Doing all she can to show us pop love, Naia Kete’s “Crazy Glue” sticks to the skull like the best ear candy
Back in October we premiered the single “Cherry Love” by Natania Lalwani. If you fell instantly in love with that slice of perfect pop candy, you’ll be just as enamored with what Naia Kete offers on her latest single “Crazy Glue,” which fits right into that vein of enthusiastic addictive surrender to the art of love. She gets positively high over the touch of a hand and vows to stick to her lover like glue, melding the message via sing-song vocals to a backdrop of guitars, pianos and light percussion, crafting a generous singable hook which is the perfect complement to the endlessly repeatable “Cherry Love.”
Kete, who now lives in LA, was a contestant on The Voice‘s second season and is set to play the Bonnaroo Festival in Manchester, Tennessee this June, at which point she’ll release her third EP, followed by an appearance at Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco this August. If the material on the new EP continues in the vein of “Crazy Glue,” expect the hooks to bounce around the confines of your skull like the best summer songs pop music has to offer.
“These Diamonds In Our Hands” — Cris Cab’s “When We Were Young” melds Dave Matthews, Rob Thomas for robust single
This single by Miami-based singer-songwriter Cris Cab caught me by surprise this afternoon, a refreshing blend of Dave Matthews instrumentation with vocals which blend echoes of Rob Thomas with hints of reggae in the hook. The overall backdrop, when played on repeat, keeps drawing me back to Paul Simon’s Graceland, particularly when the horns come in strong at the 2:35 mark. This is a sunshine-soaked pop hit-in-the-making which should easily warrant proper headphone treatment followed by a proper blasting from your car’s speakers as you cruise down the highway.
If you dig the single as much as I have, check out his Red Road mix-tape, which arrives ahead of Cab’s upcoming debut album due this fall. The mix features collaborations with Hip Hop artists Mike Posner and Wyclef Jean, and can be streamed via SoundCloud.
“Weez” On! Rozwell Kid’s “Unmacho” puts us squarely back in ’94 with a soon-to-be-classic hook
First off, watch the video below then “Like” the band as quickly as possible:
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Done that? Good … bring on the 90s nostalgia!
Afew repeats and I’m wanting to dig out my copy of the Blue Album along with my other favorites from the era, including some Marcy Playground, Harvey Danger and … nah, I’ll just go to Bandcamp and rock out to the rest of Unmacho, which includes the blisteringly good two-minute track “Van Man,” which deserves a video as ridiculously cool as the one they’ve made for the title track. That and the album’s opener, “Bonehead,” which showcases there’s more under the hood than just aping Rivers Cuomo. A quick stream suggests there’s not a dud in the bunch, which is more than a good reason to like them on Facebook and then buy a copy to blast with your windows down all summer.
Classical piano meets Lil Wayne’s lyrical perversions on “IANAHB,” subverting any claim to good taste
For a minute you might be forgiven for wondering what the hell this track is — have I stumbled onto some odd alternate universe wherein Lil Wayne has converted into an off-kilter pianist?
Nope.
“I’m in a crib, butt-naked bitch,” he chimes in ninety seconds in. “She said my dick could be the next black president.” Whatever the hell that means. From there, “IANAHB” expands to celebrate everything which is patently absurd about the entirety of Weezy’s schtick.
Yes, he’s crazy.
No, he doesn’t care what you think.
For those reasons, he’s willing to throw any ridiculous sleaze rhyme against the wall in hopes that it might stick and piss off someone, anyone, anywhere. In the course of nearly six minutes of perversely inane lyrical mind-fuckery, Lil Wayne manages to boast about everything from fucking every bitch in sight to even fornicating with the very piano backing his rhymes.
The message in the end is that he’s not a human being, so there’s no line he won’t cross in search of so-called hip-hop greatness. That, of course, is already clear to anyone with ears, as any rapper who would think it’s even remotely reasonable to equate the murder of Emmett Till with hardcore rough sex lacks the humanity to understand the concept of what it means to cross a line.
