Top Gift Ideas For a Teen!

At this time of year. parents are always scrambling to get their kids the Christmas presents they want, but sometimes they don't even know what to get them or when to ask them. But, what's the fun in opening a card with money in it? Wouldn't you rather put thought into the gift you're buying for your child,

and see the smile ear to ear on his or her face when they open it? That's what we here a Pop Rocks are trying to help you with.

For parents who have teens, it is especially common for you to hear “All I need for Christmas is money.” But, if you don't really want to give them money, and you want to give them a gift, I gave a few gift ideas for you. Most teens listen to a lot of music, so we would suggest to buy them a pair of headphones. We would suggest the Sol Republic Jax in-ear headphones at the lower price point ($40 ca). These headphones are at a lower price point but are still very good quality and the sound it great. At a higher price point, we would suggest to get your teen the Beats Solo 2 Ear Headphones ($200 ca). These headphones come from a very well known brand and, there's a reason why that brand is so well known, the sound and look of these are amazing! If you’re gonna buy your teen headphones, we're sure you would want them to get the best use possible out of them, so we would suggest getting them a Spotify Premium Account. With the Spotify Premium Account, they can listen to almost any song they want, save it to listen to later, create a playlist, etc… One of the best things about a Spotify Premium Account is that when you are connected wifi you can download as many songs as you want, so later on when you listen to them you don't use up your data on your phone. This gift will make any teenager happy because they will use them all the time. They can use them before a sporting event if they play sports to get them hyped up before the game, on their way to school, at school while they're doing their work, you can really use these almost anywhere.

Those are what we here a Pop Rocks really think you could by your teen for Christmas!

Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year!

The Grammy Nominations Are Out!

The 59th Annual Grammy Award (airing Sunday February 12th, 2017) nominations have now been released, and the whole world is going crazy!

Every year, the nominations for the most prestige award in music are let out early, so people can react, love it, hate it, place bets, do whatever they want, and this year, the nominations are pretty amazing, if you ask me. The event will be broadcast live on CBS, and we all hope host James Corden of The Late Late Show will do the job justice.

Of the major categories, Beyoncé's Lemonade and Adele's 25 are each nominated for Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Record of the Year.

Speaking of Album of the Year, arguably the night's biggest award, Justin Bieber's Purpose, Drake's Views, and, surprisingly, Sturgill Simpson's A Sailor's Guide to Earth were also nominated for the award.

In All, Queen Bey rolls in the most nominations with a staggering 9. Including Best Solo Pop Performance, Best Urban Contemporary Album, even, Best Rock Performance, for a song she did with Jack White. You name it, Beyoncé is nominated.

Right behind Beyoncé, in considering number of nominations, are Drake, Kanye West and Rihanna all with 8 nominations.  

Then comes in Chance the Rapper with 7 nominations, and Adele comes in right after, with a cool 5. Even though Adele doesn't have the first, second, or third most amount of nominations, her album was still one of the most anticipated of the year.

N.M.

Hairspray Returns Live To NBC on December 7th!

The film "Hairspray" was a hit that was made in 2007. The film included stars like John Travolta playing "Edna Turnblad" Zac Efron playing "Link Larkin" and Michelle Pfeiffer playing "Velma" . Now, after a long wait, Hairspray is finally coming back after 9 years since its last production. New stars like Ariana Grande is stepping up to play "Penny" and we're hoping that the new actors do the job justice. The main character of the 2007 film was "Tracy Turnblad" played by Nikki Blonsky. The actor playing the 2017 "Tracy" will be Maddie Baillio. Now to talk about the new and improved Hairspray.

The premiere of Hairspray 2 will be held in Baltimore. The people that will be playing in the movie will include Ariana Grande, Maddie Baillio, Jennifer Hudson, Harvey Fierstien, Derek Hough, Martin Short, Andrea Martin, Dove Cameron, Garrett Clayton, Kristin Chinoweth, Rosie O'Donnell, and Billy Eichner. There will also be little cameos of "Tracy" from the first Hairspray who was Nikki Blonsky. There will also be a cameo of Marissa Jaret Winokur. They will both be playing  Mr. Pink's assistants. According to PlayBill, The costumes of the movie are really vibrant with colors, and according to NBC News, Jennifer Hudson will be doing an emotional solo. Also, The movie and Broadway show's signature song,"Can't Stop the Beat" will be in the movie.

