Yorn Sees Bardot in Scarlett

Eminem enjoys a comeback, too

(NEWSER) - Kanye West's comeback must be complete: Rolling Stone awarded him the top slot in its list of 2010's 30 best albums. The top 10:

1. Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy: "Music as sprawlingly messy as his life," these songs are "hip-hop epics ... full of the kind of grandiose gestures that only the foolish attempt and only the wildly talented pull off."
2. The Black Keys, Brothers: "Their best record yet: vivid tunes stripped bare and rubbed raw ... it's rock minimalism pushed to the max."
3. Elton John and Leon Russell, The Union: "Two rock giants ... rekindle a friendship and make music that ranks with their best."
4. Arcade Fire, The Suburbs: "An album of vast, orchestral rock that locates the battle for the human soul amid big houses and manicured lawns."

Duets with babymama to be released, plague us all

(NEWSER) - The 40th anniversary of Woodstock—what a perfect day for the announcement that Mel Gibson is making what is sure to become known as musical history. The actor provides guest vocals for two of the tracks on babymamma Oksana Grigorieva’s upcoming album, the Mirror reports. In not nearly so terrifying news, he also directs four of the videos for her album, Beautiful Heartache. More»

Rapper will still be in the game when he's 70, he says

(NEWSER) - Ghostface Killah is one of today’s most critically acclaimed rappers, and he doesn’t plan on quitting any time soon: “I’ma definitely be old in hip-hop. This is a mental thing. You can write music till you 70,” he tells New York. His new album, Wizard of Poetry, finds him exploring a new direction: R&B. The main difference? “You can’t talk about slinging crack on an R&B album.” More»

(NEWSER) - 2009 marks the 50th anniversary of jazz’s best year jazz ever, Martin Johnson writes for the Root. 1959 saw canonical discs from genre royalty: “Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, John Coltrane’s Giant Steps, Ornette Coleman’s The Shape of Jazz to Come, Dave Brubeck’s Time Out and two by Charles Mingus, Blues and Roots and Ah-Um.” This was the era, Johnson writes, “when commercial success and artistic inspiration merged.” More»

Yes, Kelly Clarkson made the top five

(NEWSER) - Now that 2009 is more than halfway over, James Montgomery runs down the best albums of the year—so far—on MTV:

• Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion: The No. 1 pick is “the only thing I can remember that has actually lived up to the hype, if not exceeded it.”
• Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix: “Retro pop hyper-focused on a futuristic re-imagination of post-modernism and neo-classicism as proletarian touchstones? That you can dance to?” earns album No. 2 spot.