Danny Gokey Debuts First Single "It's Only"

American Idol second runner-up Danny Gokey debuted his first song, "It's Only," during a surprise call to his hometown country-music radio station in Milwaukee last Friday. The swooning, countrified ballad track serves as the lead single from his upcoming RCA Nashville country debut album. Giving a clue into the content of the new single and soon-to-be-released album, on his MySpace page Gokey states, "I have two passions, music (entertainment) and helping people. It's not religious. It's not political. It's only love!" The digital single will be released on December 14, followed by a full album in March of 2010.
Many fans have been waiting patiently for, earlier this year, Gokey made waves when he said he was thinking of releasing a country album. Turns out, he wasn't joking, eventually fans finally got to hear his first foray into the genre. "It's Only" was written by Lady Antebellum's Dave Haywood and Charles Kelley and produced by Carrie Underwood collaborator Mark Bright. As you might expect with that crew, the song has a country vibe to it. The song details the trials of the jobless and the homeless and doesn't shy away from the topic of faith either. It's a big, inspirational ditty and emotional ballad that speaks of life, love and definitely the type of tune Gokey fans wanna hear. His breathy voice is remarkable, and nearly drowned out by a super-mournful slide guitar at various moments.
"It has such a touching lyric. It's so beautiful. I love all the songs that appear on my CD, but this one...when I sing this song, a passion comes out of me," Gokey said of the song. "The song went past the mental element and came directly into my heart. I don't know how to explain it. I feel it when I sing it." Gokey has stayed true to what he said he wanted his song's to have a message to be your inspiration, and has set the bar very high with his debut song. "It's Only" is the perfect blend of stunning, distinctive vocals and a beautiful message that comes from the heart. It'll perform well thanks to its holiday-season release timing, heart-filled message and could totally see this song becoming a big country hit (possible for the Christian charts as well) for Gokey.

Kris Allen Debuts "Live Like We're Dying" Video

American Idol's reigning champ Kris Allen is back in front of a camera, but instead of having to win the hearts and minds of "American Idol's" TV audience, his new mission is to win the hearts and wallets of America's music buyers. Allen has unveiled the new music video for his first single, the up-tempo "Live Like We're Dying," off his upcoming self-titled album, due out November 17. The song was written by Andrew Frampton, Steve Kipner, Danny O'Donoghue, and Mark Sheehan. It originally performed by the Irish rock group 'The Script,' as a bonus track for the Japanese release of their self-titled debut album. What would you change about your life if you knew that you were dying? Despite his ultra quick rise to fame the 24-year-old AI rocker managed to stay grounded.
The single has met with mostly positive reviews. About.com praised the song for being an excellent first single, calling it "possibly the best first post-American Idol single yet by an American Idol champion," and Entertainment Weekly called the song "a future smash hit." Yahoo! News' Billboard singles review described it as "impressive" and felt that Allen's version of the song "improves on the unreleased version with a nuanced vocal and a nimble, rhythmic delivery." The Seattle Times described the song as "a marked improvement over what some Idol winners have put out as their first post-show single".
The music video was directed by Marco Puig and was shot all night at a junkyard in the LA desert. Throughout the video, Allen is shown playing both an acoustic guitar and a piano, as well as singing without any instruments. Arkansas native described the video that "The idea behind it is that I plug in the clock and I'm pulling the big cord through the junkyard and through all these other things and then I plug in the clock and it starts counting down to zero and there's performance stuff in there. In the end when it hits zero, it's kind of like the song, it's like we only have so much time so we gotta do what we want to do. It was my first video, so I was really trying to have a great time."

