“My Heart Hurts So Good” — AKA and the burgeoning Olympia, Wash. hip-hop scene (FREE MP3s!)
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AKA & The Heart Hurt Goods – “Dotted Line”
(f. Double B / Nathalie Elam)
AKA & The Heart Hurt Goods – “Put On Blocks”
(f. Nathalie Elam / Andrew White / Nicatine of Free Whiskey)
AKA & The Heart Hurt Goods – “Supersonic Love”
(f. Nathalie Elam)
AKA & The Heart Hurt Goods – “Last Call”
(f. Nicatine of Free Whiskey)
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From the land of the mighty Pacific Northwest comes the rumbling of a burgeoning hip hop community, that is uniting all things hip hop. Graffiti, Djing, B-Boying, Emceeing and a growing battle rap scene.
One of the leading emcees going by the moniker AKA, began putting together his album Heart Hurt Good together in seven years ago. Working with one of the premier producers in the Pacific Northwest Matt ”Smoke” Smokovich and featuring some key players on the hip hop scene, Nicatine from Free Whiskey, Double B, Q-Storm, Skyler Blake and Brad B of Drunken Immortals. AKA added what would become The Heart Hurt Goods: Josh White on drums, Joe Pearce on rhythm guitar, Adam Bakotich on lead guitar and DJ Mothrider, and keyboardist Andrew White, and vocalist Nathalie Elam combined to form AKA & The Heart Hurt Goods.
“We’re not in Kansas anymore Auntie Em” AKA flows on “Rocketman”, reminding us that this album is full of surprises and all the great things that indie hip hop can be. The stand out tracks that could bump in any club include “Dotted Line” Featuring Double B, and “Put On Blocks” featuring Nicatine from Free Whiskey and Nathalie Elam, throw a twist to the regular boring bass bumps that permeate through many misguided hip hop fans’ speakers. Tracks that bump the soul and drive anyone to start dancing in their spot, building up to throw aside the listeners’ inhibitions and get up onto the dance floor and shake.
“HEAR! HEAR!” EXCLUSIVE: Rebel Revive’s debut EP XI
Matthew Lindblad definitely has plenty of experience as part of the Orange County music scene. A multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter, Lindblad played guitar with the band New Years Day, which gave him a taste of mainstream success including Warped Tour experience. Now he’s teamed up with Gus Flaig (drums) and Chris Chavez (guitars, vocals) to form Rebel Revive, a band which is able to draw on Lindblad’s experiences with rock influences both old and new, to create a sound they can call their own.
The result is XI, a hybrid of pop, rock and punk influences named for the eleven years Lindblad has spent performing his music in the area. “The Voices,” the EP’s standout single, features a fresh musical backdrop which reminds this critic of Blink 182 or Cartel if they were filtered through the Slip (must hear: “Even Rats”), with the band singing a chorus of “whooooah-oh-oh!”s as Lindblad claims they have the voices, silent for too long, which will now speak for a generation. While that may be an overreaching statement, the chorus itself is incredibly ear-catching and repeatable.
The rest of the EP builds on that hook to create songs which are memorable and instantly accessible. With “Better Days” and “Stars” standing out as potential future singles, there’s no reason to expect this album to fade away anytime soon. If anything, expect your appetite to be barely whetted. You’ll have to settle for repeating the six songs and hoping it won’t be too long before the band puts together the epic full-length this hints lies just over the horizon.
XI officially drops tomorrow, but if you’re ready to go for a musical ride, “Hear! Hear!” has the entire album streaming exclusively today! So strap on your headphones and press play, then make sure you share this music with everyone you know with good taste. You may have heard it first, but they’ll all want to ride your coattails.
Lucas Jack’s Sun City brings the piano-rock troubadour a new breath of life
Texas-based songwriter Lucas Jack has made no bones about his desire to bring back the glory days of the piano-pop songwriter, whether that singer be Billy Joel or Elton John. But his attempt to reinvent that tradition, while maintaining the familiar beats listeners will have come to expect, does a surprisingly solid job expanding it as well.
