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Tag: Miles Davis

  • The New Music Revue 1/20/09: Mix & Match

    mariahWelcome to the first new release Tuesday of 2009. While most of the country will be fixated on something FAR more important, there’s no reason you can’t duck out of the inaugural festivities to pop into your local pre-recorded music emporium to check out the new releases. Here’s what’s happenin’:

    It’s a good week to be indie and somewhat androgynous, as today brings us new releases from Antony & the Johnsons and Andrew Bird. Jam band lovers will get down to Umphrey’s McGee‘s Mantis, while some of the same indie folks who’ll pick up the Bird and Antony releases will wanna dig in to Animal Collective‘s Merriweather Post Pavilion. Jazz vocalist Jane Monheit graces us with a covers album called The Lovers, The Dreamers & Me (also known as the same title R&B singer Alice Smith gave her album three or so years ago), and AmIdol fanatics will rejoice (or throw up in their mouths) because Sanjaya Malakar makes his debut with an EP only available through amazon.com called Dancing to the Music in My Head.

    With Valentine’s Day approaching, the love songs compilations are going to start arriving fast and furious. Sony Music is unleashing a new ballads-themed series called From the Heart, and the first set of releases in this series come from a wide range of artists including Air Supply, Billie Holiday and Miles Davis. Speaking of Miles, a deluxe reissue of Kind of Blue hits stores today, as does a double-disc love songs set from Frank Sinatra. Thom Yorke‘s The Eraser gets the album-length remix treatment today, and finally, Mariah Carey gets her own ballads collection, featuring many of her best known hits-and no rapper cameos!!

    Happy shopping & Happy inauguration day!!

    Oh, get yer full list of new releases here.

  • That Guy Who Listens To Psychotic Death XXX? He’s Really a Teddy Bear!

    Some random metalhead kids. Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurek_durczak/.

    This morning, I came across a very interesting article on Yahoo. A survey conducted by those lovable, yet crazy Brits has revealed that musical taste can be an indicator of someone’s personality. While the purpose of the survey alone caused me to make the people’s eyebrow like The Rock Dwayne Johnson, I decided to read on, and I gotta admit, it was an interesting read. Here are a few factoids, according to the researchers.

    Our first “uh, doy” moment comes when it’s said that people who listen to rock and rap tend to be more rebellious, while folks who listen to opera are wealthy and well-educated. They probably should have also thrown “gay” in there, but hey…wasn’t my survey (Just in case anyone is offended by that statement, let me just say that for the record, I and three other members of the MHW staff happen to be gay. So suck it).

    Jazz and classical fans are creative with more self-esteem. Well, hey, creative types tend to do lots of drugs, right? Do me a favor. Listen to “Bitches’ Brew”. Then listen to “Bitches’ Brew” after smoking half a pound of weed. I guarantee you’ll enjoy it better after smoking the pot. You’ll probably also want to sit down with a sketch pad and draw out the colors you see in front of you while you are in the process of listening. See? Hallucinations are fun!!

    Indie lovers lack self-esteem and are not very gentle. Considering most indie-exclusive listeners are douchebags who look down their glasses at anyone who listens to and appreciates pop music unironically, I guess that makes sense. We can also flip this and apply it to those annoying backpacker “all commercial hip-hop sucks” types. It certainly makes me feel better about being hassled by those types. You may love Atmosphere, but you also have the self-esteem of a kid who has been picked on his whole life for being a GEEK!! HA!!

    Metal listeners, contrary to public opinion, are gentle and creative. The creative part I knew all the way back in high school, considering the metalheads were usually the most artistic folks in class. It takes talent to be able to draw some of those band logos, man! It’s only recently, now that I’ve started working around metal bands and labels, that I realize how friendly, nice, and generally soft spoken those tattooed, angry-looking people are. Seriously. Guess all that screaming gets the aggression out!!

    You can read the entire article here and you can actually participate in the study yourself (it’s ongoing!!) here. I wonder what they’ll have to say about a 32 year old black guy who listens to New Kids on the Block.