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Pop Rock Nation

Author: Paul Lorentz

  • The Wanted Came Adorable on Chelsea Lately

    The Wanted Came Adorable on Chelsea Lately

    The Wanted's Surprise U.S. Hit
    It’s been a full decade since the end of the last great wave of boy bands, and even then, the most successful of the bunch were of the American variety. So the sudden cross-Atlantic success of British quintet The Wanted with their song “Glad You Came” (which surged into Billboard’s Top 40 Pop Chart a couple weeks ago) feels unlikely and deliciously random. Why, then, a guy might fairly ask, haven’t superior recent singles by JLS or One Direction similarly stormed our airwaves?

    Maybe The Wanted are just really cute, sweet guys – even by boy band standards?

    Last night, fresh from a tour date in Las Vegas and en route to more dates in Canada and then back to the U.K., the group made their American “late night debut” on Chelsea Lately, all five of them piled up onto Chelsea Handler’s guest couch fielding questions about, y’know, their British accents and whether they are “of age”. The group came across wide-eyed and friggin’ adorable – in stark contrast to the residual tackiness of Chelsea’s show (I’m kind of a fan). When Chelsea told 18-year-old Nathan he looked a little like Justin Bieber, he blushingly replied “if someone did something horrible to his face, possibly.” O. M. G. So damn cute.

    “Glad You Came”, which debuted at the top of the UK singles chart last summer, is the lead single from the band’s sophomore album Battleground. The single’s available for download here, but neither Battleground, nor the group’s 2010 self-titled debut have gotten a U.S. release yet. Sadface. Get happy! Watch the video:

  • New Single! K’Naan “Is Anybody Out There” featuring Nelly Furtado

    K'Naan's New EP ''More Beautiful Than Silence''
    It’s hard to believe that it’s been a full three years since Somali-Canadian rapper Keinan Abdi Warsame – that’s K’Naan to jus’ us folks – released his third studio album The Troubadour and scored a surprise international sleeper hit in the song “Wavin’ Flag”. His autobiographical anthem of growing up in wartorn Mogadishu has had several lives in the last three years. Originally a Top 10 hit in Canada, the song got a snazzy new remix in late 2009 featuring a new Spanish language verse sung by Spanish pop hunk David Bisbal for the FIFA World Cup in South Africa. For the Euro dance clubs, David Guetta and will.i.am took a shot at the song as well, and then, following the earthquake in Haiti, the song was turned into a all-star Canadian “We Are the World”-type charity single.

    It’s all enough to make a guy wonder how an artist can possibly follow up a hit song that, almost in affirmation its own chorus – “and then it goes back, and then it goes back, and then it goes back” – never really seems to go away. Even just a couple months ago, the song got the a capella treatment on NBC’s The Sing Off. And it’s not as if K’Naan didn’t try. He released several more singles from The Troubadour following “Wavin’ Flag” – songs like “Take a Minute” which also hit the Canadian Top 20 but still got swallowed up in its predecessor’s shadow.

    K’Naan’s back with a new 5-song EP called More Beautiful Than Silence. From that EP comes this collaboration with Nelly Furtado called “Is Anybody Out There?” A lyrics video for the song has been posted to the youtubes. Play it once and you’ll never get it out of your head:

  • Eli Young Band Take On Will Hoge: “Even If It Breaks Your Heart”

    Eli Young Band Take On Will Hoge: “Even If It Breaks Your Heart”

    Eli Young Band's Latest Single
    I’ve been vaguely aware of the Eli Young Band’s existence for a while now, but have never really been compelled to seek them out until I spotted their latest entry on the Billboard country charts – a song called “Even If It Breaks Your Heart”. I recognized the title of the song from a song recorded by singer-songwriter Will Hoge a couple of years ago for his album The Wreakage. Could it be the same song? It sure is!
    And it’s a great one. Hoge’s song about persevering in a dream – specifically the dream of making it big (or even just making a living) as a musician – deserved to be a bigger radio hit than it was. Had it come out during the late-90s Wallflowers-Counting Crows-Tonic-Matchbox Twenty moment, it just might have been.

    Some of the Hoge fans commenting on the Eli Young video have been less than charitable, but I think it’s great that this song is finally a hit for someone. It’s reaching more people than it ever would have otherwise, and not only will the song have a longer “life expectancy” as a result, but it will also inevitably introduce more people to Hoge’s original, and by extension, his whole body of work. Last year, Hoge released his seventh studio album called… Number Seven. Here’s his latest single: “When I Get My Wings.”