Archive: September 2009 (21-30 of 170)

Sep 25 2009 04:54 PM ET

Miranda Lambert on her new tunes, touring, and Twitter: A Music Mix Q&A

Country firestarter Miranda Lambert’s excellent third album, Revolution, comes out next Tuesday — she made our Must List, and yours truly gave her a straight-up A in the pages of this week’s EW. Fresh off a sold-out show at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium Thursday night — she played the new record start to finish, then threw in some covers and a couple of hits – Lambert checked in to chat with the Music Mix from Lexington, Ken., where she’s performing with Jason Aldean.

Entertainment Weekly: Tell me about the Ryman last night.
Lambert: It was awesome. I had a huge week anyway, cause Tuesday I did a thing for the ACM Honors, and I sang a Merle Haggard song, and hung out backstage with Kenny Rogers and Vince Gill and Steve Wariner and Merle. I was like a kid in a candy store. And then last night was huge.

What were some of your highlights from the performance?
Well, the fact that I got through the whole record without messing up any of the lyrics. It’s 15 new songs, and I’m like, “Aaah!” But I remembered everything. The reaction from the crowd on every song was just amazing. I had some artist friends that came, like Kelly Clarkson and Taylor Swift—I can’t believe these people took their Thursday to come see me. And then later on Jamey Johnson showed up and hung out. It was just really cool.

And that was the point at which you got blind screaming drunk with Jamey Johnson?
Uh, yes, I did do that. [laughs]

After the jump, more on the Ryman show, the new album, and why she doesn’t mind boyfriend Blake Shelton’s Twitter addiction.

READ FULL STORY »

Sep 25 2009 04:14 PM ET

Lady Gaga, like you've never seen her before: circa 2006

Who is this human mortal, with the long dark hair and the Yamaha keyboard and the … regular-people pants? Surely, not Lady Gaga as we know and love/loathe/love to loathe (multiple choice!) her.

Where is the red lace face monster? The goth-Victorian Phantom of the Opera with the friendly neck pigeons? Nary a casual-Friday hair-bow ‘n nipple-tape combo to be found here, friends.

Watch the Artist Formerly Known as Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta performing the song “Hollywood” at a small New York Club in January 2006, and marvel at the transformative power of leotards, peroxide, and major-label dollars:

What do you think, Music Mixers — can you read her Poker Face better now, or back in the brown-haired, basement-y days? (Spoiler alert: She still says “F—” a lot.)

More from EW’s Music Mix:
Morrissey reveals U.S. tour, creepy album cover
Is Lily Allen done with the music biz?

Natalie Imbruglia is back…Let the music (Cold)play

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees

Sep 25 2009 01:49 PM ET

Morrissey reveals U.S. tour, creepy album cover

Morrissey, Swords

Morrissey, Swords

Morrissey just revealed that his Fall European tour will extend to America’s West coast, starting in Seattle in November and working it’s way through California during December.

The moody cult icon and former Smiths frontman also debuted the cover of his upcoming album Swords, a collection of solo b-sides that includes a song with Chrissie Hynde doing backup vocals.

The fact that his tour will hit the U.S. will please long-time fans, which is good, because the album cover of Swords is sure to creep out everyone else on the planet. It pretty much looks like an iPhone pic you took of your dad when you went hiking and he had to “take a breather” for a few minutes.

Sure, Morrissey isn’t one for rock-star cliches—which is part of the reason we love him—but he could at least make an attempt to look cool. It’s almost as if he wants to discourage people from buying the record by invoking Denim Dan chic.

What do you think—is it a lame photo, or are we being too critical? And are you gonna check out his tour? Did you see the last one, and if so, does he still bring the Moz magic in concert?

Sep 25 2009 12:42 PM ET

Guilty Pleasures FINAL: Phish (16) vs. George Michael/Wham (6)

EW’s Music Mix is searching for the Greatest Guilty Pleasure Musical Act of All Time. We started with 32 seeded contestants; this is the final face-off. Polls will stay open through the weekend. Note: In the unlikely case of a tie, please select the artist you feel more ashamed to adore.

Phish George Michael

READ FULL STORY »

Sep 25 2009 12:17 PM ET

'Who Says' John Mayer can't get stoned? Hear his new single here

Categories: John Mayer

Back in May, John Mayer asked an L.A. audience an urgent question in the form of a song: “Who says I can’t get stoned?” Now he’s releasing the studio version as his latest single under the more demure title “Who Says.” As before, it’s a pleasant acoustic number. “Who says I can’t get stoned?” Mayer wonders aloud over gently rolling instrumentation. “Turn off the lights and the telephone/Me in my house alone/Who says I can’t get stoned?”

I, for one, promise you that I will never say that you cannot get stoned, John Mayer. However, the singer might be facing a less rhetorical query soon — namely, will TV and radio stations say he can’t say “Who says I can’t get stoned”? Will they just bleep out the word “stoned” from the chorus? Might he have to release a separate clean version with reworked lyrics? (Idolator has suggested a few creative alternatives, including “who says I can’t get phoned” and “who says I can’t get cloned.” Somehow those don’t have quite the same ring to them as the original…)

Do you think the nation is ready for this song? Aside from the whole “stoned” issue, how do you like “Who Says,” anyway? Give it a listen after the jump and let us know.

