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Archive: October 2011 (111-120 of 123)

Oct 5 2011 11:31 AM ET

British folk hero Bert Jansch dies at 67

by Melissa Maerz

Categories: Music, Things That Bum Us Out

David Redfern/Redferns/Getty Images

Bert Jansch, a pioneering figure in the ’60s British folk revival who was sometimes known as “The British Bob Dylan,” died this morning at a north London hospital after a long battle with lung cancer. He was 67.

A founding member of the acoustic supergroup Pentangle, the guitar virtuoso released more than 25 albums over five decades and became an inspiration to Jimmy Page, Neil Young, Paul Simon, Pete Doherty, and a host of artists in the freak folk scene, including Devendra Banhart, who collaborated with Jansch on his final album, 2006′s The Black Swan.

Guitarist Johnny Marr of the Smiths once said of Jansch, “He completely re-invented guitar playing and set a standard that is still unequalled today … without Bert Jansch, rock music as it developed in the ’60s and ’70s would have been very different. You hear him in Nick Drake, Pete Townshend, Donovan, the Beatles, Jimmy Page, and Neil Young.”

A few of our favorite Jansch songs follow after the jump.

READ FULL STORY »

Oct 4 2011 06:05 PM ET

Scotty McCreery on life after 'American Idol' and the release of his debut album 'Clear As Day'

by Grady Smith

Categories: Country, Y'all!, Fall Music, New Stuff, Scotty McCreery

Image Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Reigning American Idol champ Scotty McCreery is having a pretty great week.

Not only was he invited to tour with country superstar Brad Paisley in 2012, he was asked to sing the National Anthem at the opening game of the World Series. On top of that, his debut album Clear As Day hit stores this morning. And if all that’s not enough of a reason to celebrate, McCreery also turns 18 on Sunday.

“I’m pretty pumped today,” the young star conceded over the phone this morning, just minutes after stepping off the Live! With Regis and Kelly stage. For McCreery, the release of his debut album is the culmination of months spent recording while he was out on the 49-stop American Idols LIVE! tour. “I’m anxious to see what people think of [the album],” he says. “We’re about to go walk down to the store and get it.”

Though Scotty says he enjoyed touring with his fellow Idol contestants this summer—”We miss it. I think all of us do.”—he’s looking forward to blazing his own trail. “I think everybody on the tour was kind of ready to get out and venture onto their own things now,” he explains. For this particularly talented group of Idol contestants, that makes sense. Lauren Alaina, Haley Reinhart, Pia Toscano, and James Durbin have all scored record deals, and Stefano Langone was recently picked up by 19 Management.

Scotty’s next venture is to promote Clear As Day, an album that reflects the teenager’s old-soul sentiments, which are immediately apparent upon speaking with him. READ FULL STORY »

Oct 4 2011 05:38 PM ET

Adele cancels sold-out U.S. tour due to vocal illness

by Melissa Maerz

Categories: Adele, Tours

Adele’s on-again-off-again tour is now off again. The British singer has canceled her sold-out, 10-stop tour of the U.S. due to a vocal chord hemorrhage.

Having struggled with vocal chord issues before (she recently canceled and later rescheduled six dates due to laryngitis), Adele was wrapping up the U.K. leg of her tour and preparing to launch her U.S. tour on Oct. 7 in Atlantic City, N.J. when doctors told her that she needed an extended rest period in order to recuperate.

An apologetic statement from Adele follows below: READ FULL STORY »

Oct 4 2011 04:01 PM ET

Rihanna's new album is called 'Talk That Talk'

by Kyle Anderson

Categories: Fall Music, New Stuff, Pop, R&B, Rihanna

Image Credit: Kevin Mazur/WireImage.com

Only a year after dropping Loud, Rihanna will release her sixth album in November. That album already has a single (the just-released “We Found Love,” whose apparently too-sexy video will be released soon), and now it has a title.

The new album is called Talk That Talk, and it will be available on November 21. The 23-year-old announced the news via her Facebook page, with more details forthcoming.

Rihanna’s last two albums (2009′s Rated R and 2010′s Loud) were both tied together by the overriding themes suggested by their titles. Rated R was Rihanna’s post-Chris Brown album, and it was full of the same kind of intensely dark energy and themes associated with a more “adult” approach. Songs like “Russian Roulette” and “Wait Your Turn” were heavy, with only a handful of moments of relief.

On the other hand, Loud was the sound of Rihanna moving on and setting herself free with a party album. The tracks on Loud are designed to be played at maximum volume while throwing one’s hands over one’s head, from “What’s My Name?” to “Cheers (Drink to That)” to “S&M.”

So what does Talk That Talk suggest? Is it going to be a collection of tunes focused more intensely on lyrics? Will it be a gossip-based concept album? Let us know your theories in the comments below.

Oct 4 2011 03:15 PM ET

Backstreet Boy Howie Dorough's new song 'Lie To Me': Hear it here -- EXCLUSIVE

by Sandra Gonzalez

Categories: Backstreet Boys, Pop

The Backstreet Boys had a big summer touring with New Kids on the Block, but behind the scenes of the bands’ epic collaboration, BSB’s Howie Dorough was prepping the release of his new solo album, Back to Me, out Nov. 15.

But if you can’t wait that long, EW.com’s got your first peek at the song “Lie To Me,” a slower track that closely resembles some of Backstreet’s more classic pop ballads. “At the time [I was putting the album together],” Dorough tells EW, “I was really in this positive place in life, had lots of energy, between Backstreet-New Kids and my family. So a lot of the album is dance and up-tempo [music]. But there’s definitely also the crooner ballads that people would know me for.

