Archive: March 2009 (71-80 of 123)

Mar 23 2009 08:24 PM ET

Ciara and Justin Timberlake's 'Love Sex Magic' video: Hot or not?

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Categories: Ciara, Justin Timberlake, Music Videos

Lovesexmagic_lYou can add the brand-new video for Ciara and Justin Timberlake’s "Love Sex Magic" to that whole not-wearing-pants trend (see also: Beyonce in the "Single Ladies" video, Lady GaGa in pretty much anything). In the 80′s-esque video available now at PerezHilton.com, Ciara struts and thrusts around in leotards of varying colors and prints, grinding up against Timberlake throughout. As you can see, there’s even ear-licking at one point. The single is from Ciara’s upcoming Fantasy Ride, due May 5 — her first album since 2006. Hooking up with Timberlake essentially guarantees a one-way ticket back to chart supremacy, so nice work there, Ciara. And if this were May or June, I’d say "Love Sex Magic" would be an early candidate for song of the summer. Or am I nuts? Weigh in below.

More on Ciara and Justin Timberlake:
Ciara’s ‘Fantasy Ride’ pushed to 2009
Ciara’s ‘The Evolution’ gets a B+
Justin Timberlake’s new tequila: How will you take it?
Justin Timberlake’s new MTV series debuts April 21: Will you watch?

Mar 23 2009 08:17 PM ET

'Neil Young Archives': They're really coming this summer

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Categories: Neil Young, Reissues, SXSW Festival

Neilyoung_l_2Decades of talk have given Neil Young’s Archives the aura of a holy grail for fans. Release dates for the Canadian legend’s hand-picked career-retrospective boxed set series have been floated and withdrawn too many times to count easily. But an announcement at this year’s SXSW music festival has made it official: The first volume of Young’s Archives, covering the years 1963-1972, will go on sale June 2. Really. He swears.

They’ve even set up a pre-order form at Young’s official site, with lots more details on the first volume’s insanely comprehensive contents. Ten discs packed with high-quality recordings of live concerts, studio albums, unreleased demos, and a 1973 film, plus all sorts of gorgeous-looking packaging and literature — if you’re serious about liking Neil Young’s music (and if not, why not?!), you want this.

There is the small matter of the price tag, of course. The cheapest version of the box, with just CDs, will cost you $99.99, while the DVD edition is $199.99, and the recommended Blu-Ray edition is $299.99. Bear in mind that this is just the first of a planned five volumes. So, yeah, not an everyday impulse buy. But hey, how often does something like this come along?

In other Neil news, he’s also just released not one but two new videos from his upcoming album Fork in the Road: "Cough Up the Bucks" and "Light a Candle." Those come from Neil to you absolutely gratis, but something tells me they’re not quite as awesome as what’s on that box set. So you tell us: Are you ready to start saving up for Neil Young Archives, or what?

More on Neil Young:
CD Review: Chrome Dreams II
CD Review: Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968
Catching up with Neil Young and director Jonathan Demme
Donald Trump hearts Neil Young :(

Mar 23 2009 07:22 PM ET

Death Cab for Cutie: New(ish) stuff!

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Categories: Indie Rock

Today over at Stereogum, you can find a stream of the Seattle indie superstars’ "Little Bribes"—a track fans may have heard at shows over the past couple years, but not in this studio-polished incarnation, produced by guitarist Chris Walla. It’s a nice change of pace for the boys, maybe the closest they’ve ever come to a roadhouse jam—though the Hold Steady are not exactly quaking in their bar-band boots—and maybe a good indication of what to expect from The Open Door EP, a five-song collection (four new ones, one Narrow Stairs demo) available online March 31, at merch tables on the band’s upcoming tour starting April 7, and in stores April 14 (rollout!). YouTube is brimming with live acoustic versions of "Bribes," back when it was called "Casino Blues"—see below:

So what’s the verdict, MMers? Are you feeling this new/not-new track? Stereogum will be posting each of remaining four songs over the next few days, if you’re interested.

