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December 2, 2013 Leave a Comment

Jake Bugg’s ‘Shangri La’ Lives up to the Hype

Before the official release of Bugg’s sophomore album Shangri La, he released two singles from the album What Doesn’t Kill You and Slumville Sunrise, which featured a significant development in Bugg’s music from his first debut album Jake Bugg. The two singles were much heavier, rockier, and fast moving; that’s definitely not a bad thing by any means, but I fell in love with Jake Bugg’s music because it felt real, genuine, and I liked the folky acoustic sound in all of his songs. So while I was excited to listen to Shangri La, I was worried it would disappoint my expectations for Bugg. But, it’s amazing and everyone should listen to it.

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Filed Under: Album Reviews, Indie Rock, Singer Songwriter Tagged: , , , ,
Let’s Get The Album-Of-The-Year Countdown Hype Started: My Albums of the Semester
November 21, 2013 Leave a Comment

Let’s Get The Album-Of-The-Year Countdown Hype Started: My Albums of the Semester

semestercollage

2013 has been a year of marvelous releases.  A few personal favorites have been Kanye’s Yeezus, James Blake’s Overgrown, Streetlight Manifesto’s The Hands That Thieve, and Daft Punk’s triumphant return with Random Access Memories, but these don’t even begin to comprise a complete highlight list.  Coming up with my list of Top Albums for the year is going to be an intensive process and I’m looking forward to it; in between debating the merits of different albums, I get to listen to all of them again.  It’s going to be something truly magical.  A much easier list to make, though, is my favorite albums of the semester.  While a lot of the heavy hitters for the year were released outside of that time period, there’s a great amount of quality for just these ~3 months.  In my opinion, these were the cream of the crop (presented in alphabetical order by artist). [Read more...]

Filed Under: Indie Rock, Lists, Music, Special Features Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,
Little Known Classics: Marvin Gaye
November 15, 2013 Leave a Comment

Little Known Classics: Marvin Gaye

I admit, we all know Marvin Gaye as one of the all time greats. But do most of us know Marvin Gaye beyond “Let’s Get it On”? I have 8 less appreciated tracks from the legendary soul singer’s more popular albums that you can appreciate whether you’re hip to crooner’s catalogue or just taking your first listen. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Album Reviews, Music, Singer Songwriter, Special Features Tagged: , ,
November 12, 2013 Leave a Comment

Reflections on Christmas Music

There’s a golden rule that it’s generally impermissible to listen to Christmas music before Thanksgiving. Maybe it’s to contain everyone’s excitement; maybe — as my girlfriend likes to remind me — it’s to preserve the sanctity of Thanksgiving, the best holiday. My mom, in the past a proponent of this rule, announced with guilt that she’s been sneaking Christmas music: “I’m usually able to hold off until Thanksgiving but I was weak this year.”

In the past, I would’ve groaned; I was, like her, a staunch proponent of the Thanksgiving Rule. But this year even I find myself slipping into a Christmas mood earlier than usual. So I broke. I listened to Barry Manilow’s Christmas album, then all of my Christmas favorites. And I feel phenomenal. Christmas is the itch, and its music is the salve.

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Filed Under: Special Features Tagged: , ,
Campy Music (and some other stuff)
November 11, 2013 Leave a Comment

Campy Music (and some other stuff)

None of the songs on this cover were written after 1971.

None of the songs on this cover were written after 1971.

Hey everybody,

It’s been one of those weekends that wasn’t any sort of break from the action of the week, but definitely in a good way.  Things got started with a bang when I scored free tickets to see Fitz and the Tantrums, Capital Cities, and Beat Club at Marathon Music Works on Thursday night.  All three bands started in Los Angeles, but each has a distinct sound within the broader category of indie pop-rock.  Beat Club has a very retro feel and their sound is very influenced by The Strokes, which makes sense because they are connected with Julian Casablancas.  Capital Cities is straightforward synth-pop and put on a very energetic show, closing with a fifteen minute rendition of “Safe and Sound” that turned into an electro-dance party.  Other than the last song, however, I didn’t find their music terribly engaging; all the songs sounded very similar but lacked the catchy hook of “Safe and Sound.”  This is only natural, though, since they have released just one LP.  The fact that they already have a Top 10 single at this point in their existence is very promising.  Unfortunately for Capital Cities, their performance was totally upstaged by that of Fitz and the Tantrums, whose neo-soul had a perfect dancing groove but didn’t feel superficial.  ”Moneygrabber” was a highlight, leading off the encore and featuring a confetti explosion in the middle of the song.  Overall, the night of music was supremely satisfying, and there should be a lot of buzz about these three bands. Here’s some of the better songs that were played.

