Shortly after seeing for the first time the shiny album cover containing an airbrushed photo of her, Clarkson blogged: "It's very colorful and they have definitely photo-shopped the crap out of me but I don't care haha! whoever she is, she looks great."
Kelly Clarkson told The Daily Mail February 27, 2009: "This has a soulful vibe, but it's also a throwback to old-school rock. That comes naturally to me, because I love Janis Joplin and Aerosmith."
This was written by Sam Watters (formerly of the band Color Me Badd), his songwriting partner Louis Biancaniello, and Dameon Aranda, the lead guitarist/vocalist of the band Aranda. The trio also penned "Whyyawannabringmedown" on All I Ever Wanted. In addition, Watters and Biancaniello produced "I Want You" and the bonus track "The Day We Fell Apart."
Clarkson told Pop Justice that she thinks this is the best song on All I Ever Wanted as "it's different to anything else on the radio right now."
Chris Martin from Coldplay helped out on this track. He and Furtado are old friends, and they ran into each other at the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards, where she invited him to come by the studio where she and her producer Timbaland were working on Loose. Martin dropped by and sat in on keyboards for the song, which was a last-minute addition to the album. (Donovan- El Dorado, AR)
This is based on the 1980 song "The Glow Of Love," by the Funk group Change. Luther Vandross was lead singer of the group at the time.
Jimmy Jam, who wrote and produced this song with his partner Terry Lewis (Jackson also got a songwriting credit), told us that working with Janey was great because she was receptive to so many ideas and styles. Said Jimmy: "When we did 'All For You' and I played her the 'Glow of Love' sample from Change, she had never heard that song before. But she loved it."
"All For You" was used as the name of Jackson's 2001 tour. Some of the shows had to be postponed or canceled when Jackson needed emergency dental surgery. One show in Madison Square Garden was bumped for a WNBA playoff game.
This won the 2001 Grammy for Best Pop Dance Recording.
It was the longer-running #1 song of 2001, topping the US chart for 7 weeks.
On the radio show LA Lloyd's Rock 30, lead singer Lacey Mosley said: "It's a song about meeting God. I remember looking at a bunch of people's Myspace when I first saw Myspace and the 'Who I'd Like To Meet' the #1 thing people picked was God. I think about that. I don't know how many times I've experienced something where I felt like Hod showed up and saved me or loved me for no reason sometimes. That's why I sing this song, I sing it to God. It's really intimate as well, you can think about it as a relationship between two people in love, too. I never think about it that way, but what's so cool about that is I think there's parallels everywhere- in everything in life. I think that that parallel is something that God wants to communicate to us, that he gives us relationships like that, an intimacy like that.
Live, Lacy has prefaced "All Around Me" by saying, "This song is for Jesus." (Tim- PGH, PA)
This is a track from Lady Gaga's EP, The Fame Monster. In this song Gaga fends off three Mexican lovers. Latin lovers often crop on records- other tracks featuring them include Madonna's La Isla Bonita and ABBA's Fernando.
The vide0 courts religious controversy in a Madonna-ish way by showing Gaga dressed in red latex nun outfit eating a rosary. It also intermingles other Catholic imagery with provocative shorts of a same-sex orgy. Not only Catholic groups objected- Katy Perry tweeted: "Using blasphemy as entertainment is as cheap as a comedian telling a fart joke."
Klein defended the use of religious imagery and symbolism in an email to MTV News: "The religious symbolism is not meant to denote anything negative, but represents the character's battle between the dark forces of this world and the spiritual salvation of the Soul," he wrote. "Thus at the end of the firm, she chooses to be a nun, and the reason her mount and eyes disappear is because she is withdrawing her senses from the world of evil and going inward towards prayer and contemplation."
He added that the scene in which Gaga eats the rosary beads is meant to represent "the desire to take in the holy."
Every track on The Fame Monster represents a "fear" of some "monster." GaGa has said this song was by her "fear of sex" monster.
The song's music video was directed by the photographer Steven Klein. Gaga discussed with The London Times May 22, 2010 it's concept. She explained it is about the "purity of my friendships with my gay friends, and how I've been unable to find that with a straight man in my life. It's a celebration and admiration of gay love- it confesses my envy and courage and bravery they require to be together. In the video I'm pining for the love of my gay friends- but they just don't want me."