This is Wayne’s World, and if there ever was a line separating good from bad taste in hip-hop, he’s already gotten it drunk and had his way with it.
Justin Timberlake filters his NSync past through hook-fueled “Mirrors,” proving “Suit and Tie” made a terrible first single
Skip to just shy of the four minute mark of this eight minute super-jam, and you’ll hear why “Mirrors” should have been the standard-bearer single for JT’s latest album The 20/20 Experience. This is the first track to meld his new soul leanings with the pop smarts of those boy band tracks which made his vocals ubiquitous in the first place. “Forget the old me, he’s already gone,” he sings, and though that won’t happen completely, “Mirrors” is an apt reflection of where he’s been and where he wants to go, even if at times he spends too much time standing in his own way. There’s no reason he needs to be such a perfectionist, waiting half a decade between albums. If he wants to be an actor, act. If he wants to be a musician, he needs to be willing to release things before they’re polished to death. That’s what made “Suit and Tie” come off as such an overplayed hand … all the talk of needing to hold these songs until he really felt they were ready was left meaningless when the song he did choose to be his comeback didn’t sizzle when we finally got past the “JT comeback” smokescreens.
That said, while I’m still not entirely convinced that Timberlake hasn’t set himself for a dramatic crash and burn, “Mirrors” is the next best thing he’s written since “What Goes Around Comes Around.” It’s the first thing to make me excited to hear the rest of the album, Is The 20/20 Experience going to leave Future/Sex/Love/Sounds in its dust? Unlikely. But it could wind up standing strong as a proper follow-up, even if it took too long to gestate. And though anything less than a global sales explosion will be seen as a failure, if Timberlake actually builds on this new expansion of his sound to build future albums, he could finally live up to the hype and prove he’s more than a jack of all trades and master of none.
The 5.6.7.8′s subvert pop, punk, surf and rockabilly expectations with Bomb The Twist, the best EP of 2012 you didn’t hear
Play this EP straight through and you’ll feel like you’ve just taken a time-warp back into the classic era of pop singles. “Three Coolchicks” may be the best mock-Beatles track I’ve heard to really hit on the sound the band made famous, while distilling how that sound must have sounded to these three Japanese women coming up in the era of Quentin Tarantino “aural re-evaluation.”
Yoshiko “Ronnie” Fujiyama, Sachiko Fujii and Akiko Omo formed the 5.6.7.8′s in Tokyo back in 1992, achieving a modicum of underground fame when they briefly appeared in Kill Bill Volume 1 performing “Woo Hoo” by the Rock-A-Teens, but their music has yet to catch fire. That boggles my mind in this era of retro-pop nostalgia — the EP’s title track sounds like a long-lost Bill Haley smash as though filtered through the Ramones with a touch of surf-rock Beach Party mix thrown in for good measure. This is the essence of “fun” and “rock” distilled into 18 minutes of furiously twisted pop. Like Tarantino the music ably steals from an era long past, but the key is that filter which is applied liberally to the music to make it distinctly theirs. That alone makes this worth a listen. I dare you not to start singing along with “Dream Boy” as though it truly was the logical follow-up to the Chordettes or Leslie Gore.
Feline Kingdom: Cat Empire’s “Brighter Than Gold” ready to set global pop afire
All night awake
In the moonlight I’m with you
In the moonlight I’m with you
Brighter than gold
They’ve owned my ears since I first heard their Cuban-fueled masterpiece Two Shoes nearly a decade ago, and since that moment I’ve never ceased to be surprised at the levels to which they take their obsessively catchy blend of global pop. This latest single, a bright exercise in full body enrichment, sets your speakers afire with horn soaked exuberance, as Felix Riebl lets loose his distinctive Aussie vocals and the band holds sway over us all. In this musical empire the only reason the sun ever sets is so we can blast off with music like this under the moonlight. And with American pop music lacking any distinct edge, something this good is worth ten times its weight in gold. Their yet-untitled sixth album, due in May, can’t come nearly soon enough to sate my appetite for more as I, stuck awake way into the night, continue to press play. “Oh la aye!” indeed.
