This weekend is a bumper one for fans of egg-chasing on both sides of the Atlantic.
For the Yanks among us, Sunday night is the big day on the football calendar (of which more later in the weekend). But for we Europeans of the oval ball persuasion, the first weekend in February ushers in the beginning of the Six Nations rugby union championships, fought every year between England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France and, since 2000, Italy. It hasn’t got the popularity of real football (and by “real football” I mean Gaelic football, of course), but it is a unique event on the sporting calendar here since the demise of soccer’s Home Nations Championship.
As 2011 is a World Cup year, the championship comes packaged with an extra bite this year. As with the round-ball game, the English have taken it upon themselves to set aside the pessimism of the past three years, disregard all form and logic to install themselves as favourites to win everything in sight. It’s a lovable trait that only the English seem to possess and,with the tournament due to kick off in just under half an hour with England facing arch-rivals Wales in Cardiff, it’ll be interesting to see just how long it lasts.
For the time-being, we’ll have to make do with a comparison of the two countries’ respective singing prowess. Rugby is the closest thing Wales has to a national sport, but singing is not very far behind, and Katherine Jenkins’ regular appearance at the…
It all started as a joke; a suggestion on Twitter that people should go out and send “Pow”, arguably grime’s premier posse cut (and certainly its most famous), to the top of the Christmas charts in the UK. Lethal Bizzle – the man who enjoyed top billing on the original track – couldn’t have predicted the reaction to his comment, but at least he was smart enough to harness its power and set about recording an updated version straight away.
Problem is, he rushed it.
“Pow 2011” is still pretty good – P Money, Wiley, and Ghetts absolutely kill their verses – but it’s not hard to listen to it and think about how much better it could have been. Kano completely fluffs his bars (and takes 16 to everybody else’s 8 too), JME’s attempts at singing are just awkward, and Chipmunk brags about having written “Oopsy Daisy” – trust me son, that’s the kind of thing you should be letting people forget. Most worryingly, it just feels like, for the most part, everybody is trying to upstage all the other MCs on the track – Face, especially, taints his own verse by doing this, as do JME, Chipmunk, and Kano, and even Lethal B’s chorus, noticeably more aggressive than the original, just sounds like he’s trying to shout over the crowd. As if that wasn’t disappointing enough, it’s even been revealed that some MCs were denied a spot on the track because they took too…
After three long, agonizing years of stark Robin Pecknold demos and hit-or-miss J. Tillman solo albums, Fleet Foxes as a whole finally return with their announcement of a new album, Helplessness Blues and stream of the album’s title track, which hints at an album that sticks to the sound that brought Fleet Foxes to their indie stardom in the first place. Part “Ragged Wood” and part “Mykonos”, the song divides evenly into two sections: a pastoral acoustic section and a more grandiose rock section. The song’s weakest point is the transition between these two sections because, frankly, there isn’t one. The acoustic strumming slows a bit, and the second section enters with the bluntness of a sledgehammer. The mixing between these two sections is pretty awful, so hopefully, Helplessness Blues won’t have these same issues throughout the album, considering the brilliant production that characterized the group’s self-titled debut.
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of February 01 , 2011. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.
Abysmal Dawn – Leveling the Plane of Existence(Relapse Records) — Jared Ponton
Amplifier – The Octopus (Self-Released) Chase and Status – No More Idols(Mercury Records)
The Civil Wars – Barton Hollow (101 DISTRIBUTION)
Steve Cole – Moonlight (Artistry Music)
The Dirtbombs – Party Store (In the Red Records)
Aretha Franklin – The Great American Songbook (Arista) Thomas Giles – Pulse (Metal Blade) The Go! Team – Rolling Blackouts(Memphis Industries) — Robin Smith
Paul Hardcastle – Desire (TRIPPIN & RHYTHM)
Dave Hause – Resolutions ( Paper + Plastick Records)
Hercules and Love Affair – Blue Songs (Moshi Moshi Music)
The Insane Warrior (RJD2) – We are the Doorways (RJ’s Electrical Connections)
The JaneDear Girls – The JaneDear Girls (Reprise) Lazarus A.D. – Black Rivers Flow(Metal Blade Records)
Bobby Long – A Winter Tale (ATO Records)
David Lowery – The Palace Guards (429 Records)
Manowar – Battle Hymns MMXI – Battle Hymns 2011 (MAGIC CIRCLE MUSIC)
Bob Marley – Live Forever: The Stanley Theatre, Pittsburgh PA [2 CDs] (TUFF GONG/UMGD)
Ricky Martin – Musica + Alma + Sexo (Sony U.S. Latin)
Matisyahu – Live at Stubb’s Vol.II (RED GENERAL CATALOG)
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes – Go Down Under (Fat Wreck Chords)
North Mississippi Allstars…
British film composer John Barry died of a heart attack on Sunday aged 77.
