Nov 182010
 

How many times have you seen Al Roker on TV and thought to yourself, “I wish I could hear that guy sing”? Our guess: none. Now how many times have you seen Matt Lauer and thought the same thing? That depends – can you think something a negative number of times?

Well, want to or not, now you will hear them sing. The whole Today Show crew – Roker, Lauer, Ann Curry, and Merideth Vieira – teamed up with a cappella YouTube star Mike Tompkins, who we last heard cover “Teenage Dream.” His cover of Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite” inspired the morning show hosts to try to recreate the video themselves as part of their “Today Show Goes Viral” week. Their version comes pretty close, with one minor difference: Mike Tompkins can actually sing. Continue reading »

Sep 062010
 

The twenty-first century has devalued the “song of the summer” concept something fierce. With listeners increasingly fractured into obscure niches, no song unites the culture the way the Beach Boys or Four Seasons did back in the day. Even if you hated those songs, they were a part of your summer experience. After all, loathing counts as an experience.

Speaking of loathing…“California Gurls.” If there was a song that dominated summer 2010, that was it. It’s a simple formula. Katy Perry + singing about chicks = summer smash. That wasn’t the only summer ‘010 hit though. There were the indie summer jams, of which we’ve got a couple, as well as the hits blaring from car radios. Even if you consider yourself above the Top 40, odds are you’ve heard these one way or another: over the supermarket PA, at a minor-league ball game, or from the crappy iPod speakers serenading the couple next to you at the beach. So while these may or may not have defined your personal summer, they come to as close to universal as it gets these days. You can run, you can hide, but you can’t escape these songs.*

*Summer Song ’02 reference. Continue reading »