The year in review: your top 10 uTunes blog posts of 2014.

2014 was on the wildest, whackiest years we can remember in music, blending happenings, trends, and phenomena that a Hollywood script writer couldn't make up. There were murders for hire, international incidents over a movie, social activism by musicians like never before, incredible new artists, and some of the best damn songs we've ever heard. Along the way, uTunes has tried to keep you updated on the interesting and substantial music news in the world. Here are your 10 most popular blogs from 2014. Just click on the images and it will take you to read the full articles. Happy New Years and let's look forward to a musical 2015! 

10 Things we learned from the Sony hack (including Kim Jong-un's private Wi-Fi password).

1. North Korea does has Internet – but only as much as a busy Starbucks.

In the entire country of North Korea there are only 1,024 IP addresses, which is roughly the internet traffic you may see coming and going from a busy Starbucks on any given day. Internet is highly restricted to use by government officials, a few foreign ambassadors, and foreign aid groups. There are about 13,000 websites available to those North Korean internet users, and they are all government-created of course. To put it in context, the U.S. has about 1.5 billion IP addresses.

By the way, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has access to the internet and his Wi-Fi password is reportedly “Ass-tastic” (case sensitive).

2. The FBI linked the cyber attacks on Sony to North Korea…but a lot of smart people aren’t buying it.

The FBI quickly released a statement that linked the hacking to North Korea, amounting to state sponsored cyber terrorism. But a lot of really smart people quickly poked holes in that link, calling it more circumstantial than conclusive. In fact, the FBI’s whole case is that the malware, language, and IP addresses were similar to past North Korean cyber attacks. But other hackers, cyber geeks, and high level security experts quickly pointed out technical inconsistencies with the FBI’s assumptions, saying they don’t even have enough proof to convict someone of a speeding ticket in civil court, yet alone convict a whole nation of war attacks.

Alternate theories include that it was a disgruntled Sony insider who triggered the attacks (less likely because of the scope and level of technical resources needed), or that it was a hacker group sponsored by the North Korean government, possibly an independent group operating in China, one of their only allies (more likely).

3. None of us care that hackers released Sony salaries…except Sony execs and actors, who really care.

How much $ you make is the ultimate touchy subject in Hollywood, so the hackers struck at the jugular when they released Sony salary information. Among what we found is that Sony execs systematically pay women especially, and minorities less for their work. Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams are two female leads among many who experienced a huge pay gap based on gender.

It also incited competition between the movie and the music sides of Sony. That’s notable particularly because the music side of Sony has frequently “cried wolf” that the music business wasn’t producing the same kind of money it used to. In a strange hierarchy compensation anomaly, head of Sony Pictures, Michael Lynton, is paid twice the salary of his boss, Sony Corp’s CEO Kazuo Hirai, which has Hollywood insiders scratching their heads.

4. Racist emails.

Hackers released sensitive emails by Sony heads Amy Pascal and Scott Rudin, among others. In one particular exchange, Pascal and Rudin joke back and forth how President Obama must like the movies “Django Unchained,” “12 Years a Slave,” “The Butler,” and Kevin Hart movies, just because he is black.

5. Sony execs had choice words for Kevin Hart when he wanted more money.

Speaking of Kevin Hart, the actor and comedian asked for more money to promote his new film, “The Wedding Ringer”. In emails released by the hackers, Sony execs labeled him “a whore” for the request. Hart posted this classy response on Twitter:

6. Racism, sexism, and general asshole-ism seem to best characterize some Sony execs.

If Pascal and Rudin’s racist remarks weren’t enough, Sony CEO Michael Lynton emailed his reservations about Denzel Washington as the star of the movie “The Equalizer,” saying that “pictures with an African American lead don’t do well overseas”. While a generous interpretation may just be that he was thinking strategically for shareholders, actual facts reveal that the movie made nearly half of its profit outside the United States.

7. The character assassination of Angelina Jolie.

In leaked emails, Sony execs Pascal and Rudin – exposed as disparaging “bad guys” over and over – take Angelina Jolie to task, calling her ”seriously out of her mind,” living in “crazy town” and call her “a minimally talented spoiled brat." Jolie met up with Pascal at an industry event after that went public, eliciting this icy stare:

8. This, that, and James Bond.

There was plenty of damage done, but it wasn’t all just bad news revealed by the hackers. Among other assorted nuggets of inside news, we see Channing Tatum really wanted to play the lead in a remake of the classic Ghostbusters (but isn’t the first choice,) the next James Bond will be the suave and talented actor Idris Elba, and a lot of actors use aliases to make reservations and hotels and restaurants. Those include Natalie Portman (Laura Brown), Tobey Maguire (Neil Deep), Tom Hanks (Harry Lauder, Johnny Madrid) and Rob Schneider (Nazzo Good), who as one Hollywood writer points out, “probably doesn’t need one.”

