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Written by Shahlin Graves
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Thursday, 16 September 2010 19:27 |
Beating other new releases in the States this week - think the likes of N.E.R.D. and Interpol - to the punch, SARA BAREILLES' new album 'Kaleidoscope Heart' debuted at Number One on the U.S. album chart! Bareilles' 2007 album 'Little Voice' (featuring the single 'Love Song') entered the charts at #45 in the States - so from a first-week of 16,000, to a Kaleidoscopic 90,000 - Sara ought to be rather pleased with herself.
About the title of her new album, Bareilles has told fans that:
"I picked out the name of the record months before I even finished writing the songs. I love the imagery of those words, and they’re really representative of how I envision my heart. It’s a colorful but fragmented, ever-changing sum of all the bits and pieces that make it up. A Kaleidoscope is the tool that helps make sense of the mess. Or at least makes it nice to look at. :)
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Written by Shahlin Graves
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Thursday, 16 September 2010 17:05 |
WEEZER's eighth studio album 'Hurley' is now in-stores! The first single 'Memories' features the cast of 'Jackass' on back-up vocals - and the song will be used in trailers and the ending credits for the upcoming film ‘Jackass 3D’.
Jorge Garcia - also known as Hurley of TV show 'Lost' - talked to MTV about how exactly he came to be the face of Weezer's new album: "I went to do the George Lopez show ['Lopez Tonight'], and I think they were doing two or three shows that night, and [Weezer frontman] Rivers [Cuomo] was a guest in the previous show. So they came and knocked on my door and said, 'Hi,' and wanted to get a picture with me, and I thought that was awesome. We chatted briefly, and that was it. And I didn't hear until a couple months later that they wanted to put me on the cover ... I didn't realize it was just going to be that same picture we took together, cropped down to my face. When I look at the picture, I notice that there's something going on with my hair, like it's starting to come loose or something. But I'm happy with it."
Garcia added that: "This is really close to the top, for sure. I think the ['Lost'] action figure still kind of trumps it, but just coming from where I come from, it's extremely special and dear to my heart that this is actually happening."
Watch Weezer's music video for new single 'Memories' below...
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Written by Shahlin Graves
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Thursday, 16 September 2010 16:06 |
I've been looking forward to the end of September 2010 immensely, for some time now. New albums from Deerhunter and Jimmy Eat World! For amusement's sake, Selena Gomez & The Scene… and for awesomeness's sake, MARK RONSON & THE BUSINESS INTL.
As Spin magazine has noted, Ronson's upcoming album 'Record Collection' "will go down in history as being the first album to feature both Ghostface Killah and the London Gay Men's Choir." Spin asked Ronson if he was proud of that: "Yeah. I feel like I beat Damon Albarn to that one, maybe. I wanted the song with the choir ["Introducing the Business"] to sound like Roland Emmerich–2012-shit-blowing-up-in-the-background. And those guys came in, and they just rocked it."
Check out Mark Ronson & The Business Intl's music video for new single 'The Bike Song' HERE.
Watch CNN's three-part Mark Ronson 'Revealed' feature below...
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Written by Shahlin Graves
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Thursday, 16 September 2010 13:14 |
KANYE WEST is currently working on a 40-minute film to accompany his forthcoming fifth studio album entitled 'Dark Twisted Fantasy' - due to be released mid-November. The noir piece is entitled 'Runaway' (not to be confused with West's new single) and was filmed in Prague last month, where reports speculated upon sightings of West filming with a deer, a sheep, and a naked woman.
In an interview with NYMag.com West said that: "It's the story of a phoenix fallen to Earth, and I make her my girlfriend, and people discriminate against her and eventually she has to burn herself alive and go back to her world. I've been feeling the idea of the phoenix. It's been in my heart for a while. It's maybe parallel to my career. I threw a Molotov cocktail on my career last year, in a way, and I had to come back as a better person."
In further only-Kanye-ness, West acted as the creative director for a 40-page spread for the new issue of XXL magazine, that accompanies a cover story he penned himself where he of course[!] addresses the Taylor Swift/VMA incident: "I stress that the incident wasn't about Taylor personally. And it definitely wasn't about race. Where I messed up is, at the end of the day, it's your show, Taylor. It's your show, MTV."