Sun City, a concept album which follows a couple through their journey toward the American Dream, though the detours are numerous and their success rarely assured. These songs are often Joel’s Brenda and Eddie from “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant,” as they travel through the darker edges of modern suburban life. Midway through the album, “Hope” takes on a darker view of Joel’s “She’s Always A Woman,” in particular:
There’s a distance in her eyes
Every time she starts to lie
And she’s far away tonight
And she always offers hope
That she wraps around your throat
Like a hangman selling rope
The war is only words you never say
The score you keep just counting down the days
Keep singing with the chorus in the bar
To blacken out the dark
And keep on coming back just as you are
But it’s not just an exercise in cheap misogyny like Joel’s hit, taking cheap shots. The song illustrates the buying of time which takes place in a marriage collapsing despite everything both spouses try to do. Both sides want to keep things together, so she lies and he accepts the hope she provides, even as he lies by saying the marriage still has a chance and that he’s not strangling against the metaphorical noose. The song’s haunting tone echoes the futility both must feel in the situation, with little they can do but keep living lie after bitter lie.
We witness the same couple earlier in the album on “Paralyzed,” as the husband debates just walking away from everything, even though he knows he never will. Lyrically this is where Lucas Jack shines, laying everything on the line in brutally cutting prose as his piano echoes the hopeful tone which will obviously keep this man in the marriage past its breaking point.
Once a month with our t-shirts on
That’s how far our love has gone
Our friends all tell us we should both move on
But we’re tangled up too tight
We’re paralyzed in our separate ways
We’ve both got kids of our own these days
And they’re making it harder to walk away
But we’re both long gone inside
How’d we get so old at 35?
I don’t want to give you the perspective that this album is nothing but bitter pills to swallow, backed by sunny piano pop which belies the devastation within. Lucas Jack is a talented songwriter who echoes Billy Joel in his delivery as often as he does solo-era Ben Folds and (on “Don’t Get Carried Away” in particular) even a touch of contemporary Randy Newman. These are songs crafted from the ground up to focus on all angles of the song, and it makes for an album full of vignettes which each deserve to be single candidates.
“You Belong To The City Now” stands tall as the album’s best individual track, and it’s rightly been named as the album’s lead single. It opens with piano, bass and guitar as Jack’s vocals sing of “living it up until it’s way too late to live it down,” his characters’ first glimpse of the city life which, while it eventually will consume them, still holds an alluring aura. I was reminded immediately of “Bonfire of the Vanities,” the Tom Hanks character who thinks he’s the master of the universe, making loads of money so he can live what he thinks is the perfect life, but we know he’s just a few steps away from being destroyed by that lifestyle. On the fourteen songs which follow this introduction, these two characters will take a serious beating — by the end, will they still believe in that dream? Does that upward mobility to the middle class mean anything, or are we all struggling to get past the moments which in the end would really matter the most?
In the end, Sun City is a remarkably astute debut from a songwriter who has crafted a song suite which plays well from the first hit, building in intensity as we listen more and more, sifting through all the lyrical details. It’s like watching a film where we’ve known these characters in varied forms all our lives, so we’re invested in seeing that they come out in the end with at least a semblance of dignity. This is modern American life, and like the troubadours he so admires, Lucas Jack has potential here to have produced a contemporary pop classic. For fans of the genre, missing this album would be a misstep you don’t want to make.
Brazilian singer / cellist Dom La Nina’s “Sambinha” brings out the smiles, requires further review of debut Ela
If this doesn’t bring a smile to your face when you wake yourself up this morning, I don’t think anything will.
Over a plucked cello melody and guitar backdrop, the talented young songwriter lays down a layer of sweetly catchy vocals, creating one of those to-the-point singles bands like Sergio Mendez and Brasil 66 used to put out back when this music had its brief heyday in America.
It’s a song worth checking out, and it makes me want to dig deeper into her debut LP Ela, out since January on the Six Degrees label. Some have likened this sound to what Cat Power might manage if produced by the likes of Brian Wilson. I’ll leave the comparisons up to you, because I only have half an hour before work and I need to hear the song at least five more times first.
