In 2013, albums sales are not like singles sales, singles take weeks simmering on the charts and when they finally hit they stay a long while but albums shoot up the UK charts and then disappear. So this entire list is a weird one, most of it is from 2012 as we enter February nothing seems to have done well.
the Bingo Players dance track has been around for a coupla years now and Far East Movement, a terrible band, add a whole new dimension with lyrics. Otherwise, here is a question: where is Bowie and Justin… here’s a half answer: Justin is at #11,
Bat – The Joy Formidable – Welsh rock band start off smooth but bash out insanely by the end on this Yeah Yeah Yeahs soundalike without the blues affectations in a rave up about the creative process. “I had a reason but the reason went away” is an all purpurpose catechism – Grade: A
Poor guy is stuck on Saturday Night Live, sorta like visiting an aging Aunt that used to be something ‘back in the day’, I wont even waste my time complaining about how much this show sucks but at least this week we get a decent musical act. Unlike that crap hipster shit they’ve been sticking us with.
If I was a fan I would have been very impressed with this fine set, culling songs off their adored self-named debut and last years Coexist with precision, passion, intelligence and intensity. But they’re a drag. They need the “Y” chromosome in there somewhere. They are like the Kills with their balls chopped off.
The problem with this is I ended up with an ass kicking case of the flu, but there was no way I would let the opportunity to review a Manson show pass so I rallied up my crew and sent them out to cover it for me. I can tell by this excellent video that I didn’t miss much.
Pissed Jeans have been at it since 2004 and so they have what time gives you: assurance and tightness. And they have something else, a follow up to the awesome King Of Jeans, Honey, coming up and a gig at the 550 SRO Bowery Ballroom on April 13th, 2013.
‘Lucky Lighter’, a very catching-poppy tune, has the outfit of a punk anthem with bright melodic guitar riffs and the necessary soaring chorus ready to be sing-along to at their next show. The song has actually this slight Green Day-ish overtone
I am blowing off the Vaccines to see blues singer Trixie Whitley at Le Poisson Rouge on Thursday. I caught Trixie at Rockwood last June and was suitably awed and await her first album Fourth Corner out on Tuesday. LPR is down to SRO tix and I still recommend you go and see this extremely ta;lented, ready to break 25 year old.
Here is young Sheeran on his big chance to hug Katy Perry: ” a lot on stage and did a show in Canada. I played the set. Stormed it, sweated a lot, got off stage and bumped into Katy Perry. I was like, ‘All right Katy Perry, how are you?'”She said, ‘I came to your show and I love your album. I was gonna give you a hug but, eeurgh!’ and went. That was my chance ruined because I sweated so much.” Ed is moving in more and more rarified air since we saw him a year ago at Mercury Lounge but while everybody around him are crazed ehomaniacs, always the bridesmaid Ed remains his sweet old self.
Beta Love – Ra Ra Riot – A girl I knew was very friendly wih Ra Ra Riot and though we are not friends any more, she fed me a steady enough diet of the indie plus strings quintet that I feel a lot of affection for them. But not enough enough for me to recommend this electronic mish mosh about living forever and becoming machines or something – Grade: C-
One Way Trigger – The Strokes – New wavey pop stroke with a jittery epileptic rhythm , a cool little synth and Julian going for the high note and not just at the end of the line but right through the verse – Grade: B+
Sincerely, I am not a fan of her style of music, a mix of 90s R&B, 80s soul, light disco, turning into mellow ballads à la Sade with some occasional sampling, but I must admit Jessie had quite a warm and unassuming personality, smiling and waving at people
Written about her Daddy and about moving away from her home, Laura is remembering being a seven year old girl walking with her father in the English countryside, Many years later her terminally ill parent asked Laura to take her back to the hill before he died so he could see one final time how beautiful the world is.
The “Approaching Normal” tour had a fit and energized Justin hip thrusting in his live show while the girls swooned. His “Every Man In America” Tour had a bloated scuffing scruffy Justin that had the women screaming I love you”. Crazy huh? You either want to save the guy or fuck him
It is in the nature of life that an eye for an eye is an infinite progression. The only way to stop it is thru forgiveness and to hear of it being conducted by one people to another is very moving, very important. If anger is like drinking poison and expecting it to kill the other person, forgiveness is like feeding your enemy and finding yourself fully nourished.
