Marvin Gaye

Five Songs That Are Surprisingly Awesome When Dubstepped

So I'm not sure how this blog came to fruition, but it did, and I can honestly tell you that I never expected to be writing about dubstep. I don't mind the whole electronic-music craze, but you would be hard-pressed to find me making the trek to Ultra Fest or something. (Not to mention I had to Goog ... More >>

Five Disco Songs That Make Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" Blush

Hey 2013. We need to talk. You've already produced a number of good albums, some even by new bands. But I've got a bone to pick with you, and it's about this new song by Daft Punk featuring Pharrell Williams. It's called "Get Lucky" and it's making waves with its disco revival sound that I'm guessin ... More >>

The Best of iFest's Second Weekend: Aaron Neville, Sergent Garcia, Grupo Fantasma, etc.

Aaron Neville After four certified platinum albums and a few Grammys, Aaron Neville -- now 72 -- would have had every right to hang it all up years ago. Instead, to the delight of fans, the New Orleans soul singer found himself performing at iFest this weekend in support of his fourteenth studio alb ... More >>

Bonus Rocks Off 100: Asli Omar, The Tontons' Indie-Rock Siren

Who? It's hard to argue that any local band is more on the way up than the Tontons, and a lot of that can be credited to the incredible sounds that come out of singer Asli Omar's mouth. Smooth as silk sheets, but with a pop-princess kind of power that enables her to stand firmly with one foot in ind ... More >>

T.I. Unveils Trouble Man at Houston's Wire Road Studios

T.I. is no Marvin Gaye. Or is he? Both men were blessed with supreme talent as musicians and songwriters. Both men exhibit an overflowing charisma and a flair for the dramatic. Both men chose acting as a supplementary alternative expression of their talents. Both men were also cursed with an unfor ... More >>

Mo' Money, Mo' Problems: 5 Musicians Who Had to File for Bankruptcy

Recently it was revealed that Cat Power was not only suffering from a serious illness called angiodema that was threatening to stop her European tour, but also that she has filed for bankruptcy. That tour has indeed been postponed, but Cat Power is hardly the first musician to be running low on cash ... More >>

Marvin Gay, Sr., and the 10 Worst Rock-Star Parents of All Time

Twenty-eight years ago this week, Marvin Gay, Sr., received a six-year suspended sentence and five years of probation for the voluntary manslaughter of his son, the R&B legend Marvin Gaye. Gay pled guilty after shooting his namesake dead in the L.A. home given to him and his wife by Gaye, who was 44 ... More >>

A Soulful Christmas In July

I didn't think I would succumb to sharing with the world how freaking hot I think it is because every time I see one of you complaining about it on Facebook, I envision your head between a Foreman grill. That might be pregnancy hormones speaking, but seriously; it's July, we're in Houston, it's ou ... More >>

Parental Advisory! Another Look at the PMRC's "Dirty 15"

In 1985, the Parental Music Resource Center was formed as basically a watchdog group over popular music. Essentially, their goal was censorship. However, there was one big problem: The group was made up of the likes of Tipper Gore (wife of then-Senator and future Vice President Al Gore), Susan Bake ... More >>

5 Bands George Clooney Likes

Boy, the Houston media is in a tizzy about George Clooney today. The King of Hollywood is in town this evening as part of the "Brilliant Lecture Series" at the Wortham Center. (Celebrity With a Cause Alert: Clooney, who will be interviewed by Houston socialite Lynn Wyatt, will probably discuss his a ... More >>

Rap Round Table: If You Could Only Listen To One Musician For All Of Time, Who Would It Be?

Some rappers happen to be thoughtful, intelligent people. Each week Rocks Off will have some of them here discussing issues relevant to their culture. This Week's Panel: Killa Kyleon, Zavey, kyle Hubbard, Brad Gilmore, Mac, Doughbeezy, A.D.D., Medicine Girl, more. Not Invited: The guy at our sons' ... More >>

The X Factor: Mentoring, Mentoring & More Mentoring

Last night I was officially annoyed with The X Factor. To be fair, the show suffered from my having to wait until the Yankees lost, and my husband was done swearing and stomping around the living room, so I had to stay up really late (for me) to watch. And then I realized that the show went from 90 ... More >>

Touch the Sky

The 2011 Austin City Limits Music Festival in exactly 12 paragraphs.

Top 10 Songs To Leave Out Of Your Wedding Reception

​'Tis the summer season for tying the knot. But curse the occasion for creating the ultimate breeding ground for bad music - wedding receptions. It's one thing to unplug the jukebox in an act of defiance or flee a venue playing bad songs (I've done all of the above), but one doesn't exactly h ... More >>

Last Night: Fitz & The Tantrums At House Of Blues

Photos by Jason Wolter​Fitz & the Tantrums House of Blues Bronze Peacock Room April 18, 2011 Soul music is about power, yoking that gospel id to the pursuit of more worldly affairs, but it's also about subtlety. Grunt all you want, but smooth and steady wins the race (and wins over the ladies ... More >>

Idol Beat: Detroit, Shlock City

​In spite of Idol Beat's absence last week (I was undergoing treatment for nose hemorrhoids), Fox's karaoke juggernaut steamrollered on, topping the ratings once again for Wednesday and Thursday night. Last week's casualty, MySpace's Karen Rodriguez, wasn't much of a surprise. I mean, the bili ... More >>

Gladys Knight

Robin Thicke

Christina Aguilera's National Anthem: Better Than Carl Lewis', Anyway

​Today, Super Bowl MVP Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers are presumably on their way to Disney World, the Pittsburgh Steelers are praying Ben Roethlisberger did not do anything in the many, many strip clubs of the greater Metroplex to bring on a repeat of his season-opening four-game sus ... More >>

Rel The Chosen Flows With Soul On Beautiful Music

​If Houston's Rel The Chosen was trying to make an impression, the single CD he handed us in a plain white cover at DJ Premier's show a few months ago at Numbers wasn't doing the job. The music on the CD, however, made a spectacular impression and certainly made up for any lack of marketing ... More >>

Batusis Is No Throwback

Cheetah Chrome and Sylvain Sylvain make rock and roll new again.