Dom has been featured on WNYC’s Soundcheck Blog, KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic, and NPR’s Weekend Edition and Studio 360. She made her US performance debut at the Make Music Pasadena festival and Hotel Cafe last weekend in Los Angeles, and returns to North America in early July, including a New York City date at Joe’s Pub. Hopefully she’ll do well and they’ll announce more dates for those of us stuck in the midwest. Until then, the recordings will have to suffice.
I’ll admit to not having high expectations when I downloaded Omega, an album from a band billed as “an evolution of the classic 90’s boy band for the modern ear.” But even a boy band can surprise, particularly when said band’s album packs as many twists and turns as this one. There’s the requisite radio single in “Put Your Hands Up,” which encourages all of us with inner nerds to put our hands up and pray for the day we can “turn the other cheek when [we're] their boss,” but that thankfully comes at the end of the album. “Carmen” fares much better, as the band channels all the Bowling for Soup they can handle as they swoon over a beautiful latin grocer who quite likely remains out of their league to this day. Get that to radio and maybe we’ll be hearing these guys get the kind of airplay formerly reserved for songs called “Hey There, Delilah.”“Stay Thirsty” by Dirty Streets has enough classic rock juice to make any listener satisfied
For the old-school fan of classic rock who isn’t afraid to mix plenty of Humble Pie and Jeff Beck into their listening schedule, Blades of Grass by Dirty Streets should be an album on your immediate listening list when it hits shelves on July 9th. Until then, get your fix with a few repeats of “Stay Thirsty” to keep your pump primed, a track which the Memphis-by-way-of-Mississippi power trio recorded at the legendary Ardent Studio with production help from sound engineer Adam Hill, with added power provided by Lucero’s Rick Steff on keyboards. With two full-lengths already to their name along with an extensive touring history, expect big things from these guys in the coming months. To learn more, check them out on Facebook!
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.
Blindly soldiering on, Josh Krajcik produces a solid post X-Factor album with Blindly, Lonely, Lovely
He finished second in a reality show, but let’s face the facts: Josh Krajcik has talent which didn’t need a Simon Cowell-led talent show to showcase it. So it doesn’t come as a surprise to hear Blindly, Lonely, Lovely showcasing his blues-tinged growl over larger-than-life arrangements which accentuate his ability to merge blues, rock and pop, all within a slick package.
“Back Where We Belong” brings “big” to the forefront, with its massive arrangement of piano, thundering drums and Krajcik’s lung-deflating vocals, and at times the song itself becomes overwhelmed by that top-heavy heft. Sometimes less is more, which “Nothing” illustrates as the album’s opener. That’s the song which needs to be spread around the internet as the reason this guy needs to be heard. That or the southern-blues keeper “The Remedy,” which could have fitted itself nicely into any Ray Lamontagne album yet released, or at the least as a John Mayer Continuum b-side. Steep yourself in those vocals at the chorus, along with that rising tide of horns, and try not to get swept up in the mood.
This isn’t an album he’ll be able to build a whole career on, but clearly reality success didn’t spoil him — he’s used the time in the Fox spotlight to build an audience and then released an album perfectly in line with what those fans wanted to hear, free from obsessive studio interference. With album tracks like “Don’t Make Me Hopeful” and the album-closing stunner “Let Me Hold You” anchoring this mix, there’s plenty to hope for in this songwriter’s future. If you weren’t already sucked in by the solid craft illuminated by his first two independent albums (try “Atavistic” on for size if you don’t believe me), I can’t think of a better mainstream introduction to his sound than what Blindly, Lonely, Lovely delivers.
