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There’s been a lot already said about the latest Taylor Swift single from critics and fans, and not a lot of it has to do with the actual music.  There’s been drama expounded upon and personality quirks analyzed, but I unfortunately keep as many tabs on celebrity feuds and lifestyle happenings as I do my cat’s bowel movements – and to be honest they mean about the same to me.  Thus, this little blog post has less to do with what fiery quip Katy Perry just came back with and more to do with a flawed, but pretty good, pop single.  I’m sorry to disappoint the frequenters of Consequence of Sound, who are no longer capable of actually writing about music.

(What did Sowing just say about another popular music website ?  Click here to read more!)

Anyway – the music.

So Taylor Swift has sort of run out of places to go already.  She’s played the innocent country girl and the pop star, and unless she soon decides to whip out an electric guitar and start shredding, her scope is sort of self-limiting. She could, of course, revisit the success of 1989 – but that record was so overwhelmingly successful on a commercial level that writing a new piece in the same voice would effectively begin to stale her appeal.  It’s the same reason that Red forced her to start wading into pop waters, because Fearless and Speak Now covered every…


Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of September 1, 2017.  Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.  As our staff post reviews of these albums, links will appear below the art work so that you can read about the release, see how we scored it, and more.


Featured Release: LCD Soundsystem – “American Dream”

American Dream

Genre: Post-Punk/Electronic // Label: DFA Records/Columbia

Background:

American Dream is LCD Soundsystem’s first album in seven years, following 2010’s This Is Happening.  Featuring the band’s most vibrant and colorful album artwork to date, American Dream also feels warmer and more expansive than past records.  A lot of the tracks, especially the lead single ‘Call The Police’, seem to be heavily channeling James Murphy’s inner David Bowie/U2.  In a year filled with high-profile comebacks, LCD Soundsystem stands proudly near the top of the totem pole,  boasting a must-hear record for fans of electronic-influenced rock and post-punk.

Listen to “Call The Police”, below:

 


 

– Full List of Releases: September 1, 2017 –

Covered in Black

Anubis Gate: Covered in Black
Genre: Progressive/Power Rock & Metal // Label: Nightmare Records

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 Zone

Cloud Control: Zone
Genre: Indie-Pop/Psychedelic, Dream-Pop // Label: Votiv Music

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The Solace System

Epica: The Solace System
Genre: Power Metal/Classical/Goth // Label: Nuclear Blast

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Omnion

[Volume 1] | [Volume 2] | [Volume 3] | [Volume 4]

Thousands upon thousands of albums, EPs, mixtapes, compilations, and songs are released weekly. You might not be aware of the existence of 99% of those releases, but they’re there. So when each song released to the public is simply a drop in a pool that dwarfs even the Pacific Ocean, it can be hard to navigate the current music scene: it’s always moving and impossible to keep up with its speed. That’s where Share Some Singles comes into the picture. This series was formed to highlight songs released in 2017 that might not have been discovered by other listeners otherwise. I, alongside other Sputnikmusic users, have pulled together dozens of singles released in the recent past that we felt needed to be heard by the world. Or at least the Sputnik reader base.

Artists are listed in alphabetical order with corresponding YouTube, Soundcloud, and/or Bandcamp links. A Spotify playlist is also embedded below if the singles are available through that service. Enjoy! –wtferrothorn

Blue Hawaii – “No One Like You”

Not even the slightly out of place vocals could dampen the wonderful instrumental conjured up on “No One Like You”. Everything from the funky synth bubbling under the main ingredients for the entirety, to the grade-A bass grooves, to the disco-soaked strings that chime in quite a few times to remind you how stellar of…


Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of August 25, 2017.  Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.  As our staff post reviews of these albums, links will appear below the art work so that you can read about the release, see how we scored it, and more.


Featured Release: Leprous – Malina

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Genre: Progressive Rock/Experimental/Electronic // Label: Inside Out Music

Background:

Leprous is a Norwegian progressive metal band formed in 2001 in Notodden, Norway. They originally made their mark as Ihsahn’s (Emperor vocalist/guitarist) backing band in live situations. Don’t let that mislead you, though, because Leprous don’t play progressive black metal. Their first four albums could broadly be categorized as the kind of quirky progressive metal that only seems to come from Norway, but even that doesn’t describe Malina. On Malina, Leprous has dropped any pretense of simply being a progressive metal band and opened their sound to elements only hinted at before –mainly electronic music. It shouldn’t surprise fans of the band that this has finally happened considering the band count Radiohead, Massive Attack, and The Prodigy among more standard influences such as Porcupine Tree and The Dillinger Escape Plan.

