Besides Michael Jackson (may he rest in peace) there was no other artist besides Madonna that is as controversial, world-renowned, successful as a solo entertainer and known for not only her formative and innovational music-videos but for helping to invent the entire music-video genre, while also putting MTV on the map at the same time. With the appearance in her first music-video in 1980 (dancing backup to Patrick Hernandez in his club classic, the disco sensation “Born to Be Alive”) over the last 30 years Madonna has appeared in more music-videos than any other entertainer, singer, performer, mother, woman, human being and dancing-queen.
Through her videos Madonna not only defined a generation but also caused her viewers to question their own existence, importance and relevance. What child of the MTV generation does not remember the Madonna video marathons that they used host on a nearly monthly basis? Her videos were and are fascinating because like the star herself, they were all highly produced, over-the-top, dramatic, beautiful, sexy and very enigmatic.
Madonna has been the reigning Queen of Pop for 26 years (her debut album “Madonna” came out in the summer of ‘83) and Warner Bros. Records has decided to release this 2 disc DVD set, aptly titled “Celebration” in conjunction with Madonna’s greatest hits CD by the same title. It’s hard to believe that the most successful female entertainer in the entire world who has had more music-videos in rotation on MTV than any other artist only has 2 other video compilations (1990’s “The Immaculate Collection” and the considerably less in your face, “The Video Collection 93:99″ that came out at the end of the 20th century.) “Celebration” is a much needed shot of dance, entertainment and fun for both Madonna’s gaggle of fans and for the casual listener of popular dance.
“Celebration” will include some of Madonna’s most nonpareiled, short form music-videos. These videos are exclusive to this collection, having never been released on any other Madonna compilation yet: 1. American Pie 2. Music 3. Don’t Tell Me 4. What It Feels Like for a Girl 5. Day Another Day 6. American Life (withdrawn video) 7. Hollywood 8. Love Profusion 9. Me Against The Music 10. Hung Up 11. Sorry 12. Get Together 13. Jump 14. 4 Minutes 15. Give It 2 Me 16. Celebration
New York’s heat and humidity are going through the roof as singer/guitarist Alex Turner and drummer Matt Helders hunker down to face the media at an Italian eatery in the heart of the Meatpacking District, but that’s not about to stop them from ordering hot tea. No wonder Arctic Monkeys’ label boss calls them “the coolest band in the world.”
Once upon a time, such inquisitions made the band deeply uncomfortable, but today Turner in particular seems relaxed — perhaps because he recently relocated to the city, while Helders, bassist Nick O’Malley and guitarist Jamie Cook still live in Sheffield, England.
The American influence looms large over the band’s imminent third album. “Humbug” (Domino), which will be released Monday in the United Kingdom and a day later in the United States, was conceived in the Mojave Desert, Los Angeles and New York and precision-tooled for the road. Produced by Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme and longtime collaborator James Ford, it doesn’t quite follow through on early reports that the band had “gone metal,” but it’s notably more robust.
“When we were first thinking about the album, we were gravitating more toward the rock side rather than the melodic pop side,” Turner says. “But as we started working it out, we thought, ‘This should be a little more diverse … let’s have a little bit of both.’”
Nonetheless, some of the typically British indie-isms — the frantic guitars and Turner’s kitchen-sink lyrics — have been jettisoned in favor of a more universally appealing, darker rock sound. And, while the brilliant likes of the foot-stomping “Pretty Visitors,” heartfelt crooner “Secret Door” and sinister lead single “Crying Lightning” make an instant impression, the album is notably light on the pop anthems that made the band such a phenomenon in the United Kingdom. There, 2006 debut “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not” has sold 1.3 million copies, according to the Official Charts Co., while its 2007 follow-up, “Favorite Worst Nightmare,” sold 708,000.
BOTH SIDES OF THE POND
The U.K. release of “Humbug” is tied to the band’s August 28-29 headline slots at the Reading and Leeds festivals, giving fans an opportunity to hear the songs before they receive their first live airing on home soil. In the United States, the band already has played Lollapalooza and All Points West, with another string of dates kicking off September 14 in San Diego.
