As if the song itself wasn’t already glorious on its own, Miguel’s new black and white video for “Candles In The Sun” pulls at your heart-strings even more. Shifting a bit from the sensual topics he’s been known for, the recent Grammy winner uses imagery from superstorm Sandy’s aftermath to put forth an agenda of awareness in the clip, making us recall some of our favorite meaningful, cause-driven videos over the years. Who made the cut?
The HBO premiere of Beyoncé’s Life Is But A Dream documentary hits the air for the first time tonight, and lord knows Bey stans and haters alike have been biting their nails in anticipation. But before you all launch into either jocking or too harshly critiquing the Queen’s new film, there are some other fantastic documentaries out there you may want to, as an alleged music fan, add to your Netflix queue. ALLOW IT.
Everyone enjoys a good guilty pleasure here and there, and sifting through your favorite celebrity’s mailbox to intercept the love notes they’ve sent and received this Valentine’s Day is one we’ve gleefully taken off your hands. Misbehaving in this nosy manner has happened before, too: the first of which occurred back in October when Drake’s birthday rolled around. But can you blame us? Don’t you want to know what Rihanna sent Chris Brown today, or who Taylor Swift is courting this week?
As Sunday evening’s festivities loom, our thoughts turn to a Grammy category that recognizes not an isolated song or collaboration, but the artists’ entire cohesive work: their album. Regardless of how well-crafted this year’s nominated LPs are, the contenders behind them all have big shoes to fill.
Initially rumored to arrive next Sunday, February 10th, the October’s Very Own team has unleashed the lead single from Drake’s third LP over a week early. And while we might be guilty of poking fun at Drizzy from time to time here on Tuner, allocating credit where it’s actually due is also one of our hobbies.
After shots were reportedly fired at Rick Ross’ Rolls Royce in the early hours of yesterday morning, the MMG capo and a female companion were said to have fled the vehicle unscathed after it crashed into a nearby building. With fans and foes having little confirmed information to go on, the rumor mill is now churning: Was Ross the victim of an attempted murder, or was this whole episode a publicity stunt?
It goes without saying that gun violence is no joking matter, nor are yesterday’s reports regarding Rozay, or rap beefs in general. If you ask 50 Cent, however, he won’t be reluctant to tell you that there’s comedic value to be found here. After the shooting and car crash, 50 took to Twitter to voice his thoughts, asserting that the entire incident was “staged,” and even went as far as to Instagram a photograph of the scene. “No hole’s in da car,” he wrote before firing off a second tweet, which was more machismo in nature than anything else, reiterating his familiarity with bullet-proof vehicles.
Whether it arrives via an artist’s song lyrics, ad-libs or in the form of a routine sound while performing on stage, your favorite rappers and singers are constantly dropping consumable anecdotes for the masses. If they’re lucky, these catchphrases are repeated and mimicked often enough to eventually be added to the popular-culture lexicon, used as amusing mantras for us all to drop in text messages and into tweets as #hashtags. Some might even make it into the dictionary.
This year, especially, delivered a treasure trove of jack-able artist quotes, and while you might wish that most of these never make it into 2013, we present you with a nostalgic look at this year in music verbiage: 2012′s Most Memorable One-Liners.
1. “YOLO”
We’ve seen the tattoos and we’ve heard the stories of it tragically back-firing, so there’s certainly no denying that Drake’s (or Rick Ross’?) You Only Live Once motto wasn’t one of the biggest this year.
2. “(Pop A) Molly”
We can all rattle off a list of rappers who (over)used this designer drug reference in 2012, but here’s hoping that Meek, Kanye, French, Trinidad James, Ross and others can find a new addiction to flaunt come January 1.
3. “Oh God”
Like a cheerleader for himself, Detroit’s G.O.O.D Music member Big Sean knows how to announce himself before spitting a verse. Alternate spellings include gawd and gaud.
Men lie. Women lie. Numbers don’t. After taking a deep-dive into this year’s VH1.com streaming data, we’ve come up with a list of the Top 40 Most-Watched Videos of 2012. All you favorites are below, and there are even some underdog surprises that we didn’t expect to rank so favorably. So yeah, consider this an early New Year’s gift, and start re-living all the music video glory that took place in this incredible year of the apocalypse.
40. Gavin DeGraw “Sweeter”
39. The Fray “Heartbeat”
38. Gym Class Heroes “The Fighter featuring Ryan Tedder”
37. Bruno Mars “Grenade”
36. Adam Lambert “Never Close Our Eyes”
35. Daughtry “Crawling Back To You”
34. Tamia “Beautiful Surprise”
33. Adele “Rolling in the Deep”
32. Ellie Goulding “Lights”
31. David Guetta “Titanium (Ft. Sia)”
On this week’s episode of the VH1 Top 20 Countdown, we’re rolling out the Top 20 videos of the year from Herald Square, New York City. That’s right, all the videos that have led the countdown throughout the different seasons of the year will now battle it out for Top 20 supremacy. But before the show airs on Saturday at 9am EST, you can still cast your vote for the video you think should take the crown for 2012. Who will it be? You’ll have to tune-in and check back with us on Saturday to find out!
Whenever anyone brings up hip hop’s golden era, chances are they’re talking about the ’90s. Originating in the Bronx in the 1970s, the genre that would later become a global phenomenon grew substantially in the ’80s and, by the time the ’90s rolled around, had fully matured both artistically and commercially.
VH1 Presents Mixtape Festival: Train, NKOTB, TLC, The Script + more! Tickets on sale now at MixtapeFestival.com!
