Super Bowl Sunday Tidbits

My favorite commercials

- Eminem's Chrysler commercial. Say what you want about him but he's always been loyal to Detroit. It reminded me of his video for "Beautiful" which was almost a love letter to the city. A commercial with a soul.
- Actually Eminem in general. He's never done commercials but after 2 that were out of the box, he won. The Brisk one was hilarious too and I'm glad Em can poke fun at himself again.
- Doritos killed the game this year. Almost all of their commercials were funny and creative. Except for one I'll get to later.
- Fast and Furious 5. I saw a trailer preview last year and the only reason I'm geeked is because this is the finale and everyone is coming back. 10 years after F+F 1, this has to end well because F+F 4 was a surprisingly good one.
- Darth Vader and Volkswagen. Cute, funny and unlike most non-food commercials, didn't wait too long to get to the point (*cough cough* Audi).
- Okay, the Pepsi Max commercial with the Black couple was actually funny at the end. So it had obviously bad stereotypes that most folks can admit, but it diffused the tension with that can knocking the girl out. Didn't expect that.
- The Chevy car after the first date had genuine emotion. But I don't know if I'd use OnStar to check Facebook.


Commercial fails
- Repeat after me. If your commercial takes way too long to tell me what you're selling or you uses too many distracting gimmicks without me knowing what for. You failed. The Audi commercial was a flop cause I didn't get the visual metaphor and I know the average person sure as heck didn't either (Kenny G was funny though)
- Snickers gets low twos for rehashing their 2010 SB ad with Richard Lewis and a nearly unrecognizable Roseanne Barr. Not funny, not creative and almost annoying.
- The only Doritos commercial that sucked was the guy sucking the finger off 1 guy and ripping the pants off another to taste the cheese dust. Let somebody try that and they'll get 5 knuckles in their mouth. Disgusting and a cheap laugh attempt that backfired.
- If you still get suckered by GoDaddy.com's teasing, you might want to stop leaving milk and cookies for Santa. Their ads are tired and Danica Patrick is barely keeping them afloat.
- Transformers 3? Cowboys and Aliens? At least the new Pirates movies looked interesting for reasons I don't know but those two movies make me say huh and why??

So somehow I didn't realize Christina Aguilera flubbed the national anthem until Twitter starting blowing up. It's one of the hardest songs to sing and maybe Christina got nervous which surprises me because she's performed it great at Staples Center several times. I feel bad cause I thought she did a great job and looked good as usual. But ah well.

Finally, the Black Eyed Peas at halftime. Deep breaths......*removes palm from face*

I thought it couldn't get worse when they were announced because at least BEP puts on a good show despite my hate for them. Boy was I wrong. They just stood there and rapped with no passion and a lot of distractions. They showed why a lot of hip-hop acts suck live because they have no presence and just stand there.

That's the final straw for BEP losing my respect. Losing their great live show and coming across like the robots they sound like in their records. That performance had no soul and Fergie sounded terrible. Axl Rose should call Slash first thing in the morning to ask about a reunion because that was uuuuuuuuuuugly.

Fergie was a decently great rock singer (peep her cover of Heart's Barracuda) but that performance w/Slash was terrible in every sense of the word. No sex appeal, zero enjoyment and a disgrace to G'N'R.

Usher showed up out of nowhere to dance around for a while which summed up why I thought the whole sucked. It was disjointed and felt completely rushed as BEP ran through hits with no timing - kinda like, oh yeah let's end with "I Got a Feeling" because that makes sense. Almost like the NFL wanted to pick a modern act who would suck so badly they'd make us stop complaining about the older acts. Sabotage I tell ya!

At least the game was great because the commercials outside of Doritos were flat or great. If only Old Spice could've brought back Isaiah Mustafa for one more ad....

Flashback Friday: 1999 Albums

It's hard to believe that these albums are 10 years old. But more importantly, it's crazy how many these albums sold. This was the beginning of the end for albums consistently selling like crazy because Napster was looming and completely changed the music game.

