Celine Dion

Idol Chatter

Drenched in Blog: Happy 25th, Thriller

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

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

Low and Outside

Welcome to the ballpark. And brown fields and barren expanses of a still-not-rejuvenated section of downtown.

Rub-a-Dub-Dub

Austin-based Grimy Styles lives up to its name

Bill-bored

At least Tom Jones left the mesh shirt at home

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 >>

Played Out

The secrets of radio success Repetition. Caution. Repetition. Caution. Repetition.

My Fart Will Go On

The secrets of radio success Repetition. Caution. Repetition. Caution. Repetition.

The pAper chAse

Grammy-nominated music producer fronts sinister Dallas rock quartet

Mariah Carey

Thursday, August 28

Watering Down the Drinks

Hey, wasn't Coyote Ugly supposed to serve up sex and alcohol?

2007 Music Year in Review

Hey, wasn't Coyote Ugly supposed to serve up sex and alcohol?

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?

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

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

The Burden Brothers

Saturday, May 11

Silver and Gold (and Green)

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

Letters

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

Rotation

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

Talking With Air Guitar Master Bjorn Turoque

For the past six years, Dan Crane, aka "Bjorn Turoque" has been the preeminent ambassador for the world of air guitar. He retired from competition in the Air Guitar World Championships in 2005 and made a lateral move to being the touring roadshow nightly MC - or the "Master of Air-emonies," as he ca ... 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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

Rocks Off's Annual Descent Into Sunny 99.1's Christmas Music K-Hole

Sometimes being naughty is nice...​Since 2008, I have spent an hour listening to Sunny 99.1 FM's Christmas music for the Rocks Off blog. Right after Thanksgiving, it's the first thing on my checklist, right next to finding new, weird holiday music for you and trying not to gain 20 pounds in me ... 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 >>

Happy 30th, Amy Lee of Evanescence; Six Reasons We Like You

​While Evanescence and their lead singer, Amy Lee, continue to find mainstream success (their most recent album was number one on the charts when it was released in October), they are a band that is maligned in the same way as other polished heavy bands like Creed and Nickelback, though we are ... More >>

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

www.cheese-burger.net​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 ... 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 Sm ... More >>