Kacey Musgraves catches lightning in a bottle — “Same Trailer Different Park” is country’s best album of the year so far
If you ain’t got two kids by 21
You’re probably gonna die alone
At least that’s what tradition told you
And it don’t matter if you don’t believe
Come Sunday morning you best be there
In the front row like you’re supposed to
Same hurt in every heart
Same trailer different parkMama’s hooked on Mary Kay
Brother’s hooked on Mary Jane
And daddy’s hooked on Mary two doors down
Mary, Mary, quite contrary
We get bored so we get married
And just like dust we settle in this town
On this broken merry-go-
Round and round and round we go
Where it stops nobody knows
And it ain’t slowing down
This merry-go-round
Talk about a shot to the gut. This is one of those songs which could apply to just about everyone I’ve known in small-town Indiana at some point in our lives. It’s a touch of downwardly mobile Americana as we settle for less than we’re worth because we don’t believe we deserve anything better than just a chance at treading water.
Kacey Musgraves doesn’t have the thundering “shoot for the high notes” vocals of a Carrie Underwood, and though she could out-hustle Taylor Swift in any songwriting competition, you’ll be unlikely to find her drawing the same kind of frantic, obsessed crowd. All the better, because we can take in the wonderful songwriting on Same Trailer Different Park, 2013′s first flat-out fantastic country album, without having to worry she’ll be overexposed by September.
“Merry Go Round” may be the strongest introduction to her sound, but “Dandelion”, “Stupid” and “It Is What It Is” reiterate that this young woman is Nashville’s best lyrical hope, suggesting that country can mean a hell of a lot more than just by-the-numbers button pushing. This is the real America … it is what is is ’til it ain’t anymore. Here’s hoping listeners aren’t too stubborn to give her the chance she so richly deserves, because there’s nowhere better you could be than listening to this album a few times through.
“Every Second Soaked In Sadness” — Bring Me The Horizon unites grindcore, indie pop and death metal in perfect unholy mix
If you can’t soar with the eagles
Then don’t fly with the flock!
Are you still getting by?
Was I your knight in shining armor,
The apple of your eye,
Or just another step to climb?
Nothing about Bring Me The Horizon sounds like it should work, at least on paper. This is an unholy alliance between death metal vocals, emo-inspired lyrics, punk-pop hooks and enough EDM-fueled radio edge to keep radio programmers salivating — at least on “Can You Feel My Heart?” which opens the album. “I can’t drown my demons, they know how to swim,” Oliver Sykes sings. “I’m scared to get close, I hate being alone … I long for that feeling to not feel at home. The higher I get the lower I sink.” This isn’t your typical death-metal vocal, but bringing the genre together with elements of grindcore and indie pop helps give heft to a remarkably sturdy album.
Sempiternal kicks up a notch with “The House of Wolves,” which lets their metal leanings shine brighter over the poppier hooks, though there’s still a lot more melody anchoring this music than you’d likely expect. “Go To Hell, For Heaven’s Sake” proves to be another keeper, leading into a stretch on the album with a series of great tracks managing to bring deathcore imagery into songs you’ll want to sing along with incessantly, even as your throat aches. “I want to choke on the hurt you bring,” he screams. “I’m burning down every bridge we made … I’m bleeding out every word you say.” Then “Shadow Moses” brings Dropkick Murphys and Linkin Park together into an earworm you won’t escape alive, leading perfectly into the languid intro of “And The Snakes Start To Sing,” which showcases some of Sykes’ best vocals amid the strongest instrumental chops the rest of the band brings to bear.
Call this an accidental favorite, but once you give this band a shot, you’ll find plenty worth devouring.
“Reading Past The Headline” — an Interview with P.O.S.
As great as P.O.S.’s We Don’t Even Live Here is, the album’s been overshadowed by the rapper’s inability to properly tour to promote it, so it’s great to hear he’s getting the chance to go out and do a few dates this spring, including Sasquatch Fest in Washington state this May. With his otherwise well-documented health issues keeping him off the road for the last few months, I suspected he might have something to say to fans about the album and his collaborative spirit, which has seen him working with everyone from Doomtree to Building Better Bombs and Marijuana Deathsquads. Sure enough, there was enough great discussion fodder in a few minutes to fuel hours of conversation, had there been the opportunity.