Listen to “Illuminate”, below:


 

– Full List of Releases: August 25, 2017 –

61vAVYBtLfL._SS500

Akercocke: Renaissance in Extremis
Genre: Progressive Death Metal // Label: Peaceville Records

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mbr-bookFor The Sake Of Heaviness: The History Of Metal Blade Records

By: Brian Slagel with Mark Eglinton
Released: August 29, 2017
192 pages
Publisher: BMG

Presenting a time when there was still some mystery behind your favorite bands, and discovering new music took some hard work and dedication. For The Sake Of Heaviness: The History Of Metal Blade Records isn’t just a book about a record label, it’s also the story of the metal scene that was springing up around it. Well worth picking up for anyone interested in the birth of the metal genre, and one of its defining labels.

 

 

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Metal Blade Records was founded at a time when the burgeoning metal scene was just beginning to emerge. It was a time when being a fan of underground music required hard work and dedication. This was a time well before the internet with its instant access to music on a global scale. Instead, most people learned about new music through word-of-mouth and tape trading, and discovering a new band required money and faith in equal parts because there wasn’t a way to ‘try before you buy’.  People had to find their music in catalogs in the back of independent music publications, and then wait the weeks it required to mail an order and get the music in return. This is where the story of Metal Blade Records begins… with a teenage Brian Slagel trying to do everything he could to discover new bands and…


Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of August 18, 2017.  Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.  As our staff post reviews of these albums, links will appear below the art work so that you can read about the release, see how we scored it, and more.


Featured Release: Steven Wilson – “To The Bone”

To The Bone

Genre: Progressive Rock/Experimental/Psychedelic // Label: Caroline International

Background:

Steven Wilson is among the most consistent artists and producers in the progressive rock scene.  Having worked with Opeth extensively, and not to mention spearheading his own successful outfit in Porcupine Tree, Wilson’s most impressive feats may have actually come on the solo front.  To The Bone marks his fifth full-length solo LP, coming on the heels of 2015’s Hand. Cannot. Erase and 2013’s The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories).  To The Bone is, thematically, a grave look at modern times – however, it is also a nod to the musical influences of his youth.  Regarding To The Bone, Wilson has gone on record stating: “My fifth record is in many ways inspired by the hugely ambitious progressive pop records that I loved in my youth…I grew up listening to a lot of very smart pop records by artists like Kate Bush, Talk Talk, Peter Gabriel, Prince, Depeche Mode, Tears for Fears, The The…It struck me that there aren’t too many albums made like that these…


It’s not like we needed any additional reasons to crown Ella as the queen of pop.  At just 20 years old, she’s stolen that crown from Ariana who stole it from Carle Rae who stole it from Taylor.  Well, that’s if you ask me.

But personal and irrelevant opinions aside about who owns pop (when it’s really the record companies and producers), Melodrama was – and is – a stone cold classic.  If you try and find a poorly constructed or unimaginative tune on it, you can’t.  It’s art-pop at it’s best, and it is everything that the industry should be striving for.

…And then there’s moments like this that go even further above and beyond what you’d expect.  Lorde must already be bored getting showered with accolades, because she has gone to work creating six incredible live re-imaginings of some of Melodrama‘s best songs: “Hard Feelings/Loveless” (see above), “Writer In The Dark”, “Sober”, “Supercut”, “Homemade Dynamite”, and “The Louvre.”  The above is one of my early favorites – there’s just something about the way she gets down to her own music that is both adorable and admirable.  You can tell she loves what she does.

In a brief interview with Vevo, Lorde states,

I don’t really do, like, acoustic sessions or anything, but with this record, it had roots in acoustic instruments and live musicianship.”

She also discusses working with Jack Antenoff (of Bleachers) and how the record centered…


Public Enemy… what can be said about them that shouldn’t already be known? They’re one of the most influential Hip Hop artists of the 80’s and early 90’s, due in large part to being one of the first Hip Hop groups to really focus on politics, and the plight of African Americans in general. Their lyrics were often controversial, and through it all the group remained unapologetic. If it wasn’t for them there probably wouldn’t be a lot of the politically charged music that exists today, from modern Hip Hop artists to metal bands such as System of a Down and Rage Against the Machine. Public Enemy’s first four albums are all widely regarded as classics, but there has been some discussion about which one is really the defining PE album, in my opinion the answer is easy; Apocalypse 91 is PE’s definitive album.

