Carrie Underwood ‘s fourth LP Blown Away becomes her third to blow to the peak position on Billboard ‘s Top 200 this week. The album sold 267,000 copies out of the gate, putting it behind only Madonna ‘s MDNA , which started with 358,000 last month, as far as biggest opening-week sales in 2012. Billboard also notes that Carrie joins Linda Ronstadt and Faith Hill as only the third female country artist to rack up three chart-topping albums on the Top 200. Behind Blown Away , the Top 10 sees five other debuts this week: Norah Jones ‘ Dangermouse -produced fifth album Little Broken Hearts (110,000) enters in the runner-up position, the 42nd NOW compilation (95,000) is #3, B.o.B ‘s Strange Clouds (76,000) breezes in at #5, TV tie-in The Music Of SMASH (39,000) starts at #9 and Marilyn Manson ‘s Born Villain (38,000) diabolically crashes in at #10.
b.o.b.
B.o.B and O.A.R. went for the gold last night on The Tonight Show , performing their new song “Champions” together on the late night show. The tune acts as the theme song for Duracell’s “Rely On Cooper To Go For The Gold” campaign for the 2012 London Olympic Games. “I cam here with nothing but I’m gonna leave with a legacy” raps Bobby Ray, wearing a highly appropriate T-shirt printed with a graphic of a champion’s worth of gold medals
B.o.B hit up The View this morning to endear himself to a room full of ladies with his pop-tastic new single “So Good”, off his sophomore album Strange Clouds . The custom denim and Snow Patrol fan busted out the bubbly Ryan Tedder -produced tune like a pro — we just hope Morgan Freeman (whose iconic voice appears on album opener “Bombs Away” ) joins Bobby Ray up on stage at some point during this promotional tour.
Favorites is our recurring video series on the personal preferences of the pop artists who inspire us. Because the artists we love love stuff too. It seems like we’ve been waiting forever to get our eyes all over B.o.B ‘s sophomore LP Strange Clouds , so much so that we invited the Atlanta rapper in for a chat. (Patience is not one of our virtues.) The prolific collaborator — who’s teamed with everyone from Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift to Morgan Freeman — gave us the rundown on all of his favorite things, including his most-listened-to album right now, his favorite funnyman to follow on Twitter and and his rather incendiary method of relaxation
Ready to go mental? The latest track from B.o.B ‘s Strange Clouds has popped up online, the Nicki Minaj pair-up “Out Of Mind”, and it features the Atlanta rapper offering up crazy lines like this: “I’m out of it, I can’t seem to come out of it, what’s going on inside of my head, it feels like I’m being John Malkovich.” The monotonous synth distortion throughout the track goes a long way toward adding to the insanity. And then there’s Nicki’s rap — all of which you can hear below. “You can be the priest and Imma be the preacher, you can be the He-Man and Imma be the She-Ra, you can be the grim and Imma be the reaper,” Minaj raps before singing Hayley Williams’ part on the chorus of B.o.B’s 2010 hit “Airplanes”.
We are more than ready to get our hands on
Did You Hear? :: The trial for the murder of
B.o.B is continuing his fusion of pop, rock and rap for his sophomore offering, Strange Clouds . The Atlanta MC’s follow-up to his breakout album The Adventures Of Bobby Ray includes “Out Of My Mind” with Nicki Minaj , “Never Let You Go” with Ryan Tedder , and “Arena” with Chris Brown and T.I. Take the jump to listen to 30-second snippets of each song on the LP, though the 30 seconds we get of opening track “Bombs Away” unfortunately lacks Morgan Freeman’s appearance on the tune, so we’ll just have to wait until May 1 to find out how the rapper utilizes the Oscar winner’s iconic voice.
For “So Hard To Breathe”, the latest track to surface from B.o.B ‘s sophomore album Strange Clouds (out May 1), the Atlanta rapper has offered up an intense video that shows various women slipping underwater in a bathtub and struggling to breathe. The song itself, which finds Bobby Ray rapping about the trappings of fame and not being able to “come up for air,” is unique in that it’s packed with guitars and real drums. All that aside, we will mention that the whole thing is kind of creepy, given the (unintentional?) visual and lyrical parallels to Whitney Houston ‘s tragic last moments . Watch for yourself and let us know what you think
Turns out that song Taylor Swift wrote for Justin Bieber ‘s upcoming album won’t be the only collab involving the recent ACM Award winner you’ll be hearing about today, as her pair-up with B.o.B. for his Strange Clouds LP has also surfaced. “Both Of Us” opens with a plucky guitar and Taylor singing, “I wish I was strong enough to lift not one but both of us.” Then a beat kicks in and Bobby Ray launches into his life-lesson rap. It’s an uplifting offering that’s a rarity these days, in that the song opts for dramatic pacing rather than trendy dance beats.
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