The song opens with a weeping violin, which incorporates the melody from "Csardas" by Italian composer Vittorio Monti (1868-1922). "Csardas" was composed in 1904 and Monti based the violin show-piece on Hungarian folk dance.
Gaga has cited in interviews Abba's 1976 song "Fernando" as an influence on this tune.
Director Steven Klein said of his collaboration with Gaga on the music video to Rolling Stone: "She likes epic. It fits her personality. We combined dance, narrative, and attributes of surrealism. The process was to express Lady Gaga's desire to reveal her heart and bear her soul."
Klein had never directed a proper music video before. However, after seeing Gaga perform live, he felt inspired. "I went to see her show in NYC, and it felt like performance art in the '90s. And I had not seen anything like that in a while," Klein told MTV News. "Lady Gaga approached me about doing this particular song, and in the past, I have passed on such offers, but this time I felt [a] narrative drive you could make interesting, and we both aligned on the vision for the film."
He added: "I had a version and story for the film, she reacted to it, then we both collaborated.... We shot in Los Angeles on April 30, 2010. My schedule and hers are both complicated, so it took a lot to get the days that we both could work together."
Klein went on to explain the clip: "I was not thinking in terms [of influences.] I saw it more s a combination of cinema and theater," he said. "[It is[ about a woman's desire to resurrect a dead love and who can not face the brutality of her present situation. The pain of living without your true love."
Title: Airplanes (feat. Hayley Williams of Paramore)
Album: Airplanes (feat. Hayley Williams of Paramore)- Single
Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams contributes to this track in which B.o.B spits rhymes questioning the high life. An album-closing reprise, "Airplanes (Part II)," also features a cameo from Williams plus Eminem.
The Paramore singer explained on MTV News how she ended up appearing on B.o.B's record. "I was given the track a while ago while we were on tour. The guys and I all loved it. They told me I was crazy if I passed it up," Williams said. "I liked the part too much anyways, so of course I was down. Whether our fans know or not, I'm not sure, but [Paramore bassist] Jeremy [Davis] and I have always been really into hip-hop. It means a lot that I got to collaborate with a hip-hop artist who is from Atlanta. Not far from home. We southern gals love us some Southern gentlemen."
Williams said on Paramore's MySpace blog: "B.o.B is one of my favorite artists out right now. Can't believe I am a part of his new album... If I was ever going to get to be "that girl"- you know, the one that sings the hook in all the food Biggie songs- I am happy that I get to be that girl on one of Bobby Ray's songs."
Two Cornell University students, Jeremy "Kinetics" Dussolliet and Tim "One Love" Sommers, wrote the song's chorus.
"Airplanes" was written by Lupe Fiasco, who recorded his own version of the song featuring vocals from Hayley Williams before deciding to pass on it. The tune was then given to B.o.B by his label.
Though the single had been recorded and released, Williams and B.o.B. did not meet in person until they had rehearsals for their live performance on the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards.
In 2005, Aguilera married record executive Jordan Bratman. This song is about how he is the only one for her.
DJ Premier produced this track. He's a Hip-Hop producer who has worked with Jay-Z, KRS-One, Mos Def and was a member of the group Gang Starr. He said of this song: "The song is real, real fast, which is definitely different for me, 'cause I don't do real fast tempo. This thing is like 130 beats per minute, but it still sounds like Hip-Hop Christina."
When Christina first heard the instrumental to this song, created by DJ Premier, she decided it should be her first single. No words or melody had been created, but solely from the beat she knew it was the one (Jeff- Chicago, IL)
The music video is set in the 1920s, and Aguilera is a character as Baby Jane. It helped create a classy, retro look for Aguilera, who was known for her very revealing outfits.
The song samples a 1968 Latin soul tune called "Hippy Skippy Moon Strut" (aka "I'll Be a Lucky Man") by Dave Cortex and the Moon People and "The Cissy's Thang" by Soul Seven.