Casey Abrams’ new “Get Out!” video puts a humorous spin on obsessive crushes with an unforgettable hook
If he can’t have you, he don’t want nobody, baby!
Memo to Casey Abrams. As much as we all love your songs and want you to succeed, it’s dangerous to film a video where you’re seen stalking a hot chick wearing her best “I Love NY” t-shirt, leering behind her like Seattle’s latest serial-killer-in-waiting. That, and telling a girl “you got me like a bug bite and now you’re under my skin” while your eyes bug out eerily might not quite come off as “sexy” as you’re hoping. This time it gets you punched in the face. Next time she might cut you, and we’d hate to see you get hurt, with so much great pop songwriting yet for you to do!
All kidding aside, this video perfectly sums up what made Casey so damned likeable when he was on American Idol back in 2010. If this hook doesn’t win you over, and you don’t find something to champion via this interview I conducted with him for PopMatters, I then officially excuse you. Please now safely give up pop music for life, you’re just not going to be in the right frame of mind for music which doesn’t take itself so seriously.
Lately I’ve been going crazy looking for a juicy pop hit to champion as we head toward spring. Well, folks, this is the one … roll those windows down and crank it full-volume, make sure the whole neighborhood hears. Represent for happy-go-lucky bearded weirdos everywhere, because with a hook this good, if this can’t be a hit I don’t want to listen anymore.
“We Don’t Even Live Here” — P.O.S. and his “Weird Friends” showcase just how far ahead they remain of mainstream hip-hop via new video
I’ve been a champion of P.O.S.’s magnificent hip-hop effort We Don’t Even Live Here since it came out late last year, but the rapper continues to find ways to mine that album for gold as the new year gets going, proving he leads the genre’s vanguard by a wide distance. Reset your opinions of hip-hop by giving these lyrical anarchists a listen or ten. They won’t be beat, and any chance to dig deeper into their catalog is worth the effort. Their tour was cancelled last year due to P.O.S.’s imminent need for a kidney transplant, but they will be playing Sasquatch! Fest with Mumford and Sons, Arctic Monkeys, Vampire Weekend, the XX and an astonishing number of other cutting edge alternative artists, when the festival takes over George, Washington on May 27, 2013. Based on everything I’ve heard about his live shows, this won’t be one to miss.
Check out the video below! It definitely deserves a shot at wider mainstream acknowledgement, even as the band refuses to give up an ounce of their indie credibility to get it.
Fall Out Boy knows what we did in the dark but hasn’t figured out it’s been six years since their relevance expired
A career in flames, but they still lack a clue
I wish Fall Out Boy could see just how far they’ve fallen since their career crashed and burned with the collapse of Folie a Deux. Unfortunately they think that a dash of Maroon 5 mock-swagger plus Bruno Mars-esque backdrop hooks equals a whole lot of Fun. And it’s not. Not by a long shot. “My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light ‘Em Up)” merely showcases a band whose career long ago went up in smoke attempting to create a pop juggernaut while playing by the old rules, figuring we’re all so desperate for a radio earworm we’ll gladly submit our brains for their control.
While once a powerful fixture in the world of top 40 hitmaking, Infinity On High marked their peak, and the five-year absence after “hits” like “America’s Suiteheart” failed to exceed trainwreck status suggests a total lack of direction. It’s been a long slow slide, and worse yet, they think they can Save Rock and Roll with their absurdly titled sixth studio album, due out in April. If this single is the best they can do, I think rock and roll would rather die a slow painful death than to submit to Patrick Stump and Co. as its savior. Sorry boys … the fall-out shall be swift: This critic knows what your songs did during the hiatus, and he’s not buying. Here’s hoping the rest of America follows suit.
