Elephant Man has been pushed to April 8, while Cassie's sophmore album is slated for a May 20 release. As always, these dates should be taken tentatively, especially the Cassie one.
Bad Boy has
launched a new site. I want to be excited about this. I really do. There is no bigger Bad Boy fan than me, but I can't be excited about a site when details that should be taken care of, are not taken care of. I don't know why they can't get it 100% right, instead of getting it maybe 50% right. It sours the experience for any fan. And, honestly, it's embarrassing.
The site's not all bad. Like Bad Boy's previous sites, it looks nice. And it can work. And there are nice features that the site has. But, it's all ruined by the poor job that was done in adding and creating the content. Content is what makes the site. You can't launch a site with features that don't work and coming soon pages. You can't launch sites where substantial portions of content are wrong. I can't even begin to point out every single thing that is wrong, so I am just going to talk about a few things that jump out at me.
The search box does not do anything. Search for Diddy. Nothing. It's not functional. So, why is it one of the more prominent design features throughout the site? Why are store and merchandise both coming soon? Why is most of the news real old? Why didn't they concert the existing news items?
The large graphics that comprise the bulk of the upper part of the index page are nice. The menus on the left and right also have a nice appearance. The fact that they scroll and you can't manually scroll then - even though every item is on the screen at all times - is perhaps a little frustrating.
The artists pages are a litany of old videos, confusing entry points and incorrect information. Let's take a look at B5, for example. If you click them, you are taken to the video for "Hydrolics" and the start of a bio. So far, so good. Click to read more... where did the bio go?! You have to go to the bio page to read it. The page you see off the bad features a new section that is poorly formatted. Their music section shows an
album called "Novo" by some other group named B5.
As if that wasn't bad enough, click on "Don't Talk, Just Listen". There are five watch links. Did B5 have five videos from that album? No, of course not. They had one. And that one, "Hydrolics," works. But, where do the other four go? They either go nowhere or they go to videos by other artists (check out the one for
"In My Bedroom").
And these problems are not unique to the B5 page. They are all over other artist pages. Look at
Gorilla Zoe's music page. He has one watch link. Well, OK, he's had more than one video, but hey... it must be to "Hood Figga", right? I mean, they have it showing on the site and in the multimedia section, right? Right? No. The watch link is "I Know" - a song without a video! And it links to the video for "I Know You See It" by Yung Joc. I suppose that's better than
Elephant Man's page, which just has errors. Not even
Diddy is immune.
On the index page, when you click on an artist, you are shown outdated videos. Why isn't it the latest video released or ... at least a video from their most recent album? Boyz N Da Hood has "Felonies", Cheri Dennis has "I Love You" (yes, it was from her album, but it was released a long time ago), Diddy has "Tell Me", Yung Joc has "1st Time"?!? Some artists don't have videos and that's fine, but if they don't have a video, get rid of the box and let the picture take up the whole screen. Mario Winans doesn't even have a bio, it just shows whatever you clicked last. So, if you click Jordan McCoy and then Mario, you read how he was on American Juniors.
All of the content on the site could use a good proofreading for grammar, format and consistency.
The multimedia section is actually pretty good - easily the best section of the whole site. They have most of the recent videos (no "I'm A G" or "Tryna Make a Jug") and an assortment of old ones. Of course, it should really be 100% up to date with the latest ones and a more comprehensive library of the older videos would be a nice bonus.
Suffice to say, this site should have never launched in this state. It should have been put through a heavy review, instead of trying to rush it out the door. There are so many things that are wrong, incorrect and, in general, not ideal. A disappointment.
Readers of Bad Boy Blog are familar with Fox News' Roger Friedman. Friedman seems to take some sort of pleasure in taking inaccurate, unfounded shots at Bad Boy and the performance of the label. So, it's no shock when he says
this:
This will go nicely with the 2005 purchase of Bad Boy Entertainment, Sean "Diddy" Combs’ former empire, after it stopped having hits of any kind.
Of course, I've
already crushed that position.
But, here's the good part. Here is what he was speaking in reference to (i.e. what it would go nicely with):
The good news is that Warner has just made an offer to buy the assets of Death Row Records for $25 million, including catalogs from Tupac Shakur and the Notorious BIG. They have no sense that this music is over, filed away in the early '90s. The "songs" included on the CDs are by and large not possible to re-record ("cover") by modern artists because they aren’t songs.
Emphasis mine. Death Row owns a Biggie catalog? That's news to me. Friedman strikes again!
It looks like the Bad Boy/Death Row disputes of the mid-90s have come full circle. The
AP reports that the administrators of the bankruptcy estates of Death Row Records and Suge Knight want the court to allow them to sell Death Row's music related assets, including rights to works by 2Pac, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, off to the highest bidder. The article specifically notes that Warner Music Group is currently the suitor at the price of $25 million dollars.
Let's think about that for a moment. Warner Music Group owns Atlantic Records. Bad Boy is under the Atlantic umbrella. Death Row's assets and Bad Boy under the same company? Crazy!
Via
ThugLifeArmy.com.
Danity Kane came on first and talked a bit about this season of Making the Band 4. Not a whole lot. Aubrey said that Diddy's talk with her last episode was based on information that wasn't good. But, when TMZ sticks a camera in her face and she implies she's thinking of quitting the group, who's to blame? Anywho, they did a quick acappella of the "Damaged" chorus. Sounded good.
Then the Making the Band 4 guys came out to announce their band name,
Day 26. They also showed the album cover. Their album will be self titled. Meanwhile, the title of the Danity Kane album will officially be "Welcome to the Dollhouse".
Check out this must watch (for fans) video of Diddy toasting Harve Pierre on his promotion to President of Bad Boy at the
Bad Boy R&B spotlight. Harve gives a speech afterward. Some funny stuff. Also, Diddy describing his namesake drink. A Diddy is Ciroc and lemonade (it sounds like he said
Simply Lemonade, but I'm not 100%).
Shaheem Reid reports from Tuesday night's Bad Boy R&B showcase at Spotlight Live.
The Making the Band 4 guys, Cheri Dennis, Danity Kane and newcomer Janelle Monae all performed. On Monet's set, Reid says:
The highlight of the night was definitely Janelle Monet, who looks like she has the most star potential of any of Bad Boy's new breed — she even had her own fan section sprinkled throughout the audience. She wearing a bow tie (!) and, on a scale of 1 to 10, her energy level was at 15. Her sound reminds you of bit of Panic! at the Disco mixed with Estelle and Kelis — call it soulful punk-pop.
"We need that," said Diddy — who spent a lot of time going from his seat to the stage — after his show-stealer left the stage. She got the loudest ovation of the night. "We need that in music. A star got up on this stage tonight!"
Edit: Mario Winans also performed.