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I’ve been really impressed with the collaborative spirit of Minneapolis hip-hop over the last decade. What would you hope the mainstream contributors to the genre would take from that?
I don’t know, I guess I really think that you’re starting to see that more anyway without someone having to get out there and say anything. I think having a band behind you is pretty fun, but it’s more about finding people who are good at something and working with them. Really thinking about everything as more of a project.
I’d noticed with the new album that, on tracks like “Fuck Your Stuff,” it seemed you were talking about getting people to get up off their asses to do something constructive rather than just bragging, hyping and buying stuff.
Yeah, it’s not just about musicians, but more everybody.
Have your fans taken that message and run with it?
I don’t know! I think some of them have, but I don’t know if all of them go beyond the music. The problem with talking about some of the stuff I talk about on this record is that we still live in the world that we live in, you know? It’s still all about the money you have and what you can afford and brag about. Whether I rap about trying to find a better way or a different way, that’s still where people’s lives are. They have to work and get money, whether they care about money or not.
Do you feel you have a responsibility since you have that “voice” through hip-hop, to push that Occupy message as far as it’ll go?
Sort of. I don’t know if it’s an Occupy message, but more of a general “if we live in a capitalist society, that’s where we live” mentality. There may not be anything you can do about it, but that doesn’t mean we all just have to take being wage-slaves and being treated like that’s what we want to do. I don’t know anyone who wants to be a wage-slave.
You got your start in the realm of punk music. Comparing that genre to hip-hop, do you think there’s really much of a difference between hip-hop’s lyricism and punk’s more furious roots?
No. I really don’t. I think that when I was first getting into Wu Tang Clan I was definitely very aware as a fan of music of how really punk-rock it was. I think at the very roots you can go all the way down and they both have their fun, they both have their carefree side, but at the most fundamental level they’re about doing something constructive with your life, looking at things from a different angle.
Listening to your music, you’ve covered all the different angles, with four solo albums, your work with Doomtree, and then you’ve been part of Building Better Bombs and Marijuana Deathsquads. How do you keep challenging yourself to maintain that level of work?
Well, I think the point is to make things that are challenging. I don’t know that it’s a matter of “how do I keep challenging,” it’s a matter of making songs that are interesting to me. If it feels that it’s not interesting for me then I can’t roll with it, you know? I never really think about it in terms of “how am I gonna outdo myself?” It’s a matter of making more music.
Do you feel that you have to have multiple things going on to keep yourself inspired?
Yeah. Definitely, if I was only rapping I’d be bored out of my mind.
Looking at Minneapolis in particular, in the 90s it was a flourishing punk and alternative scene, and now it’s been hip-hop since Rhymesayers really took force.
Right, but in all that time there’s still been that rock influence. Everything that’s happened, there’s not a lot of ska bands, since ska kind of just “went away,” but as far as different styles of music you can always find it. This is a very unique and interesting music city.
What makes a city build a good scene?
I think it’s because there are no major labels, just small labels big enough to handle the music local bands collaborate on. I think there’s a tradition here. I definitely wasn’t born when the music scene started here, but by the time I was old enough to listen to music, there were already bands like Husker Du and the Replacements, all these awesome bands that had worked the scene here. So I think if you’re a musician, if you’re just starting out it feels impossible to break through, but you only have to make a little bit of headway to realize just how wide open it is.
Artists often get pigeonholed into the same conversation over and over again. What do you wish someone would ask you but they never do?
Honestly? On my last record I was more annoyed. The questions this time around have been really good because people are starting to pay attention to the subject-matter of the songs. And I think culturally people are a little more awake than they may have ever been, if you take the Internet into consideration not just for music but for information. You can have an opinion and a set of ideals that maybe you didn’t have a few years back even. Things can happen so fast, it’s just a matter of taking the time to actually read things past the headline.
Is there something you wish no one would ever ask you again?
There are always the standard questions about “what are your favorite bands,” and stuff like that. I never mind sharing, but it’s always like “you could probably just read another interview.”
