Disclosure? Not a huge fan of these guys, when I saw em live I thought they were a little, what’s the word here? pre programmed. And their debut was like a jukebox, sure, and a good one, but not a rebellious one at all. There is something smartly cold about the duo.
“The UK may not be viewed as centrally relevant to the United States in all of the issues and relations considered a priority on the US agenda…” I feel like Fredo in the last scene of Godfather II.
A mediocre snooze of a chart with Sam Smith ascendency AGAIN, with a snooze of a remix I might add. If they took it any slower it could never have reached the top of the charts. Truly, a well known drag
Sam Smith got best newcomer and pop album, and Beck got best rock album. No problems there though I am entirely agnostic over Morning Phase. Up close, Beck looks a little on the weird side, right? It’s like he looks like a babyfaced middle aged eagle.
Many people have for example noticed the similarities between the Jayhawks’ ‘Waiting For The Sun’ and Tom Petty’s ‘Mary Jane’s Last Dance’…. And knowing that the Jayhawks song was first and that the band opened for Petty at the time…The Jayhawks never said anything to my knowledge
‘Of the four phrases, three are virtually identical. The pitches are the same; the rhythms are the same; the chords are pretty much the same, with Petty’s D subbed out for Smith’s C Even the structure of the lyrics is similar — the songs’ titles both arrive on the same notes in the first full bar and are repeated in the last phrase.’
That’s weird, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Myers in reruns the same week? Why would that be? Surely they should keep new Myers if Fallon is off. So not much but at least there is Ellen Degeneres with Kanye West and Sam Smith on the same show! I would love Smith on a West track, maybe this can’t be the start.
A modern In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning by a guy with an immaculate voice, a sweet falsetto that hits every note with the ease of youth and lingers on it, to further the heartbreak. And the difference between Sam and Adele? Sam has much better songs
A huge problem that doesn’t dwarf Sam having sold a million copies (platinum!) of In The Lonely Hour, to go along with his (gasp) six grammy nominations. One of only three albums to reach the plateau in 2014, but what can he do with it if he can’t project it on stage?
I’m Not The Only One – Sam Smith, A$AP Rocky – Nicely done mix and match, and compared to the other single he released this week, he rhymes along to the lick very well and with a lot of feeling. Though it could be a little sharper lyrically – B+
Sam seemed to have no command of the stage as he wandered back and forth, no idea how to speak to the audience, he couldn’t tell a story and he couldn’t seem to make it a personal experience.and while his life trajectory has been resolutely towards show business, he doesn’t have a feel for the stage.
This is very thrilling stuff as far as I’m concerned and I can’t wait to see if he can pull off a second album as drastically brilliant as his first. Smith and FKA twig, both UK stars by the way, are the sound of 2014 and the sound of 2014 is melancholia mixed with desire. It uses EDM but it isn’t EDM, and if its roots are in soul that is only at the deepest level.
“Sam is our top choice. He has the profile, cool image and astonishing voice to record a Bond theme. And there is only so long we can hold out for Adele. Daniel Craig was pushing for her because she did such a great job last time around.”
OK, it is all true. I am being heartlessly manipulated by the powers that be into embracing something as pure product as the Jessie J’s All Stars but the reason for something like this is simple enough: to sell, and if it does sell, it is a successful product and while I didn’t much care for “Bang Bang” I love it now it is a hit.
The problem with this iteration of Kidz Bop Kids is the covers are a little more muddled than usual, both “Happy” and “Dark Horse” should have had the arrangements much cleaner, smaller if you will. Surely Kidz Bop isn’t just about taking out the dirty words? Tom Petty? 133K units sold, Clapton? 65K.
This is a real rarity, a better album than a single chart. From Coldplay to Clapton to Petty to,,, Guetta? The album is two years old!!! Still there isn’t one, well maybe “X” but no more than one, bad album in the lot, and Ed is more disappointing than lousy.
The Ed Sheeran album isn’t great but two songs on it are great, and the Bleachers album isn’t great either but “Roller Coaster” and “Leave Your Lover” are both such terrific songs they are gonna be duking it out for the rest of the year for supremacy round our way. I love one more, but the other one is better
Ed Sheeran’s fifth week at the top of the UK charts with an amazing 400K units moved and more power to him even if I don’t like the album as much as all those folks, the best moments have grown on me. By the way, quite why Dolly Paton called her new album and a greatest hits collection is well out of my pay bracket.
