Ooh, Beyoncé! I see your potty mouth, and I kinda like it.
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Sunday evening, Queen B released a new song on Tumblr, "Bow Down/I Been Down," and there's a mass hysteria a-flowin' from the general public over it, as one would expect. It's freakin' Beyoncé.
I mean, who doesn't love themselves a new Bey track? Well, apparently in this case, a lot of folks.
Glen Campbell's long slow goodbye has been going on now for a little more than a year, since he announced he was suffering from Alzheimer's. "A Better Place" is the second video from Glen Campbell's 2011 album Ghost On The Canvas, and it's a tearjerker. 
It's the goodbye.
Featuring Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme as a bartender, the clip sees Mr. Campbell looking through a scrapbook of pictures of himself throughout his long country and pop career. These are things he may not even remember himself.
Damn, Bobbie Gentry was a hottie.
When the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo announced earlier this month that King George Strait will close next year's rodeo with a special concert on Sunday, March 17, the happiest person in all of Texas may have been Randy Rogers. The Dallas-area native, a mainstay on the Texas country scene for a decade, will be the first artist to step on the Reliant stage that evening. It has to be one of the biggest venues to date in Rogers's touring schedule, which has reached the 220-days-a-year range and brings him to the Big Texas Dancehall in Spring this evening.
Randy Rogers Band on Facebook
This all dovetails nicely with my ongoing project to pay more attention to Texas country music. Not only does its popularity continue to increase around these parts, it's not just a Texas phenomenon anymore. Rogers and his ilk (like buddy Wade Bowen) routinely hit the No. 1 spot on iTunes' country chart when their albums are released, and the RRB played directly before headliners the Eagles at the Stagecoach festival (country's Coachella) in 2008.
I have been skeptical about Texas country for many years, but have recently started coming around. Most artists are well-versed in the works of both Jerry Jeff Walker and Tom Petty, which makes them okay in my book. Also, it is still much more preferable to the kind of music Nashville continues to push as country. Have you heard Rascal Flatts' "Banjo"? Whoa.
Almost half a century ago this month, the Beatles released their first U.S. single, "Please Please Me." Though a fine example of the group's early pop sound, it wasn't an immediate smash in the States. After being issued in England on the EMI-owned Parlophone label on Jan. 12, 1963, Capitol Records, EMI's U.S. label, rejected it. Atlantic passed, too. 
We were into 'em back when they were called the "Beattles."
A minor, Chicago-based label named Vee Jay finally released "Please Please Me" stateside on Feb. 25, 1963. The band's name was misspelled on the single's first pressing, and the song was a flop. It would be nearly a year until "Please Please Me" became a hit when it was re-released in the wake of the Beatles' appearance on the Jack Paar Show. Soon, Beatlemania would be in full swing.
"Please Please Me" wasn't only notable for being the Fab Four's first American single, however. It was also the group's first recorded usage of a double entendre in a song title. Using double meanings to inject a bit of sexy sleaze into songs was a common practice in the early R&B tunes that heavily influenced the Beatles during this period, and Lennon and McCartney would become masters in their own right with songs like "Honey Pie," "Drive My Car" and (ick) "Come Together."
The Beatles were nothing if not trend setters. Double-entendres, both obvious and oblique, have littered rock and roll titles for going on five decades now. Here are 10 of our favorite examples.
It started as a simple question: What albums would you leave your unborn children, if you knew you were on borrowed time and may not be around to show them the way. At first I asked for albums for sons, but then it grew broader, not out of needing to pacify the PC-thug in me, but to make sure everyone, regardless of gender, had a sort of Rosetta Stone of musical history in their hands. 
You could leave them pristine vinyl versions of these, a collection of cassettes, or maybe just a diamond-covered flash drive, if are so inclined. As for me, I will also leave my unborn child my Rdio account. That's not a paid endorsement, that's just me being expedient.
To get some obvious picks out of the way, the entire Beatles catalog will come standard with being my child, like seat-belts in cars. As will George Strait's Strait Out Of The Box, and ZZ Top's catalog.
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News of R.E.M.'s demise yesterday wasn't so much greatly exaggerated as it was endlessly propagated. I follow less than 100 people on Twitter and I'd conservatively estimate 500 of them made some mention of it. Quite a reaction to what has to be one of the most understated band break-ups of all time:
So terribly, terribly young.
"To our Fans and Friends: As R.E.M., and as lifelong friends and co-conspirators, we have decided to call it a day as a band. We walk away with a great sense of gratitude, of finality, and of astonishment at all we have accomplished. To anyone who ever felt touched by our music, our deepest thanks for listening."
No farewell tour. No final gig. No giant omnibus CD reissues (though a "greatest hits" retrospective will be coming in November). Mick Jagger and Gene Simmons probably had to be defibrillated when they heard.
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It hasn't been around for all that long, yet a pre-Internet existence is growing increasingly hard to recall, particularly when it comes to music. In addition to songs, full-length albums, artist bios and videos, the lines to almost every song ever written are just a click away. 
shakenstir.co.uk
I can't imagine what rock journalism must've been like like before the Web, with critics having to rely on speaker-dulled hearing and multiple replays to flesh out the words to a song. Sure, there was usually a little booklet tucked into the inside cover of an album, but many favored photos over lyrics, perhaps offering some explanation as to why my best friend wholeheartedly believed the lyrics to the Rolling Stones' classic "Beast of Burden" were "I'll never leave your pizza burnin'" until well into college.
It was that line of thinking that had me poking through classic-rock catalogs, and ultimately led to the lyrical (and comedic) goldmine that is REO Speedwagon.
Blame it on the humidity, but there's something about Houston that makes women go off the deep end. In fact, the Bayou City is home to three of the past decade's most notorious female-perpetrated crimes.
straightpinkie.com
There was Dr. Clara Harris (2002), who responded to the news of her husband's infidelity by running him over with her car. Three times. Or Susan Wright (2003), who claimed "battered wife syndrome" as a defense for stabbing her husband 193 times. And, our personal favorite, astronaut Lisa Nowak (2007), who drove straight across five states - in diapers - to abduct her romantic rival at the Orlando airport.
The crimes are shocking, but the intensity of a woman's wrath is nothing new, having been played out in song time and time again. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, especially one in cowboy boots. After all, revenge makes for a much sexier music video than crying in the fetal position over a gallon of ice cream.
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