I’m always more interested in what artists are currently inspired by. Are there groups or solo writers coming up who you think we should be more aware of?
Yeah … I think that there’s a rapper named Haleek Maul who people are kind of sleeping on right now. But there’s always so many rappers, there are a million people. I’m really super-inspired by podcasts and current events. Musically I’m still into my favorites and I’m always listening to new stuff.
Do you think artists have a mandate to keep pushing people to think more deeply about the world?
No. I don’t at all. I think there’s always a place for stupid love songs, a place for completely mindless songs. I think there’s room for everybody. There’s a common thought in underground rap that mainstream rap is stupid. Underground punk bands think mainstream bands are stupid, since people who grew up loving Green Day hate Green Day now. I think there’s room for everybody to do pretty much whatever they want, there’s enough people out there to be successful. If you believe in the music that you’re putting out, you should stand behind it. When I was younger I was really mad at the direction hip-hop culture drives people, and there’s always going to be anger and ignorance, whether it’s rap or anything. But that’s me. Part of my personality is that I want to talk about things that affect my life, the world around me. It doesn’t mean everybody needs to do that.
If you’re going to write silly love songs, at least be willing to stand up for that.
Exactly, but there are people who – think about the Queers or bands like that – part of their charm is that they make silly stupid songs. Some are good, some are bad, but they all have that bent to them. For someone like me, I love Minor Threat because they talked about things which mattered to them, but I also liked the Vandals, where every song just seemed to make fun of something. There’s room for everything.
No such thing as a guilty pleasure then?
Not for me, at least not since I was 25. At that point I decided fuck it. If I like it, I like it.
I know you’re scheduled to play at Sasquatch Fest this spring. What should we expect to hear from you guys in the coming year? Are you working on any new material or are you just excited to get out there and promote the current album now?
I’m getting excited to promote the current album, but with all the health stuff sidelining the tour, I’d be bored if I wasn’t making something. It’s still been tough, I haven’t gotten my transplant yet and I’m booking shows on faith that I’ll be able to get out there. My docket’s still pretty open at this point.
If you had one album through which you could introduce the world to hip-hop or rap, which would be your “most essential” pick?
Oh man, there’s a lot of albums I personally like. I guess just because you’re asking me today and I’m thinking about it today, I’d say My Ghetto Report Card by E-40. It’s a really good record, because he’s one of those guys who is a true innovator and he’s not always dumb. There’s enough party, enough bullshit and enough smart stuff, and the beats all knock. And nobody sounds like E-40.
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.
“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.
“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!
Twenty | One | Pilots fly high with genre-defying debut Vessel
Like a cocaine-fueled amalgamation of the Hoosiers and Linkin Park, with hints of Panic! At The Disco thrown in for good measure, Columbus (Ohio)’s Twenty | One | Pilots own flat-out the most infectious pop sound of the new year, and they’re ready to take your brain hostage at the slightest provocation. “”Holding On To You,” the album’s lead-off single, makes the mission clear from the start — they’re the kaleidoscope through which we should be viewing our music from here on, and the only rule is there are no rules.
Freewheeling between eighties-inspired glam-pop backdrops, hip-hop fueled fire-breathing and pop-punk inspired radio hooks from the Gods, this is music for those who want their music to continually twist the knife. “Migraine” opens with a burst of Imogen Heap-esque vocorder bliss, then bursts back and forth from a singable chorus to hip-hop verses like a feast for that space between your ears celebrating a tidal wave of creativity with hooks to spare. “Car Radio,” meanwhile, opens with a quiet instrumental interlude which is overlaid by a spoken-word burst of poetry bemoaning a life without music — the suffering of one who had his car radio stolen. “Sometimes quiet is violent,” he sings, before hinting that a life without music could be so terrifying death might actually be better than enduring the silence.