Also, apropos of very little, other than the EP origins they share and the fact that both songs make me think of summer (it farking SNOWED this week in New York, kids) here’s one of my favorite songs from the band’s  pre-major-label days, "Photobooth":

Mar 23 2009 04:49 PM ET

Janelle Monae: The next big thing?

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Categories: Buzzworthy, Do My Job For Me, Janelle Monae, SXSW Festival

Janellemonae_l_2SXSW has sadly come and gone, but a few acts have emerged from the Austin heat as the festival’s most-discussed. That list definitely includes the bizarro, hyper-stylized alt-R&B singer Janelle Monae. Poised to (possibly) break out in a major way, Monáe certainly has the pedigree to justify the buzz. Once a protege of fellow Atlantan Big Boi, Monae signed to Bad Boy Records last year, thereby making Diddy one of her biggest cheerleaders. "Janelle Monae is one of the most important signings of mycareer," Diddy said in a statement last year.

Though touted as everything from the next Michael Jackson to the female JamesBrown, Monae clearly has her own sound and style. Usually garbed in a dapper suit-and-tie — and sporting some sort of combination of a mohawk and Afro — the lady stands out in a crowd. 

So, what’s the problem? Well, her music is, shall we say, odd. Her dense, other-worldly songs manage to sound both futuristic and like a throwback to Motown. While interesting, her mass-appeal is questionable. But then, Monae seems like a love-her-or-hate-her artist who isn’t going to change for the sake of commercial success. In other words, the next Rihanna or Beyonce she ain’t. Her closest contemporaries might be Santigold and M.I.A., although it’s hard to say without hearing a full album. (The debut record is rumored to be set for later this year.)

Check out the video below and tell us what you think. Are you digging Monae’s unconventional vibe, or is she yet another example of an artist whose buzz been artificially created by the Internet?

More on Janelle Monae:
Is planet Earth ready for Janelle Monae? (I hope so!)
Big Boi plays SXSW. Now, where’s that album?

Mar 23 2009 04:10 PM ET

New Lily Allen Clip "Not Fair": Video Deja Vu?

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Categories: Lily Allen, Video Gaga

The latest incarnation of England’s snark-pop princess? Hee Haw queen. In the video for “Not Fair,” the  galloping, do-si-do-ey second single from It’s Not Me It’s You, Lily Allen conjurs up a fictional country-variety show, The Wagon House, and lays the Grand Ole Opry steez—and the false eyelashes—on thick. (Warning: if lines like “I spent ages giving head” don’t fly in your office, this one is NSFW without headphones):

It’s not bad, it’s just… not awesome. Sort of a squandered theme, this one—and not hardly new, either. Several clips beat her to the hay-bale punch; most famously, Devo’s “Whip It” (damn you, unembeddable videos!), which gave us the same 10-dollar set, but also flower-pot hats and a genuine dose of out-there punk weirdiosity. And when Rilo Kiley frontwoman turned solo star Jenny Lewis did it in 2006, she managed to wrangle guest star Sarah Silverman, a laugh track, and some real sequins ‘n chiffon razzmatazz for “Rise Up with Fists!!”:

Sure, there’s nothing new under the sun; but if you’re going to take a well-worked theme, you have to hustle a little harder to make your light shine, Miss Lily—and not just jack Linda Ronstadt’s 1974-tour jumpsuit and a few fake-wood fence posts. Or maybe I judge too harshly. Readers, what do you think of “Not Fair”—is it a country crock, or clever kitsch?

Mar 22 2009 08:00 PM ET

Fleet Foxes: Could a cover of 'Tiger Mountain Peasant' be better than the original?

