The Pendleton Panther

Ever since I came down to IMG Academies my music selection has changed quite dramatically. Up north where I am from, the  indie-alternative-acoustic music scene is where I mostly fit in best. Between Jack Johnson, Metric, John Mayer, and Ra Ra Riot I felt at home when I listened to music. Now my IPod has seen an increase in rap music. It’s definetly noticable how different the music preference is from here and where I am from. Of course I listened to some rap music before I came down here, but not even close to the amount that I listen to now. When in doubt, I put a rap song on. I am still trying to figure out what about this environment has everyone listening to mainly rap music. Of course I enjoy rap music, but there is not much music diversity here, which isen’t a bad thing, it’s just a change for me. It’s funny because as I write this, I am listening to rap music.

I have started to noticed that  Music is becoming an addiction for me.  As I mentioned before, another one of addictions is Chipotle. But I also have come to notice is so is music. There is all types so you can always  find a song that fits your mood.  Anything from being happy, pre-gaming, depressed, too feeling like you’re the only one on the road. The most intersecting part of it is everyone has different music. Hear things new everyday so you can never get tired of it. Always change it up. This last Sunday was the Grammies. The Grammies is an award show for artists of all types. During the show some artist also show their talent. It was a great show, P!nk flying in the air, too the classics performing such as Bon Jovie. Recently with technology you can share music and find any song at the touch of your fingertips. In the end of the day, all depending on your mood, music is always good.

Eminem and Elton

Recently, the rapper Eminem has revealed that he relied on Elton John’s support while battling an addiction to painkillers. Elton has helped Eminem to get out of the dangerous addiction. Elton John has always said that the only reason why he will help someone is if that person asked for help. Last week, Elton revealed that he had helped Eminem for about eighteen months, and that he is getting better every single day. Eminem said that every time he consumed any drug, his humor would change. He would become a person that wasn’t shy; instead he becomes audacious and arrogant. It’s amazing how drugs can lead you to such large problems in life. In this case it is very rare and impressive how Eminem asked for help. It is something to admire as not too many people ask for help. I think Eminem will get better; he needs to keep working on it. If he makes it, a lot of problems will be resolved.

This Is It movie poster

The whole world is saddened after the death of our greatest entertainer, Michael Jackson. Just two weeks after Jackson’s death, 2.3 million of his CDs were purchased in America alone. He is now the greatest selling artist of all time. All the people in the world, especially his fans are doing all they can to have a “piece” of him, they have purchased his CDs, posters and even personal belongings. The good news is, there is more Michael Jackson for all of us, a movie is going to come out in the theaters on October 28^th and it will be out for 2 weeks. This is a documentary chronicling Michael Jackson’s rehearsals for his planned comeback residency at the O2 arena in London. We should be expecting to see an outlook of his career and contain interviews of his friends and collaborators; we will all get a touch of a rare and behind-the-scenes look at the energetic King of Pop. We all knew from the beginning of his death that his music will live on, it has and it will.

Paktofonika was a polish Hip-Hop group from Katowice, which was formed in 1998. They Debuted with the album ”Kinematografia” in 2000. The name Paktofonika comes from the words pakt (pact) and fonika (fonics), From which derives the idea of ”A pact made alongside noise from a speaker”, created by band’s founders, Magik and Rahim. Paktofonika began when Magik left Kaliber 44 during recording their new album ”w 63 minuty dookola swiata”.Their first songs were written in October 1998, being ”Priorytety”, ”Ja to Ja”, and ”Gdyby” Two new member joined this group in 1999, DJ Bambus and Sot as a beatboxer. In the summer of 2000 they went to Germany to record their song ”2 Kilo” with German artists. That year, on December 18, their first album entitled ”Kinematografia” was released. Eight days afetr the album was released, December 26, Magik commited suicide by jumping from his apartment on the ninth floor. After his death, the group continued concerts.In the Spring of 2003 the group announced the end of Paktofonika.

The chemical brothers are electronic music duo Thomas Owen Mostyn Rowlands and Edmund John Simons – occasionally referred to as Chemical Tom and Chemical Ed  from United Kingdom. Their first album was released on June 25 1995, and was called ”Exit Planet Dust”. They have six albums and most of their music was always 1st on the TOP LIST’s in UK and whole Europe. Initially they called themselves “The Dust Brothers”, after the noted United States production duo had the same name, but their burgeoning popularity and the threat of legal action from the originals led them to change their name in 1995. Along with The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, The Crystal Method and other lesser-known acts they were pioneers of the big beat electronic dance genre, and are known for high-quality live sets.