Barry was best known as the creator of the music for the James Bond film, including the famous Bond Theme, although he was the recipient of no fewer than five Academy Awards: two for Born Free (best original score and bestoriginal song) and best original score for Dancing with Wolves, Out of Africa and the Lion in Winter. Other notable scores and soundtracks included Midnight Cowboy, Goldfinger and From Russia with Love.
Barry is survived by four children and three ex-wives.
Eisley’s first album in almost four years is about to be released through Equal Vision Records on March 1st. The album is called The Valley, and this song “Ambulance” is taken from it.
The Valley was recorded at Rosewood Studios in their hometown of Tyler, Texas, with producer/engineers Gary Leach and Austin Deptula (LeAnn Rimes), and mixed by Andy Freeman at Bay Area Tone in San Francisco. The album’s title refers to the emotional turmoil that the DuPree sisters, who front Eisley, experienced as they crafted their third album: Sherri enduring a failed marriage; Chauntelle, a broken engagement; and Stacy, a painful breakup. The only relationship that ended on their terms was the split with Warner Bros. Records, the label that released their first two albums and several EPs. Promising to bring listeners through the band’s darkest and most trying times, “The Valley” reveals their strength, patience and perseverance. On tracks like “Smarter” and “Sad,” there’s a musical aggression and emotional urgency that transports you to the moment they were written, laying bare the open wound of the broken heart. And the chilling album closer, “Ambulance,” is an icy snapshot of the very moment of betrayal and abandonment. Elsewhere, there’s a stately solace in the hopeful “Kind” and whimsical “Mr. Moon,” and buoyant string arrangements decorate opener “The Valley” and “Watch It Die.”
Brazil is a pretty lax place.You can get away with a lot of things most of the time: looting, mugging, rape, murder… even mullets are allowable. You can even form a four-piece rock band to play outdated mid-tempo rock at what appears to be some sort of outdoor festival for people who have no room for a proper stage.
But Lord help you if you screw up the guitar solo while the singer is backstage combing over his bald patch. You have been warned.
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of January 25 , 2011. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.
It is often said of Kurt Cobain, the late Nirvana singer, that he wasn’t half as good a musician in life as he became after he died. Much the same could now be said for Mark Knopfler who, while not dead, has suffered a fate far more damaging to a musician’s spirit: censorship.
Knopfler, whose popularity peaked at the dawn of MTV era as frontman of rock band Dire Straits, has seen his previously unheralded lyrical ability upgraded in some quarters to that of a master satirist in light of a Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) ruling on his band’s 1985 hit ‘Money for Nothing. The CBSC, the Canuck equivalent of the United States’ FCC, informed the nation’s radio stations that in future broadcasting the unedited recording of the track, which features repeated use of an offensive term aimed at homosexuals, would be considered a violation of the its Code of Ethics. In short: don’t play it.
The prohibition came about in response to a complaint from a member of the public – a 21-year-old gay woman from Newfoundland – who heard the full unedited version broadcast on regional classic rock station CHOZ-FM. The song contains the word “faggot” three times in quick succession, spoken from the perspective of a character voiced by Knopfler. The track was heavily criticised at the time of its release for vague implications of racism and sexism, though the CBSC’s edict relates only to the actual wording of the song.
Anybody with an ear for this kind of thing knows the Live Lounge, BBC Radio 1 feature originally presented by Jo Whiley, and now by the lovely Fearne Cotton.
Live Lounge, on which artists are invited to perform an original alongside a cover of their choice, is renowned for its tendency to throw up interesting and unexpected takes on well-known tracks (Arctic Monkeys doing Amy Winehouse’s ‘You Know I’m No Good,’ Robyn taking on Alicia Keys’ ‘Sleeping with a Broken Heart’). Being the BBC, it’s all lovingly archived, bizarrely frequent recurrence of N-Dubz and all.
Hawaiian singer-songwriter Bruno Mars is the latest to grace the BBC studios, and his debut performance is everything a cover version should be: beautifully arranged, personalised and performed in the light-hearted manner in which it was intended. He even throws in a couple of lines from the Beach Boys’ similarly-titled ‘California Girls’ and a clever take on Stevie Wonder’s ‘Isn’t She Lovely?’
I’m not sure how much I can actually say about this.
I mean, the first time I watched I was sure – I was convinced – that 1:10 was going to the moment I remember for the rest of my life. But then I saw 2:03 and, honestly, Oh my fucking God. And I mean that literally.
Any lingering fears that Patrick Stump’s second chin had imbued him, Samson-like, with his precocious musical talent have thus far proved unfounded – and a good thing, too, because the weight appears to be staying off and the erstwhile Fall Out Boy frontman has a solo career to launch.