Watch Kanye West perform his new single 'Runaway' live at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards below…
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Written by Michael McClelland
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Monday, 13 September 2010 17:40 |
TOMMY ILL is putting out his debut LP – a stylistic free-for-all of obscure samples, self-deprecation and offbeat humour. Above all, the hooks are catchy and the lyrics are impossibly memorable. If you’re into any of these things*, you’d better go out and get yourself a copy. Thanks to LOOP recordings, I was able to sit down with Tommy Ill (real name Tom Young) to shoot some pressing questions his way in between awkward bites of an inappropriately large sandwich. Despite his humbly reserved demeanour, the man (and part-time rapper) had a lot to say. If you have a listen to his upcoming debut self-titled eponymous <insert adjective here> album, you’ll get a taste of what I mean – but with rhymes. For now, check out the interview.
*you are
CDM: There’s a lot of sampling going on in your music – do you have to worry about copyright?
TOMMY ILL: Basically I try to avoid copyright because with the first EP I put out through LOOP, we had to go back and remake every song because the samples couldn’t be cleared. We try to use Creative Commons things or things that are out of copyright - things that have only had 500 pressings, on like a 45 record in 1968. Things that are obscure enough that no-one will get upset about us using.
CDM: How are your friends liking the album?
TOMMY: Pretty much my core group of friends have all worked on the album in some way or another, whether it be making a video, making the album artwork, taking photographs... things like that. Most of my friends have had some role in it so they’ve all heard it as it’s developed. Even for the ones that haven’t actually been directly involved, I’ve been playing them rough versions over the last couple of months and saying: ‘What do you think I should do with this song? Should I change this? Should I change that?’ So I think they all sort of feel like they’re a part of it as well. Which is really cool – I wouldn’t have it any other way, because if my friends don’t like it then I’m not really gonna like it either.
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Written by Shahlin Graves
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Monday, 13 September 2010 11:43 |
"Owl City postpones Australia/New Zealand Tour: We regret to inform you that due to scheduling conflicts, OWL CITY must postpone its fall tour of the Australia and New Zealand. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause fans. Full refunds are available at the point of purchase. Stay tuned for more info on OWL CITY's return in 2011."
HEARTBROKEN. If you've recovered a little bit since OWL CITY's heartbreaking announcement on Friday, you may want to watch the live stream of Myspace Music's Owl City Secret Show from Atlanta. As I type this, opening band Deas Vail are on-stage, having kicked off the show at 11AM this morning NZ time.
Watch the live stream of Owl City's Atlanta (September 12th) show below...
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Written by Michael McClelland
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Monday, 13 September 2010 01:52 |
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I’ve always had a problem with the digital format of albums these days.
I’m no vinyl purist, but a great advantage of the black disc medium is that you’re forced to separate your listening into two halves as you turn over a record to listen to the other side of the album. I’m sure there are detractors of this, as it does after all mean there is less space for music, more physical labour is required to listen to one album, and above all it means you can’t walk away from a record for too long if you want to hear the whole thing from another room.
My argument (that I feel sells my case) is that too much prolonged listening fatigues your ears and you start to lose your focus on the music. Until about two thirds of the way through when it becomes one big blurry forgettable mess. |
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Written by Michael McClelland
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Monday, 13 September 2010 01:50 |
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TOMMY ILL’s self-titled debut album speaks for itself:
“You can have whatever you like, as long it’s for free. Cause I ain’t got a dollar and until I got a dollar then you won’t get shit from me...”
If you have any problems with hip-hop or rap as a genre, my first guess is that these qualms are to do with the glorification of selfishness, bigotry and/or objectification of women. Tommy Ill, ill as he may be, suffers from none of these symptoms. He’s flipping hip-hop on its head (hop-hip?) by swapping self-indulgence with self-deprecation.
He may be white and middle-class – but unlike another rapper we all know of this kind, he isn’t hiding it. By listening to opening track ‘Second Hand Concorde’ you’ll pick up on the first hint of a trending self-commentary. He understands that he’s playing the ‘white rapper’ game and he knows what its pitfalls are. Tommy Ill has a way to bypass these pitfalls as a hip-hop outsider - he’s anything but mainstream and he knows it.
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Written by Shahlin Graves
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Friday, 10 September 2010 11:11 |
(Looking a little bit like Vanessa Hudgens) MARINA & THE DIAMONDS has released a music video for 'Shampain' from her debut album 'The Family Jewels'.
Marina has been announced to play Australia's The Falls music festival at New Year's - no word yet on if she will also pay a visit to New Zealand on the way. So powers that be, do please pull together and make a NZ date happen!
Watch the music video for 'Shampain' below…
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