Timbaland

Hard Knock Life: Jay-Z Then and Now

This week marks the beginning of a legacy. On October 17, 1998, Jay-Z's Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, the first of Jay-Z's many albums to do so and the start of a streak that continues today. Every Jay-Z album since has hit No. 1, making him the current record holde ... More >>

Missed Connections: 5 Summer Fest Weekend Team-Ups We'd Like To See

In terms of pure variety, the weekend of June 1-3 may be the most stacked weekend of music Houston will see this year, and that's not just because of Summer Fest. In addition to the wide variety of acts playing Eleanor Tinsley Park there's the regular weekend mass of shows taking place across the ci ... More >>

Causing a Commotion: The Madonna Super Bowl Set List We'd Like to See

Rumors swirled across the Web on Tuesday that Madonna's upcoming Super Bowl set list had leaked. It sent shivers down the spines of pop historians and shrugs across the shoulders of people who know which teams are actually playing in the Super Bowl. Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. have already confirmed th ... More >>

Top 10 Hip-Hop Album Intro Tracks

​Before iTunes and Amazon gave us the luxury of picking and choosing which tracks we want off an album, we had to buy the entire CD or cassette tape to listen to everything we paid for. The intro tracks are usually what help us decide if the album is something we were going to love start to fi ... More >>

Saturday Night: Chris Cornell At The House Of Blues

Photos by Marc Brubaker​Chris Cornell Warehouse Live April 2, 2011 Check out our slideshow of Chris Cornell performing solo at House of Blues. We can only assume that this current cross-country solo acoustic jaunt by Chris Cornell is a warm-up for a full assault by his recently reunited Soun ... More >>

Top Five Songs About Horses

​Rocks Off's regular readers presumably know by now that we love few things more than offbeat anniversaries, and recently we came across one of the oddest yet. Thirty-two years ago Monday, on Feb. 28, 1979, the "actor" who played the original Mr. Ed in the 1960s TV show passed away. Yes, we're ... More >>

Wu-Tang Clan's Best Pop-Culture References

​Rocks Off can't rightfully remember the last time the whole Wu-Tang Clan was ever in Houston, if they ever have been. For some reason, we keep wanting to think they came once with Rage Against The Machine around 1997. In 2007, they came to Dallas on the Rock The Bells summer tour with Nas, Ta ... More >>

Return of the Boomba

Crowd and music are equally animated at Escobar's weekly dubstep night.

Hip Hop Honors Doesn't Totally Embarrass The South

VH1 honored the Dirty South for the 2010 edition of Hip-Hop Honors. We flew out there and sat in on the taping this past weekend. Or we Tivo'd it while we put our kids to bed and then watched it afterwards. One of those is true. Willie D​ 8:00 p.m.: Oh, good. Darrell from The Office is hosting to ... More >>

New iPhone? Rocks Off Has an App for That.

Photo illustrations by John Seaborn Gray​ We know a ton of you got iPhones over the holiday break. Well, good news: Rocks Off has spent the last few months developing our own iPhone applications (or "apps," as the urban kids are saying) and we're thrilled to debut them here. All inquiries, critici ... More >>

The 11 Stupidest Events from the World of Music, 2009 Edition

Hi there, 2009. Please have a seat. Are you comfortable? Would you like some coffee, or perhaps a cigarette? No? Okay, good. Let's just cut straight to the point, then. You suck, and frankly we're sick of your bullshit. You were an awful year, filled not just with economic collapse, scary right-wi ... More >>

Saturday Night Fever

Web exclusive!

Keri Hilson

Listening Room: Neil Young's Fork In the Road

Neil Young Fork In the Road www.neilyoung.comYa gotta love Ol' Shakey. Even moreso than fellow cantankerous classic rocker Bob Dylan, he goes where his muse leads him, everyone else be damned. Acoustic rock? Heavy rock? Country? Blues? Rockabilly? Unintelligible vocoders and synthesizers? He's done ... More >>

Aftermath: Chris Cornell at Warehouse Live

Photos by Mark C. Austin Timbaland, who produced Chris Cornell's new album Scream, has been making the promotional rounds telling the media he thinks it could make Cornell "the first rock star in the club." Judging by Cornell's prodigious set at Warehouse Live Sunday night - onstage around 10: ... More >>

Album of the Week: Chris Cornell's Scream

Chris Cornell Scream www.chriscornell.com The good news? This oft-delayed collaboration between Chris Cornell and overpriced hip-hop producer Timbaland isn't quite the creative debacle snarkster trainspotters have prophesied. The bad news? Scream doesn't even approach Cornell's best moments ... More >>

Top Ten Dance Collections of 2008, Both Mixed and Unmixed

Any knucklehead with DSL and a laptop can now make an electronic track. With a half hour of clicking and fiddling, you can sample enough cheesy beats and mashups to clog arteries from here to Berlin. Simple dropdown mouse maneuvers can transform electro tracks into progressive house tracks (from dry ... More >>

Duran Duran

Turning the Screw: Chamillionaire, Immortal Technique, 50 Cent, Damon Dash, Lil Wayne, Timbaland, Raekwon, South Park Mexican and More

Welcome back to Turning the Screw, Rocks Off's weekly rap post. It probably won’t rhyme, at least most of the time. E-mail tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Thanks, homies. Single of the Week: Chamillionaire, “Swagger Like Us Freestyle” We normally reserve this section for unknown local ... More >>

Turning the Screw: TxHustla, Beanie Sigel, Lil' Wayne, Ciara, Kanye, Tupac, Akon, Usher and More

An Evening with Thee Armada, Houston's Next Big Thing

Rock, Shock and Load

Single File

5ingles: The Breeders, Mariah Carey, Lupe Fiasco, Madonna, Hannah Montana

The improbable redemption of Ashlee Simpson

"La La" Love You

Our Favorite Albums of 2007

Panning for gold in an avalanche of 2007 releases

Duran Duran: Red Carpet Massacre

Britney Spears, Blackout

Blackout

M.I.A.

Drenched In Blog: Broing Down with the Hives

M.I.A.

Kala

Redman

Red Gone Wild

Wait a minute ...

Friday Chart Check

Rotation: Timbaland Presents Shock Value

Snoop Dogg

Tha Blue Carpet Treatment

In with the New

Despite doom-and-gloom predictions, 2006 wasn't at all bad

Phat Promises for 2007

New Year's resolutions of the stars

Best Albums of the Year, 2006

Spank Rock

Yoyoyoyoyo

Cowboy Troy

Loco Motive

Rotation

Golden Homies

Rap firebrands Brand Nubian mellow with age

Cee-Lo

Cee-Lo Green... Is The Soul Machine (Arista)

Shakin' That Smart Ass

DJ /rupture's bombastic genre pastiche is incredibly cerebral, not to mention surprisingly fun to dance to

Here Come the Drums

Dhol Beat International takes the stage at Lotus

Greek Out

Distributors still don't honeymoon with small romantic comedies

New Releases Reviewed

Geri Halliwell, Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott

Rotation

Rotation

Rotation