Five years after bursting onto the music scene earning all kinds of critical fanfare for their self-titled debut‘s boy/girl harmony-sweetened stabs at happy-go-lucky (at least on the surface) ’60′s folk-pop, and four years after losing much of that breakthrough momentum on a hastily released sophomore album (2006′s Those The Brokes) bogged down by over-long track lengths, English indie pop quartet The Magic Numbers have returned, armed with third project The Runaway and, likely, the hope that it will have the power to restore them to their debut heights.
So far the outlook isn’t looking so bright, but even if Runaway isn’t bringing in much praise as a whole, the set still manages to delight on individual moments.
Early album offering “Why Did You Call?” is one of those moments, nicely seeping its way into the ears with a driving, ’80′s MOR groove and the ghostly whisper-coos of female members Angela Gannon and Michele Stodart triggering an inviting late-night ambiance (while also recalling the melody of Womack & Womack’s oft-covered “Teardrops”).
Caught off guard by an ex’s phone call late one evening, Gannon and Stodart’s mesmerizing encircling vocals share the role of a woman reduced to a pile of weak-kneed mush by the sound of her former love’s voice at the other end of the line, all the headway she had achieved in getting over him dissipated in mere seconds as she regretfully finds herself unable to resist sharing one more “dance with the sinners tonight”.
In an effort to prove that we’re not completely out of the loop when it comes to what’s been making waves within the music blog scene in recent weeks, enjoy this quick run-through of some of the more high profile new videos/ releases we’ve missed out on commenting on due to…uh, we’ll just say “real life” (and a few WordPress issues) getting in the way:
Sleigh Bells “Tell Em”
Anything you’ll ever read about this Brooklyn boy/girl noise-pop duo (vocalist Alexis Krauss and songwriter/ guitarist/ producer Derek E. Miller) is bound to note the band’s love for insane volume levels just as much as it’ll hype how crazily infectious the tunes hidden beneath all the ear-punishing distortion are.
Believe these words on both accounts.
“Tell Em”, the first single from the Sleigh Bells’ debut album Treats (due May 11th on Mom + Pop/ N.E.E.T.), may lead to one having early deafness, but bet you won’t be able to resist repeat doses of it’s rat-a-tat drum, turned-up-to-eleven guitar riffage and laser sound effects assault, nor Krauss’ pureform coos sweetly encouraging today’s young’uns “you can do your best today” betwixt it all.
Last summer’s chillwave/ glo-fi movement taught us the glories of music that was meek-sounding, of shitty quality and awesome; expect the upcoming warm weather season to be all about start-up bands/ acts co-signing the equally awesome louder-than-loud and shitty quality formula of the Bells.
We’ll politely decline from adding to the increasingly tiring “Is she copying Gaga?” rattle concerning Aguilera‘s new (meh) one, and just say this: when it comes to desperate slutty Christina, we’d rather give “Dirrty” a re-spin.
Is it bad that we wish we could just fast-forward to the next Aguilera album era already?
Christina’s Bionic drops June 8th.
Ciara featuring Ludacris “Ride”
Looking to get her career back on track after the commercial fumble that was her last album (2009′s Fantasy Ride), Ciara smartly hearkens back to a previous career highlight on new single “Ride”, re-heating the winning, “seductive ‘crunk & b’ crawl + Ludacris cameo” formula of “Oh” with an extra slathering of naughty sex kitten on top of it.
“I can do it up and down/ I can do circles/ To him I’m a gymnast/ This one is my circus,” she sings, nicely illustrating such bedroom talents with a slew of eye-popping body gyrations (amongst other “I’m not a little girl anymore” visuals) in the accompanying video.
Yeah, the hook claims it’s the “beat” that she’s riding “like a mother-[bleeping] freak”, but a ten-year-old could figure out what she’s really talking about.