If you want my opinion about the movie. I think the the sequel will be really good. The first one was a huge success and it was directed by Adam Shankman. Let us just hope that Kenny Leon, the director of Hairspray Live!, will be achieve the same success as the first one did in 2007.

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B.Z.

J Cole's New Album - 4 Your Eyez Only

J Cole may be first known as Jay-Z's protege but he has emerged from the sidelines to become a Billboard chart topper. He was born Jermaine Lamarr Cole on January 28, 1985 in Frankfurt, Germany onto a European American mother and an African American father. He moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina with his mother when his father left the family.

 J Cole has recently been left out of the 2016 music conversation. Until today. Two months ago J Cole claimed that his performance at Meadows Fest in New York would be his last show for a “very long time.” No one really knew what he meant by that. But today a link was released saying he is releasing a new album on Friday December 9th called 4 Your Eyez Only. The album comes out exactly two years from the day that he released his last album. 2014 Forest Hills Drive. That album reached double platinum and broke so many records.

 Despite Cole’s claims of stepping away from the stage, a corresponding tour is a welcomed thought. His Forest Hills Drive tour sold approximately 565,000-575,000 tickets according to Cole’s booking agent, Rob Gibbs.      The tour generated multiple sellouts, including the 18,000-capacity Madison Square Garden, and grossed over $16 million from July to September, according to Billboard.

 Cole is one of rap’s more emotional artists since arriving on the scene, but it has often felt as if he slightly crosses the line between fully speaking his mind and keeping the peace. But according to his new documentary, he has few inhibitions as an artist and feels that now is his opportunity to spill his thoughts and let out his opinion.

“First of all, you get to this height or this level of your career, in terms of platform, who’s to say the next one, the next one might go down, it could go up,” he says. “You’re never guaranteed to be this high again. And while I’m here, let me use this opportunity to say the realest shit I’ve ever said.”

K.G

3 Christmas Facts To Start Off The Holidays

Isn’t Christmas just the best time of the year? So much joy, singing, smiles, and surprises. Sitting by the fire, with your friends and family while sipping on eggnog and munching on cookies, watching all the “Home Alone” and “Jack Frost” movies, but there are still many things that you probably do not know about Christmas. Trust me, they will surprise you. Here are some facts that might make you laugh and smile, and they might even ruin a few Christmas related cartoon characters for you.

Did you know that scientists have hypothesized that your favorite childhood Christmas cartoon character, Rudolph the red-nose reindeer has an infection that will make his nose red and glowy. That’s right, his nose isn’t just red by fluke. He actually has a parasite infection. The parasite goes by the name of pneumonia. Pneumonia is an infection that affects your lungs. This parasite enters you through your skin or by being swallowed. When the bug is inside of you it travels through your blood to get to the lungs. There are three species of parasites that cause this infection, Ascariasis, Schistosoma, and finally Toxoplasma Gondii. So Rudolph’s nose isn’t magic, it’s a deadly infection.

Also, did you know that each year more than 3 Billion Christmas cards are sent through post offices and email? That’s insane! Christmas time is clearly the best time of the year for the post office. Only Christmas makes the business of post an average of over 1.5 Billion dollars! A third of the population of the World sends mail on Christmas. That’s crazy!

Also, If you have a Girlfriend or Boyfriend around the time of Christmas, you are probably thinking of an expensive gift to buy him or her, but did you know that Christmas time according to Facebook is one of the most popular times for breakups. For many reasons, such as not being what they want (as a person and as a gift),  not spending enough money on a gift for them, cheating…

I know all of these facts are crazy, but from all of us at Pop Rocks, we want to wish you a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

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