READ FULL STORY »

Sep 24 2009 06:17 PM ET

Natalie Imbruglia is back ... let the music (Cold)play

Natalie Imbruglia and Chris Martin sittin’ in a tree, W-R-I-T-I-N-G?

Strange but true, Music Mixers. The saucer-eyed “Torn” songstress and the Coldplay frontman have collaborated on three tracks for her upcoming album, Come to Life, out October 12 — and Martin even claims he regrets giving her one of the songs.

“A bit annoyingly, we’ve given her the best Coldplay song of all time,” Martin joked to an Australian newspaper back in March.”But because we’re off-cycle we can’t do it ourselves … Half of me wishes we still had it. But she sounds f—ing brilliant on it. I think she has a very unique talent and an incredibly unique voice.” (Imbruglia’s ex-husband, Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns, also contributes, and Brian Eno gets a credit for the song “Luaka,” initially intended for Coldplay’s Viva la Vida.)

You can find that song, “Fun,” here — though you may get distracted by all the Aussie skin (she almost exposes her Down Under!) on display in the new video for Life‘s first single, the very Kylie-style dance-pop number “Want”:

Sep 24 2009 05:43 PM ET

Is Lily Allen done with the music biz?

Brit-pop bad girl Lily Allen has been talking about quitting the music business, marrying rich and starting a family for a while now, and her cyber-activity today seems to indicate she’s not joking around.

After telling fans, “I have not renegotiated my record contract and have no plans to make another record” on her anti-music piracy blog It’s Not Alright, she proceeded to delete the entire blog.

She hasn’t cut herself off entirely from the public, however. A few hours later she tweeted, “I’m proud of the fact that that I’ve been involved with this [music piracy] debate,” but said she had to “shut down the blog [because] the abuse was getting too much.”

The flack she’s receiving from fans comes on the heels of a Twitter feud between her and Perez Hilton, which got real nasty when she spoke recently about her desire to have children, and Perez blogged “Lily Allen + Motherhood = Disaster!!!” — knowing full well Allen had suffered a miscarriage just the year before.

Allen acknowledged that suffocating publicity played a role in her decision—her post mentions the “slagging” she has received for her music, her persona and the family connections some people claim are responsible for her fame.

“The days of me making money from recording music has been and gone as far as I’m concerned,” she wrote, which sounds like a fairly final decision, although one her publicist doesn’t seem to agree with. He told NME.com, “She is not quitting pop music. She is not thinking about her next album right now because she is still in the middle of promoting her current record.”

What do you think? Is Lily Allen really done with the music biz? Do you believe her or her spokesman? If she does quit, how much of a role do you think negative press coverage played into her decision? And if it turns out she really is done after a mere two albums, do you even care?

Sep 24 2009 05:08 PM ET

Paramore, 'brandneweyes': Full album stream on Myspace now

Categories: New Stuff, Paramore

You’ve heard the single, and read all about the angst and infighting that inspired it — now, you can stream Tennessee pop-punkers Paramore‘s upcoming September 29 album, brandneweyes, in full on their MySpace page, after the band’s homepage crashed following a deluge of eager fans.

Barring any more overloads, you can find it here, and tell us, does it live up to your post-Twilight/Grammy noms/Riot! expectations?

Sep 24 2009 04:47 PM ET

New Foo Fighters, 'Wheels': Stream it here

In anticipation of their November 3 greatest-hits release, Dave Grohl and the boys have just released a new single, “Wheels,” to be included.

Listen to the arena-rock throwback below, and tell us what you think — Foos gold, or just fool’s gold?

See the full album track list, which will be available in both 16-song single-disc form, and a fancier two-disc-plus-DVD-and-photo-booklet iteration,  after the jump: READ FULL STORY »

Sep 24 2009 01:50 PM ET

Luke Bryan's country cover of OneRepublic's 'Apologize': Hear it exclusively on EW.com!

Country up-and-comer Luke Bryan will release his second album, Doin’ My Thing, on October 6th. First single “Do I” (co-written with the seemingly omnipresent duo of Lady Antebellum’s Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood) is already on my radio station every 30 minutes or so, but it’s his cover of OneRepublic’s “Apologize” that caught my ear when I put the advance copy of the album on for a spin. It’s that experience of hearing a familiar song out of context that shakes it up — to me, Bryan’s version is even sadder thanks to the mournful twang of its Nashville arrangement, and he sings the stuffing out of it, handing the falsetto with more aplomb than American Idol‘s Kris Allen.

Listen below and then tell us: What do you think, Mixers? How does Bryan’s cover stack up to the original… and the Idol? And who’s looking forward to Doin’ My Thing?

More from EW’s Music Mix
John and Mackenzie Phillips exclusive: Unreleased musical collaboration to come out
Miranda Lambert sings you a ‘Love Song’: It’s an EW exclusive video!
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees
Glee’s version of ‘Somebody to Love’: Awe-capella!

Photo Credit: Kristen Barlowe

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