Eminem “Not Afraid”
Capping months of track-owning guest appearances on joints alongside Drake & Kanye West, Lil’ Wayne and B.o.B (not to mention the killer freestyle track “Despicable”), Em‘s “Not Afraid”, the first taste off his next full length Recovery, lands as another lyrical stunner, with him surprisingly coming across as equally compelling when preaching positive about living a “clean” lifestyle as he does when he’s flexing his more loony and murderous-minded material.
Only problem is, while we’re excited to hear he’s become aware of how awful the various “accents” and pop star/ tabloid staple-spoofing had become, “Not Afraid” feels less and less interesting with each successive listen (maybe it’s that ’80′s arena rock-styled hook), and we’re not necessarily sure we’re ready for an entire album of Eminem getting all uplifting on us.
Surely Kim has done something scandalous in recent years to inspire at least one Recovery song that throws back to his bat-shit crazy rhymes.
Josh Ritter “Another New World”
From the critically-acclaimed folk singer-songwriter‘s newly released sixth set So Runs The World Away (currently streaming in full over at NPR.org), a seven-minute-long story song set atop beautifully sedative acoustic guitar pluckings and dreamily sirenic muted horns about an Arctic explorer and his crew and the tragic horrors that befall them in the midst of a voyage in search of the “new world”.
Doesn’t sound like your cup of tea? Take a chance and hit ‘Play’ and you’ll be surprised how misty-eyed you get once it gets to the part where the protagonist is forced to set fire to his beloved ship in order to stay alive.
Most attention concerning this final single from the nearly two-year-old I Am…Sasha Fierce will more than certainly fall on it’s strange, but definitely sexy, retro-themed video (with Bey once-again rocking the Bettie Page ’50′s pin-up look) rather than the song itself; but the cut (co-penned by sister Solange) manages to be somewhat fascinating in it’s own right with the steely-voiced diva turning herself inside-out trying to figure out why a man would choose to willfully bypass such a catch (especially one with “beauty”, “class”, “style” and, most importantly”, “ass”) to a tightly-wound ’60′s soul strut.
We’ve never really been all that moved by “Young Forever”. Jay’s hip-hop-ization of the Alphaville ’80′s pop standard “Forever Young” mostly comes across as bland and unnecessary, unless you’re a high school senior searching for a theme song for this year’s prom that is.
Seeing that same record brought to life on the Coachella 2010 stage with a tired-sounding Jay and surprise guest Beyonce subbing in for Mr. Hudson on hook duties though, completely changes our tune.
Mrs. Carter doing her soul-pop diva thing on the intro is amazing unto itself, her dramatic trills, no matter how annoying they might be on her own records, bringing about chills when wrapped around lyrics like “Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?”. But even more special is peeping the usually walled-off superstar couple interacting on the stage, with Be swaying and miming along to her man’s lyrics and Jay shooting giggles back in her direction.
Yeah, we’ll still probably immediately flip the station the second “Young Forever” pops up on the radio, but this performance is one we’ll surely be re-visiting again and again.
In which Lady Gaga reminds us of the old days when a “World Premiere Music Video Short Film Event” (as well as corded land-lines) really meant something.
We can’t help but think (or hope) that somewhere Missy Elliott has just finished watching this awesomely WTF!!-to-the-infinite-power (and obviously Quentin Tarantino-influenced) smorgasbord of mass murder, girl-on-girl kissing (and prison fights!!!), bizarro fashion sense (where does one buy still-lit, half-smoked cigarette butt shades?), early Madonna eyebrows, purposefully flat acting, shared Honey Bun snacking, vogueing boy dancer chefs, future Twitter-hyped one-liners (“Once you kill a cow, you gotta make a burger“) and…erm, Tyrese, and has immediately got her record label on the phone, demanding that they get her a music video budget big enough to include James Cameron as director and the actual Moon as a set location, just so she can end up besting GaGa’s “Telephone” as the owner of 2010′s best clip.