The real highlight of the weekend, however, was going home for a weekend of summer camp-related festivites: a bar mitzvah, an official camp reunion, and lots of running around to see as many friends as possible before heading back to school this morning.

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Filed Under: Special Features
November 4, 2013 Leave a Comment

Fly Free Festival 2013

Adams, TN is a brief town: home to barely 600 people and a few miles of softly rolling fields, glinting golden in the husky glow of the late autumn sun. Signs for corn mazes and freshly harvested clover honey adorn the narrowly winding US 41–leading a silver Chevy, stereo blasting James Blake’s “Retrograde,” to the Red River Campground, where the one rule of the weekend is to fly free.

This past weekend hosted the inaugural Fly Free Festival, a festival aiming to de-Roo the middle Tennessee music & arts community. Bonnaroo, though it is a world of magic, has grown to such incredible proportions that it has lost the intimacy and mindfulness of the original festival mission–it is, essentially, a temporary urbanity. Fly Free was the type of festival where an unlocked car did not mean property theft and falling asleep under the stars did not pose an invitation for violence.

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Filed Under: Festival Reviews Tagged: , , , , , , ,
November 1, 2013 Leave a Comment

Little Known Classics: Love for Sale

The Man:
Bilal is a son of the funk. Though born in ’79, he rolls with the swagger of a proper 70’s child drawing influence from Blaxploitation films and funkmasters Sly Stone, George Clinton, and Curtis Mayfield among many others. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Album Reviews, Uncategorized Tagged: , ,
Between the Buried and Me at Cannery Ballroom: Out of this World
October 28, 2013 Leave a Comment

Between the Buried and Me at Cannery Ballroom: Out of this World

Between the Buried and Me, probably the best progressive metal band around today.

Between the Buried and Me, probably the best progressive metal band around today.

I have a fairly eclectic taste in music, and it shows when I think about my five favorite artists.  Four of those are Rush, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Beatles and (the most recent addition) Kanye West.  All revered throughout their community of contemporaries and listeners, all well-known to the general public.

The fifth artist?  Between the Buried and Me.  Never heard of them?  Not surprising, seeing as their genre is progressive death metal.

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Filed Under: Concert Reviews Tagged: , , , , ,
October 25, 2013 Leave a Comment

Why October 29th Is Gonna Be Amazing

My reaction upon seeing next week’s new releases
Photo courtesy of Neatorama.

Next week is easily the best week of music releases so far this year. While most weeks may have one or two big releases, this next week has so many interesting listens for fans of all genres, a few of which have me giddy in anticipation.

Here’s just a sample of the smaller releases coming this week. For jazz/hip-hop fans, you have pianist Robert Glasper’s Black Radio 2, the sequel to his smooth album Black Radio featuring guest spots from Jill Scott, Common, Lupe Fiasco, Norah Jones, and more. For you Odd Future fans, Mellowhype drops their new album on Halloween. For hip-hop heads who want to look outside the Americas, UK synth-funk hip-hop group band Paper Tiger (not to be confused with the incredible Minneapolis producer/Doomtree affiliate of the same name) has a new album coming. Metal fans can check out new albums from Toxic Holocaust and Skeletonwitch. Garage-rock/soul/funk-rock fans can feast their ears on the new album from White Denim. And those are just the smaller cool releases I wanted to highlight. Here are the top 5 reasons that the 29th of October is going to be a quite exciting day in music.

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Filed Under: Lists, Music, preview Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,
October 18, 2013 Leave a Comment

8 Songs to remind us of the Government Shut Down

 

1. I Want it That Way – Backstreet Boys

Partisan politics never sounded so ‘90s.

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Filed Under: Music, Special Features Tagged: , ,
A Closer Look at Why We Hate Nickelback
October 14, 2013 Leave a Comment

A Closer Look at Why We Hate Nickelback

But why? ...Okay, that soul patch is pretty bad.

But why? …Okay, that soul patch is pretty bad.

This past weekend, I was having a GroupMe conversation with a few of my fraternity brothers and, somehow or other, Nicolas Cage popped up.  He always seems to do that in the strangest of places.  We threw around the idea of having Cage be the entertainment for our next party–”he probably needs the money,” quipped our social chair–when I brought up the possibility of a Nick-themed rager: Nicolas Cage PLUS Nickelback.  So bad it would be legendary.  ”Cagelback: Because we hate you.”

We all had our laughs but then I remembered something: I used to like Nickelback.

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Filed Under: Special Features Tagged: , , , , , ,
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