Top 10 Last Words By Famous Musicians

​Musicians tend to be a mouthy lot. It takes a certain kind of soul to want and express your own inner world to the outer world at large. So when the time comes for them to shuffle off this mortal coil, they often have some very interesting exit lines... 10. Ludwig Van Beethoven, "Friends a ... More >>

Can't Forget The Motor City: Our Favorite Motown Jams, Part 2

​ Rocks Off - sorry, He Said; we're still getting used to this whole identity-shift thing - is sure some of our readers think we do nothing except sit around and listen to the Drive-By Truckers all day. To which we say: Have you heard Bettye LaVette's The Scene of the Crime or Booker T's Potato Ho ... More >>

Eyeballin: James Brown Cape-Walks Away With The T.A.M.I. Show

Often written about, mythologized, and showing up in clips on rock docs and YouTube, the 1964 concert movie The T.A.M.I. Show has amazingly never been released in uncut format until now. And though it was shot in black and white, the exuberance and energy of the concert overcomes any pigmentation pr ... More >>

Soul Night 2

Get your fill of Marvin Gaye and Tina Turner at the Aurora Picture Show's funky flashback

The Great Green Room In the Sky: The Grim Reaper's 2009 Musical Roll Call

​Thankfully, 2009 was a sorry year for the Greil Marcus Rock Death Meter. Aside from the not terribly unexpected (but still weird) demise of the King of Pop, few bona fide legends went on to the Great Green Room Beyond the Sky. The Rock Death Meter rates rock deaths on a ten-point scale in three c ... More >>

I Wanna Be Your Dog (Or Cat): Singing This Song For You

Hair Balls was talking the other day with an acquaintance who has incredible luck with the ladies. Scratch that -- it's not luck, really, because "luck" suggests that a dude who looks like Quasimodo could get lucky some day and hook up with Heidi Klum.No, this dude's situation is based more on confi ... More >>

For Your Entertainment? Nice Try, Adam Lambert, But These Music-Awards Moments Were Even Creepier

​The best news that Jennifer Lopez could possibly have heard this morning was that America is still more interested in clucking about public displays of gayness than in pointing and laughing when a diva falls on her ass. We imagine there's already one of those jumbo-sized Harry & David fruit b ... 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 >>

He Said, She Said: Gone Too Soon

A rash of recent musical deaths (Michael Jackson and DJ AM among others) have led us here at Rocks Off to do some speculating of our own: Which musicians do we feel were taken from us too soon? Obvious answers like the Famous Js (John Lennon, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin) or the dual ... More >>

A Bizarre, and Sometimes Electrifying, Tribute to Michael Jackson, Luther and Marvin at Miller Outdoor Theater

​Saturday Rocks Off and a friend attended Keeping the Music Alive, a free concert at Miller Outdoor Theatre. The show was a tribute in honor of the late Michael Jackson, the later Bernie Mac, the even later Gerald Levert, the later still Luther Vandross, and the even yet later still Barry White - ... More >>

He Said She Said: Breakup Songs to Help You Bawl, Part 2

Ever since men and women set eyes upon each other at the beginning of time, there have been break-ups, and painful dissolutions of romantic escapades have made the best art in the world. Hell, somewhere in the world there is a probably a cave painting of a pretty young Neanderthal girl with devil h ... More >>

He Said She Said: Songs for Getting It On

[Ed. Note: While we were off watching Night Ranger videos or something - which should tell you all you need to know about our own sex life at the moment - Rocks Off No. 2, Craig Hlavaty, and Web Editor Katharine Shilcutt started going back and forth about how men and women want to hear very differen ... More >>

Dancin’ in the Streets…Motown & More Revue

Web exclusive!

Digitalia: Microsoft Songsmith Corrects Artists' Glaring Oversights

Billy Idol, "White Wedding"... sort ofMicrosoft Songsmith, a music-making computer program, has already racked up plenty of Internet accolades based on its eerily terrible commercial, wherein normal, everyday people dealing with normal, everyday problems - such as being tasked to write an ad campa ... More >>

Soul Day at ACL: I Feel Good!

Musical Hurricane Preparedness Kit, Part 2: Hello Edouard (and Edward, and Ed, and Eddie...)

Redman

Red Gone Wild

Everlasting Sounds

Ten of the year's most timeless records

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band

What's Going On?

DMX

Year of the Dog...Again

Supreme Party

Bring the Hookahs

Licor Lounge goes South Asian with "Moksa"

I Want My Old-School Hip-hop

How come there's no Pharcyde or De La Soul on the dial?

Billy Cook

Certified Platinum (Def Souf)

Rotation

New Releases Reviewed

Et tu, Lenny

Like every other rocker, Lenny Kravitz is headlining his own festival

Rotation

Sound Check