Celine Dion

Paul Anka, Ladies' Man and Sinatra Worshipper, Tells It His Way

My Way: An Autobiography By Paul Anka with David Dalton St. Martin's Press, 384 pp., $29.99 Currently celebrating his 55th year in show business with this autobiography and the new CD Duets -- which finds him singing with artists like Celine Dion, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and (through the magic ... More >>

Terminal Confusion: Why Are These the UK's Most Popular Funeral Songs?

Recently, a survey conducted in the UK revealed the most popular songs played at funerals. The big news everyone seems to be talking about is that Adele's "Someone Like You -- a song all about how replaceable a person is -- made it to No. 22. But we here at Rocks Off find the Top 5 equally confoundi ... More >>

Top 5 Weirdest & Worst Musical Collaborations

In the history of music, there have been many meetings of the mind between people with similar attitudes, styles, and ideas. Some of these just felt right from the very beginning and you knew they were destined to produce greatness. That's what happened when Brian Eno met David Bowie and later when ... More >>

Hey Ladies! The 10 Most She-Tastic Artists of All Time

Have you ever noticed this: Men and women have different musical tastes. At times, they do. Why? Because men and women have different interests, for the most part. Think about it, boys: while you may want to play some Metallica, your girlfriend (or mom) may want listen to Sheryl Crow or Madonna. A ... More >>

Celine Dion Sued for Overtime Violations, Starts Apocalypse

Even though Mason Lankford said, "There will come a day when we forget the Rapture ever even happened," Rocks Off is keeping an eye out for signs of our impending Armageddon. We were wrong last time, but we're totally right this time! Megastar Celine Dion is involved in a minor lawsuit at the momen ... More >>

Double Duds: The 10 Worst Duets Since "Ebony and Ivory"

Thirty years ago this week, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder hit No. 1 on the charts with their duet, "Ebony and Ivory." The song spent seven weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 and the past three decades as a joke. Perhaps history's most hackneyed call for racial harmony (which, admittedly, ... More >>

Musical "Holograms" We Don't Want To See Anytime Soon (OK, Yes We Do)

A lot has been made about the Tupac "hologram" at Coachella. First off, it's not really a hologram as much as it is CGI "magic" and it's nothing new, seeing that they have been doing it Japan for a few years now. But they do lots of things in Japan. It's even to get swept up in the madness because ... More >>

Pulling A Cee-Lo: 11 More Contemporary Artists Who Need Their Own Vegas Residency

​Cee-Lo Green raised eyebrows a couple of weeks ago when he announced that he was settling down -- in Las Vegas. The Grammy-winning "Fuck You" singer says that his new semi-permanent show, "Loberace," will launch Aug. 29 at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino on the Vegas Strip and run at least throu ... More >>

Whitney & Me: One Fan's Recollections

Saturday I got a text from a close friend saying that Whitney Houston had passed away. Needless to say, I was a bit shocked. I honestly thought she would be around for years to come so that she could could keep blessing us all with her terrific voice.. I grew up listening to Contemporary Christian ... More >>

Top 10 Carole King Songs Written for Other Artists

Carole King is a woman who has played a major part in creating numerous classic hit songs. She has helped to shape popular music since she and then-husband Gerry Goffin (they divorced in 1968) wrote "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" in 1961. Her songs have been covered by such diverse artists as Smokey Ro ... More >>

La La Love You: Top Ten Cheesiest Love Songs For Valentine's Day

It's that time of year again. Everything is red and full of hearts. Chocolates and roses are marked up. Couples are showing off and singles are desperately searching online dating services for a quick set-up to give them their own special day. That's right, it's about to be Valentine's Day! Some are ... More >>

Taking Apart Yesterday's Facebook Music Screed

​Yesterday, about a half-dozen of my Facebook friends forwarded a gloom-and-doom listicle from a site called Buzzfeed entitled "12 Extremely Disappointing Facts About Popular Music." Now up to over one million hits, the doom-and-gloom piece is subtitled "This is the saddest thing you'll read a ... More >>

5 Great, Utterly Absurd Moments In Diva History

​Many performers are referred to, or refer to themselves as "divas." This happens especially when the performer in question has thrown a tantrum for little or no reason. You see, "diva" is actually French for "spoiled pain in the ass." A fine recent example comes from right here in Houston: Th ... More >>

Top 20 Despised, Yet Wildly Popular, Bands And Musicians

Scott Stapp, lead singer of Creed (above), stops at House of Blues tonight on his current acoustic tour. More than likely you have already clicked off this blog, or at least already gone on auto-pilot to call him a fuck-ass in the comments section. We'll wait a sec for you to come back. OK, the ... More >>

Idol Beat: Idol Worship

Fox​The Daily Beast had a story up yesterday about how this season of American Idol might be the best ever: This year, the contenders have already proven energetic, and the audience is responding, with half a dozen developing breakout followings across the Internet, even before the finals hav ... More >>

Last Night: Fred Eaglesmith At McGonigel's Mucky Duck

Photos by Jason Wolter​Fred Eaglesmith McGonigel's Mucky Duck February 22, 2011 Rocks Off Sr. wanted to know, and he wanted to know now. "What kinda crowd is this? Canadians?" "Yeah, some, for sure." Aftermath understands these things. Instinctively. It's like drinking good whiskey. "But l ... More >>

Bee Gees' Comeback Is No Jive Talkin'

​The Bee Gees In Our Own Time Eagle Vision, 116 minutes, $14.98. When you think of musical "comebacks," perhaps the greatest one belongs to the Bee Gees. Think about it: In their mid-20s, the Manchester, England-born Brothers Gibb had already had success as children/teens in Australia (whence ... More >>

Kanye's Best My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy Lyrics

​It doesn't hit the streets, legally, until Monday, but Kanye West's long-gestating My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy leaked a few weeks back. Since then, Rocks Off has been spinning our preview copy quite a bit at the office. It's not the completely finished version about to hit stores and ... More >>

This Weekend's Best Football Bets: Live From The East Coast

UConn football: It's like LSU-Bama, except for EVERYTHING​So my vacation rolls on and I just landed in the sports mecca -- Hartford, CT. Tonight I will be taking my talents to Rentschler Field (or as I like to call it, The House Orlovsky Built) for UConn against West Virginia.So I land at 12:45 p. ... More >>

Die Antwoord's "Evil Boy": More Disturbing Than Gaga?

