So far, it sounds like Steven Tyler is still a softie at heart.  In a recent quote, he expressed the sadness that can sometimes come along with the moments of joy when judging a show as popular as Idol:  “It still breaks my heart to tell someone they can’t sing, because everybody’s got a voice.  It’s not easy. I have my days and moments.”

It looks like we can really expect a great year for the show’s 11th season.  Here is the official promo vid released by American Idol late last week:

Some things, however, never change.  A rapper’s love of hot and foxy ladies, and sneakers, is eternal. Back in the day, some of the earliest hip hop and rap acts were quick to make their mark on certain athletic show brands they clearly wanted associated with themselves and the image they sought to project. From Converse All Stars to Filas and Addidas, rappers have championed various shoes over the years, ultimately landing in the position where they now call the shots as it were. In fact, rap stars are locking it down like ADT.  For example:  The Snoop Dogg sneaker.  Check out the infographic below for more info.  It’s gotta be tha shooze.

Here is an infographic based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, showing us some of the high and low points of some of the rappers people have idealized over the years, mistakes they have made, and hypocrisies they’ve participated in.  This will give you a more realistic look at what motivates a lot of the stars that people put too much faith in sometimes, and offer a better perspective for pondering the minds of conscious rappers.  Click to make it grow:

What used to be an alternative music festival, Lollapalooza has transformed massively since its settling down, now hosting a large number of major mainstream headliners each year Kanye West to Coldplay, and this year Eminem and the Foo Fighters, among others. The addition of Perry’s Stage, a purely electronic and house music tent, has stemmed from the recent explosion of dub-electro-dance jams from the underground clubs to the Top 40 charts. But even more than the festival itself has changed, Lollapalooza is a platform for changing the music scene itself. In the 90′s Lolla brought alternative grunge music to cities across the country popularizing bands like Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam, Primus, Tool, Cypress Hill and so many others. It also brought to life a darker side of hip-hop to cities where it hadn’t been before with performers like Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, The Roots, Tricky, Jurassic 5 and more.

Being static in the U.S. now, Lollapalooza sphere of influence is expanding to South America, where touring bands don’t generally go. Lollapalooza Chile launched this year with non-hispanic performances by Cold War Kids, Emipre of the Sun, Joachim Garraud, Kanye West, The National, The Killers, Sublime with Rome, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Fatboy Slim, and even some Lollapalooza classics like founder Perry Farrell’s own Jane’s Addiction, Cypress Hill, The Flaming Lips, 311, and 30 Seconds to Mars. Most South American cities lack presence on tour schedules, so next year Lollapalooza will continue its stay in Santiago, Chile, and it was announced on Friday morning of the Chicago festival that Sao Paulo, Brazil will have its very own stay the weekend after Santiago hosts the second annual Lollapalooza Chile.

—  Mark Blendheim , http://urbanologymag.com

But Rocky has more than expressed his disdain for mainstream attention and blowing up on his Facebook page, thrashing World Star Hip Hop for featuring him on their lauded music blog. World Star Urban Media VideoTUBE featured ASAP Rocky’s “Purple Swag” video while naming him as the “Next Up Artist of the Week”, which generated more than 15,000 views, and prompted and expletive-loaded response from Rocky, who ended with: “I JUS HOPE THEY 4GET ABOUT ME SOON CUZ THY WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND THE CULTURE, SO THANKS BUT NO THANKS”. Rocky also expressed his disdain the day after the post with “I ONLY DO THIS SH*T FOR DA PEOPLE”- showing us his true resistance to “selling-out” and going mainstream. You can’t help but admire him, however, for staying true to what his art and expressing his talent in a way that he feels is best. All too often great talented rises up and loses focus on what they’re supposed to be doing: making real music. The larger the label, the more business-like the creative process becomes (and a bit of an oxymoron), which inevitably becomes more about making real money than real music. Not that making money is necessarily a bad thing, but it definitely can damage the quality of production, distracting creativity with sell-ability and marketability.

But while stoner-anthem “Purple Swag” may be his most recent ticket-in track, his true talents explode on tracks like “New York Bittersweet Symphony” and “Grown Up,” which hint that he may also have the intellectual advantage a lot of today’s mainstream rappers are lacking. But if Rocky is really doing it for the people, wouldn’t he want to connect with as many real fans as possible? Then the classic indie underground limbo still exists: lots of people could be inspired or benefit from engaging with real music, but those people can’t always be reached through underground networks. But as long as staying below the radar isn’t just to avoid critics, there are ways to stay true to the art and original sound without striving to please the masses. So maybe ASAP Rocky has good reasons for keeping himself and his music hidden (can’t even find his real name), but soon enough his real fans are going to want to know his story, and by refusing to have a medium to connect that way, Rocky might run out of real fans.

Now the Orange Peel will get a chance to do both- with The Glitch Mob slowly becoming west coast electronic legends while gaining their national standing, and Phantogram recently breaking out after only 2 years of making music professionally, being one of the most talented acts in the country. Even TGM band members have said themselves: “It’s an honor to tour with these guys, we’ve been listening to their CD nonstop since we first heard it. Un-REAL!”

In addition to TGM & Phantogram, Com Truise will start off the night with his electro-80′s synth remixes, handing the audience vibes that aim more towards dancing and funk-tron than the heavier raving that will ensue during the headliner. Add in Phantograms ethereal swirling riffs in between, and you have the perfect line up for an excellent night electronic music. Start off grooving steady to Com Truise, slow it down just a little for a mind-blowing woodsy Phantogram and get back your energy for The Glitch Mob and their high-energy waves of blended sounds. Just make sure to take Monday off of work.