The result is even a pro like me has difficulty in knowing what new releases are available. Spotify are a riddle of insolence and indolence and if they aren’t damn careful, obsolescence..
This isn’t the first (nor will it be the last) time John Varvatos dips in to the jukebox for models his past posers include Paul Weller and Miles Kane, Green Day, Franz Ferdinand, Perry Farrell of Jane’s Addiction, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, Chris Cornell, Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Ryan Adams, and Slash
Jason’s fans will go because, well, that’s what fans do, but what about normal folks? I will go because I care about country when it is healthy and I care about country when it is ill and if this guy is a poster child for what country music means in 2013 the way Reba McIntire was for country in 1985
After ‘Unbelievers’, they already performed on late night TV, here is ‘Arms’, a gentle ballad with a lot of bouncing drumming and Ezra Koenig’ high-pitched gentle croon floating over a cute melody of glittering synth and even unexpected soaring strings towards the end.
Upholstery – Beach Bums – “Carburetors man, that’s what life is all about…” Paul williams brilliant Beach Boys parody makes fine use of his “Faust” theme while extolling the virtues of love in a car: “Upholstery, when my baby sits up close to be…” is as perfect an explanation for the meaning of life as any I’ve heard – Grade:A
With a cracker little band and two back up singers behind him, Olly sold a skin tight tee (“take it off take it off” shouted the fans, he gave em a flash) and a pork pie hat with all the faith in yourself necessary to make it in the US pop world
With this revelation, I am tempted to ask, has she done this before? May be she lip-syncs during her concerts too, I am going to start a rumor! Seriously, if she can’t sing live on this special day, when she has received the highest honor of singing the national anthem for the president she has supported so much, it looks very bad.
The latest in our ongoing, ground breaking, dirt raking and all too true series of “Are The Gay?” exposes finds us face to face with one of the wild men of rock. A man not quite willing to go up against Bambi or Thumper with a rifle and blow the animals head off
Now, I’m never ever going to say anything bad about Bowie- ever. So despite not digging the single I am damn glad it’s out and I am pumped for more Bowie music. But here is the kicker with this legend stuff, everyone’s hanging on the guys coat like a lint ball.
“The daughter of Pretenders star Chrissie Hynde takes a leaf out of her activist mum’s book by camping up a tree to halt a new road.Natalie Hynde, 29, even dug a toilet in the frozen ground at a protest in Combe Haven Valley, East Sussex.”
Megaupload was shut down by the US Department of Justice a year ago, Dotcom was charged with online piracy, and arrested after a spectacular raid at his $24 million mansion in New Zealand, just like the ones you see in Hollywood movies. However, the guy didn’t give up
He comes down and goes, ‘Oh, the fire, the fire!’ (and tries to put it out) with his hand in the cast. Then he opens the French doors and I go into the kitchen and throw water on it and it erupted…”Ozzy’s front of his hair from (his ear down is), gone! His eyebrows (are gone)…
From Cockiness to cockiness, A$AP is a talented lad, meanwhile Kidz Bop does what it always does chartwise though I found it a weaker than usual effort, Pitch Perfect and Red are both Pitch Perfect and hey, you got to hand it to young Lumineers. I bet they don’t know what’s hit em!
Perhaps I am just monitoring it more closely but I am consistently surprised at just how bands suddenly become popular M&L and The Lumineers suddenly break after years of hard work leaving us all scratching our heads. The difference is before a band would go top 20 a couple of times before hitting it big. Taylor took years till “Love Story” pushed her over the top. Now, it just happens.
(There’s) Always Something There To Remind Me – Sandie Shaw – Unlike the original, this one sounds very youthful. There isn’t the harsh of experience to Shaw’s vocal, instead it has a swinging England vibe not at edge but in distinction to Davids intense feelings. I coulda sworn Dionne did the original but she sang the demo. Sandie brings a generational schism to the 60s masterwork – Grade:A
The documentary narrates the Russian band’s trial after having staged a ‘Punk Prayer’ against Russian president Putin in a Orthodox Cathedral in Moscow, as well as the three women’s first months of incarceration in terrible Russian camps.
