Let’s call this the Variety Post of andPOP. Even we miss a couple stories every week that we wish we could cover. Here are some quick hits from the past couple days.
1) Highlights from Project X premiere party
Project X is being labeled the party movie of the year and the premiere blowout certainly verifies that. The party included performances by Tyler, The Creator, A-Trak, The Hundred In The Hands, Drop The Lime, Jesse Marco and Kid Cudi. Okay, I’m hooked.
2) Baby Snooki
As we know, Snooki is probably going to turn her supposed pregnancy into a Jersey Shore spin-off. Jimmy Kimmel envisions the show as more of a Rugrats style cartoon, but it still has plenty of spit-ups, burps and baby herpes to go around.
3) Grimes’ premieres “Oblivion”
This airy video, directed by Emily Kai Bok, is for a track from Grimes’ first album “Visions.” The quirky pink-haired singer dances awkwardly in a football stadium. It’s definitely a chill track to replay over the weekend.
4) Jingle Punks
The Jingle Punks are a hipster orchestra that created an Oscar mashup of all the best songs over history. The live performance includes shoutouts to Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, James Bond and Whitney Houston’s The Bodyguard.
5) New scene from The Hunger Games
With all the trailers and scenes being released for The Hunger Games, I feel like I’ve pretty much seen the whole movie. What’s left? Today they released yet another new seen to torment you. The short clip features Katniss’s mean archery skills.
6) Justin Bieber’s dad posts a birthday video
When I first saw this video I thought it was some sort of parody or spoof… but no, it’s really Justin Bieber’s dad, Jeremy Bieber. What do you get the boy with everything for his birthday? How about a tattoo of the initials “JB,” for Justin Bieber, though it conveniently stands for his initials too. The worst part is when his dad picks up his phone and says: “Hello Weezy, what’s popping?” Cringe!
DJ/producer A-Trak has created a workout mix of electro and hip-hop beats for Nike’s “Original Run” series.
A-Trak’s mix, titled “Running Man” is due out exclusively on iTunes June 24 and marks the Montreal native’s full-length production debut.
The record features a guest appearance by rapper Kid Cudi as well as A-Track’s first official single “Say Whoa.”
The single is taken from a section from the beginning of the continuous 45-minute track, which is designed to be listened to while running.
In a press release statement, A-Track said he was “excited” by the musical challenge.
“I’ve been producing mostly uptempo electro tracks as of late, but my background is hip-hop and I think you can hear it in my choice of sounds,” he said. “I wanted this record to showcase my current style, but I also didn’t want to stray away from hip-hop completely.”
“That’s why you find guest rap verses in the mix, plenty of chopped & screwed vocals, and a hefty dose of drums breaks that are surely more block party than Ibiza.”
Previous artists tapped by Nike to produce “Original Run” workout mixes include Crystal Method, LCD Soundsystem and Aesop Rock.
A-Trak is perhaps best known as Kanye West’s tour DJ but has a long list of credits to his name, including winning the DMC World DJ Championship at the age of 15, remixing tracks for various artists and co-founding the electro-rap record label Fool’s Gold in 2007.