9. The hackers did release five Sony movies.

Five Sony movies, including “Annie,” “Mr. Turner” and “Fury,” were released online by the hackers. However in the case of “Annie” reviews are so bad that even the hackers are embarrassed and want their money back.

10. The Interview is being released…sort of.

“The Interview” was originally scheduled for release on Christmas day before being pulled by Sony and its distributors, which led to widespread criticism. But wouldn’t you know it, after all of this craziness, the movie is being released on Christmas Day. But instead of grabbing some popcorn and watching at your local theater, you’ll have to go online to see it. Sony released it online, through Google Play, YouTube Movies, Microsoft’s Xbox Video and a site www.seetheinterview.com, for $5.99 rental on all platforms, $14.99 for purchase in HD.

10 Reasons why Dr. Dre's 'The Chronic' is the best hip hop album of all time.

Last week, Dr Dre’s iconic album, The Chronic, turned 22 years old. Since it’s release in 1992, The Chronic has only grown in importance, now celebrated as perhaps the greatest rap album of all time, the birth of modern hip hop, and the collaboration that changed the game. But 22 years ago, when the nation watched the horrors of the Rodney King beating and LA riots on their TV sets, we had no idea the debut solo album by a young LA rapper would become larger than life.

1. The Chronic became the best selling debut album of all time. However, it didn’t hit number one on the charts in 1993, but peaked at number three. But it did go certified triple platinum in 1993, selling over three million copies. By 2001, it was sextuplet platinum (six million sales!) in the U.S.

2. In 2003, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked The Chronic as the 138th best album of all time, and the 6th best hip hop album of all time.

3. The Chronic established a new sub-genre of rap, the G-Funk era, which was defined by 1970’s and 1980’s funk mixed with disco keyboards and smoked-out, smooth street preaching that brought the raw truth about ghetto living to mainstream America. It included many live instruments (a trend at the time that was seen with Digable Planets and others), and soulful female singers. G Funk changed rap forever and its influence is still evident today.

4. Dre is considered one of the best musical managers of all time and that was evidenced on The Chronic, which is considered among the conversation for best-produced albums ever. Dre preferred to use samples sparsely, but the Chronic’s samples or influences include music from N.W.A. rerecorded with live instruments, Leon Haywood’s ‘I Wanna Do Something Freaky To You’, a Led Zeppelin drum sample from ‘When The Levee Breaks’, and others like Gil Scott-Heron, Bill Withers, James Brown and Malcolm McLaren.

5. Although it was a solo album, it prominently featured many guest rappers from Dre’s circle and launched some meteoric careers. In fact, The Chronic was directly responsible for launching the career of a young G’d out pot head named Snoop Doggy Dogg, as well as Daz Dillinger, Kurupt, Nate Dogg, and Warren G, who is Dr. Dre’s stepbrother.

6. Even 22 years later it’s still a benchmark for hip hop success. Kanye West is one superstar modern rapper, among many, who strives to reach The Chronic’s musical accomplishment in his own music. Said Kanye, “The Chronic is still the hip-hop equivalent to Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life. It’s the benchmark you measure your album against if you’re serious.”

7. Three singles were released from The Chronic – “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang”, “Fuck wit Dre Day” and “Let Me Ride”. “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang” was first, released January 19, 1993 and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and Hot Rap Singles, and sold over a million copies by March 24 of that year. “Fuck wit Dre Day” was released as the second single on May 20, 1993 and likewise was a hit. “Let Me Ride” was released last, as a cassette single on September 13, 1993.

8. Dr. Dre won a Grammy Award for Best Solo Rap Performance in 1994 for the song “Let Me Ride” and numerous awards as time went on.

9. The Chronic launched Death Row Records as a mega force in hip hop and G Funk eras. Dre had formed the record company along with Marion “Suge” Knight in 1991. Together, they worked on Snoop Dogg’s debut album, Doggstyle in 1993 and Tupac Shakur’s All Eyez on Me in 1996, two more of the best hip hop albums of all time that wouldn’t be possible without The Chronic.