Hugh Laurie unchains his heart at Oceanway Studios to raise money for organ donation in the UK
The Doctor is in …
The last time I wrote about Hugh Laurie’s surprisingly adept blues debut nearly two years ago, the world of WordPress took note and rocketed the little review to Freshly Pressed status. The album never quite took off in the US, but my post did because at the time the music was only available in the UK — I’d just happened to luck into a press copy by accident, becoming the first US critic to say anything about it. What’s great about Laurie’s blues work, which makes the album stand out even two years in, is the fact that he comes at the music as a fan. He’s heard this music all his life, and it’s soaked into his soul — something which makes his performances work even when you perhaps wouldn’t otherwise take him seriously.
Today I learned he’s putting his music out there further in the UK to promote the NHS’s Organ Donor Registry via ITV, at a time when there is a desperate shortage of donors in that region. Laurie took to Oceanway Studios in Los Angeles, recording a rollicking cover of “Unchain My Heart” for the cause in the same venue where everyone from Frank Sinatra to Ella Fitzgerald have recorded. You can watch the video below, and then dig deep into Let Her Talk like you should have done two years ago. It’s not too late to recognize a wide-ranging talent when you hear one.
Mixed Blood Majority perform “Runaround” live from The Current studios
With their album released at long last this week, check out the visionary hip-hop outfit ready to set the game on its ear as we head deeper into 2013.
“Play It Loud, Ray!” — Jacob Jones teams up with Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard on the perfect throwback single for any Music City Sweetheart
Jacob Jones’ Good Timin’ In Waynestown doesn’t come out until next week, but that’s no reason not to play his single loudly a few times in celebration of Jones’ throwback rock-a-boogie vibes, which blends the sounds of New Orleans jazz with fifties-era rockabilly and hints of Motown soul. Adding the vocals of Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard to “Play It Loud, Ray” was an inspired touch, adding to the singalong chorus’s unstoppable hook. The rest of the album more than sustains the hype, with “Now That I Found You,” “Lost on the Ohio” and “Don’t Turn Me Loose” proving in particular that Jones has an ear for making these throwbacks fit in a modern pop context. If you too are ready to, as his website proclaims, “Honky Tonk yourself to death,” play this album loud and proud. Nothing else comes close to putting Chuck Berry into the same company as Ryan Adams or Alabama Shakes, which for this critic is more than enough reason to listen.
No Tyme For Nowhere: Musical Nirvana and an Introduction.
Afrok & The Movement
Welcome to “No Tyme For Nowhere,” a column wherein DJ Frank Cardoza, of Olympia, Wash.’s KAOS 89.3, will introduce us to his world of music, featuring bands the rest of us may not otherwise ever be exposed to. This week he features Olympia-based hip-hop acts Afrok & the Movement and AKA & the Heart Hurt Goods.
Frank Cardoza
As I travel through life, there has always been a soundtrack in my head. Songs that fit the road and the cities I visited and created an aural atmosphere for trips. Through punk rock, dirty garage rock and hyper-kinetic ska, I continued to devour music. Foreign balladeers and flirty U.K. chanteuse always tearing a piece of my ear away, with trip hop slow motion and languages that I would never speak but could still feel the emotional bleeding from the melodies. I love music with a passion that has never flickered.
I never had enough skill to stay in groups, I was the bass player who could keep a beat but wasn’t going to be able to hit the strings like Claypool or Jamerson. Yet I always could pick out a great song and frequently was among those people who loved introducing music to others via mix CDs (or for you older people, the ever meaningful mix-tape.) Always wondering where in the musical landscape I could fit in. One day it hit me that I had all the qualities of a great radio DJ. Yes the format is probably ten years past it’s prime as a outlet but in the area I resided in, there was a very well known community radio station that went by the iconic call sign KAOS.
So I ventured down and joined as a volunteer, took the DJ training course and was certified to be a on-air DJ on February 8th, 2012. I spent the first few months subbing on shows and holding down the Monday slot on the KAOS Block Party. All the while I was putting together the plans for my own radio show, No Tyme For Nowhere. A show that would encompass all the music that I’ve heard and felt throughout my 36 years and the newer music I’m still discovering. I finally found the perfect slot on May 26th, midnight, and ending when the time felt right. I’d had the idea of starting each show with a song from The Clash, a couple picks from the vinyl library in the KAOS studio and a 4 song set at the end I dubbed “The Last Call Set.”
