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Pop Rock Nation

Category: Reviews

music-and-concert-reviews-you-wont-see-anywhere-else

  • The iTunes Shuffle

    I was talking to a friend the other day and he was telling me about a new song from someone named Leona Lewis. As he was telling me why her song Bleeding Love was worthy of spending a buck on, I was trying to remember where I saw her name. And then it hit me. It was in an e-mail from Apple, telling me what was upcoming and hot in the iTunes Music Store. Lewis was the winner of the third season of Simon Cowell’s UK show The X Factor. And while my friend and I both agreed that a broken heart is a better metaphor to use in music than a bleeding heart, I decided to take a leap and get the song. I wasn’t disappointed. And it doesn’t seem that iTunes fans are either. It was the number one song last week on the iTunes singles chart, only to be bested this week by Mariah Carey’s Touch My Body.

    That lead me to two other immediate iTunes purchases. Sara Bareilles’ Love Song is so catchy that I just had to buy it. She’s sort of a mix between Vanessa Carlton and Fiona Apple. And finally, I had to buy the MacBook Air song, New Soul by Yael Naim that Steve Jobs chose himself to be featured in the commercial for the new laptop.

    iTunes really has me by the credit card these days. After decided that I wasn’t going to buy CDs any longer and would only buy through iTunes, I’ve found myself buying more music of late. Instead of buying Randy Jackson’s new album, I simply bought Real Love by Katharine McPhee and Elliot Yamin. And after having a discussion about Family Ties with my girlfriend and finding out that she’d never heard of Billy Vera and the Beaters, I had to buy At This Moment for her. Word to Alex P. Keaton. Lastly, because I want Big Rube Studdard to make it in this business, I bought the new American Idol go home song, Celebrate Me Home.

    Luckily, I already bought Patrick Swayze’s She’s Like The Wind, or that would’ve been my next move.

  • You Gotta Hear This Vol. 1: Vampire Weekend

    And the fact is, over the past couple of weeks, a lot more people HAVE heard the debut CD by NYC quartet Vampire Weekend. After a performance on “Saturday Night Live” a couple of weeks back, their album vaulted back into the Top 30 on the Billboard chart.
    I found out about the band a month or so before, thanks to a coworker who went to Columbia University along with the four members of VW. They’ve gotten tons of blog press over the past couple of months, and are allegedly the first band to appear on the cover of “Spin” magazine before their first album was released. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether that means anything or not.
    At any rate, these kids are pretty interesting. Their music is hooky and catchy (as all pop should be…I’m not even gonna call it “indie pop” for the benefit of all the dorks with tight pants and ironic mustaches), and carries a couple of interesting influences. First and most obvious would be the African music influence. A good friend of mine who is also a musician harumphed “all they did was rip off old Hugh Masakela records”. While it’s true that they probably listened to a lot of Afrobeat stuff (in addition to much of the African-influenced work of Anglo bands like Talking Heads, Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel), their music has a fun, tossed-off quality (they actually remind me of The Ramones in spots) that makes it more unique than your average retread. Their songs also have a bit of a classical influence. The string sections are a bit fuller than on your average pop record, and when was the last time you heard a pop/rock album with a flute?
    Although they’re a bit on the pretentiously literate side (come on, they’re frickin’ Ivy Leaguers…what did you expect?), thanks to Vampire Weekend, not only do I have a cool new danceable album in my collection, but I now know what a mansard roof and an oxford comma are!
    Check ’em out for yourself:
    Their official website is: http://www.vampireweekend.com/
    Check out the video for “Mansard Roof” here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=XSOM0tQMNZ8
    …the video for “A-Punk” is right here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=fiATtJUPuzI

  • Danity Kane, Flo-Rida, YAWNNNNN: New Music Releases 3/18/08

    Maybe I’m getting old, maybe I’m slowly growing out of touch with popular music nowadays.
    What does it mean when I’m completely disinterested in the two potentially biggest-selling releases of the week?
    For those of you that care, “Making The Band” favorites Danity Kane release their second album, “Welcome To The Dollhouse” today. Their debut album entered the charts at #1 and sold a million copies, so there’s a lot riding on this release, as my buddy GG mentioned a couple of blog entries ago.
    The other release of note comes from T-Pain protege Flo-Rida, whose debut single “Low” reigned on top of Billboard’s pop charts for an amazing 9 weeks. “Mail On Sunday”‘s follow-up single “Elevator” (which features the typically omnipresent Timbaland) has made it into the Top 15 in just a couple of short weeks.
    Daniel Lanois is much better known as a producer than an artist, but to give you an idea of the kind of clout this man has, the guests on his new album, “Here Is What Is”, include: U2, Willie Nelson, Sinead O’ Connor and Aaron Neville. Quality stuff.
    Other releases of reasonable note include: a new album from underground rap favorite Lyrics Born, a set from LOX rapper Sheek Louch, indie favorites The Kills and dance gurus Groove Armada.
    Yeah. I’m excited too!!
    Get a complete list of this week’s releases here: