11 saviors of the establishmen ... More >>

The Fray earns a pair of Grammy nods

What are you doing on Sunday, January 31? Haven't thought about it yet? Bet those Fray kids have. In fact, we're going to guess that they know exactly what they're doing that night. We don't have access to the band's itenerary or anything like that, but something tells us that Isaac Slade and compan ... More >>

LMFAO

Tuesday, November 17, Gothic Theatre, Englewood, 303-830-8497.

The Rear Inn's karaoke menu is a little behind the times

Black Eyed Peas' credibility killed in spinning class

​ The Black Eyed Peas' credibility, a mainstay in the genre since 1998's Behind the Front, died on Sunday, in a spinning class at the 24-Hour Fitness by my house. It was eleven-years-old. The credibility, once as strong as any hip-hop group's, has been in poor health since 2003, when Fergie ... More >>

Rock the Block

The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus stops at a serious block party.

No smoking at 92nd and Yates in Westminster right now -- unless you feel like exploding

View Larger Map Officials with the Westminster fire and police departments have closed 92nd Avenue between Yates and Raleigh, an area captured in the graphic above (if you have problems seeing the image, click "View Larger Map"), due to a suspected gas leak. In a press release, Westminster Fire Dep ... More >>

Beyond Playlist: The Jonas Brothers and more

Jonas Brothers Lines, Vines and Trying Times (Hollywood) Of course the Jonai are interested in broadening their demographic appeal. At this point, after all, medical science is unable to prevent girls from aging beyond their twelth birthday. But their approach to sonic maturation is flat-out inex ... More >>

Eminem grabs top spot at Independent Records again

For the fifth week in a row, Eminem's Relapse grabbed the top spot on Independent's best seller list for the week ending June 21. Tech N9ne's Sickology 101, which has been a top seller since it was released April 28, moved up the second spot while new discs by Black Eyed Peas and Mos Def grabbed thr ... More >>

Sonic Youth top seller at Twist and Shout

After two decades on Geffen Records, Eternal, Sonic Youth's Matador Records debut released last week, was the top seller at Twist & Shout for the week ending June 14. Mos Def's The Ecstatic,  Dirty Projectors' Bitte Orca, both released last week, came in at the second and fourth slots while ... More >>

Eminem grabs top spot at Independent Records for fourth week in a row

Eminem has been holding on to the top spot at Independent Records for a month now with his latest release, Relapse. Mos Def's The Ecstatic and Black Eyed Peas' The E.N.D., both released last week, grabbed the second and third slots while Method Man & Redman and DJ Quick & Kurupt rounded out ... More >>

Beyond Playlist: Black Eyed Peas and more

The Black Eyed Peas The E.N.D. (Energy Never Dies) (Interscope) For the most part, the critical intelligentsia has looked askance at the Peas' latest due to its backburnering of the hip-hop style on which the act was founded, as well as the presence of more party-hearty exhortations than consciou ... More >>

The Westword.com blog shortcut, June 12 edition

"We're not models! We're real people!" Dig in.... Today in Cafe Society: • Simms Steakhouse update. • Giggling Grizzly clan plan to turn Public House into Lizard's Bar & Grill. • A full weekend of food fun. • In answer to your question, D Bar. • An early peak at the Streets of SouthGlenn ... More >>

Rap-Up: The Pirate Signal compared to... will.i.am?

The Pirate Signal recently got off a national tour with 3OH!3 and most of the feedback the duo is getting from their live set include everything from "passionate" to "hyper". That's the great thing about Colorado hip-hop going on tour, seeing how other cities react to the music. But in a recent revi ... More >>

Fergie

The Dutchess (A&M)

That Stinking Feeling

Poseidon's second voyage yields a brand-new disaster.

Fully Loaded

Friday, March 17, Quixote's True Blue, 303-297-1772; Saturday, March 18, Dulcinea's 100th Monkey, 303-832-3601; Sunday, March 19, D-Note, Arvada, 303-463-6683.

Critical Fatwa

will.i.am

Big League Bash

The Black Eyed Peas get this party started.

Gwen Stefani

Wednesday, October 26, Magness Arena, 303-830-8497.

Black Eyed Peas

Monkey Business (A&M Records)

Various Artists

Grammy Nominees 2005 (Capitol)

N.E.R.D.

Fly or Die (Virgin)

Critic's Choice

Mystic

Long Beach Dub Allstars / Rx Bandits

Wonders of the World (Dreamworks), Progress (Drive Thru)

Two for the Future

To hip-hop's OutKast and Black Eyed Peas, the glass is half full.