As months passed, I came to love the process of putting together a set list that would be encompass new music, but would also keep some of the older music that may have never had much play into the ears of my late night listeners. With a chaotic playlist, I especially keyed in on some fantastic local hip-hop that is very prevalent in the Olympia area, a much maligned genre of music that in Olympia takes a lot of different forms.
Two of the unique groups that cover not only Hip-Hop but R & B, rock, funk and in some instances a vocal type of jazz.
Afrok & The Movement “Doin’ My Thang” Live at the Olympia Ballroom for Hip Hop 4 The Homeless
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AKA & The Heart Hurt Goods “Falling off the End Of The Middle” Live at the Eastside Club
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Just an introduction to the madness and the beginning of this madcap journey. Until next time I shall leave you with the immortal words of Joe Strummer “If I had five million pounds I’d start a radio station because something needs to be done. It would be nice to turn on the radio and hear something that didn’t make you feel like smashing up the kitchen and strangling the cat.”
Jesus-loving, flag-waving jingoistic country hits all-time low with Thomas Rhett’s crass single “Beer With Jesus”
I thought I’d heard it all, until I hit play on “Beer With Jesus,” the crass new “let’s get the bible-belt listener” single by Thomas Rhett. For all the strides country music has made into the mainstream to evolve into lowest common denominator pandering such as this leaves me shaking my head in disappointment:
If I could have a beer with Jesus
Heaven knows I’d sip it nice and slow
I’d try to pick a place that ain’t too crowded
I’d gladly go wherever he wants to go
You can bet I’d order up a couple tall ones
And tell the waitress to put ‘em on my tab
I’d be sure to let him do the talkin
And careful when I got the chance to ask
Tell me how’d you turn the other cheek?
To save a sorry soul like me?
Do you hear the prayers I send
And what happens when life ends
And when you think you’re coming back again?
I’d tell everyone but no one would believe it
If I could have a beer with Jesus
The song says nothing of note except that Mr. Rhett wants to drink all night with Christ his savoir, making sure he buys plenty of good beer and plays all the best jukebox jams for the Lord while they have their private conversation — “and don’t forget, Jesus, to tell your daddy God I said hi!”
I thought it would take years to top the lame pandering of the chorus to “Chicken Fried” by the Zac Brown Band, which manages to proudly give shout-outs to God, the stars and stripes, freedom, soldiers, chicken-fried steak, beer, tight-fitting jeans, radio love, sunrises, children and his woman all in about forty seconds. But I think “Beer With Jesus” now safely takes the cake.
You’ve been warned …
Tori Amos’ out-of-print masterclass performance from Sessions at West 54th proves the incendiary power of live rock
There are times words fail, and many of them occur during the viewing of these seven incredible live videos taken from Tori Amos’ performance on the oft-missed program Sessions at West 54th. Amos and her backing band set these songs afire in a series of performances which rival the Sessions release by Ben Folds (one of the few remaining in print). This is rock music the way it’s meant to be experienced, so powerful and raw in its depth you can only absorb it more completely with an ear pressed suicidally against the side-stage speakers. I’ll let the songs do the talking, thanks to the wonder that is YouTube.
Enjoy, and feel free to post in the comments some live performances which inspire you as a listener. The more the better!