This is a good summer on the charts, I ca see three songs here which will end up high on my best 2014 and any year when you get Adele done right, which is one of Sam Smith’s many achievements this year, the most prominent one is, of course, making an album which compares favorably to In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning. Makes you happy to be writing about music in the 21st Century.
Back in 2009 we did things like what is on Jesus Ipod, imaginary concerts, and something like this, “what I am Listening To Right This Minute” posted in real time as we listened. That morphed over time to my daily 10 songs post.
Apparently, it has just been made available but I don’t know since there has been no official annoucement. You would have thought Spotify would’ve been all over that announcement and the reason I’m guessing they weren’t isbecause Columbia wouldn’t pay for advertising space and so it snuck in the back door
Four boy R&B band Rixton are, well, more Boys II Men than 1D and therefore much better than you probably think, also, they come from my home town Manchester, England, plus, well let the Manchester Evening News tell you: “They will each get an inking of a broken heart tonight, after learning their pop song Me And My Broken Heart reached number one.”
What is Halycon doing back on the charts? Those English are crazy. Also, Morrissey deserves to be number one, and I ashamed, yes shame on the English for letting Ed win the battle. Ed is a nice bloke but Moz is an institution.
So 1000 Forms Of Fear in at # 1 even if only 54,000 units shifted, still a good number. Maybe I was wrong? Maybe I should listen to it again? So I did and this album is so full of it self it seems to swagger along in self-regard though its only saving grace is Sia’s voice and when that’s all there is, it begins to pull you under.
So, English rock bands, what’s the story? we haven’t gotten Kasabian yet which is bad, but we haven’t gotten one of the UK’s great rock bands Manic Street Preachers, and that’s worse. I once saw MSP from the fourth row of Jones Beach between Screaming Trees and Oasis, and of the three they came… what’s before first?
Hell, this is so weird, things take forever to move on the Singles charts, and for the second week there is precisely one new song and two changes in position with “Happy” dropping out and “Maps” dropping in and i have admitted in public before that I like Adam Levine, and this is as good a Police update as you’ll hear. But the dye job, Ada? It has to go.
Leave Your Lover – Sam Smith – Smith’s absolute and final and timeless masterpiece of thwarted romantic desire, plays like a gorgeous nightmare in the back of your head while Sam’s falsetto reaches forward in desire and sadness. one of the great songs of our time
Wow, except for “Rude” and “Problem” flipping places it is as though last week never happened. So it is s till a pretty good list and I still wish Legend wasn’t on it but at least it won’t be the song of the summer. PS: I don’t think an awful lot of that Iggy’s album. Except for “Work” of course.
Not bad right? Two years ago I was watching Ed Sheeran at the Mercury Lounge and now, holding tight to Taylor Swifts coattails, here we are. Sam smith was probably still a virgin two years ago and as for G. Easy? Man, he must have deep pockets, I bet it cost a coupla million on advertising to get him here. iIt must break down to $20 per sold CD!!!
Timing is everything. Pressed for time and a lane at the grocery store opens and your next in line. The synchronization of the street lights turning green – GO. Turn on the radio in the car and your (current) favorite song is playing – Stay With Me by Sam Smith. Kept meaning to Google him because there are only so many artists who ‘hook’ me.
Noise Vs Beauty – Bassnectar – The House album of the year lives up to its name as one of the best DJs Lorin Ashton, the Santa Cruz party album who added metal to a taste for bass. This is a step forward, a hard pressed masterpiece of beats and sound effects.
380 songs make up my best of 2014 so far, but if I hear a better song than “Leave Your Love” this year it wil be a miracle, a torchy swoony dream of adoration and disassembled love which makes much more sense when now Smith has come out as a homosexual.
No one shocked to see this list, though I wonder if Ed Sheeran can maintain. He is a huge star in the UK, and this is the best selling first week of the year so far, but there is only one “Thinking Out Loud Here”, and I wonder if it will be enough.
Except for the Legend song, this is a plenty good top ten. Both Iggy songs work for me and “Summer” is an excellent song of summer. Nothing else seriously annoys me and if this is what the top ten looks like in 2014, count me in.