Eminem is striking back once again, but this time his target is Itunes. There is a thursday trial set up in the hometown of Eminem Detriot. Emienem has claimed that Apple gained $2.5 million through Itunes downloads. Emeniem’s hit single “lose yourself” from 8Mile the movie made an amazing $446,915 on its own. Eminem is also setting his sights on recording lable Aftermath they have also claimed to have 4 million dollars of Emeniem’s. Eminem believes he deserves most of the profits of his own music so he is going to fight for it. I dont think it is fair that people behind the scenes are earning most of an artist’s money when an artist is the one who is putting the most effort into the music.Hopefully Eminem will get the money that he deserves in his law suit.

Pink Floyd is a very famous band who was known as a psychedelic genre band.  They were famous in the 1960’s in the hippy era when there were a lot of changes going on.  The people back then were very interested in experiencing new things and listening to new music.  Their music, if you have never listened to it, is a very spacey oriented music style.  Their music can take you into a different mind set.  They have sold over 200 million albums worldwide.  The music that they produced effected peoples lives worldwide.  A song that you might know is one of their famous songs “We Don’t Need No Education”.  Although they were a band from the 60’s they are to this day very famous.  If there was one thing I could go back into time and do it would be to go to one of their concerts.  The lighting choreography was amazing.  They were known to produce amazing shows.

On Sunday night, Taylor Swift won Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards.  Taylor was basically jumping for joy when she heard that she had won the award.  As she was delivering her acceptance speech, Kanye West took the microphone off Swift.  He said, “I’m so happy for you (to Swift) and I’m gonna let you finish (referring to the speech), but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time, one of the best videos of all time.”  Many people in the audience were surprised about Kanye’s outburst and began to boo him off the stage.  Taylor Swift was shocked that Kanye did what he did and after he left the stage, she didn’t really have anything to say.  West did not apologize to Swift until Tuesday, after she had appeared on “The View” when she said that West had not yet apologized.  Later that day he called her and apologized.  Swift said that his apology was sincere and that she had accepted his apology.

It’s already been 3 months since our King of Pop died, some of his fans believe that he is not dead yet, most choose to accept his death and there is a minority that do not even care because they hate him for being such a strange and bizarre person and believe that he was a pedophile. I will always be his fan, not only because of his amazing music and his signature moonwalk but also because of his kind heart. Yesterday, I saw videos and interviews of Michael Jackson that not many have seen before and I wondered why I never knew these things about him before. Michael Jackson went to local charities and hospitals whenever he had concerts around the world and visited children that were sick and almost dying and gave them joy and hope. He also donated personal items for auction to organizations like UNESCO and other charities. Over his lifetime, he donated up to 500 million. Some critics say that this is just an act to cover up his wrongdoings but the truth is, magazines and newspapers never wrote about these good things about him, all they wrote and exaggerated about were his downfalls and his plastic surgeries. His famous Neverland Ranch was not only for him and his children to enjoy, he invited lots of sick children to his ranch to have fun and to have hope that their parents never gave them. In the Neverland Ranch, there were individual rooms with hospital paraphernalia in each of them. He also hired nurses to take care of these sick children. These were his attempts to heal these children’s hearts and hopefully heal their sickness. There was also a day when he opened his ranch up for children from outside to play in for free. These surly were not made headlines on Us Weekly. The sad thing is that most people still think that he is a pedophile when really it was just the gossip magazines trying to make money. Michael Jackson did all these good things for only one reason and that was to make children happy. It is so unfair that he suffered all these years, he did not kill himself – we did.

As most of us have seen from the news, the pop music queen of the Eighties–Whitney, is back on the stage. Some people believe that it is amazing news that the Pop’s golden girl is singing again. However, some people argue that the drugs scandal cast a negative shadow on her public status, so she should not come back. Whitney was one of the most fabulous singers during the Eighties. Her music won a lot of international significant awards, such as Grammys. Undeniably, her songs have influenced and guided the direction of pop music for more than 20 years. Although the unsuccessful marriage and drug addiction destroyed her heyday. Her hoarse and cracking voice impressed a lot fans. Personally, I would definitely support the queen of singing coming back to her rightful platform, and I urge that the society treat her optimistically and generously. As we know, everyone could make a mistake. The most essential aspect is that the person should realise the mistake and correct it. It is the same for Whitney. The newest interview that reveals her drug addiction and marriage will be shown on September 14th.

