Streaming

There are two types of John fans, those who love Greatest Hits One and Two and those who love Madman Across The Water. Writing great pop is a greater achievement than writing great art. Elton does neither any more but at least it isn’t crap.

MGMT has a new, self-titled album and you can already stream it on Rdio, a week in advance on its official release! I haven’t really started listening yet, the email popped up in my mailbox yesterday night and I was out for a show.

Start with the dire “Stick Out Your Tongue” –a bizarre and very very very bad rewrite of “Pills And Soap”. And then move on to “If I Could Believe:, which is “God Give me Strength” with all the melody squeezed out. And then start searching.

There is absolutely no doubt that PONO will offer much better quality files, but is this really what most people want? Most people do not listen to music at home, comfortably sitting on a couch. They listen to music on-the-go, while walking, running, shopping, and driving, they don’t care that much about quality

Here is VW covering Robin covering Benny Hill -at least that’s my story…

Actually, Beck is ready to release not one but two albums this year, first an acoustic album (and his first one since 2008’s ‘Modern Guilt’) set for this fall, and a second one which may be a proper follow-up to ‘Modern Guilt’. He has also left his label and the two albums will be released independently this yea

Why not give us, I dunno “Dead Flowers” –something with a little grit to it, instead of this manifesto. Or if they wanted the Marianne comparison, why not “Sister Morphin”? Stretch her out a little. It has been a long time since “wha’ wha’ I love knitting y’all…”

Personally I was a fan of Regatta de Blanc, the rest was too popular to me. But I am stunned that so many years have past since ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me’.

So who gets 2 Million streams? I just took a look and Macklemore and Lewis did 3.7M streams of “Can’t Hold Us”, so that makes about $160,000 in revenue of which the band get MAYBE 25%.

Sultry and sexy voice, crooning over a film noir atmosphere, only habited by twanging guitars and discreet percussion

‘Pura Vida’, Spanish for pure life, will resonate the important themes dear to Eugene Hütz and his troupe, with an opening song ‘We Rise Again’ whose chorus claims ‘Borders are scars on face of the planet’!

The song’s successive accelerations and decelerations bring you on a bumpy and chaotic road.

The record was held by “Thrift Shop” in the US and Bastilles “Pompeii” in the UK which you gotta think, right? As Obelix might put it, “These English are crazy.”

Some of you may have bought the Record Store Day limited edition of MGMT’s new cassingle ‘Alien Days’ – err, people buy cassingles? – but if you didn’t, you can always stream the song below.

The song showcases everything I remember about his performances, meditative electronic soundscapes populated by his subtle harp and angelic falsetto voice, slowly sprawling, with glitches of electronics cascading and sparkling with a rare serenity, despite the heartbreaking line starting the song: ‘Even if I wanted to love you, would you love me?

‘It felt like trying on new clothes when we first listened to it – it took a while to get comfortable with it, but now I like it a lot’ says José González’s to describe the song, and I feel quite the same way after my third listening. But don’t get fooled by the lightness of the melody

This loud, hard-charging bluesy jam jumps at your throat and eardrums from start to finish, blasting your mind open, as if it wanted to convince everyone that rock’ n’ roll is very well alive. ELLE had the exclusivity of the song, and drummer Leah Shapiro explained how the song came up

The trick is, usually a band lets the drums keep the band together but with a bassist as good as Flea on board the percussion is free to do other weird things and here the band takes full advantage of the situation

It’s all vintage psychedelia, filled with multicolor distorted visions during an imaginary and vivid acid trip among layered guitars,… one sure thing, this fuzz-fantasy will not silence all these Syd Barett comparisons.

The epic track is actually complex, going from a totally triumphant jubilant opening, falling into metallic sounds glittering and fizzling all over the place, spiraling and then morphing into symphonic and keyboard weirdness.

The new song ‘Family’ is very much in the same vein than his previous material, it works in-the-urgency with a devilish but sweet rhythm which is revisiting some old-school rock ‘n’ roll, engaging into some serious body-shaking thanks to crashing cymbals and tearing guitar, repainting the whole thing with a rawer and bluesier color.

People seem to think Gary is an acquired taste and I just don’t hear it. This is a mainstream pop song that twists a little of center but it still sounds wonderful. A really wonderful love song.

for some reasons this sounds passé and uninspired. You would have told me this was an old lost song recently excavated from A-has’ Norwegian vault

the fast rolling drumming of the start and the constant spinning Moog synth contrast so much with Bill Taylor’s youthful and clear vocals, that the song brings some cinematic visions of some cruel steamroller monster running after someone keeping his calm till the end

‘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

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.

Bad Religion are now streaming their new album and are touring. Are ya stoked? I really find the ‘Legendary LA Punk’ title a bit annoying. The LA punk scene had much better than this.

I saw him once at Origami Vinyl, and I was so impressed by his melancholic soundscapes and maturity despite the fact he looked like a shy high school kid, … after all this is someone who declared when he was barely 22

Then, the tune blooms into a full and catchy sound with the help of pounding drums, upbeat guitars and joyous background vocals… the result is certainly one of their most thrilling and incendiary songs, and it smells like a hit song a mile around.

If ‘Ready to Go’ is all bells-chiming and dreamy vocals with some epic bombast à la Arcade Fire that may make you want to run up a mountain, ‘Silver Lining’ is an infectious sunny poppy tune that could you make kiss everybody

According to the New York Times, Led Zeppelin is in negotiations for the right to stream ‘Whole Lotta Love’, ‘Stairway to Heaven’, and probably all the rest of their catalog.