Another reason that this album is such a classic is due to one of the most capable Hip Hop production teams in the Bomb Squad, and an equally capable DJ in Terminator X. Apocalypse 91 features some of the most dense and innovative music that I’ve ever heard in any genre. The beats are complex by Hip Hop standards, and the music includes a large number of samples, sounds and influences all layered over each other in such a way that even sixteen years later I can still pick up new sounds. The Bomb Squad would take things such as screams (By the Time I…


Anyone on this site is, by now, well aware of my affinity for melodically-inclined music.  There’s just something effortless and uplifting about songs that don’t require you to completely submerge yourself within them – and dedicate considerable time and emotional resources to – in order to understand.  That isn’t to say that I haven’t spent tons of time getting lost in music with real, gritty depth and meaning, but lately the line between the genres I’d expect to pack that punch and those that I’ve traditionally viewed as reprehensibly artificial have actually begun to blur.  From my perspective it feels like pop music is getting better, but that’s pretty clearly a hypersensationalized hot-take based on the opinion of someone who has ignored quality pop music for the better part of his life.  As recently as three years ago I recall scoffing at the genre, aligning myself to a more elite standard as I’d quickly turn off the car radio to plug my ipod in and get lost in the music of The Antlers or The National.   The reality, of course, is that quality pop music has always been there…I’ve just been isolating myself from it out of a  fear of being subjected to the worst that the genre has to offer.  But that’s no way to critique music, because by the same standards I ought to be repulsed by indie-folk considering the remarkable attention that bands such as Mumford and Sons and The Lumineers attract.

Or maybe I’m just getting old and my music taste has regressed to…


stat_banner

Hello users, and welcome to a blogpost detailing a tool to help you rig the sputnik ratings in your favor. Probably a third of users’ comments are related to how much they dislike the average rating of albums (verified fact, obviously). Some albums’ average rating is too high, too low, there are not enough 5’s, 1’s, or the count of ratings is low. Your favorite album may have missed the year end chart; meanwhile, that album that you (and, really, only you) hated was near the top.

Numbers are often used to set incentives in our modern/global/capitalistic society. We gain admission or don’t to the colleges we want to go to based on our test scores and grades, we get fired or retain our jobs based on benchmarks set by our bosses, and we make $10’s of millions or more by breaking the home run record (and a few seasons later follow that up with 120+ intentional walks). But numbers used for evaluation are, generally speaking, adjacent to what they intend to measure. It’s not exactly the case that getting a good grade is the same as usefully retaining course material or that closing a lot of sales indicates one is worthy of employment. (But yes, if you hit 73 homers, you are good at baseball).

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” (Goodhart’s Law). Sometimes, when it suits us, we humans tend to manipulate a measure for our own gain –…


Hello everybody, and welcome to the 2017 charts… sort of. So, I scraped together every album listed in the genre pages of the 2017 charts on August 10, 2017, and calculated the average of the ratings, user usage weighted averages, and their rankings. The user usage weighted averages are described here (idea for the algorithm here); they are weighted averages of the ratings with users with more sputnik comments/ratings/lists/reviews getting more weight in the ratings and an adjustment to them is made so that the count of ratings increases/decreases the ranking of an album (the lower 95% credible interval value, if two albums have an equivalent average rating, the one with the higher count of ratings is ranked higher). Only albums with 20 or more ratings were included and the top 200 albums are below.

(I updated the rankings to now include the users with the most weight, top 5 users are listed in order of most weight and the number in percent next to each user is the share of the vote they have in the UserUsageMean. For context, divide 1 to the number of ratings of each album, and that’s the weight you had before. For Converge, for instance, by voting you would  have ~0.45% of the vote, but, our-boy The Ageless Wonder Rob Lowe, has ~6 times more weight than he had before. That’s LITERALLLY, very cool.)

*Updated as of 9/1/2017

Rank: 1 (Previous: NA), UserUsageRank 25, Der Weg Einer Freiheit_Finisterre
Number of Ratings: 24, Mean: 4.30, UserUsageMean:…


Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of August 11, 2017.  Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.  As our staff post reviews of these albums, links will appear below the art work so that you can read about the release, see how we scored it, and more.