1. With their newest album solidly integrated into my casual listening playlist, I walked into my living room and almost thought their third track “You” was a down-tempo Modest Mouse song. Strong intro strumming is finely contrasted with echoey vocals intertwined in electronic riffs.

2. “Keep Your Heart” stays true to form with bluesy rock twang expanding throughout the song, keeping it real by reminding the listener of the band roots.

3. “No Future Shock” brings us back to anthemic political rages with up-tempo rants that demand energetic group dance breakouts, high spinning horns and all. Quite possibly the best track.

4. “Will Do” echoes simplicity with plainspoken lyricism and torchy beats that instantly get you singing along “As your body flows the second hand flashes passes over your skin like time” – contrasting a happier beat with more nostalgic saddening love songs.

5. “New Cannonball Blues” truly hits you like a cannonball “loud enough to break your bones” that you’ll be left with no option other than to “sing it with me like its your own.”

Out since April 11, 2011, tragedy struck the band when only 9 days after Nine Types of Light release, bassist Gerard Smith died of lung cancer. Being the last feature including Smith, who had been with the band since Return to Cookie Mountain, the number nine truly has a deeper meaning for the long time expert art rockers. Although saddened by his departure, TVOTR is still touring this summer and fall, in memorandum of their lost band mate.

Lollapalooza had always been about brining new music to the fans, starting out as a roadshow that traveled to an average of 30 stops throughout the country with lauded headliners and underground acts on the rise together. But after the turn of the millennium, and one last road show stand in 2003, Lolla organizers and fans together discovered that they needed a new format. So the road show parked in Chicago, and then it was time for the fans to do the traveling. Since then, the former road-show now occupies more than 115 acres in Grant Park.

Just as Snoop Dogg and Ice T traveled with the festival when rap was making its mainstream run, another west coast phenomenon is now taking over the underground-genre-for-the-masses title, and that’s electronic music. And while Perry’s stage may feature headliners like Pretty Lights and Girl Talk, already popular among the masses, what’s really interesting is that Deadmau5 is taking one of the main stages (Bud Light Stage) during Sunday night’s headliner, the same place that Coldplay will play on Friday and My Morning Jacket on Saturday. Lollapalooza is making some pretty big moves for electronic music, having a house security systems lineup that looks more like Electric Forest than any other festival this summer. So cheers to Lollapalooza for making space to fit the next generation into their line, while still staying true to rock and roll roots.

There are a few more genres emerging that aren’t quite as popular yet. There is a movement on the internet music scene that is combining the video game sounds we knew as a kid as well as anime or cartoons with techno and metal called Nintendocore, Nerdcore, or Otacore (Otaku+Hardcore). These genres are catching on with subcultures that they were intended to target but outside of those targeted areas the terms are almost unheard of. Now, if they start using responses to commonly asked Direct TV questions into the lyrics…I’m going to start to worry.

“If I Die Young” was written by Kimberly Perry of The Band Perry.  The song expounds exactly what the title suggests.  Looking back on life if it were to end at the very moment.  People who listen to the song do not consider it to be a sad reflection on losing your life at a young age, but rather a celebration of life at any age.  It causes you to live life as if it is your last day, and never take for granted all that you have had the opportunity to already accomplish.  The lyrics seem to give a bittersweet thought to you as you read or listen to the words.

“And I’ll be wearing white when I come into your kingdom.  I’m as green as the ring on my little cold finger.  I’ve never known the lovin’ of a man, but it sure felt nice when he was holding my hand. There’s a boy here in town, said he’ll love me forever, but who would’ve thought forever could be severed by the sharp knife of a short life…If I die young, bury me in satin.  Lay me down on a bed of roses.  Sink me in the river, at dawn. Send me away with the words of a love song…”

“Vulnerable” is performed by Secondhand Serenade, and it was written by the one man who makes up Secondhand Serenade, John Vesely.  It was a track on his 2007 album titled Awake.  The heart wrenching and thought provoking lyrics leave with the listener a melancholy emotion.  The words seem to actually make you feel vulnerable in a sense, and it is a deep and thoughtful love song, but you are not sure whether the lover he is singing to will actually stay around.  You feel scared for him.

“Share with me the blankets that you’re wrapped in because it’s cold outside.  Share with me the secrets that you kept in because it’s cold outside.  And your slow shaking fingertips show that you’re scared like me, so let’s pretend we’re alone.  And I know you may be scared, and I know we’re unprepared. But I don’t care.  Tell me, tell me. What make you think that you are invincible.  I can see it in your eyes that you’re so sure.  Please don’t tell me I’m the only one that’s vulnerable.  Impossible…”

Coldplay has a way of taking a beautifully written song and putting it with the music just right so that the emotions you feel when hearing it seem to take over all of your being. When I listen to “The Scientist,” it engulf me.  It is a beautiful, yet almost tragic tale of lost love, and it is so very captivating.

“I was just guessing at numbers and figures, pulling the puzzles apart.  Questions of science, science and progress, do not speak as loud as my heart.  Tell me you love me, come back to haunt me, when I rush to the start.  Running in circles, chasing our tails, coming back as we are.  Nobody said it was easy.  It’s such a shame for us to part.  Nobody said it was easy. No one ever said it would be so hard.  I’m going back to the start.”