Fresh off Beyonce’s record-breaking six Grammy Award wins Sunday night (and a fiery, weave-tossing, Alanis-covering stage performance that only renewed our wishes for the diva to commit to recording an R&B-and-rock-themed album in the stylistic vein of En Vogue’s “Free Your Mind” or Janet Jackson’s “Black Cat”), Major Lazer and Elephant Man bring this cover of her Best Female Pop Vocal Performance-owning “Halo”, trading in the original lyric’s Hallmark beau praise for Elephant Man’s shower-singing growls about “haters”, “hypocrites” and “bad man”.
Yeah…we don’t get it either, though it does lead one to wondering if it means Beyonce and co-producer Ryan Tedder’s Coldplay-meets-boom-bap arrangement will become the new riddim du jour in 2010.
In other Major Lazer-oriented news, someone else has taken upon themselves to give their endlessly re-tooled “Keep It Goin’ Louder” some brand new flavor. This time around, it’s those crazy Telephoned kids, chopping up and re-pasting together bits of the beloved single with re-sung elements from Whitney Houston’s “Million Dollar Bill”. Grab the results, from Telephoned’s new Off The Hook mixtape, below.
Under Rosen’s helm, the bright and shiny crackle and pop that made “Telephone”‘s original incarnation veer a little too Britney-esque and chaotic at times, is slightly downplayed for a darker electro-pop pulse, excitingly heightened by quirky, voice-affected breakdowns, fuzzed-out basslines, and a far-too-brief soul clap section around the three-minute mark (plus, it also doesn’t hurt that Beyonce’s portions are more successfully woven in here).
If only we had the power to sway label-heads (which, sigh, we don’t), we’d encourage them to use this version to accompany the forthcoming “Telephone” music video rather than the original.
There are times when Beyonce goes on one of her overly-flamboyant, “tomorrow’s R&B”-soundtracked tangents that modern pop/ R&B brilliance emerges. We’ve experienced that with “Upgrade U” and “Single Ladies”, two tracks that tested the limits of our comfort with sultry vocals being lain atop the most oddly-constructed, mechanized-hip hop-soul grooves, and ultimately won out by having sturdy enough hooks and themes at their core.
But for every one of those gems, there’s a handful of others within that same style that largely fail at justifying the point in her trying so hard to go against the grain. Latest I Am…Sasha Fierce single “Video Phone” falls in this camp.
Over co-producers Bangladesh and Sean Garrett’s weird, cacophonic hip hop-styled homage to Trent Reznor, Beyonce takes on a slinky, exaggerated Southern drawl to indulge in a little burlesque-y “I know you want me; I want you to” preening. “You sayin’ that you want me/ So press record/ I’ll let you film me,” she teases betwixt the track’s eerie recipe of pinball machine plinks, finger snaps and two-ton drums, sounding probably a little too delighted in being some random guy’s via-iPhone jack-off accompaniment.
Like “Diva”, Be’s catchphrase-riddled “A Milli” for the ladies, “Video Phone” would work best as a brief album interlude, since it’s only for about a minute and a half that it manages to be an intriguing curioso cut. After that, it starts to feel like a meandering mess, unable to latch onto a strong hook or cool musical-based deviation to make it’s multiple elements gel into an satisfying whole.
Throwing in Lady Gaga as a duet partner for the Deluxe Edition remix doesn’t really help matters either, as what should be this amazing event quickly grows sour, with Gaga sounding a bit lost trying to mimick the gully sass of Destiny’s Favorite Child and proving, as she did when playing hook girl to Wale, that she’s not as captivating when relegated to the side car role (The video, embedded below, is kinda hot though).
If there is one “Phone” one should attach themselves to, we say go for B & L’s other recently released collaboration, the far catchier “Telephone”, or the Pitbull-assisted remix of “Video Phone” featuring the “I’m The Shit” beat and the Cuban-American emcee giving a couple seconds long karaoke shout-out to the old DC nugget, “Survivor”.
Here’s a slew of new remixes that were either crammed into our uber-stuffed in-box or caught our attention via some other corner of the World Wide Web. Enjoy!!