“The thing that’s sealed the deal for them in the U.S. is their blistering live show,” says Peter Berard, Brooklyn-based U.S. director of marketing for the U.K. indie Domino. “They went from playing (New York’s) Mercury Lounge to Webster Hall inside a year — that’s something very special.”
American record sales, however, have struggled to match that momentum. “Whatever” has sold 368,000 U.S. copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, while “Nightmare” has sold 179,000.
“You could argue that we haven’t spent a great deal of time here in terms of what you need to do to break through,” Turner says with a shrug. “I don’t know if it’s something to do with the sound or that the words don’t translate, but there’s been enough people buying the records to warrant us coming.”
But Berard has high hopes for the band’s new sound, which he says “will play into the American audience better than ‘Favorite Worst Nightmare.’” He cites the band’s first Rolling Stone feature, good early reactions at modern rock and adult alternative album radio and its August 4 “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” slot as evidence that the U.S. media tide is turning.
“Nightmare” was released with marketing and sales support from Warner Bros., but “Humbug” will be handled by Domino alone.
“We had a very good experience with Warner,” says London-based Domino founder Laurence Bell. “The American marketplace has changed enormously in the last two years, though, and we feel very well equipped to take this album to the American marketplace ourselves.”
With buzz around the record boosted by the band’s July 30 transmission of a live performance featuring several new songs on its official Web site, Bell’s confidence is sky-high.
“This record will establish them as one of the key modern rock bands of our time,” he says. “At the end of the campaign they will be the coolest band in the world.” Continued…
Hanson plans to play a bunch of new music for its fans this fall, even though the sibling trio’s new album probably won’t come out until the spring of 2010.
“We’ve tried since we started to not go more than a year without throwing something new to the fans,” singer-keyboardist Taylor Hanson told Billboard.com. “So this (tour) is kind of a warm-up to the new record and … just being a touring band and staying active.”
Hanson said the new album, the group’s third for its own 3CG label, is finished but still untitled. Recorded mostly at Sonic Ranch in Torrillo, Texas, the set was produced by the group, without any co-writers. “In that light it’s kind of all-Hanson, all the time,” the middle brother said. “That wasn’t actually the plan initially; it just seemed like the right thing to do. We’re probably going to do the opposite of that for the next record.”
Hanson described the new material as “just a little more straight-ahead” than 2007’s “The Walk.”
“There’s a different energy to a lot of the music for this new record. I think the last album was sort of, ‘We’re surviving. We’re chugging along.’ This one there’s more of a sense of, ‘We’ve survived. We’ve gotten this far. We’re still in one piece.’ There’s this sense of, ‘Wow, we’ve been doing this for a while.’ It’s a little more energetic. There’s a freshness and excitement about it. You’ll hear it in the songs.”
Hanson will give fans a taste of the new material not only in concert but also via an EP, “Stand Up, Stand Up,” that features the full-band album track “Worlds on Fire” plus acoustic versions of four songs — “These Walls,” “Use Me Up,” “Waiting for This” and “Carry You There.”
The Hanson tour, with Hellogoodbye, Steel Train and Sherwood, kicks off September 30 in the group’s home town of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hanson said he’ll also be playing some shows during the fall with Tinted Windows, his all-star side project with Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger, Cheap Trick’s Bun E. Carlos and former Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha.
Since “Standing in the Way of Control” hoisted Gossip from cult favourites to stars in 2006, Beth Ditto’s larger-than-life personality and unfettered outsider opinions have made her the natural focus of media attention, so much so that it would be easy to forget that Gossip is a band, and not just Beth’s backing crew. Hence, presumably, the album title - a sardonic hedge against groundless suppositions that she might be addressing a purely lesbian constituency - and the cover photo, which features just the drummer, Hannah Billie, looking like the kind of androgynous rockabilly dreamboat one might find adorning a Morrissey album sleeve.
Having signed the band to Columbia, Rick Rubin protects his investment by also serving as producer, a role in which he’s become renowned for refocusing Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond on the spiritual core of their talents.