But the album’s biggest success is that lead single, and “Holding On To You” deserves to be the vehicle which introduces fans to this band certain to become their new favorite. The beginning is perfectly executed Wombats-inspired pop, building to rapped crescendos on the verses and a pop chorus Fall Out Boy would have killed for in their heyday. But it’s the breakdown three minutes in which burns the place down with a rapid-fire singalong sure to stick to your brain like glue:
Lean with it, rock with it
When we gonna stop with it?
Lyrics that mean nothing
We were gifted with thought
Is it time to move our feet
To an introspective beat
It ain’t the speakers that bump hard
It’s our hearts that make the beat
Doing what Alt-J did for fans of art rock last year, these two Midwestern purveyors of “schizoid pop” make mini-symphonies of genre blasting experimentation, making it fun to be a fan of pop music again. Come out of the closet, friends — if proof was needed, this is it, that there’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure. When you’re flying with Twenty | One | Pilots, it’s all good!
Dawn Richard gets to the heart of contemporary R&B on Goldenheart while proving her mettle as a pop songwriter
Dawn Richard, formerly the lead singer of Danity Kane and one-time collaborator with Sean Combs’ Diddy-Dirty Money, jump-starts 2013 with her latest solo LP Goldenheart, which stands out as an affirmation of what good modern pop R&B can do when it gives real music a fighting chance. “Return of a Queen,” “Golliath” and “Riot” launch this album with a sense that everyone involved simply wanted to make a great pop album, letting the music speak more than the usually requisite hype. The result is a song-cycle which showcases the depth of Richard’s craft, filled with hooks which should lure people onto the dance-floor and then back home to those headphones, where they can pore over the intricate details.
“I’m searching to find my way back to the throne, and I know if I could climb back through these walls maybe I’d get home,” Richard sings as “Return of a Queen,” and she sounds perfectly within her element as she lifts the track far beyond easy comparisons. As the album progresses, we get drawn into the tempos and movements she requires for us to fully let our guard down, and the reward is an album of contemporary pop R&B which transcends the triple-filtered sludge radio wants to force down all our throats.
She even saves the best for last, with “Goldenheart” tying everything together via a beautifully evocative piano melody coupled with her fluid vocals to form a hybrid of classical pop. The result forces you to hit repeat to hear how everything fits into the whole of the album’s concept, making this album ultimately a rewarding listening experience beyond what anyone would expect from a mere pop showpiece. From start to finish Goldenheart is sequenced to be a memorable listening experience which changes minds as to what R&B can accomplish.
Aly Tadros gives fans The Fits with magnificent sophomore album steeped in wanderlust
Brooklyn’s Aly Tadros spent the last decade traveling across Egypt, Turkey, Mexico and Europe, adding surprising depth to the jazzy alt-country vocals she brings to sophomore album The Fits. Tadros’ ability to wring each note for all its potential nuance makes songs like “Silence and the Truth” and “Sweet on Me” instantly stand apart from the crowd, putting her in the same realm as Norah Jones or Over the Rhine’s Karin Bergquist. The Fits is one of those rare well-rounded albums which covers so much ground it can’t possibly soak in on just a cursory listen Like Come Away With Me, which Norah Jones turned into a diamond-selling juggernaut, this album delivers the musical goods piece by piece over extended listens, so by the time she’s had her way, these songs will have listeners tied up in knots as they try to grasp the moment when Aly Tadros won them over as fans for life.
Louisville’s O’Kingdom wants you to help jump-start their sophomore album: Metalcore fans unite!
Once you hear Louisville’s O’Kingdom, you’ll understand why the metalcore band has quickly built a dedicated regional following. The band, currently looking to record and produce a sophomore album in time to tour this summer, has turned to Kickstarter with hopes of raising $3,000 toward said goal. Considering the creative prizes they’re willing to pay out to fans for ponying up the dough, added to the quality of the music they’ve already produced (see video evidence of “Prophecy” below) it doesn’t seem they’re asking too much. Let’s get the word out, to give a talented regional band the push they need to build a wider audience. Support the band’s goal before February 9th or they’ll have to start from scratch! And if you dig the sound of the single, their debut Adamah is worth digging up as well.
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!
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.