Guitar: Steve Caton
Bass: Jon Evans
Drums: Matt Chamberlain
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SONG #1 — “Precious Things”
SONG #2 — “iiieee”
SONG #3 — “Past the Mission”
SONG #4 — “Caught a Nice Sneeze”
SONG #5 — “Take to the Sky” (Solo)
SONG #6 — “Cooling” (Solo)
SONG #7 — “The Waitress”
“HEAR! HEAR!” EXCLUSIVE: Danielle Wehr’s “Blue Tattoo” introduces a confident, relatable songwriter ready to conquer Nashville
I’ve tried my best to forget that night by the sea
But this little blue heart keeps reminding me
Now I’m bluer than my blue tattoo
I’m bluer than blue
Sixty seconds and Danielle Wehr wins you over with the indelible ink tattoo of this song’s addictive chorus. We’ve all been there: a spring break mistake when in love for the first time becomes that memory we can’t forget, even if it’s more subtle than a blue tattoo. But it’s not regret she sings of, but rather the empowerment you get from jumping in head-first and making those memories while you’re young. In her words:
This song is a song about making mistakes, you want to be young, you want to be bold and fierce, and sometimes these memories are permanently attached to you for the rest of your life, like the blue tattoo. The only thing you can do is learn from your mistakes.
Wehr is smart enough to keep the song short and sweet, introducing the hook early and then hammering it home for the songs remaining ninety seconds, demanding fast-fingered repetition and surefire radio call-ins from fans itchy to hear it just one more time. With a voice which keeps me flashing back to Pam Tillis and Patty Loveless at the start of their respective careers, and a hook which plays into the more traditional country feel of the Dixie Chicks’ stronger moments, “Blue Tattoo” is a fresh take on pop country, introducing a songwriter you’ll surely hear more from on a national scale. Fire it up and see if you don’t agree that feeling blue never felt so good!
Hyperbole Alert! Either Ben Ivory is a God on earth, or he’s merely the “average” of which his handlers speak.
In a world where most music is average or sub-par at best, one in which we’re constantly overwhelmed by mediocre music as we struggle to find the next great band, it’s easy to be swept up in hyperbole over some new band with a groundbreaking take on pop music. But what happens when the hype train derails? From Ben Ivory’s press material:
Ben Ivory is a walking contradiction of light and shadow, East and West, soul and intellect, melancholy and euphoria. It’s easy to forget Ben’s a human: he’s so easy to think of in abstract terms. But when he opens his mouth and the music comes out, his humanity overwhelms the moment. Ben’s singing is a powerful, passionate and blood-warm experience in a world that feels otherwise dominated by the sterile, the cool, the pre-packaged and digital. A world dominated, most of all, by the merely average.
With this much smoke being blown up everyone’s ass in sight, I had visions of a singer with the voice of Freddie Mercury melded with the undeniable charisma of classic Bowie — or at least something worthy of viral attention. Instead I was greeted by a dismal four-to-the-floor bass drum Eurosynth track, complete with cheesy synth stabs and out-of-focus chants a-la anything by Enigma in the early 90s. Worse, however, were the lyrics, which began: “It was good / it was sad / it was the best we ever had / before we live / before we die / there must be something worthwhile.”
The first commandment of “Hear! Hear!” — if you’re going to trash the average among us, you damned well better make sure you’re better than average. This song is not.
Even the video itself remains so out of focus it’s impossible to get any idea of what Ben Ivory thinks he can do for pop music beyond the insular walls of contests like Eurovision, which pander to “here today, gone tomorrow” tripe which rarely successfully crosses the pond in America’s direction. Sometimes the truth hurts, but average is as average does, and Ben Ivory’s done nothing with “Better Love” to make me think he’s capable of anything worth hearing.
“Hey Mama, Rock Me” — Darius Rucker’s cover of “Wagon Wheel” should make a True Believer out of any Hootie-loving holdouts
I’m already a huge fan of Darius Rucker, whether he’s performing with Hootie and the Blowfish or as a chart-topping country solo songwriter. And though I’m always more interested in originals, this cover he chose to record of Old Crow Medicine Show’s “Wagon Wheel” should convert many who haven’t yet jumped onto his solo bandwagon. The song totally fits where Rucker comes from as a down home South Carolina boy born and bred, and should prime the pump for all the great songs we can expect to reside on True Believer when it comes out later this spring. Hell, Rucker sounds way more comfortable on songs like this than he had on any Hootie single of the last decade.