Cheryl Cole Owns U.K. Singles & Albums Charts

The Girls Aloud singer and 'The X Factor' judge Cheryl Cole has been mocked for miming and savaged for her singing, but Cole has left critics stunned by achieving a prestigious double #1 on both the Irish and UK music charts success with her debut solo studio album "3 Words" which released on October 23, while "Fight For This Love" spends a third week at the singles summit, as the fastest selling single of the year thus far.
The 26-year-old British pop star became the nation's sweetheart after she joined 'The X Factor' last year and took a contingent of wide-eyed young girls under her wing, leading Alexandra Burke all the way to victory in the show's final. Cole is the 12th female artist in UK chart history to record that double achievement, according to the Official UK Charts Company, and the third this year, following Lily Allen and Lady Gaga.
"Fight for This Love" is first solo single, was written and produced by Wayne Wilkins, Steve Kipner and co-written by Andre Merritt, was released as the lead single off her album "3 Words" on October 19. The song received its worldwide radio première on September 7 on BBC Radio, and Cole performed the song for the first time on The X Factor' on October 18. The song is a midtempo pop-R&B track with subdued, synthy production and an infectious hook that gnaws into the consciousness". Popjustice praised the song, describing it as "one of those songs you can have on repeat for an hour and a half without getting bored. Like some of the best pop tunes "Fight For This Love" is a very simple affair without bells, whistles or kitchen sinks, but there's more going on than is initially obvious and the production's certainly a cut above."
The music video was directed by Ray Kay and was filmed in early September, and premièred on September 20. The video stars Cole dancing in front of various moving backgrounds in a number of outfits, most notably a soldier-themed outfit with a red military jacket. There is also a dance sequence in which Cole, wearing leopard-print bottoms and a number of dancers perform a routine. The main colors of the video are red, white and black. Kay commented on the filming that: "The recordings went very well, and Cheryl was fantastic to work with. I drove her very hard at the shoot, and it was very difficult on her part. My job was relaxing in comparison. We made the video in London, with a lot of focus on fashion and dance, with very tough choreography, before putting it all together in Los Angeles afterwords. I have a strong feeling that this will be a #1 for Cheryl in England!"

Jason Derulo'Whatcha Say' Top Billboard Hot100

The 20-year-old R&B newcomer Jason DeRulo's momentum continues to grow exponentially, has knocked electronic artist Owl City off and has become the fourth artist this year to claim the top spot on the 'Billboard Hot 100' this week as well as #1 at Rhythmic Radio with his smash debut single "Whatcha Say". His "Watcha Say" becomes one of the year's strongest debuts for an urban pop star, thanks to increased airplay and a video premiere for the single.
"Whatcha Say" is a pretty unlikely chart-topper. The tune is built around a sample of Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek," which is best known as a featured song on a season finale of "The O.C." a few years back. Derulo displays vocal skills that have pegged him as an exciting new artist to watch. The song is the first from his upcoming self-titled debut studio album, which is slated to be released in the first quarter of 2010, will be entirely produced by hit guru J.R. Rotem and will feature a new genre which fuses Pop, Euro Dance, and remarkable songwriting to create a groundbreaking sound.
Derulo, who penned his first track when he was just eight years old, has said in interviews that his galvanizing moment as a songsmith was seeing Michael Jackson perform for the first time. "I knew that's what I wanted to do. From then on, my goal in life was to express myself through song and to showcase it to the world," said he who has already written songs for the likes of Lil Wayne, Keyshia Cole, and Cassie. "I never wanted to be a songwriter -- it just kind of fell on my lap. I love writing, but I always wanted to be the voice, not just the pen," says Derulo. "I always yearned to sing my own song, and now, here I am doing just that."
The music video for the single was release a few weeks back, and has also been picked up as iTunes' Video of the week. The video shows DeRulo with his love interest and cuddling on the couch. Glenn Gamboa of Newsday wrote: "The new Jason DeRulo single liberally samples from the song and even uses Heap's chorus as his own chorus? Maybe hard to swallow. But DeRulo weaves easily in and out of Heap's parts and matches his AutoTuned vocals to hers pretty well to craft a catchy, if derivative, little number." It doesn't slow down for him as he joins Lady Gaga's "Monster Ball" tour, which will be the hottest ticket this winter. The new pop sensation will be opening up for Lady Gaga along with Kid Cudi starting December 27.