10. The Chronic also received worldwide acclaim, selling more than 8 million records to date and topping many foreign charts. As late as 2004 it peaked at number 43 on the UK album charts and was prominent on Ireland’s charts.

The history of Capoeira, Brazil's deadly and beautiful dance. (Part 1)

Capoeira is one of the most unique and mysterious physical forms in history, a blend of martial art, acrobatics, and musical dance that transcends even fighting or entertainment. It’s also a cultural portal into Brazil’s past, a historical archive of the dark origins of slavery, and a world ambassador.

The art form Capoeira grew out of the necessity of oppression during the 16^th century in Brazil, South America’s largest country.  At the time, Brazil was a Portuguese colony, providing a robust sugar cane trade for its colonizer. With vast jungle territories and riches to be had, the Portuguese were huge importers of slaves to do the necessary work. In fact, Brazil received 40% of all slaves sent across the Atlantic Ocean, and slavers and plantation owners from the small European country were considered to be the harshest and most brutal in their treatment.

Soon vastly outnumbered by the slave and local populace, the Portuguese viciously cracked down on any seeds of unity or rebellion among their slaves. The West African slaves were outlawed from practicing their cultural practices, rites, and rituals, and of course any military readiness or combat training was strictly forbidden. So the slaves devised an ingenious way to bypass those laws right under the noses of their masters and overseers. They began an elaborate dance that accompanied music that actually disguised their new martial art. What looked like a spirited and acrobatic dance was instead a well-choreographed rehearsal of strikes, kicks, and defensive maneuvers to train the slaves to defend themselves in case of an uprising.

Thanks to the organization, physical training, and spirited recalcitrance that capoeira provided, many of the slaves did violently revolt to overthrow their masters and escape. Groups of escaped slaves would make haste for the lush jungle, and that is where the etymology of the word capoeira was thought to emerge. The literal translation in the Tupis language is ka'a ("jungle") and e pûer ("it was"), referring to the areas of jungle in the interior where fugitive slaves hid.

Soon, whole communities of escaped slaves would form, called Quilombos, sometimes up to 10,000 strong. These communities further practiced capoeira as a means to defend themselves from invading Portuguese armies and bounty hunters – the feared capitães-do-mato on horseback who hunted escaped slaves - this time without having to hide their intentions. They became so strong that the biggest, Palmares with over 10,000 residents and many villages, repelled at least 24 attacks and 18 colonial invasions during the era of slavery.

There are few written records from the time, but some evidence of the prevalence of capoeira, and its condemnation among slavers, does exist. Logs of prisoners at the infamous Calabouço jail between 1857 and 1858 show that of the 288 slaves arrested, 31% were arrested and detained for practicing capoeira, and 10% for running away. In all Rio di Janeiro jails, nearly 10% of prisoners were facing charges involving the banned dance form.

As communities grew to thriving cities during the 18^th centuries, capoeira spread on dual wings – not only as a martial art and method of cultural preservation, but as the sheer musical and dancing entertainment that it originally portrayed to be. For this reason the ruling class didn’t know what to make of capoeira, always perceived as a mysterious and threatening dark art practiced among the poorest of society.

When slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888, there were millions of desperately poor, unskilled, and uneducated former slaves with nowhere to go and no possibilities for income. Many of them turned to crime and gangs just to feed themselves and survive, and capoeira experts were hired as thugs or hit men to mob bosses. Their knowledge of Capoeira was an aid to their criminal activity and they commonly added barbers razors or other knives to their war dance, further cementing its reputation as a dark and violent threat to society.

It was officially outlawed by the newly formed Republic of Brazil in 1890, with brutal consequences for those who were caught practicing it, like having their Achilles severed, subjected to torture, and even death.

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Subscribe to this blog or check back with uTunes.fm for part 2 of this series.

25 Interesting facts about Katy Perry, the most famous woman on the planet.

Katy Perry is the most famous woman on the planet. In fact, her story reads like a pop icon fairytale, the making of a singer who was destined for greatness. Her fame is now omniscient, as Perry recently surpassed Justin Bieber as the most followed person on Twitter in the world. In 2014, she became the first person to have 50 million Twitter followers, which landed her in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Her star will rise even further in the sky when she plays the Super Bowl halftime show on February 1, 2015, bringing her name and music to the three remaining people on the planet who haven’t heard of her. In celebration of the new queen of pop, here are 25 interesting facts about Katy Perry.