To me, the biggest surprise of the 2000's was when Usher, Outkast and Norah Jones sold over 10 million copies of their albums. All it did was remind me of how our favorite (and not so favorite) artists used to do it in 1999-2000. You could pretty much go platinum easily if you had a monster hit like "Mambo No. 5."

It was the year of pop success that wouldn’t stop til 2001. Shania Twain, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock were the faces of music. Again it boggles my mind that this year was 10 years ago. A lifetime ago when the record industry was in the middle of making its last stand and pop stars were seemingly made overnight.

It was the perfect storm of MTV’s “Total Request Live” blowing up and a year where people wanted to party. It was like everybody wanted to end the 20^th century on top and pretty much, nearly everybody did.

Favorite 5 Albums of 1999

1. red hot chili peppers – californication

2. rage against the machine - battle of los angeles

3. mos def – black on both sides (Black Dante's Illmatic)

4. moby – play (changed the game with marketing despite no hit single until summer 2001)

5. the roots – things fall apart

* right at No. 6 - Dr. Dre 2001

Top Comebacks

1. Santana

2. TLC/RHCP

3. Dr. Dre

4. Slick Rick (Street Talkin was the joint)

5. Jordan Knight/Joey McIntyre (tie - all the New Kids fans came out the wood work for these two. Top 10 hits for both)

6. Stone Temple Pilots (“Sour Girl” is still one of my Top 5 STP joints)

Top debuts (besides the Mighty Mos Def)

1. Ja Rule (hip hop’s next big superstar)/Britney Spears (Queen of Pop til 2004)

2. Christina Aguilera (pop’s greatest voice since then)

3. Eminem

4. Dixie Chicks (country wouldn’t be the same)

5. Slipknot (brought some much needed edge to rock)

6. Ricky Martin (everyone was “Livin La Vida Loca” that summer)

*other notable debuts – Pharoahe Monch, Staind, Lil’ Wayne, Jessica Simpson, Q-Tip

Career-making Albums

1. Creed – Human Clay (hailed as the kings of rock before the backlash started)

2. DMX – And Then There Was X (the last No. 1 album of the century and believe it or not, the 2nd biggest 1st-week sales of the year behind the Backstreet Boys...just a reminder how HUGE this guy was and how far he's fallen.)

3. Limp Bizkit - Significant Other

4. Backstreet Boys – Millenium (hate to put a pop joint on here, but it signified the rise of pop taking over the radio and the biggest artists selling a million in their 1^st week - everyone who sold a mil)

5. Blink 182 – Enema of the State (hello Travis Barker, hello pop charts, hello plenty of imitators)

6. Hot Boys – Guerrila Warfare (another key cog in Cash Money’s takeover)

7. Incubus – Make Yourself (possibly their best album and just like Moby, another 2-year build to greatness)

Great Albums that came through

Method Man & Redman “Blackout” (“Da RockWilder” is one of the best beats of the last 10 years)

Kurupt – Streetz is a Mutha (West Coast Classic)

Jimmy Eat World – Clarity

Jennifer Lopez – On the 6 (more on this in Flashback on Latin Pop)

Eve – Ruff Ryders 1^st Lady (the last female rapper to debut with an impactful career – sorry Remy Ma, Scenario 2000 smashes most posse cuts since then)

ODB – N***a Please

Nine Inch Nails – The Fragile

311 – Soundsystem

Foo Fighters - There is Nothing Left to Lose

Metallica – S&M

Biggest American Flop: Robbie Williams. The biggest pop star in England tried to make a splash over here and after being signed to Capitol Records, he only went gold. Consider him the music version of soccer, everyone else loves him, we don’t (“Millenium” is a great pop song though)

* Of course that doesn’t includes Memphis Bleek, whose debut flopped in 1999 and he’d keep trying to make hits to no avail. If you couldn't sell during THIS time, is it any surprise he didn't sell this decade?

That's Flashback Friday, hope y'all enjoyed it!