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Pop Rock Nation

Category: News

music-news-from-breakups-to-the-lastest-buzz

  • Old Faces, New Music: The Return of Ace of Base and Jenny Berggren Gone Solo

    Ace of Base ”All For You”
    There are college freshmen right now who have no idea that all that she wants is another baby; who don’t know what it’s like to see the sign and have it open up their eyes; who don’t know that it’s a beautiful life – oh – oh oh oh. But it’s also true that whether they’ve heard of Ace of Base or not, anyone who’s heard Lady Gaga’s “Alejandro” has heard what Ace of Base were all about – lightly Latinized, boldly synthesized, Eurodisco singalongs that sound fantastic on both the radio and the dance floor. Songs that are easy to love even though we know that each spin we give them reduces our IQ by at least a quarter of a point. To hear “Alejandro” dominate the airwaves this summer, it certainly seemed like the right time for an Ace of Base reunion, or at least an Ace of Base reconstitution.

    It’s been more than a decade since Ace of Base have had a hit song here in the U.S. and 8 years since the Swedish pop quartet formed around songwriter-producers Ulf “Buddha” Ekberg and Jonas “Joker” Berggren released their last studio album. 2002’s Da Capo, recorded as a trio, following the departure of Malin Berggren, wasn’t released here. Since then, the other original vocalist Jenny Berggren also left the group to pursue a solo career, while Ekberg served as the head judge for Sweden’s Idol 2009 competition and “Joker” Berggren… got really fat. Recruiting Idol 2009 finalist Clara Hagman and Julia Williamson to fill the girl’s roles in the group, Ekberg and Berggren re-convened as Ace of Base in the studio and released the group’s fifth studio album The Golden Ratio internationally this past summer (no U.S. release is planned). Here’s the album’s lead single, “All For You”, which, y’know, sounds like a possible Lady Gaga song.

    Ace of Base “All For You”

    Last month, Jenny Berggren released her debut solo album My Story. Here’s that album’s much more forward-looking lead single “Here I Am”.

    Jenny Berggren “Here I Am”

  • First Look: OneRepublic’s “Good Life”

    OneRepublic ”The Good Life”
    OneRepublic have released a video for the fourth single from their sophomore album Waking Up. The song’s called “Good Life”, and like the band’s previous singles, it’s been slightly remixed from the album version, giving lead singer Ryan Tedder a little more room to ad lib on the chorus, and punching up the great, live-drum rhythm track. As its title would suggest, it’s a strummy celebration of life as a newly minted jet-setter. But as this ingratiatingly wide-eyed song catalogs the band’s more glamorous travels (including a shout-out to their home state of Colorado), the video finds them with all feet on the ground, singing (and whistling) their nice little song in a lovely, simple country setting. Like the band’s previous singles “Secrets” (which turns up in the trailer for the new movie Love & Other Drugs) and “Marchin’ On” (which was used in ads for the Lifetime TV series Army Wives), I expect that “Good Life” will be around for awhile, not so much as a radio staple, but one of those sleeper pop hits that finds its audience through persistent licensing.

    OneRepublic “Good Life”

    OneRepublic – Good Life (Official Music Video)
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  • Is That Michael Jackson’s Voice In Breaking News?

    Amidst the release of the Breaking News, the song that is streaming on Michael Jackon’s website that we wrote about earlier, are rumors that the vocals in the song aren’t actually Michael Jackson’s.

    If you listen to the song, you can definitely hear some blending of vocals, which isn’t uncommon in R&B music. Some of the biggest hit records have background vocals blended in to make a singer’s voice sound more full. But the rumors aren’t that Jackson’s vocals are being blended with someone else’s. The rumors are that Jackson’s vocals aren’t anywhere on the actual song.

    Check out what TJ Jackson, son of Tito, and one of the members of 3T wrote about the song earlier via his Twitter account:

    There’s many MJ vocal impersonators. Some better than others. But there is only ONE Michael Jackson. Deceptively merging shady vocals with MJ samples (from prior MJ records) will never fool me. Why they would ignore the obvious, look the other way and rush a suspicious track that was NEVER on my Uncle’s radar is beyond me. I’m disgusted, disappointed and saddened. And before the media starts to smear our name, just remember we are COMMITTED (as our Uncle Michael always knew) to protect his name and his amazing legacy he worked his whole life for. We have nothing to gain and we know they will try to drag our name through the mud. But we know how much he valued his legacy and his fans. And cheating either is unacceptable. “Lies run sprints, but the truth runs marathons”

    He went on to apologize to fans and said that he thought it was Michael Jackson mimic Jason Malachi and that if you listened to the a capella version of the song you’d hear, “Sampled breaths after sampled breaths mixed in with fake vocals to try to fool you.”

    The biggest Michael Jackson fan I know, Big Money Mike, who writes Popblerd!, sent me a note that said that he’s pretty sure the main vocals aren’t MJ’s.

    What does everyone else think? Listen to the song below and let us know. MJ or not?

    Michael Jackson – Breaking News by sheenabeaston