Satirical "Men Who Stare at Goats" Hits Theaters

The first-time director Grant Heslov has come up with something wackier and more whimsical, a quirky rapid-fire military comedy "The Men Who Stare at Goats" which has hit the nation's movie screens today. The movie offers a fitfully amusing adaptation and "inspired by" British journalist Jon Ronson's book, about the U.S. Army's exploration of New Age concepts and the potential military applications of the paranormal techniques, and purports to be closer to the truth than many people would suspect. A title card claims, "More of this is true that you would believe," indicating that Goats is just the tip of the absurdest iceberg.
You might not know that there's a silly side to the military-industrial complex, but the folks behind fhe film certainly do. In this quirky dark comedy inspired by a real life story, you will hardly believe is actually true, it set in Iraq, and follows a reporter, Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), who stumbles onto the story of a lifetime when he meets a special forces operator, Lyn Cassady (George Clooney). As they embark on a new mind-boggling mission, Lyn reveals his twenty-year involvement in a top-secret wing, psychic military unit and shares details of their activities, each more bizarre than the last.
The film has such a fantastically odd story that Heslov would have been well advised to stay out of the way and let the bizarre details stand on their own. He has tried to crowbar Ronson's anecdotes into a feeble story, and slips too easily into lackluster wrap-up mode down the stretch, but it still has enough serious satire to recommend it. Meanwhile, the screenwriter Peter Straughan hit on more juicy material than he knew what to do with when he adapted Ronson's controversial book and began researching the subject matter himself.
As the result, the film is merely a light-hearted approach, advocating peace and acid not war. It has a glorious good time satirizing the extravagant lengths to which the military and intelligence establishments will go if they think there's a payoff at the other end. However, the film somewhat disappoints because the narrative Straughan has come up with isn't that engaging? the best stuff is in the flashbacks where Clooney, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey do battle for the future of the New Earth Army, which contains the most actual material from the original book.

Rihanna's "Wait Your Turn" Video Premieres

The R&B songstress Rihanna has finally premiered a dark and gothic themed music video for her latest and promotional song "Wait Your Turn (The Wait Is Ova)," on late Tuesday via the popstar's official site RihannaNow, and also released the tracklisting of 13 songs for her upcoming album "Rated R," which is scheduled for a release date of November 23. The song was written by The-Dream and produced by StarGate and co-produced with Chase & Status. The first play of "Wait Your Turn" was on Radio 1.
The grainy, raw, black and white music video "Wait Your Turn" was shot in Washington Heights, New York City on October 16, and was directed by frequent Rihanna collaborator Anthony Mandler, who also directed for Jay-Z's dark video "Run This Town". There's no plot to speak of, just Rihanna singing to the chorus, the clip features black-and-white scenes, capturing Rihanna wearing an eye patch and a high-necked jacket in one scene sporting her Road Runner hairstyle while traipsing around a desolate park, a rooftop overlooking Manhattan and a bridge. There are also scenes where the Barbadian songstress is sporting a black hoodie and singing the song in a church, and later, hugs a white statue of an angel, all while showing some skin in a black bustier, naturally.
"I was involved in a lot of the writing," Rihanna previously told Glamour magazine about her new album. "I put everything I've wanted to say for the past eight months into my music. The songs are really personal. It's rock and roll, but it's really hip-hop: If Lil Wayne and Kings of Leon like my album, then I'll feel good.""I would not change anything about it. Even if people don't love it, I made exactly the piece of art that I wanted to make. It's super fearless - which is exactly how I feel right now. I am in a really good place," she continued. Young Jeezy, will.i.am and Slash are confirmed as featured guests in the album.
In addition to "Wait Your Turn" video, fans can also expect another video from Rihanna coming out next Friday, November 13 on ABC following her "20/20" interview. Directed also by Anthony, this forthcoming video is aimed to promote her single "Russian Roulette", which is penned by Ne-Yo and picked up as the lead single.

Backstreet Boys Debut "Bigger" Music Video

The Grammy-nominated American vocal group Backstreet Boys have just released the music video for new song entitled "Bigger", which is the second official single from the boy group's latest highly anticipated album, "This Is Us." The mid­tempo single finds them re-teaming with their biggest hits "I Want It That Way" hitmaker Max Martin, the mastermind behind hits singles who recently produced tracks for Pink and Britney Spears.
The video for "Bigger" was filmed in early October, while the group was promoting their album "This Is Us," in Tokyo, Japan. The videos was directed by Frank Borin and released on the group's official YouTube account. The four members of the band is mainly seen performing the song through the streets of Tokyo to perform their new single. The group dines at maid cafes features several Japanese girls, visit ancient temples, and even perform their song with locals at a karaoke bar along with a bunch of locals. It ends with the crowd at the karaoke party singing the "la la la la la la" line of the chorus.
The boys will make appearance at upcoming X-Factor, and head to Japan again in 2010 to perform a string of dates on their "This Is Us" Tour. Kicking off February 5th with three dates at the Saitama Super Arena, the group also hits World Hall and the Nippon Gaishi Hall for dates that month. Fans can visit their official website to find more detailed info about their on-going tour.