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Categories: Indie Rock, Music Videos

Here’s a challenge: Try to find an intelligent, left-leaning, bigcity-inhabiting person between the ages of 30 and 40 who doesn’t swoonat the mere mention of the hippie beardo Seattle alternative band Fleet Foxes. And, in my humble opinion, rightly so. There’s a lot tolove about the intricate harmonies throughout last year’s self-titleddebut album. Yes, this much we know after they ended up on too manyyear-end best-of lists to count.

But what’s remarkable about their growing popularity is that it hasinspired fans from all over the world to try and recreate thoseinsanely complex harmonies. No, this isn’t unique to Fleet Foxes, and it’s been happening in this case for a while. But it is fascinating nonetheless that a spate of videos featuring amateur coversof their "Tiger Mountain Peasant" song have popped up on YouTube. Thatmakes some sense, considering that the song is probably the mostexquisite on the album. But isn’t it also kind of foolish to mess withsomething so pristine and perfect? You’d think. But what nobodyaccounted for was that a cover by two Swedish teenagers, who have theirown little band called First Aid Kit, would become a huge undergroundhit with its own set of fans, many of whom passionately believe thatthe girls’ version outshines the original. (In fact, when you searchthe name of the song on YouTube, their version comes up — with 473,000views — before Fleet Foxes’ original.)

I know, dem’s fightin’ words. How is it even possible that two girlssitting on a tree in some Swedish forest could have created somethingthat rivals one of the most highly touted bands in the indie rockworld? I was skeptical myself. Then I gave it a listen and I was hookedby the guileless beauty of their tribute to a band they love. Plus,they recorded it outdoors and their voices rise, rich and loud,seemingly up to the treetops. If you don’t believe me, check it out foryourself:

Does anyone else think they’ve captured something rich here? Is thisthe ultimate compliment or have they stolen the Foxes’ thunder? Doesthis make you want to record your own version of the song?

Mar 22 2009 04:31 PM ET

DM Stith on his first SXSW, working with Sufjan Stevens, and more

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Categories: DM Stith, SXSW Festival

Dmstith_lWell, SXSW is just about done for this year, and I can say I got to see almost all the artists I wanted to, plus a few I hadn’t planned on. One unfortunate exception: Various scheduling snafus prevented me from making it out to any of Indiana singer-songwriter DM Stith’s shows. Stith’s recently released Heavy Ghost is one of the strongest debut albums I’ve heard in some time, a swirling mass of atmospheric melodies and instrumentation. The whole album is streaming online, and it’s well worth a listen for fans of artists like Grizzly Bear and Sufjan Stevens. Though I’m sorry I missed seeing Stith perform, I did get a chance to chat with the soft-spoken musician on Saturday afternoon about his festival experiences and the making of Heavy Ghost.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How’s the festival going for you so far?
DM STITH: It’s been fine. I’m not used to the festival atmosphere. I’ve always stayed away from them, just as a listener, so it’s been weird being here and being part of it. But we’ve had a couple real nice, intimate shows. It’s been easier for me when we get away from the main strip — I don’t want to be able to hear another band playing when I’m performing. But Austin is a really pretty city, and the warm weather’s been good for me.

Are you happy with how Heavy Ghost turned out?
Oh yeah, I love it! I had only recorded little songs, separate experiments. This was the first time that I set out knowing I was going to make an album. There was so much apprehension in the beginning that in the end I had to give up control — let whatever happens, happen, and just kind of observe it. When I finished the record, I was really curious about the whole thing, still. It really feels like I witnessed it and I wasn’t in charge of it, which is a nice feeling.

Did you have many other musicians helping you record?
It’s mostly me. I recorded it all in my bedroom, my kitchen, wherever I could find instruments. My friend Shara [Worden of My Brightest Diamond] sings backup vocals on "Pigs," and Sufjan Stevens plays piano and tambourine and some other things on "Pity Dance." The string quartet Osso plays on two tracks. I would record versions of the whole album, basically, myself, and then write out parts for other people to play.