Beyonce “Ego (The Twins Remix)”:
You may remember The Twins from their twinkly keyboard-decorated re-haul of Drake’s “Best I Ever Had” that premiered a while back. On their latest hot-like-fire project, they completely strip away the old-school R&B influence of Beyonce’s “Ego”, giving the double entendre-laced ditty a Timbaland-like futuro-club sheen complete with hard knocking drums, synth sine waves that seem to fold in and out of eachother and re-processed vocals that re-imagine Mrs. Carter as this icy, stiletto-toed cyborg-diva.
We’ll never get enough of today’s producers/ DJ’s giving our favorite MJ records a brand new twist. Our latest favorite: Those consistently entertaining Knocks cats bringing an energetic new spirit to the Jackson 5′s 1970 classic, “The Love You Save” without losing sight of the original’s prized candy-soul magic.
Florence + The Machine “You’ve Got The Love (The xx Remix)”
It’s amazing how an inspirational-themed tune originally recorded in the 1980′s solely for a direct-to-video documentary has managed to enjoy so many chart lives over the following decades through mash-up-after-remix-after-remix-after-cover. The song’s latest incarnation involves ’09 music darlings The xx deliriously chopping up bits from the magnificent Florence + The Machine cover version then adding in their own signature unisex vocal treatment, and it’s arguably the best take of the song yet.
Chew Fu & Steve Clisby “Purple Rain (Prince Cover)”
Take an old Prince staple, a solid funk-dance construction by one of the hottest re-”fix”-ers of today, and a fuzzed-out (and oh-so-soulful) vocal performance from a guy more people should really be aware of, and what do you get? A “Purple Rain” you’ll want to be showered over with again and again.
Sugababes “About A Girl (Serotonin Thieves Remix)”
From their recent line-up changes to the horrid, Pussycat Doll hand-me-down that was “Get Sexy”, the Sugababes’ 2009 attempt at coming back/ re-invading American shores has been met with so much disaster in it’s beginning stages, we really don’t understand the purpose of the girl group even continuing on (that is, unless they change their name entirely and start over from scratch).
But, in an effort to spin some strand of positivity out of their current troubles, we will say that we like their new single “About A Girl” a thousand times better in the remixing hands of UK duo the Serotonin Thieves. In this frame, the record grasps an appreciable early Madonna-like feel that couldn’t at all been heard in the original’s pounding and waaayy over-produced Red One-helmed theatrics.
Lloyd featuring Pusha T “Pusha (Alternate Version)”
Less an actual remix than it is a simple switcheroo of guest rapper (Lil’ Wayne out, Clipse’s Pusha T in), this version of Lloyd’s controversial R&B simmer is basically one for the folks tired of hearing Weezy on every damn thing, and the dopes who think a song called “Pusha” featuring someone named Pusha is a “cool move”.
Summer vacations/ distractions have brought things around here to a near-standstill, but in an effort to play a bit of catch-up, check out some of these noteworthy tunes below pulled from the ever-packed in-box and various other sites we’ve been digging lately from around the Inter-Webs:
JDP featuring Chester French “She Loves Everybody (Part Deux)”
This up-and-coming Chicago indie-hopper latches onto CF’s most well-known track, the shoulda-been-bigger slut ode “She Loves Everybody”, using it to support his own adventure with a promiscous groupie who has foolishly mistaken him for being a more high profile rap star (“I suppose someone told her we rich,” he sing-song quips at one point).
A bit Flo-Rida-ish, which-at least in this case-isn’t at all a bad thing.
The Honey Brothers are a quintet from New York who call their sound “new wave folk”, and while most talk of them will surely be centered on their superstar drummer (Entourage lead Adrian Grenier), the music found on their recently released Demonstration EP definitely deserves it’s own hype as it’s some of the most feel-good stuff to touch our ears in recent weeks.
Check out the title track, a groovy lil’ indie-rock number that’ll likely have you tapping your toes to it’s summer-ready shuffle within seconds of it hitting the speakers.