This won a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
Aguilera said of this song at the MTV Movie Awards: "I wanted to make it light and easy for people to dance to and sing along to, so the whole song is based on feel-good elements of soul and blues and jazz. Lyrically, I just got married, so it's about someone in particular, but it's all about feeling good and not taking anything too seriously."
Back to Basics featured 1920s, 30s, and 40s-style jazz and blues with a modern twist. Aguilera described it to The Daily Telegraph May 7, 2010: as, "a retro exploring of my inspirations musically to begin with when I was six years old with the soul and the blues and the jazz artists and exploring what that was visually in the 1920s and 30s and 40s."
She added it was about "paying homage to the people that inspired me," a process "that almost forced me to revisit times in my childhood that I probably didn't want to."
This was the only new song on Kravitz' Greatest Hits album. It helped the album sell over 3 million copies and become the best selling album of his career.
Kravitz shows his butt in the video, which features actress Gina Gershon and model Theresa Lourenco.
This was intended for an album of original songs, but Kravitz felt it didn't fit the tone of the album and allowed it to be released with his Greatest Hits.
This won the 2000 Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. Kravitz won the same award in 1998 and 1999 for "Fly Away" and "American Woman." Kravitz made it 4 in a row when he won the next year for "Dig In."
This song tells the story of a man who comes to Africa and must make a decision about the girl who comes to see him. He is enamored with the country, but must leave if he is going to be with her.
Toto keyboard player David Paich wrote the song, and explained in the liner notes of Tot's Best Ballads compilation: "At the beginning of the '80s I watched a late night documentary on TV about all the terrible death and suffering of the people in Africa. It both moved and appalled me and the pictures just wouldn't leave my head. I tried to imagine how I'd feel about it if I was there and what I'd do." Paich had never been to African when he wrote the song.
In an article in Time magazine, one of the group members said they were looking for a song just to close off the album and did not think "Africa" would do as well as it did. They also mentioned that if you listen close enough to the lyrics, "catch some waves," some group members were singing "catch some rays."
Toto IV won a Grammy for Album Of The Year.
This is probably Toto's most famous song, and their guitarist Steve Lukather would like you to know that there is much more to the band: Toto were top studio musicians before forming the group, and known as some of the best in the business. Lukather told Rock's Backpages: "A lot of people categorize us as 'that 'Africa' or 'Rosanna' band,' and I hate that shit. We have a lot more substance than that. Don't get me wrong- those songs have been great to us, but you really don't understand the depth of the band if that's all you know.
"We could be the most misunderstood band in rock history. We consist of some of the most recorded musicians in the business. And yet we take hits for that. Ashlee Simpson and all these phony-baloney singers sell millions of records, but everybody knows that's bogus. Some folks go on the road, and they might as well be miming. My son toured with Lindsay Lohan 4 years ago. The whole band was playing live, she was lipsyncing. She couldn't sing a lick. Some poor guy had to Pro Tools that every night."
This is used in the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
Olivia Lufkin and Howie Day have both recorded this. The song has also been sampled by JoJo and Nas.
South African Castle Lager used this in commercials (Hermes- Athens, Greece).
Guitarist Steve Lukather and singer Bobby Kimball told Rock Eyez that this song nearly didn't make it and it "was a guy named Al Keller, who was over at CBS" who convinced them to put it on the disc. Lukather added: "I thought it was the worst song on the album. It didn't fit, the lyrics made no sense and I swore that if it was a hit record, I'd run naked down Hollywood Boulevard! That's how good I am at picking singles! I mean I love the song now but, to be honest with you, at the time I thought it was really the odd ball song on the album. It almost didn't make the record and it was a #1 worldwide single and still gets played everywhere today. No matter where I go in the world, people know that song... it's bizarre! For a song that Dave (Hungate) and I wrote in his living room, people know it in Indonesia!"
This appeared in an episode of the TV show Scrubs in 2004. The episode was a tribute to the movie The Wizard Of Oz, so Toto fit the theme.
Palmer wanted this song to be a duet with Chaka Khan and recorded it with her. His label, Warner Brothers Records, would not allow her voice to be used on the record, so he had to erase her part and re-record her high notes before releasing it. Chaka Khan did appear on Steve Winwood's Higher Love, which beat out this song for the 1987 Record Of The Year Grammy.