​Wednesday, Rocks Off came across the full length video for Die Antwoord's new song, "Evil Boy," which makes Lady Gaga seem like Celine Dion. The South African hip-hop trio is poised to break big, if not majorly weird, over the next few months with their album 5. Rapping in part English and ... More >>

Lotus Effect Reacts To HPMA Win Rather... Dramatically

Each Wednesday, Rocks Off arbitrarily appoints one lucky local performer or group "Artist of the Week," bestowing upon them all the fame and grandeur such a lofty title implies. Know a band or artist that isn't awful? Email their particulars to sheaserrano@gmail.com. ​Here's part of a email ... More >>

Bobby Heugel's Weekly Cocktail: The Maple Leaf

​Why write about a drink whose names suggest such a pro-Canadian agenda in, of all states, Texas? Because right about now, we are probably all wishing we were in Canada. The upcoming weekend in Montreal sounds nice - high of 77 and low of 56. Hell, sitting through a Celine Dion concert, dealin ... More >>

Celine Dion To Return For Mermaid Titanic Sequel?

​New York Craigslisters were abuzz, ABUZZ we tell you, when a posting went out for... Titanic 2: Mermaid Saviors. The ad reads as follows: Megamonolith Pictures is holding an open casting call for TITANIC 2: MERMAID SAVIORS, a sequel to the Academy Award-winning 1997 blockbuster TITANIC, on July 1 ... More >>

FAIL - Billy Corgan, Courtney Love, Justin Bieber, Celene Dion, Apple

If you're reading this, you're either on the Internet, or else you've mastered multi-dimensional thought-projection processes that would make Michio Kaku cry like a little girl. We'll assume the former, and just in case you don't already know, the Internet has decided that the word "failure" is too ... More >>

Idol Beat: A Lot of Hot Air In the Windy City

​So here we are with our pants on the ground, in the second week of American Idol, and it'll be another month before auditions end. At first I was pleasantly surprised to find that last night's episode was just an hour: I did my time in the trenches with Dancing With the Stars and assumed tha ... More >>

American Idol: A Lot of Hot Air in the Windy City

​So here we are with our pants on the ground, in the second week of American Idol, and it'll be another month before auditions end. At first I was pleasantly surprised to find that last night's episode was just an hour: I did my time in the trenches with Dancing With the Stars and assumed that ... More >>

Rocks Off's Picks for This Weekend's Fun Fun Fun Festival

You can think of this weekend's Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin as the indie, metal, and hip-hop little brother of the more staid Austin City Limits Music Festival. The fourth edition of the two-day event held in Waterloo Park in Austin starts tomorrow afternoon. Per our stated life path, Rocks Off will ... More >>

Kick 'em While They're Down: The Worst Songs Ever Recorded For Charity

Please take this thing away from me. Please.​ When Rocks Off received an email touting Sting's new MySpace charity video for the Prince of Wales' Rainforest Project, we almost chipped a fingernail hurriedly clicking on the link, which promised oodles of celebrities such as Olivia Newton-John, Rich ... More >>

Aftermath: Yanni at Toyota Center

Craig Hlavaty Words like pageantry, wonderment, and spectacle aren't used very much in the Aftermath lexicon. It's hard to divvy out those special labels when we are covering bleeding dudes in bondage gear half-raping each other on stage, the weekly parade of washed-up alt-rock groups making another ... More >>

Tonight: Broken Social Scene at Numbers

Poster by Mr. CastilloSince 1999, Canadian indie rockers Broken Social Scene have made consistently brilliant and always original experimental baroque-pop music, enlisting the help of a myriad of artists along the way: Metric's Emily Haines, Leslie "1,2,3,4" Feist, Jason Collett, Am ... More >>

The pAper chAse

Grammy-nominated music producer fronts sinister Dallas rock quartet

Ten Performers Besides Bruce Springsteen Who Were Considered for the Super Bowl

Miss Pop Rocks Loves (the First Half of) the Oscars

Drenched in Blog: Happy 25th, Thriller

Hurricane Forecasts, Telemarketers, Evacuation Plans

Hurricanes a-comin'

Critic's Dictionary

The A's

The Music Critics Dictionary

Translating critic-speak

Musical Food Groups

If singers were cheese, what kind of cheese would they be?

Idol Chatter

Making Scents of the Stars

A buyer's guide to celebrity fragrances

Pinmonkey

Thursday, May 25, at McGonigel's Mucky Duck, 2524 Norfolk, 713-528-5999

Rub-a-Dub-Dub

Austin-based Grimy Styles lives up to its name

Scar Wars

Austin's Vallejo performs at Whiskey Blues

Made With Love

Rosanne Cash is the friend who will say, or sing, what you can't

Gory Good Fun

Ghost Ship searches for horror

Silver and Gold (and Green)

Some artists make holiday records for the beauty, not the bucks

Letters

My Fart Will Go On

Rotation

Bill-bored

At least Tom Jones left the mesh shirt at home