I love it when my taste and the zeitgeists taste coincide. It doesn’t happen nearly as much as I wish it did, at least because I am such a pop whote, sales always pricks up my ears. It killed me hating Frozen for months on end. But I love the top two on this list, written about them lots, and seeing them here at the top of the charts is just heaven!
The problem is Sam Smith’s version, as beautiful as can be, is too downcast, with just a piano he caresses it morbidly. It works as an adjunct to In The Lonely Hour, but that isn’t what he should be doing and that he wo’t jump on something he should be jumping on is something of a bummer.
I guess the return of Ed has a lot to do with the upcoming sophomore effort which just might do the difficult: be the same and different at the same time. Lana at # 1, though the real question is what will the US make of it? My gut is it will break pop but if West Coast couldn’t make it on the Singles chart what can here? Well, at least should insure a career touring if she has finally learnt how to play live.
It is fertile ground for the tumultuous sound of pop, even when played on blue notes, it is as extreme as human love can get and on song after song here, it is as good as pop music can get as well. Grade: A
Hank Marvin still has a beautiful tone to his guitar and these instrumental versions of early 60s to late 70s hits is pretty wonderful, meanwhile at the top of the charts Kasabian are probably the best English rock group ion the world today.
Ella Henderson came in 6th in the 2012 UK X Factor contest, and so the eighteen year old went away for two years and returned with a new song that sold over 140,000 copies (in the UK, mind) and went straight to the top of the charts. That’s all I’m saying.
A huge week, the debut album by Big Freedia, a really great disco guy whose 2012 “Booty-Whop” and current “Explode” are just so much fun, Cerebral Balzy are a blast live, everything I’ve heard off Lana’s Ultra Violence has been first rate, and J Lo better come up with the goods, but the week belongs to soul brother # 1 Sam Smith’s eagerly anticipated debut album.
Yeah, yeah the stroppy Aussie kid is full of herself and I don’t doubt she has the song of the summer here, and I don’t doubt it won’t be Sam Smith because Smith is too downbeat, but I am real happy he has hit the top 10 because when you’ve spent as many posts trumpeting Smith as the next big UK soul sensation I’d feel like a total twit if he wasn’t.
Last weekend, The Neon Brotherhood comprising of 40 fantastic musicians from Neon Sound Studios in Burntwood, who either knew Stephen, rehearsed with him, or were just simply inspired by him, came together to write and record a charity single in Stephen’s memory. Please support it and let’s get it to number one.
Smith thinks he could be the next Adele and I agree (saleswise, I prefer him in all other ways) and this could be a real opportunity to see the guy before he blows up even bigger. Personally, I think what I’ve heard of In The Lonely Hour is simply unreally brilliant
Dope Fiend Rental – Danny Brown – Why the hell did Danny Brown show at the A-Trak show if he didn’t come to party? This masterful track featuring Kendrick Lamar is good enough to remind you than Brown is not just an Afro and a drug habit – A
Here is a true rarity, a better album chart than the single chart. Headed by the great Sam Smith and followed by Coldplay’s best album to date, Paolo is quite good, Paolma is alright and Pharrell, eaton and London Grammar maintain the quality.
“Jubel” is a very good song and “Summer” is a better song but the question is if, in the charts business, it is not the best what is it exactly. “Summer” which should be a hit may well be a little too slow and “Jubel” is a little too sweet, not to spend the dog days looking upwards.
“A guy that I fell in love with last year, and he didn’t love me back. I think I’m over it now, but I was in a very dark place. I kept feeling lonely in the fact that I hadn’t felt love before. I’ve felt the bad things. And what’s a more powerful emotion: pain or happiness?
This is Sam Smith’s week, we only live in it. Undoubtedly, In The Lonely Hour is the album to beat. If only for the first single, “Stay With Me”, this is a major (first!) release by a great singer. Othersie, I am listening to the new Sharon Von Etten as we speak and like it don’t love it, really liked the Robyn EP, and am looking forward to Christian rocker Crowder, anti-Christs EYEHATEGOOD and Mariah Carey who lives somewhere between the two.
Two new songs here, yet to be released in the US, promise mountains for the modern soul sounds of the UK. “Stay With Me” is as great as the beautiful voiced soul singer Sam Smith gets and this is not simply quite possibly his best song yet, it is also his potential big time US breakthrough. “Extraordinary” is no “Rather Be” but it is still damn good.
