I was on iTunes the other night and stumbled across a new single by Chrisette Michele. I really loved her first album, I Am. After playing the 30-second sample of Epiphany I bought it without hesitation.

The premise of the song—after spending another lonely night waiting for her man, who doesn’t seem to know how to come home, she gets an epiphany… leave.

How many times did I fall for your lies
How many times did I fall down and cry
Never questioning why? why? why? why?
It just came to me
Like an epiphany
How about if I just leave-e-e-e

[Chorus]
So I think I’m just about over being your girlfriend
I’m leaving, I’m leaving…

It’s your basic break up song. But, with it’s sultry sexy groove, it’s not a sad song at all. That is what caught my attention. I can hardly wait for the May release of the complete album.

If the video is disabled,  click here to go to Youtube.

I’ve been a fan of Tina Turner’s for a long time, but have never had an opportunity to see her perform live until now. And the opportunity came as quite a surprise to me. I got to the office on Wednesday morning and found a FedEx package on my desk. At first I thought it was one of those cleaver promo pieces that artists and photographers use to try and get hired, until I looked closer. They turned out to be real tickets to see Tina at the the Prudential Center in Newark on Thanksgiving night—mezzanine level, first row, stage left. It turned out to be a good seat.

I was able to find some videos on YouTube.com that were taken the night I was there. So if you click on the links that are song titles, you will get the actual performance from Thanksgiving or the night before. But be warned, the quality is not that great. There are clips at the end.

Tina Turner definitely rocked “The Rock” (the nickname for the Prudential Center). To say the least, the show was exciting and high-energy all the way. It was really special being once I found out it was her 50th Anniversary Tour. Each time something exciting happened, I would use my BlackBerry and “tweet” updates to my friends who use Twitter. The show opened with “Steamy Windows” and just got hotter from there. At one point during the show, Tina left the stage. The band was still playing and a guy seemed to jump on the stage from the audience. A security guard chased him around the stage while the band played on. Once the stage jumper began doing acrobatic moves we realized it was all a part of the show. They were “special guest” called The Ninjas. There were two other “fight” scenes when it was time for costume changes. Tina performed for two hours, with a thirty-minute intermission in between each hour. Right before intermission the stage exploded with pyrotechnics and fireworks. The place was literally smoking.

After intermission, there was an acoustic type set with several bluesy numbers that started with “Help.” The large screens projected in black and white, which was a nice added touch. Next came one of my favorites, her cover of “Let’s Stay Together.” The song was sweet! The backup singers were killing it on that song.

Speaking of backup singers, one of them was Lisa Fischer. She is known as the long-time backup singer for Luther Vandross. She also won a Grammy for her single, “How Can I Ease the Pain.” Lisa and I graduated from high school together—the class of 1976, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art in NYC. She was a vocal major, of course, and I was an art major. It’s been a few years since I’ve spoken to her so it was a pleasant surprise seeing her on stage and hearing that incredible voice of hers. She got a little of the spotlight with “Only Rock and Roll.”

Lisa Fischer on the left page second from the top. Aside from touring with Tina, she has also been a part of the Rolling Stones' tours.

It’s hard to select a highlight of the show—there were so many high points. But I guess the main highlight has to been during the “encore” segment when Tina sings “Nutbush City Limits.” She gets on this mechanical arm that has a long catwalk and a “basket” like platform at the end. The arm swings out over the audience and Tina hangs over the edge of the basket doing a call and repeat with the audience answering with “Nutbush, Nutbush city limits…”  The catwalk section has no rails and is about three-feet in width, but Tina runs, struts and dances along that thing like there’s nothing to it. I was nervous for her, but obviously she is used to it. Watching her dance along that thing was definitely a highlight for the audience.

I found out that for the previous night’s show, Beyoncé and Jay-Z showed up backstage to wish Tina a happy 69th birthday. That night, after the intermission, she dedicated one of the songs to them.