Even the way he stumbled on the song in the first place has a great feel to it (thanks to The Boot for the great quote!)
“Somebody had played ‘Wagon Wheel’ for me years ago,” Darius explains. “It was one of those things that I didn’t really get. So, I’m at my daughter’s high school talent show, and I’m sitting in the audience with my family. We were watching my daughter, and the faculty band gets up. It’s just the faculty from her school, and they play ‘Wagon Wheel.’ I’m sitting in the audience, and they get to the middle of the chorus, and I turned to my wife, and I go, ‘I’ve got to cut this song.’ I’m serious. This all happened in three-and-a-half minutes, four minutes, while they’re playing the song.
The singer-songwriter knows the tune, written by Bob Dylan, may be a bit of a gamble, but believes it’s worth the risk. “[I texted producer] Frank Rogers, ‘Do you know this ‘Wagon Wheel’ song?’” he recalls. “He’s like, ‘Yeah. It’s by Old Crow Medicine Show. A lot of people have cut it.’ I said, ‘I don’t care! I’m cutting it!’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, dude. We’ll try it. We’ll cut it.’ So I cut it, and it was great after we finished it.”
Anyone else out there excited to hear the rest of True Believer?
Fans of brit-pop inspired modern psychedelic rock, Elephant Stone is your new music savior with single “Heavy Moon”
Music like this virtually reviews itself. From the opening note, a long sustained organ hit with the gut-punch of Harvey Danger’s “Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” the hook of “Heavy Moon” is immediate, as the band builds steadily upon a meaty layering of Kula Shaker, Oasis-inspired vocals, and the brilliantly elemental melodic structures of Elliott Smith.
The Montreal band, formed in 2009 by sitarist / bassist Rishi Dhir, won the Polaris music prize for debut-album The Seven Seas, and fans have long awaited the proper follow-up, which finally will see the light of day on February 5th. They picked a great opening single, as the video below will attest. But having heard the entire album through a few times now, I can attest the remainder of the album is chock full of keepers, including “Setting Sun,” which blends the hook of Kula Shaker’s “Tatva” with a jangle-pop melody the Gin Blossoms would have killed for in 1996. And “The Sea of Your Mind” is exactly the nine-minute progressive pop jam your mp3 player’s been begging for.
Plug your headphones in, hold on tight and get ready for the ride … but music this good is worth every second. Spread the word!
The post regarding that time I listened to David Bowie’s “Where Are We Now?” and discovered a cure for insomnia
I made it through thirty seconds of David Bowie’s stunningly disappointing single “Where Are We Now?” before I found myself searching for a place to rest my head in disappointment. The weak excuse for a chorus, the ploddingly maudlin melody and Bowie’s ridiculously obtuse lyricism combine to beg the question: “Why now, Bowie?” Excuse me while I revisit ‘”Space Oddity” and Ziggy Stardust, rather than endure even one more replay of this lame excuse for a comeback.
Maybe I’m completely off my rocker. If so, you’ll surely convince me in the comments. But if the only way he can goose this onto a top 40 chart is to give the single away as part of a “pre-order deal” for his upcoming album, don’t expect the song to have much ground to stand on.
A Rocket To The Moon’s “Ever Enough” flirts with pop and country, stands out among 2013′s first breakout surprises
One thing I hadn’t expected when pressing play on “Ever Enough,” the new single from Fueled By Ramen band A Rocket To The Moon, was a rare earthy hook worthy of country airplay as much as it would be rock. From the band’s upcoming LP Wild & Free, the song fits perfectly amid singles from Eli Young Band or Lady Antebellum, even as it flirts with Augustana’s alt-rock hooks via a chorus you won’t soon stop singing.
Though I haven’t yet heard the entire album, “Going Out” further showcases their alt-country leanings, on a tightly crafted song with a memorable chorus. a song county radio should be salivating over now that they’ve fully lost Taylor Swift to the pop dark-side. And “Whole Lotta You,” their best “rocker” of a track, still has the perfect “drinks on ice, stars in our eyes / all I need is a whole lotta you” groove that’s made Brad Paisley buzzworthy for years.
