Nov/081
Back in the USSR… circa-1968
Back in the USSR… circa-1968
(Yeah, you bet I resisted the urge to mention the far more obvious song in this post’s title. +10 blogging points for me?)
Forty years ago, there existed four men. This quartet of chaps made a lot of good music. When they first banded together, they released several really catchy pop albums that made millions of teenage girls swoon. This made them international superstars. Sometimes they appeared with cut-up baby dolls on their album covers. Other times they insulted entire major Western religions. But everyone still loved them.
Later on, these men started ingesting psychedelic drugs. As a result, their music became progressively more experimental with each new release. Finally, forty years ago on this day, they produced a double-length album. This album contained almost completely white cover art, which might lead one to believe that it’s full of terribly boring music.
Thankfully, album covers often lie. The album turned out to be a wonderful, eclectic mix of guitar ballads, rockin’ singles, poignant social commentary, stories about swine and large rodents (and men who shoot them), and the occasional bizarre psychedelic freakout.
Even today, four decades after its release, you’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who denies that The White Album is chock-full of timeless music. Even when all of the former Beatles themselves have long since passed into the dust of history, their legacy in this and other recordings will remain so long as music – and music lovers – continue to exist.
Nov/080
M83 and The Killers come together in ‘09
M83 and The Killers come together in ‘09
In the time period leading up to their new album release this week, The Killers announced a serial spree of major concert dates across the world. But in case you weren’t already dead-set on seeing the Vegas rockers live, then perhaps Frenchmen M83 can sway your opinion.
M83 announced today that they will be opening for The Killers on the latter’s globe-spanning tour. The dynamic duo will begin their jaunt across America in mid-January, eventually ending in Barcelona in March. In the meantime, if you’re lucky enough to live across the pond, M83 will be touring there throughout December with Kings of Leon.
I’m still not exactly sold on Day & Age, but now I would officially give my immortal soul – and perhaps a kidney – for this tour to come to Pittsburgh.
Nov/080
Free As In Beer: You, Me, and Everyone We Know
Free As In Beer: You, Me, and Everyone We Know
You’re not getting old. Sure, those wrinkles on your forehead seem to multiply like cracks in a marble statue every time you look in the mirror, but you can still woo college girls at the nightclub on Saturdays by the sackful. Yeah, the spring in your step isn’t quite as springy as it was ten years ago, but your feet still move like lightning out there on the dance floor. And while you may have given up on the excesses and pomposity of youth where music is concerned, sometimes you love to pop in some loud punk rock, crank up the volume to 11, and just rock the heck out.
So Young, So Insane, the new six-track EP from Washington, D.C. punks You, Me, and Everyone We Know, was written for those moments. Glittering pop melodies meld with aggressive guitars and vocalist Ben Liebsch’s straight-out-of-high-school high tenor in a bright, energetic aural smoothie that would make Ponce de Leon drool with envy. And the best part? It won’t cost you one red cent.
Yeah, you’re not getting old – and so long as you’re able to enjoy music like this, you never will. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a computer chair or a wheelchair; go download and listen to So Young, So Insane, and keep on rockin’ in the free world.
Nov/080
Gwen and the gang undoubtedly coming back in ‘09
Gwen and the gang undoubtedly coming back in ‘09
Fans of alt-rock/3rd-wave ska quartet No Doubt suspected dire things when the band went on indefinite hiatus in 2004. Later on, things seemed even worse when word leaked out that the three boys formerly backing frontwoman Gwen Stefani had begun work on a new album without her. Today, however, you can breathe easier: Stefani and the band are getting back together next year.
In addition to releasing a new studio album, No Doubt plans to start touring this coming summer, so keep checking up here for news on upcoming tour dates.
Nov/080
Monday Album Roundup: Week of Nov. 24, 2008
Monday Album Roundup: Week of Nov. 24, 2008Hello and good afternoon! I hope you all got paid last Friday, because you’re about to blow a huge wad on albums (or MP3s) this week no matter what sort of music you happen to be a fan of. It’s not terribly surprising, this week being the first official one of the Christmas shopping season, but I barely have enough space to talk about the gaggle of big releases coming to us.