On first listen to the output from this mysterious UK-born collective, you’ll probably end up with your head cocked to the side and a confused look pasted across your face.
But give these songs some time, as repeated doses of the spell-binding ambiance of “Summer Games”, “Soft Silver Young” and the rest of the band’s uniquely weaved creations reveal a trippy charm that’s quite the soothing aural experience.
Keri Hilson featuring Kanye West & Ne-Yo “Knock You Down (Chew Fu GhettoClub Fix)”
Even after hearing this billions of times (*thanks radio*), we still find this hit single oddly put together (anybody else left cold by the fact that the three headliners barely seem to recognize the efforts of one another?), but the Chew Fu crew help calm that sense of underwhelmingness a bit with this dancefloor-targeting rehaul which nicely gives a repeated spotlighting to Kanye’s “Michael Jackson” line.
This past week, BBC’s Live Lounge was on fire thanks to a handful of blog-beloved acts entering it’s studio doors. Below, peep a rundown of some of the artists that stopped by and how they fared:
The Gossip
Appearing in support of their EXCELLENT new album Music For Men, Beth Ditto & Co. blew the walls off the sucka with a thunderous walk-through of that set’s lead off single “Heavy Cross” (oh how great it is when a band is able to recreate such a dynamite studio recording so impeccably in the live form).
As for their taking on of Kanye West’s tirelessly-covered “Love Lockdown”? Some cool things are captured instrumentally (love the guitar licks on the verses), but, as with their audience-polarizing remakes of Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody” and Wham’s “Careless Whisper”, one’s total satisfaction of it will fall on how well Ditto’s unrestrained and often off-key, near-soul diva wails hits the ears.
La Roux
It would have been nice for La Roux to have kept “Bulletproof”‘s kiss-off fun and punchy where it registers best, but we’ll admit to being slightly charmed by the melancholy lullaby they reduced it to in their Lounge spot.
The same can’t be said for their foolish attempt at adapting White Lies’ weighty, Bravery-mock “Farewell To The Fairgrounds” to their chintzy ’80′s pop style, though. Singer Elly Jackson’s needle-thin peep started to get so high-pitched, we feared her head might explode.
Florence and the Machine
With each new gem introduced in advance of the July-set debut Lungs, Florence and The Machine focal Florence Welch has gradually won more and more over as one of today’s most captivating new female musical figures. Her band’s fourth single, “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)” stands as one their most alluring creations yet, an ambitious onslaught of mythy, New Age grandeur and soul-seasoned indie-folk singing brought to a potent apex by way of a quadruple-tracked chorus.
Unable to cram into the Lounge studio the hundred or so musicians it seemingly took to initially create the record though, a stripped-down live dishing of “Rabbit Heart”, while lovely, doesn’t bear the same magical hold of the original.
When covering Beyonce’s soft rock ballad “Halo”, Flo hits a few vocal bumps when trying to compete with the original singer’s perfected caterwaul; yet when looking beyond the imperfections, there lies some evidence that, given a few practice runs to make her more comfortable with the material, this could end up being a fine future B-side.
As nice as it is to get free music, think of how much better your soul would feel if you purchased it the old-fashioned way.
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(MP3 posts are for promotional and/ or previewing purposes only; if any artist or their representation wish to have the links removed, contact me and I will happily comply!)
Five years after bursting onto the music scene earning all kinds of critical fanfare for their self-titled debut‘s boy/girl harmony-sweetened stabs at happy-go-lucky (at least on the surface) ’60′s folk-pop, and four years after losing much of that breakthrough momentum on a hastily released sophomore album (2006′s Those The Brokes) bogged down by over-long track lengths, English indie pop quartet The Magic Numbers have returned, armed with third project The Runaway and, likely, the hope that it will have the power to restore them to their debut heights.
There are times when Beyonce goes on one of her overly-flamboyant, “tomorrow’s R&B”-soundtracked tangents that modern pop/ R&B brilliance emerges. We’ve experienced that with 
This past week, BBC’s
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