Who says crossovers always have to go one way? A Rocket To The Moon stands poised to become 2013′s first big breakout act, because they’re keeping their sound true to the groove of the songs, letting the music exist unspoiled by preconceptions. If pop and country both get on board, expect to hear big things from Wild & Free.
Back home again in Indiana, former Click Five leader Eric Dill ready to “Run With the Wolves” on new solo LP
In the space of a year back in 2004 Eric Dill went from Hoosier heartland obscurity to fronting a top Billboard pop act, leading the Click Five as they recorded “Just The Girl,” the song which taught him how harsh a mistress the world of pop can be. After juggling and eventually rejecting offers of publishing deals after his song “No Surprise” for Daughtry went platinum, he’s now back in Indianapolis looking to launch his solo career. His refreshingly candid interview with Indianapolis Monthly’s James Layne is worth checking out in its entirety. Check out “War with the Wolves” below, a shiny pop nugget which bodes well for the rest of his album Forever Is Not Enough. He seems to have his head in the right place, knowing that in today’s climate you’ve got to get the music out there, no limits:
I just really want to play a lot in Indianapolis and create my awareness here. And then connect the dots by letting people know that I’m from here, and then I left here. I had my little “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride” [fronting The Click Five] and went around the world and learned all these different things. I got to see what I think few people have got to see, and I want to take the good and bad from that and apply it to my life, certainly to uplift the music here. I know it sounds ambitious, but I want nothing short of a renaissance here with music.
Quick, let’s get this guy out on the road with fellow Hoosiers Hero Jr and Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s and see what we can make happen!
The “Lion” Sleeps Tonight: The evolution of Snoop won’t please fans of rap or reggae
The evolution of Snoop Dogg from hip-hop to wannabe Rasta is hands down the most frustrating musical development of 2013 thus far. There’s nothing about this music which isn’t both over-calculated and under-inspired. It isn’t surprising that Snoop would gravitate toward the American idea of Rasta culture, being that he’s made a career out of loving all aspects of weed society, but crossing that over into his music means we’re inundated with every faux-reggae cliche.
“No Guns Allowed” fails in every aspect, drawing on cliches at every corner, decrying gun violence and a society where “money makes the man,” while mixing the message. “Guns don’t kill people, people do,” is the implicaton, but there’s also the idea that if we were all rich, we’d spend more time with our children and keep them from choosing violence. That, and “the District Attorney could use a conviction … they can’t wait to get you in the system.” So which trope should we latch onto?
At least “Lighters Up” and “Cali’ Livin’” play to Snoop’s strength, trying to get us all to unite, “east side, west side, north side, south side unified” — nothing can divide us if we just light up with Master Snoop. But the beats lack inspiration, drawing on a sound which brings weak UB40 Casio-reggae hooks together with weak iterations of early-90s Snoop gangsta, pleasing fans of neither in the end. It remains easier to unite behind bashing this material as a crass cash grab than to find any real musical impetus behind its reason for being.
Meanwhile, the less said about his collaboration with Miley Cyrus, “Ashtrays and Heartbreaks,” the better, as we al raise a glass to what used to be Snoop’s “career.”
At the very least, the most successful of these singles — “Cali’ Livin’” — makes me long to hear the Mamas and the Papas and perhaps “Nothin’ But A G Thang,” while I pretend I never heard any of this Snoop Lion nonsense. I suspect April 23 will prove I’m not the only one leaning in that direction when Reincarnation rightly bombs.
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April 7, 2013 | Categories: Commentary, Featured Songs | Tags: Ashtrays and Heartbreaks, Cali' Livin', commentary, featured songs, hip-hop, Lighters Up, Miley Cyrus, No Guns Allowed, reggae, Reincarnation, Snoop Lion, The "Lion" Sleeps Tonight: The evolution of Snoop won't please fans of rap or reggae | 1 Comment »