Likewise with Gossip, he doesn’t so much alter or embellish what they do, as allow it to come forth with greater clarity and directness. In the case of the single, “Heavy Cross“, that results in a retread of “Standing in the Way of Control”, with oppositional sentiments set to a sort of anticipatory dynamic, and delivered with trademark Ditto inflections over slash’n'burn punk-funk riffing. Here and on “8th Wonder”, it closely resembles the classic Gang of Four formula, with Brace Paine’s guitar slashing across the brutal funk groove.
It’s a noble and apt heritage for a band whose success carries a certain polemical weight, although Gossip are no match for the Go4’s knotty ideological proclamations, Ditto restricting herself to the kind of vague generalities that can be delivered in sloganeering phrases such as “We can play it safe, or play it cool”, “If there’s a risk, I’ll take it” and “What goes around comes back around” - a line that has been around the block more times than anyone can remember.
“2012″ and “Spare Me from the Mold” are driven infectiously by spartan guitar dance grooves that recall the B-52’s, while the club-oriented riffs of the piano-led “Love Long Distance” and “Pop Goes the World” bring to mind the mid-1980s disco-funk approach pioneered by Ze Records. Rubin’s skill lies in the way he’s managed to sit Ditto’s vocals comfortably among the limber arrangements without sounding as if she’s in conflict with the music, which was occasionally the case on previous recordings. He’s framed her voice to its best advantage, and in doing so he’s put paid to the canard that finds Ditto frequently compared to Janis Joplin: throughout this album, Beth is as disciplined as Janis was wont to wallow in indulgent blues mannerisms, her voice designed for cutting rather than clubbing into submission.
Forget Sasha Fierce. Beyonce’s got a new alter ego - and she’s blonde-haired and blue cheeked.
The songstress is lending her voice to a new character on Noggin’s Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! and can we just say she shines in the role?
We’ve gotten a look at a sample cut from the show, set to air May 1 at 1 p.m. on Nick Jr. followed by a prime-time appearance Sunday, May 3, at 7 p.m. on Noggin. Heading up a three-part girl group (sound familiar?) Beyonce stars as “Shine,” the lead singer for the Wubb Girlz as Wuzzleburg gets its sing on.
She’ll debut the new “Sing a Song” on the show as part of Wubb Idol, the Wubbzy-ied version of American Idol.
Want a sneak peek? Call the kids over and click here (this will launch your Windows Media Player, don’t be alarmed - that’s what it supposed to do).
Lita is back! The Queen of Metal returns in full force on Wicked Wonderland, her first new U.S. studio album in 18 years being released early this fall on her own JLRG Entertainment label. After a 15-year break from music living on an island in the Caribbean raising her two sons, Lita also hits the road this summer playing select festivals and motorcycle rallies in America and Europe.
“It’s harder and sexier than anything I’ve ever done,” says Lita of the record, which was co-produced by Ford, her husband and former Nitro singer Jim Gillette, and Greg Hampton, the songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer known for his work with Alice Cooper, his band Science Faxtion (with Bootsy Collins and Buckethead and Brain from Guns N’Roses) and other rock notables. Lita is backed on the record by drummer Stet Howland, formerly of W.A.S.P., Hampton on bass, rhythm guitar and keyboards, Gillette on background vocals, and its vivid cover art is by Rob Zombie bassist and solo artist Piggy D.
The songs brim with a passionate adult eroticism and uber-hard rock sound highlighted by Lita’s trademark searing guitar riffs. The album includes a keen and timely slice of social commentary on “Patriotic SOB,” sexy rave-ups like “Piece (Hell Yeah),” duets with Gillette on numbers like the aptly titled “Indulge,” and “Betrayal,” which will be featured in the upcoming video game “Brutal Legend,” in which Lita also voices one of the characters alongside Jack Black, Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead and Rob Halford of Judas Priest. The recordings find her rocking, playing and singing with an amped-up fury and power like never before that’s also informed by her personal growth as a wife and mother as well as legendary rocker.
Lita leapt back into action last summer with a triumphant performance in the middle of a tornado at the Rocklahoma festival followed by an appearance at the Rock The Bayou festival in Texas in the wake of a hurricane. She began her career at age 17 as lead guitarist in the groundbreaking all-female band The Runaways. Her own career includes such best-selling albums as Out for Blood, Dancin’ on the Edge, Stiletto, Dangerous Curves and 1988’s million-selling Lita as well as such signature songs as “Kiss Me Deadly” (a #12 hit single), “Shot of Poison,” “Hungry” and her Top 10 hit duet with Ozzy Osbourne “Close My Eyes Forever”. Her dynamic concert performances were known for not just holding their own among the boy’s club of hard rock but giving them a run for their heavy metal money.