What was it like working with Sufjan?
Well, he has a piano, and I don’t own a piano. So whenever I was writing on piano, I would go there. Before I went to mix the record, I was visiting Sufjan in Brooklyn, and we decided to spend a few hours. I was like, "Okay, we gotta try this sound and this sound." He grabbed a stapler, so there’s a stapler on there. I was like, "Oh, we need scissors," so he got a couple pairs of scissors. He plays a floor rotary fan with aVermont state quarter — that’s that broooop sound in the beginning. That’s how I work. I heara sound and I grab whatever is around me to make it. And he was totally into it.

You worked as a graphic designer for a while, right? Is that something you still do?
Yeah, actually, I’m in grad school right now at Indiana University for an MFA in graphic design, and I’m teaching sculpture. I do a lot of work for Asthmatic Kitty, [my] record label, and I’ve done freelance and odd-job design work for the last six years.

What’s the relationship between the visual side and music for you?
I don’t think that I could do either of them full-time. For me, both of them sharpen each other. Design tends to feel like an organization mechanism. I’m a very neat person, so doing design lets me work on aligning things and making things very clear and crisp. And doing music is much more emotional and messy. I need both of those things.

What else do you have coming up?
The month of May should be a tour through Europe, and we’re talking about some different options for touring the U.S. My summer is open, and since I’ve been teaching and schooling and doing all this press stuff and working on music, I really need a break. I think mainly the thing that I think I’d like to do most is start recording again. It’s been a while since I’ve really been able to enter that creative space.

Mar 22 2009 04:23 PM ET

Asher Roth talks SXSW, 'I Love College,' and his upcoming album

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Categories: Asher Roth, Hip-Hop/Rap, SXSW Festival

Asherroth_lAsher Roth is an ill rapper. Literally: The 21-year-old redhead had already been battling a minor respiratory ailment of some sort for a couple weeks before touching down in Austin, and the relentless obligations of an up-and-coming artist’s first SXSW haven’t been doing his cough any favors. "South by Southwest is definitely no joke, you know what I mean?" Roth told me when we met in the lobby of his hotel on Saturday afternoon. "It’s hectic. You gotta pace yourself. If you don’t do that, you can find yourself worn into the ground. There’s no break: You’re just going, going, going."

The way Roth’s single "I Love College" has been climbing the charts, he’s likely to have to keep up that "going, going, going" routine for the immediate future. He wrote the requiem for the undergraduate kegger in a moment of nostalgia for his own two-year stint studying elementary education at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. "That song is very autobiographical," Roth says. "I spent two years in college, and I’m sure if I would have spent four, I would have been like, ‘I hate college!’ But I got two years in, partied a lot, had a good time, enjoyed myself, and really found out who I was as a person."

"I Love College" is a love-it/hate-it kind of song, all right. Even Roth feels a little ambivalent about its sudden rise to No. 17 and counting on Billboard‘s Hot 100. "It’s exciting, man. But I also don’t want to base my entire career off of ‘I Love College.’ Now it’s time for me to really build off of that. People come to the shows and they see that there’s much more than just a novelty song about college on the radio."

With that in mind, Roth is looking forward to the April 21 release of his full-length debut, Asleep in the Bread Aisle. "We have maybe three samples on the CD. We really brought back playing music and also songwriting," he promises. "There’s classic rock, jazz influences, there’s guitar solos, harmonicas. There’s all kinds of stuff on here. People are going to forget they’re listening to a hip-hop album."

Mar 22 2009 03:36 PM ET

Kanye West, Erykah Badu, and massive lines at SXSW

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Categories: Erykah Badu, Hip-Hop/Rap, Kanye West, SXSW Festival

Kanyewest_lWhile Erykah Badu was Twittering about an alleged stalker incident outside her home in Dallas, the line for her free 7pm concert with her new band, the Cannabinoids, at the Auditorium Shores Stage, stretched halfway down the bridge across Lady Bird Lake last night. I asked a few Texas teenagers who were standing on line in front and back of me if they read her Twitter posts about why she was running late for the show, which sounded like it started without her, but none of them knew anything about it. Since it was obviously going to be a while before they got inside the venue, they seemed more relieved that they weren’t missing her performance than concerned about what happened to the singer.