1.  Katy Perry was born October 25, 1984 in Santa Barbara, California.

2.  But that’s not her real name. Her birth name is Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson. She later changed to a stage name, Kathryn Perry and then later Katy Perry, using her mother’s maiden name to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson.

3.  Her parents were both Pentecostal Christian pastors and ran a very strict household. Young Katy wasn’t allowed to watch cartoons like the Smurfs (ironic because her first big movie role was the voice of Smurfette in the movie The Smurfs) or eat Lucky Charms cereal because “Lucky” reminded her mom of “Lucipher” too much. Her and her siblings were also not allowed to listen to any popular music other than Christian music.

4.  Her family was poor, moving often and using food stamps and the local food bank to put food on the table.

5.  So Katy started singing Christian music as a child, and at 16 years old released a Christian pop album under her real name, Katy Hudson. She later said, “It reached literally maybe 100 people,' 'and then the label went bankrupt.”

6.  She studied Italian opera at the Music Academy of the West for a time, as she has a contralto vocal range.

7.  As a young teen, one of her big influences was Alanis Morissette’s 1995 album, Jagged Little Pill. She also credits Freddy Mercury and Queen as influences.

8.  During her high school freshman year, Katy completed her General Educational Development (GED) requirement by age 15, and left behind Dos Pueblos High School to pursue her career in music.

9.  She moved to Los Angeles at 17 and was signed by Island Def Jam Music Group to work on a new album, thought it was never released.

10.  Her first hit song was 2008’s “I Kissed a Girl,” which supposedly was inspired by her crush on actress Scarlett Johannson. The song instantly launched her into stardom.

11.  She appeared on the TV soap opera, Young and the Restless in 2008, playing herself.

12.  Her third album, Teenage Dream (2010), produced three number one singles It became the first album by a solo female artist to produce five number-one Billboard Hot 100 songs, a record that sits behind only Michael Jackson’s album Bad in 1987.

13.  Perry has sold 11 million albums and 81 million singles worldwide, making her one of the best-selling female artists or any artists of all time.

14.  She’s received uncountable awards and nominations, and holds three Guinness World Records.

15.  She was included on Forbes Magazine’s list of “Top-Earning Women in Music” in 2011, 2012, and 2013.

16.  Her famous song, "Firework" off her second album was reportedly inspired by a passage in the book On the Road by Jack Kerouac in which “the author compares people who are full of life to fireworks that shoot across the sky and make people watch in awe.”

17.  Perry has appeared as a guest judge on American Idol. The show offered her $20,000,000 to be a full time judge on Idol’s 12^th season in 2013, but she turned them down.

18.  She’s famous for her perfect figure and Hollywood cleavage, thought she’s never had any plastic surgery.

19.  Her boobs actually got her in trouble when she filmed a segment for Sesame Street, in which she appeared in a low-cut top and pigtails. However, after the segment was leaked on YouTube, there was such a reaction to her cleavage that Sesame Street pulled the episode.

20.  Perry met actor and comedian Russell Brand on the set of the movie Get Him to the Greek, in which she had a scene where they shared a kiss, though the scene was never included in the final cut.

21.  They started dating and Brand proposed to her during the Christmas and New Years holiday in 2009 when they were vacationing in India, sitting atop an elephant and watching fireworks.

22.  The marriage was a disaster and Brand filed divorce from her after only one year. Perry later said that Brand ended their marriage by sending her a text message saying he was filing for divorce.

23.  They never spoke again after that, and a confused and distraught Perry admitted she was depressed and contemplated suicide. But in 2012 she started a new relationship with singer John Mayer.

24.  Perry is a huge supporter of the Democratic Party, meeting Michelle Obama and contributing to the democratic campaign with fundraisers and performances at political rallies. She actively encourages her Twitter followers to vote and once appeared onstage in a dress that looked like a voting ballot, with Obama’s box checked.

25.  By all accounts, Perry is genuinely social consciousness and altruistic. She was named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 2013 and has championed many causes that assist children in poverty. She’s donated a portion of her ticket sales to UNICEF and is active with numerous foundations that support children’s education. She’s also a huge advocate for LGBT civil rights and HIV/AIDS awareness.

If you want to see something really cool, watch Perry sing a duet of 'Fireworks' with a young autistic girl who's a big fan at the Night of Too Many Stars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX-xToQI34I