After Lita and Gillette married, she left her stiletto heels on the stage and moved to a large home on a deserted Caribbean island and devoted her life to raising the couple’s two sons, who she has also home schooled. At the urging of her friends like Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, devoted fans and even her sons, both of them budding musicians, Lita now reclaims her place as the First Lady of Heavy Metal with an album sure to thrill her many followers and win her new listeners with music that’s more fiery and assured than ever before. A first single from the album will be released this summer, and Lita’s tour schedule includes an appearance at the 69th Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally on August 3 sharing the bill with superstar Toby Keith.
After having heard Sander van Doorn’s latest Essential Mix, and consequently hearing this very song aired live on BBC’s Radio 1, I was compelled to get my hands on it and give it some tender loving care.
To many, the name Alex O’Rion might be foreign, but to those following the Terminal 4 label, this is his 5th release on the imprint. Coming off a hot release in April with djs such as Tiesto, Judge Jules, Richard Durand, Sander van Doorn, Dave Schiemann, Ernesto vs Bastian showing some rather enthusiastic support for the single (Milford Sounds & Fragile Goods).
This latest effort is a peak time trancer that relies on a fat bassline to create some substance and has already been played by top jocks around the globe. Read on past the break for my full breakdown along with some high quality samples and for your chance to vote!
Alex O’Rion - Like a Box of Fluffy Ducks (original mix)
We’re tossed into the mix with a simple bassline and a some neat percussion elements that seem to border on compulsively tribal…if that makes any sense. Bam, at the 90 second mark we’re thrown head onto a Mack truck driving at 70mph. What a beast of a bassline, complete with a wicked saw synth that borders on the insane. The melody is slowly unveiled, but it’s clear from this point on that the emphasis is on the ear shattering groove that underlays it all. It disappears as the breakdown’s brought in, and the levels of sheer epicness (that’s right, I’m making words up as I go) in the synths used to highten excitement create pandemonium as we await the crash. Slam, the crash arrives and the epic synths now share the spotlight with the hair raising bassline, perfect harmony.
New music from Tim McGraw is finally headed our way. The country superstar is set to release his first album in more than two years this fall. Titled ‘Southern Voice,’ the CD is said to be a little different than anything Tim has done before, pushing the boundaries of country music.
The album’s first single, ‘It’s a Business Doing Pleasure With You,’ hits radio today. It was written by famed country tunesmith Brett James and Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger. The song is a humorous jab at the price of love.
‘Southern Voice’ could be Tim’s last album for Curb Records. The singer was feuding with his label last year, upset that they released a greatest hits package when he preferred to release new music.
The single is part of an upcoming album by Toby, though there’s no further information on that just yet.
In the video above, Toby talks about how the single was originally going to be released later in the summer, around August or September, but after playing it for some DJs in Florida he was told he needed to get it on the radio. I haven’t heard it yet but it has supposedly hit the airwaves today!
The song (from what I can hear!) talks about American pop culture (or “The American Ride”), from crazy lawsuits to people who get record deals though they “can’t even sing a note.”
Columbia Recording Artist, singer and pianist Harry Connick Jr., just barely out of his thirties, has released 24 albums under his own name, which have sold 25 million copies around the world. Although he has recorded various genres of music, from traditional pop to instrumental jazz to funk and blues, he has shown a deep and abiding affection for The Great American Songbook (and his own songs written in that classic style).
Connick’s newest Columbia album, Your Songs , to be released on Vinyl on August 25 and on CD September 22, both extends this tradition and compliments it. Like his best-selling Only You of 2004, Your Songs consists of Connick singing familiar songs with a full jazz big band and string orchestra, and, as with nearly all of Harry’s previous albums, he wrote each of the orchestrations himself. (He also recruited two of his lifelong friends from New Orleans, Branford and Wynton Marsalis, as well as bluegrass guitar virtuoso Bryan Sutton, for guest appearances). On most of his albums, Connick is a virtual one-man band. “My usual pattern is I either write the songs or pick the songs,” he says. “Depending on the configuration I arrange, orchestrate, conduct, sing, and then oversee the mixing and mastering. You might say that I’m very hands on.”