– Full List of Releases: August 11, 2017 –

 5 Billion in Diamonds

5 Billion In Diamonds: 5 Billion In Diamonds
Genre: Alternative Rock // Label: 100% Records

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Elastic

Amy O: Elastic
Genre: Alternative Rock // Label: Winspear

Stream Elastic here.

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Spirit / Wholes

Big Hush: Spirit / Wholes
Genre: Alternative Rock // Label: Robotic Empire

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Diaspora

Cormorant: Diaspora
Genre: Black Metal/Progressive Rock // Label: Cormorant

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Poor David's Almanack

David Rawlings: Poor David’s Almanack
Genre: Country/Folk // Label: Acony Records

Stream Poor David’s Almanack here.

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Cost of Living

Downtown Boys: Cost of Living
Genre: Punk/Post-Punk/Hardcore // Label: Sub Pop Records

Stream Cost of Living here.

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Cage Tropical

Frankie Rose: Cage Tropical
Genre: Indie/Dream Pop// Label: Slumberland Records

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The Reign

Hinder: The Reign
Genre: Pop Rock/Grunge// Label: BMG/The End

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The Prestaliis

Hundred Suns: The Prestaliis
Genre: Alt-Rock/Metalcore// Label: New Damage Records

Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of August 4, 2017.  Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.  As our staff post reviews of these albums, links will appear below the art work so that you can read about the release, see how we scored it, and more.


– Full List of Releases: August 4, 2017 –

 The Rise of Chaos

Accept: The Rise Of Chaos
Genre: Heavy Metal/Hard Rock // Label: Nuclear Blast

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Brett Eldredge

Brett Eldredge: Brett Eldredge
Genre: Country // Label: Atlantic Nashville

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Call It Love

Briana Marela: Call It Love
Genre: Indie/Dream Pop // Label: Jagjaguwar

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The Fickle Finger of Fate

Dale Crover: The Fickle Finger Of Fate
Genre: Indie-Pop/Alt-Rock // Label: Joyful Noise Recordings

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Re-Covered

Dan Wilson: Re-Covered
Genre: Alt-Rock // Label: Ballroom Music / Big Deal Media

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Dead Cross [Explicit]

Dead Cross: Dead Cross
Genre: Punk/Thrash Metal/Hardcore // Label: Ipecac Recordings

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Hysteria [3 CD][30th Anniversary Edition]

Def Leppard: Hysteria (30th Anniversary Edition, Remastered 2017)
Genre: Hard Rock // Label: Mercury

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Wall of Sound

Marty Friedman: Wall Of Sound
Genre: Metal/New Age // Label:  Prosthetic

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One of Us [Explicit]

Mystery Skulls: One Of Us
Genre: Indie-Pop/Pop-Rock/Electronic // Label:…


What has 9 arms and sucks? Def Leppard…

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of Def Leppard’s break out release Hysteria, and to try to bring back “Throwback Thursday” here is ‘Gods of War’ — easily the best song on the album. Purchase the 30th anniversary release of Hysteria hereHysteria releases 4 August 2017 through Mercury Records.

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[Q1 2017 Mixtape] | [Q2 2017 Mixtape]

Hi there.

I truly had a nicer intro written up, but the servers died, so let’s take you live to check in on how they’re sounding today:

Despite the internal strife heard above, we’re happy to bring you 22 selections of tunes that might have tickled our collective fancies this quarter, with some tracks being wonderfully complemented by some rather entertaining blurbs along the way. As you will see, not everybody could make it this time out (thanks, servers), so if we missed something, you’re certainly welcome to let us know in the comments.

Cheers, and Happy Independence Day/Treason Day to all you Americans. See you in September for Q3 if our site doesn’t eat itself!

What So Not – “Divide & Conquer” (Noisia Remix)
Divide & Conquer (Remixes)
Listen if you like: Spor, SHADES, Ivy Lab, Mefjus

This song is bananas. You know those brain-dead YouTube comments on every mediocre dubstep or neurofunk drum & bass song, things like, “oi this song’s so bonkers I fucked me girlfriend without a rubber”? This is so nuts I’m almost tempted to make one of those comments. The half-time drop is an underappreciated resource in drum & bass – though it’s thankfully seen more use with the rise of SHADES’ and Ivy Lab’s hip-hop-leaning uptempo stuff – and a properly tuned one can ignite a room. This Noisia remix does just that: corrosive distortion, offbeat drum fills, and a snare the size of Mars fuse…


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