With the line for Erykah’s show still moving as slow as molasses at 7:45pm, I left and headed over to Kanye West’s GOOD Music showcase at the Levi’s Fader Fort only to find myself at the tail end of another massive line. (The organizers reportedly distributed 17,000 wristbands for the event!) I was still waiting to get in when I heard Kanye take the stage around 9:06pm. He opened with "Amazing" from 808s & Heartbreak before introducing rapper Consequence, who played a brief solo set. I finally got in some time around then and immediately ran into Dead Prez and Bazaar Royale, who were hanging out before their midnight show at the Austin Music Hall.

Though everyone kept calling it "the Kanye show," it really wasn’t. Instead of hogging the spotlight for himself, the self-proclaimed Louis Vuitton Don held court as the master of ceremonies while proudly introducing various up-and-coming artists on his label, including Big Shaun, Mr. Hudson, GLC, Fonzworth Bentley, and Kid Cudi, who recently inked a deal with Universal Motown. Between their sets, Kanye kept the audience hyped by performing a handful of crowd-pleasing favorites like "We Major," "Crack Music," and "Stay Up (Viagra)," a duet with 88 Keys. But the biggest surprise of the night was a reported guest appearance by none other than Erykah Badu, which, sadly, I missed because I left shortly before she performed with Kanye when I was offered a ride on the Dead Prez tour bus. I thought it was headed straight to their show, but it ended up taking a detour to their hotel. So that’s when I hopped out, hailed a cab, and called it a night.

Check out a clip of Kanye, Common, and Erykah Badu performaning at SXSW below.

Mar 22 2009 11:08 AM ET

New York Dolls, Hold Steady go yum-o at Rachael Ray's SXSW day party

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Categories: Concert Reviews, New York Dolls, Photo Blog!, Strange Bedfellows, SXSW Festival, The Hold Steady

Rachael Ray’s second annual day party (sponsored, everyone should know, by Rose’s Mojitos) was set to kick off at noon on Saturday, and half an hour before the doors were scheduled to open, the line stretched literally around the block. I was about to write “inexplicably stretched literally around the block,” but it’s not hard to figure out how this event has become a SXSW powerhouse. You can start with the free food and drink — this year, chilaquiles shared stomach space with those infamous mini burgers — but then go ahead and throw in a consistently excellent lineup of bands that make it hard to dislike the lifestyle maven, despite her blatantly transparent agenda. I mean, her husband does front a rock band. And if you had the ability to let your husband’s rock band open for, say, New York Dolls and The Hold Steady, would you not use it?

Indeed, John Cusimano was the luckiest guy in Austin today, as his unfortunately named band The Cringe scored a prime slot on a patio packed with fans of those two better-known groups — though jury’s still out on whether he managed to do anything particularly memorable with it. The downstairs stage, meanwhile, played host to a flock of worthy up-and-comers including Ra Ra Riot and Airborne Toxic Event, smartly cross-programmed against NYD/THS in order to give the kidz something to enjoy. “If I’m drinking coffee at a show, isn’t that way too f—ing early?” asked Thermals singer/guitarist Hutch Harris during their opening set of repetitive but bouncy rock. The answer might be found in the way I recoiled at the near-dozen members of Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros: I like enthusiastic L.A. hipsters funnying about with the 1960s as much as the next girl, but they were way too merry for that hour, even if their expansive soundcheck (“Okay, now can I hear the trumpet?”) was decent entertainment in and of itself.

Details of New York Dolls — declared by Ray to be “possibly the greatest band on the planet” — and the Hold Steady after the jump…

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