However, what makes Your Songs different from all of Connick’s previous projects is that this album represents the first occasion in which he has teamed up with a record company producer, the legendary Clive Davis. For nearly 50 years, Davis has been one of the leading lights of the music industry and more recently was promoted to Chief Creative Officer (CCO) at Sony Music Entertainment after heading the BMG Label Group.
Your Songs is a genuine collaborative effort in which Clive picked most of the songs, Harry arranged and orchestrated them, and then turned the reins in the studio over to his long time friend and producer, Tracey Freeman. “Clive expressed an interest in working with me,” he recalls, “but I didn’t know what that meant because I had never done a collaboration before”. Davis’ concept was to put together a program of classic songs that were both as familiar and as contemporary as possible. Both by accident and design, the selections are skewed towards signature songs for iconic performers: Elvis Presley’s “I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You,” Nat King Cole’s “Mona Lisa,” Tony Bennett’s “Who Can I Turn To?,” Frank Sinatra’s “All The Way,” Billy Joel’s “Just The Way You Are” and nine others. “Songs that everybody knows,” was how Davis put it, rendered with what he describes as “accessible arrangements.”
When Davis first approached him, Harry’s initial idea was to bring in a famous arranger but Davis suggested that Harry write the charts himself. Even so, the finished results would reflect the producer’s own strong pop sensibilities.
The opener “All The Way” is more intimate and lighter than we’re used to hearing, with a beautiful tenor saxophone solo by Branford Marsalis. “And I Love Her” uses a hint of a bolero underpinning to make the Lennon-McCartney classic seem even more romantic than when sung by The Beatles. “The Way You Look Tonight” has been heard for most of the last 70 years as an uptempo swinger, but Harry brings it back to its original status as a slow and intimate love song. “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” was originally written by Ewan MacColl in the style of an Olde English folk song, then it was reborn as a 70s pop hit, but Connick sings it as a classic Broadway style love song, very emotionally direct, with his heart right on his sleeve. Elton John’s “Your Song” is herewith given a finger-snapping beat.
For Burt Bacharach’s “Close to You,” which features the brilliant New Orleans trumpeter Leroy Jones, Connick notes, “I went in the studio, and I just started playing, and I wound up giving it a whole different groove. I kept the tempo, and I had a guitar play the famous intro vamp, and overall we gave ‘Close To You’ more of a Gospel feeling.” Likewise, he added more of a jazz beat to Billy Joel’s all-time classic, “Just The Way You Are.”
The immortal Mexican love song “Be’same Mucho” was done at the suggestion of Harry’s father. “Mona Lisa” is treated more like a dance number than is customarily heard, while “Smile,” which is usually done as a minor key lament, is also much more cheerful and upbeat. Harry starred in the acclaimed ABC TV film of South Pacific, but the show’s great love song, “Some Enchanted Evening,” was the property of another character; Harry makes up for that here by romping through a solid-four reading of the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic.
“Who Can I Turn To” is dedicated to the song’s composer, the late, great British singer-songwriter Anthony Newley. Don McLean’s “And I Love You So,” is unique in the annals of American pop in that it was a big number for both Perry Como and Elvis Presley; Connick sings it with a straightforward sincerity. Connick recruited Wynton Marsalis to play on “Can’t Help Falling In Love.” “I asked him to play the melody on an Elvis Presley tune. And he said, ‘I get it! No problem.’ But it wasn’t a waste of his time because he played it perfectly, in a way that a lesser musician couldn’t have done.”
When Harry talks about the beauty of playing or singing a melody as simply and beautifully as possible, he’s getting to the essential truth of what makes this album special. To be able to take familiar songs and make something fresh out of them – without eviscerating the qualities that make them great to begin with – is truly a rare gift. And it’s a gift that Harry Connick, Jr. displays in abundance on Your Songs, making it one of the extraordinary efforts of his career.