As a prelude to the release of his first album on his lonesome, Soul Punk, in February Stump put together a fairly impressive medley of Grammy-nominated tracks, performed a capella with the man himself providing back-up vocals. Impressively, it’s all done on camera, so we quite literally get to see Stumpy playing with himself – he performs a fluid mash of Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ ‘Empire State of Mind,’ Eminem and Rihanna’s ‘Love the Way You Lie,’ Lady Antebellum’s ‘Need You Now,’ B.o.B. and Bruno Mars’ ‘Nothin’ on You’ and Cee-Lo’s ‘Fuck You’ (mercifully uncensored).
It’s interesting to note that Stump’s studio looks more like an oversized emptied closet than a state-of-the-art recording space, though perhaps that’s fitting given his rather unfortunate choice of clothing.
How bad does a song have to be to get rejected from a free-to-download tribute album? Listen to Thursday’s cover of Bad Religion’s “Generator” and decide for yourself.
While Geoff Rickley & co. manage to redeem themselves ever so slightly in the song’s straightforward second half, it’s no small feat how the first half of the track turns a punk classic into a bunch of moaned gibberish. Listening to the first half of the song had me thinking that it might be the worst thing I’ve heard all year, and I just finished listening to a song by Clown from Slipknot’s side-project. How’s that for context?
If you think I’m being hyperbolic you obviously haven’t heard the cover, so click the play button and decide for yourself
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Your ears not bleed out? Why not listen to the original in it’s un-neutered glory.
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Oh, and if you want to download Germs of Perfection: A Tribute to Bad Religion, click here. Don’t worry, this song isn’t on it. Instead you’ll get covers by the Weakerthans, Frank Turner, Tegan and Sara and many more.
If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “songs about Satan are great and everything, but I really wish more death metal bands wrote about dinosaurs,” then this track’s for you.
Here’s “Reptilian Age,” the fourth track off Blood Rainbow’s Lethal Message.
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THE BLOOD OF PREHISTORIC ANIMALS WAS FLOWING LIKE WATER
WHEN THE T-REX WAS TEARING THEIR FLESH
SCALED TITANS WERE WANDERING THE BLEAK LAND
THEIR RACE EXTINCT THOUGHT, THEIR GENES ARE WAITING FOR THE COMEBACK
FROM THE DEPTHS OF TIME
GIGANT ANCESTORS
THEY ARE RUSHING TO US THROUGH THE FOG OF AGES
HAVE RECORDED THEIR NAMES AMONG THE IMMORTALS
YOU CAN BE A HERO IN A PAST ERA
COME WITH ME AND WE WILL FLY TO THE REPTILIAN AGE
THE FOAM OF THE ANCIENT OCEAN IS COLOURED RED WITH BLOOD
THE WILD SEA REPTILES ARE BITING EACH OTHER
GIGANT PTERADONONS RULE THE SKY
THEY PROUDLY LOOK DOWN AT THE LAND SEEKING PREY
FROM THE DEPTHS OF TIME
GIGANT ANCESTORS
THEY ARE RUSHING TO US THROUGH THE FOG OF AGES
HAVE RECORDED THEIR NAMES AMONG THE IMMORTALS
YOU CAN BE A HERO IN A PAST ERA
COME WITH ME AND WE WILL FLY TO THE REPTILIAN AGE
REPTILIAN AGE! A PAST ERA
REPTILIAN AGE! FROM THE DAWN OF EARTH
REPTILIAN AGE!
FORGOTTEN WORLDS
Here at Sputnikmusic we have an unwritten editorial rule not to get involved in politics (at least as much that’s enforceable on a site staffed mainly by college-age pinkos) so I’m going to more or less throw this out without making reference to left or right, conservative or liberal.
Hell, I’m not even American – I couldn’t really give a shit what Congress does so long as it doesn’t show up on my doorstep.
However, I find something profoundly odd in ‘The Sarah Palin Battle Hymn,’ and it’s more than what musicologists often refer to “just being self-evidently dreadful.” It’s the myopic adulation of a popular political figure – in this case the lovely Ms. Palin – and her elevation to almost prophet-like status in its lyrics. This is made implicit by the choice of music: it’s a countried-up variation on ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic‘ (often known as ‘Glory, Glory Hallelujah), a Messianic patriot song from the American Civil War, now popularly used in religious services as well as Presidential inaugurations.
It would be easy to view ‘The Sarah Palin Battle Hymn’ as the work of a couple of mad oldies in a church somewhere, but it raises the wider point of how music is often used to serve a particular party-political agenda, and whether this is really something that we want to see more of. Many were similarly uncomfortable when, prior to the 2008 Presidential election, will.i.am and a cast of left-leaning musicians put together ‘Yes We…