From the clips I have seen they are your basic live show slather with a Elvis like Axl Rose attempting to hoist himself and serpentine as he did 30 years ago and the moves aint working.
Tooth & Nail” draws on personal rather than political themes, and was recorded over a whirlwind five-day session with Grammy Award winning producer Joe Henry. Joe took Billy out of his comfort zone (all vocals were recorded live without retakes or overdubs)
This thumping good time will be traveling through Madrid, India and The Netherlands but also swoops in to Madison Square Garden for one night of thrusty fun. The show is March 30th and will be broadcast live via Astateoftrance.com. THAT is worth hanging out for and watching.
“There are 12 more. Most of the rockers are not yet mixed, as we added new guitars this past week.”. So it feels like a couple of months and if you have yet to listen to his band the Bowerytones get ready to remember just how great blue eyed soul can be in the hands of a great rock band,
Dr. Feelgood,they bled beer and sawdust and an aesthetic so far away from the boogie black delta blues they performed: as though just the shared humanity and financial tyranic burden was enough to forge the two societies into one.
Dave Grohl premiered his documentary about Van Nuys recording studio Sound City, at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, and he and 17 musician, who had all once recorded at Sound City, played a super long set… and when I say long, it was long, it lasted more than 3 hours
Black Hippy are headlining this years Paid Dues gig in March and the list of names is confusing : Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Dom Kennedy, Tech N9ne, De La Soul, Immortal Technique, Hopsin, Joey Badass, Grouch & Eligh. Tech N9ne and De La SOUL? Surely not.
There are no limits to what Morrissey could do, he could build the cost of the album into the cost of a ticket. Can you imagine if Morrissery started a kickstart account? He could handle the US deficit singlehandedly. But Moz is an old fashioned fellow and he balks at changing his ways. More is the pity.
Ready – Fabolous And Chris Brown – A slow burner getting the job done with a little help from the most hated man on the planet not named Lance. But it is four year’s since “Imma Do It” and Fabolous just isn’t living up to it and this sex boiler song ain’t changing much – Grade: B-
Amy said about the band: “Sleater Kinney meets Lightning Bolt meets a watery bridge at the end of town”, which is pretty cool, right? The Ep is an epic New Jersey tall tail of sound and experiment and corrupts your ears with pleasure, back in the day I said they sounded like the Roches being covered Bikini Kill. Unmissable, right? I mean, they are a really good band
Public Enemy fought the power and The Beastie Boys released their brilliant Paul’s Boutique album. As we look back at the decade, we were able to survive a decade of synth-pop, kitschy videos, and electronic drums. As we peek around the corner to the ‘90s, I’m seeing flannel.
As usual they managed to build a hypnotic groove with an interesting melody floating just above it, mixing influences, giving us a lesser pop version of the Verves flirting with a layered kraukrock jam style
Working alongside the Linda McCartney Foods brand. This is the first time in 15 years that the brand has done TV advertising. The TV commercial shows the McCartney family in full cartoon glory- and some cute animals too.
Those of us who love Taylor Swift have watched the serial monogamist with a mix of prurient interest, bemusement, surprise that a star of such magnitude wouldn’t control the story a little more before involving the world and a straight out surprise that she has become a slut Maria Von Trapp.
Ok, sorry the fonts are all over the place but if you can get over it, what do you think? I saw Thievery Corporation open for Massive Attack a coupla years ago and was very impressed… what else?
This is not the picture of innocence here, not any more,. More, indeed much more, than sexual innocence is the world where life is eternal, where a child is innocent of its end, of any end.
The man who retreats to his car stereo and is transcended to a world of head butting Henry Rollins and the worried wife is so cliche’ so utterly ridiculous that in just a video fragment I am proud not to be a fan.
This will be The Strokes’ fifth album, and despite the fact that their 2011‘Angles’ wasn’t that great (if I remember correctly) the band is still wildly popular judging from the reaction of the fans at the news