On Tuesday, R&B singer Chris Brown was sentenced to five years probation and will spend nearly 1,400 hours in “labor-oriented service” for assaulting his girlfriend, R&B star Rihanna. New information emerged that Brown assaulted Rihanna in two previous incidents in addition to the incident that was originally reported. Brown will be required to attend domestic violence counseling and he must stay 50 yards away from Rihanna at all times. The restraining order will remain in place until 2014. Brown is allegedly remorseful and has apologized to the media as well as Rihanna on countless occasions. Brown admitted, “What I did was unacceptable, 100 percent. I can only ask and pray that you forgive me. Please.”

I went to Grad Bash ‘09 at universal studios yesterday with IMG hoping to have a good time.  I wanted to watch DJ Khaled and Akon perform because I have never been to a concert like either one of those before.  After watching DJ Khaled my group went to find some rides to go on.  We decided to go on the Hulk ride and had a ninety minute wait even though it was worth it.  By the time we got done we realized Akon was performing and we needed to find our way back to the concert.  After watching a bit I decided to meet up with another group of people.  This for me was the fun/unusual part of the concert.  Akon decided to take a break from singing and was making his way through a space on his bouncer’s shoulders.  He then decided to enter the crowd right where I was standing. People swarmed around him pushing and shoving to touch him.  Due to all the pressure he started to slip off his bouncers shoulders and of course landed on top of me.  I was now being pushed from all angles as I tried to hold up Akon and keep myself off the ground as well.  When his bouncer got him under control again Akon just sort of looked at me and smiled as he went away.  I have come to the conclusion that I probably will not have this experience at any other concert I may go to for the rest of my life.

So yeah, I like Taylor Swift and yeah, I went to her concert this past Sunday. I had questioned how good the concert would be and how awkward it would be around that many screaming little girls. It was amazing and believe it or not there were actually lot of guys at the concert. Taylor Swift preformed to a sold out crowed at the Strawberry Festival in Plant City. She basically rocked 3000 people in the span of about 2 hours. I was lucky enough to run up to the stage with my friends and I was literally standing 10 ft away from Taylor. She is young and many people can relate to her songs. She just went through a bad relationship and wrote many passionate songs about this guy she broke up with and her songs have emotion steaming from him. She is a great performer and I highly recommend her concerts and her music.

Eminem seems to be toying with everyone’s minds at the moment.  His album supposedly titled, Relapse, was originally scheduled to come out in December of 2008.  That date was missed and pushed to early February 2009, however that was missed as well.  We are in march and the Album has yet to be released. Sometimes a wait can make things better, but a wait this long is just making it seem like the Album will never happen. Eminem did however early release a hit single (Crack a Bottle) due to the Album’s delay. The song was great for about a week, at which point radio stations and room mates had played it so much that it has become as old as any other Eminem song to me. I know that his music will be amazing, I’m just becoming annoyed with the wait to hear some quality Eminem I have not listened to over a thousand times on my ipod. I think that I speak for everyone when I say it’s time for him to put the finishing touches on this album and get it in stores.

Michael Jackson has stopped releasing songs for a while because of many obvious reasons.  Some people say that he is bankrupt, some people say that he is too sick to go anywhere due to his famous skin bleaching.  However, Michael Jackson has apparently been active behind the world.  According to his biographer  Ian Halperin, Micheal Jackson has recorded more than 100 songs secretly and he insists that only after his death is the world allowed to listen them. The only exceptions are, of course his children: Prince, Paris Katherine and Prince Michael II. Apparently, these songs have only been heard by them and the songs are a kind of personal heritage for the children. Despite all the scary things Michael Jackson has done, there is no doubt that he is one of the most entertaining singers alive. It is quite a shame that he is keeping all his songs from the world because despite all his weirdness, there are still millions of fans who are dying to hear from him.

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Britney Spears recently launched her new tour, Circus. It is designed after her latest album which is also called Circus. The tour began last week and has made only a few stops thus far. This weekend, Britney was in the state of Florida. She performed in Miami on Friday night and did the same in Tampa on Sunday. The St. Pete Times Forum was filled close to capacity for this very popular event. I was lucky enough to be one of the people at this concert and enjoyed it very much surprisingly. Being one of the very few straight men in attendance at the concert, it was interesting but I ended up having a very good time. The show was actually like a Circus with many Circus-like performers which added a lot to the show making it much better than what the average Britney Spears concert would be like. Another positive from the concert were the groups of insanely attractive women in certain parts of the Forum including the box behind the one I was in.