Since I didn’t take my camera, all these images are photos I took of the souvenir program. They are much better than any photos I could have taken from my seat in the mezzanine section.

I searched to YouTube for some clips from this current tour. It seems quite a few concert-goers used their camera phones or just wiped out camcorders. Though they are from different venues, the shows are basically the same. Hopefully, this gave you a taste of the Tina Turner experience.

It was simply the best!

If you have iTunes and have not tried the “Genius” feature yet, you are missing out on a musical treat. I’ve been working at my computer and jamming for over an hour. I happen to have over 3,000 songs loaded on my iTunes/iPod. Some of the songs haven’t played since 2004. The Genius feature of iTunes does an awesome job of creating a playlist of similar music—often pulling in stuff you haven’t heard in years. And the other great thing is that you can save the playlist for future use—when you sync your iPod that playlist will be loaded also. It is so simple and so cool to use.

To get started, all you do is:

1. First, you have to upgrade to iTunes 8. Once it is installed you have to “update” Genius so that it can gather information about your music collection.
2. Select a song from your iTunes library.
3. Click the Genius bottom at the bottom of the iTunes window.
4. iTunes will now give you a list of related or similar music. You will have to “train” Genius about the music that is in your collection for it function correctly. If you purchase new releases, it may take a little time for Genius to recognize the new releases.
5. You can limit your play list to 25, 50, 75 or 100 songs.
6. Based on what in your collect, iTunes will recommend other songs that you can purchase at the iTunes Store (of course there was ulterior motive—to get you to purchase more music).

It’s that simple and easy.

Genius is simple and easy to use.

You can customize the length of your playlist.

Genius will recommend music that might be missing from your collection.

All week I wondered, “Now that the election is over what will SNL do for fun?” How about Justin as one of the leotard dancers in Beyonce’s video, “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)?”

I missed the beginning of the show, but when I turned the channel to SNL, this is the skit that was in progress. I admit, it cracked me up, but there was something really freaky about those guys in dancing around in leotards and heels. And Justin… I’ll let you watch it.

Here’s the real video in case you haven’t seen it or can’t get enough of “B”…

Finally—and it’s about time—Jennifer has found a song that can be a hit for her. It’s been a long time since American Idol and Dreamgirls. I and many others totally ripped her acting performance in Sex and the City. Singing is what she is known for, and there’s no doubt, she does it well.

Spotlight is the single from Jennifer’s soon to be released album (in stores 9/30/08). I heard this song a few weeks ago, and I’ll admit, I was trying hard not to like it. But I’m really digging it. It has a nice groove and her vocals are on point. Now I’m interested to hear the rest of the album.

(Direct link to video in case the embed doesn’t work.)

With the excitement of the Democratic National Convention and Obama making history, a few other things fell to the side. For one, today (08.29.08) Michael Jackson turned 50 years olds. That is amazing. I remember when he and his brothers started out. My fifth grade class was just crazy for the Jackson Five. Sometimes you can look at a person that you knew when they were younger and say, “You haven’t changed a bit. You still look the same.” But you can’t exactly say that about Michael.

Anyway, I had some fun going down memory lane…

I Want You Back/ABC, Ed Sullivan Show (maybe 1970)

The Love You Save (maybe 1970 also)

Dancing Machine, live on Merv Griffin (1974)

Thriller (1982)

Beat It (1982)

Bad (1987)

Remember the Time (1992)

Scream (1995)

I’m not sure how I feel about this, but from my first impression, Terrence shouldn’t quit his day job. Personally, I think he could use a little more vocal work—but hey, that’s just me. I love Terrence as much as the next woman, but I don’t think this will be the beginning of a new career.

I’ve wondered what happened to Ruben. He didn’t quite take off the way some expected. I know he had an album released late 2006, but I didn’t hear much about it. Of his three albums released so far, it was the lowest selling. There are some who tried to label him the “next” Luther Vandross. Well, those are shoes way too big for anyone to fill.

Source: cnn.com