In addition to the highlights below, we have new albums from Britney Spears [ShowClix tour dates], Ludacris, former Velvet Revolver/Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland, Moby, and Weezer head-honcho Rivers Cuomo.
Arguably the biggest release this week is Day & Age, the third album by Vegas rockers The Killers. Day & Age sees the band drawing further influence from the Joy Division/Depeche Mode school of ’80s post-punk, complete with bombastic synths and danceable beats. Reviews thus far have been generally positive, so this should be a good buy.
Okay, so I’ve had some not-so-nice things to say about Kanye West in the recent past. But the fact is, despite his tendency toward verbal diarrhea when someone shoves a mic in his face, he sometimes makes (and produces) some pretty good music. That said, it’s with little reservation that I pimp his latest album, 808s & Heartbreak, here on the Shlog. If you’re so inclined, go grab it tomorrow – if you can ignore the oft-abrasive man behind the music.
It’s nice to know that an old Beatle can still learn some new tricks. On Electric Arguments, the legendary Sir Paul McCartney teams with Youth (of Killing Joke) to deliver – get this – experimental electronic music. Judging from the duo’s first two outings, it’s definitely worth pursuing this album if you can appreciate the more avant-garde side of the musical spectrum.
Finally, we have the reissue of a classic. In 1983, a little upstart group called R.E.M. released Murmur, an album of bright, catchy pop-rock tunes that launched the band toward superstardom and influenced a generation of alternative rockers. Tomorrow, that album gets re-released in a special, remastered 25th-anniversary edition. Also included is a bonus disc of live material from a 1983 concert in Toronto, Canada. Murmur still sounds fresh after all these years, so this is one I’ll definitely be picking up.
In singles releases this week, we have a new EP from Coldplay [ShowClix tour dates].
Nov/080
Germans free to Kraft new Werks from samples
Germans free to Kraft new Werks from samples
In a landmark case yesterday, German courts held that sampling short bits of a song does not necessarily violate the copyright of that song’s original creator.
German Krautrock and electronica pioneers Kraftwerk had brought suit against hip-hop producer Moses Pelham for using a two-second sample from their song, “Metal on Metal.” Though a Hamburg court ruled in the band’s favor, Germany’s highest court overturned that decision, holding that use of such a sample is legal so long as it’s part of a completely original work.
It seems that this is just one more area where we Yanks have to play catch-up to Europe. In America, sampling even three notes constitutes copyright infringement, regardless of the originality of the piece. As a result, it seems that Germany will be our sole source for innovative, sample-based music for a long while to come.
Nov/080
Tour Spotlight: Citizen Cope
Tour Spotlight: Citizen Cope
Straight outta’ Brooklyn comes singer, musician, and DJ Clarence Greenwood, AKA Citizen Cope, with a newly-announced tour centering upon the balmy Southern states – with stops in Canada and Europe to round things out.
Citizen Cope is one of those artists whose music you can’t quite categorize. It’s neither folk-rock, nor R&B, nor hip-hop, but instead a near-seamless blend of the three that perfectly captures the cultural medley of his hometown, reminding me at its best of fellow New Yorker Everlast’s genre-bending Whitey Ford Sings the Blues.
It may be that Cope is headed north after his downward jaunt, so check back with us for updates on tour info – and possible news on the backing band – in the near future.
Nov/080
A Hundred Pathways to Heaven
A Hundred Pathways to Heaven
A friend just dropped this in my inbox earlier today: back in 2006, a blogger made it his mission to collect every version of Led Zeppelin’s classic anthem Stairway to Heaven in existence. The total? Over one hundred covers by about as many bands and musical projects.
The most interesting ones include versions by power metal godfathers Helloween, Black Label Society frontman Zakk Wylde, pop-punk sextet Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, avant-rock mastermind Frank Zappa, and Mexican synthpop group Belanova. And, for comedy value, check out the one by Richard Cheese.