This was Palmer's only #1 hit on the US pop singles charts (Brad- Miami, Florida)
The video featured Palmer singing in front of a "band" of beautiful women who looked exactly alike. They wore lots of make-up and identical clothing as they pretended to play the instruments. The video became an icon of the '80s, and is constantly parodied, including in a Pepsi commercial with Britney Spears.
The funny thing about the video was that the models posing as a band were selected precisely because they did NOT know how to play the instruments. As a result, each girl was keeping her own time and moving to a different beat.
One of the girls in the video was "bassist" Mak Gilchrist. She recalled to Q magazine June 2009: "I was 21 and got the part on the strength of my modeling book. We were meant to look and 'act' like showroom mannequins. Director Terence Donovan got us tipsy on a bottle of wine but as we're having our make-up retouched, I lost balance on my heels and knocked the top of my guitar into the back of Robert's head, and his face then hit the microphone." Gilchrist added: "I remember feeling an acute sense of embarrassment when I first saw how sexy the video was. The most unusual place I saw it was on a huge screen on the side of a Tokyo building."
The girls in the video were not Palmer's idea. They were filmed separately and edited behind clips of Palmer singing.
Palmer wrote this about what it's like having an addictive personality.
Palmer died of a heart attack in 2003. He was 54.
Weird Al Yankovic recorded a parody of this called "Addicted to Spuds" on his album Polka Party! (Steph- SoCal, California)
The "keyboardist" in the video was Susie Verrico, who later appeared in the 2006 series of the UK reality TV show Big Brother.
Vocalist Jared Weeks wrote this song about sexual escapades in the early days of Saving Abel. He recalled on the band's website: "I used to work at a hospital. I'd have to be there at 4:30 in the morning drawing blood. I'd wake people up and stick a needle in their arm. I'd be walking around the hospital, singing 'Addicted' in my head writing down lyrics on patients' clipboards and doctor script pads."
There is an alternative version for this song, which substitutes the phrase, "goin' down on me" with the more radio friendly "rollin' round with me."
Weeks told TuneLab Music about the song's video shoot. He said: "The video shoot was great! we shot a total of 12 hours on the video in one day. Yes, it was long and tiring, but the band knew what we had to do to make the video 'TV' worthy. Director Anthony Honn was a really professional guy to work with. The band and I believe he did a superb job on making us look cooler than we are in the reality."
Saving Abel got it's name from the Biblical story of Cain and Abel. Guitarist Jason Null explained on his band's website: "I googled the story of Cain and Abel and found a line about 'there was no Saving Abel,' which just jumped out at me." Abel was a son of Adam and Eve. As a shepherd, he made burnt offerings of meat to God, which were more acceptable than the fruits offered by his brother Cain. The jealous Cain then murdered Abel.
Orianthi Panagaris was born in Adelaide, Australia of half Greek descent. She learned to play the acoustic guitar at six because of her father, switched to electric when she was eleven and left school at 15 to focus on writing songs and performing. Orianthi played with several star names such as Prince and Carrie Underwood and was chosen by Michael Jackson to be his lead guitarist for his This Is It concerts. She played and sang at Jackson's globally televised memorial, on July 7, 2009. This is her debut single from Believe, her first album released by a major record label.
Orianthi told iProng Magazine about the anthem concerning moving on from a bad relationship to a healthier one: "It's just a really empowering song. It's about moving on from a bad situation to a better one and being treated well and not putting up with crap."
This song about an ungrateful boyfriend was written by Andrew Frampton and Steve Diamond. Orianthi told Billboard magazine: "So many people have gone through the experience of not feeling good enough. Hopefully, this can inspire people to get out of that situation and say, 'I'm better than that.'"
Orianthi explained to Gibson.com how she approached recording her Believe album: "We set out to make a real guitar-based album, with guitar solos on every track. But we also wanted to put the guitar parts in carefully, so that there wasn't too much of that. I'm a real guitar-head, but I love good pop songs, too. I dig playing instrumentals, but for people who aren't guitar players, you want to turn that down a notch and not overdo that. The guitar solos have a sort of 'os now' feel. I was bringing back the '80s, in a way, with the guitar solos."