“For me, it felt right to go in this direction rather to go in a direction that I just wasn’t at,” he continues, “I think sometimes when you try to do that, you don’t give fans your best. Even if you shock them a little bit, at least you’re feeling the music and lyrics and able to put 100 percent into it.” Click below for the new track. READ FULL STORY »

Oct 4 2011 01:26 PM ET

Jack's Mannequin head for a new direction on just-released 'People & Things.' What do you think?

by Benjamin Wood

Categories: Jack's Mannequin, New Stuff, Rock, Things We Love

Image Credit: James Minchin

Full disclosure: I’m a big Jack’s Mannequin fan. Without going into too much personal detail, the Orange County band (a side project turned full gig by former Something Corporate frontman and piano balladeer Andrew McMahon) has always seemed to release an album that coincides with big transitions in my life. When Everything in Transit dropped in August 2005, I was stuffing everything I owned into a Chevy Cavalier and moving away from home for the first time. In September 2008, The Glass Passenger was the soundtrack of my return to the U.S. after studying abroad. Fitting, then, that JM’s new album, People & Things — released today — drops right after I make my way to New York City.

I remember the first time I saw Jack’s Mannequin live. It was 2006 and McMahon announced to the crowd that it had been exactly one year since he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The 2nd album arrived two years later and it was clear that his experience battling the disease had infused his music with a reflective intensity.

From a comparison of sound, People & Things lands closer to The Glass Passenger than the band’s debut album. READ FULL STORY »

Oct 4 2011 12:36 PM ET

Garbage announce new album for 2012: Welcome back, old envelope-pushing friends

by Kyle Anderson

Categories: Attack of the '90s, Garbage, In the Studio, New Stuff, Reunions, Rock, Things That Are Awesome

Image Credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic.com

Now that Butch Vig has gotten all the stories from the making of Nirvana’s Nevermind out of his system, it’s apparently time to get back to work as a member of one of the greatest bands of the ’90s. Garbage, the quartet consisting of Vig, fellow producers Steve Marker and Duke Erikson as well as Scottish über-vixen Shirley Manson, announced that they will have a new album coming in 2012.

“Years-worth of pent-up music came out in some bizarre ways. Bleary cell phone memos became real songs, conversations turned into lyrics, and new computer gizmos inspired wicked tangents,” the band said in a cryptic press release announcing their return. “Ghosts came in, had their say. Everyone brought ideas, and everyone fought their corner. At the end of the day it all gets shoved through the four-way brain filter that is Garbage and it ends up sounding like nobody else. Red feathers and black tar.”

Garbage first appeared on the rock scene in 1995 with their self-titled debut, which scored a handful of big hits including the Clash loop-borrowing “Stupid Girl” and the anthemic “Only Happy When It Rains.” They returned in 1998 with Version 2.0, perhaps the most successful marriage of electronic music and traditional rock during the ill-fated electronica boom of the late ’90s. READ FULL STORY »

Oct 3 2011 05:45 PM ET

Florence + The Machine debut trippy video for 'Shake It Out': Watch here!

by Kyle Anderson

Categories: Fall Music, Florence + The Machine, Indie Rock, Ladies, Music Videos, New Stuff, Things That Are Sexy, Things That Are Strange

Florence Welch became a bigger-than-indie darling when Florence + the Machine’s debut album Lungs burst into unlikely mainstream success, thanks in large part to enigmatic breakout single “The Dog Days Are Over.”

Can she keep up the same sort of curious energy that was so vividly on display when she played the MTV Video Music Awards in 2010?

Based on the just-premiered video for “Shake It Out,” the first official single from Florence + the Machine’s sophomore album Ceremonials, the answer is a resounding yes. In the nearly five minute technicolor blast (which you can watch below after the jump), Welch splits her time mourning and dancing her way through a stately psychedelic costume party (which can’t help but remind the world of Eyes Wide Shut, except with prettier music, and without all the strange rhythmic humping).

Of course, Welch does all of this while wearing stunning clothes. Is there a pop icon who dresses better than Welch? That one red dress is pretty magical.

Give “Shake It Out” a spin after the jump. READ FULL STORY »

Oct 3 2011 02:45 PM ET

Report: Madonna to play Super Bowl XLVI halftime show?

by Adam B. Vary

Categories: Madonna, Television

Image Credit: Kevin Mazur/WireImage.com

It’s a good thing no NFL team has hydrangeas as a mascot.

The sports website SB Nation is reporting that Madonna will take to the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis to perform during the Super Bowl XLVI halftime show.

The NFL is not commenting, and when reached by EW, Madonna’s rep says there’s “nothing to confirm at this point” — which is about as soft a “no comment” as one gets.

So is it possible? Last month, Ms. Ciccone told reporters while promoting her film W.E. that she’s been recording a new album with producers William Orbit (who helmed her 1998 album Ray of Light) and French DJ Martin Solveig (of the inescapable “Hello”).

The aim was to release a new single in the winter, with the album out Spring, 2012. And you know what’s an excellent way to immediately inject yourself back into the zeitgeist to promote your first album in over three years? Performing for the biggest television audiences in the country.

But is it a good idea? READ FULL STORY »

Oct 3 2011 01:44 PM ET

What are the best encore cover songs you've seen in concert?

by Mandi Bierly

Categories: Billy Currington, Country, Y'all!, On the Scene, R&B, Things That Are Awesome, Things That Are Sexy

Image Credit: Frederick Breedon IV/WireImage.com

Last week, I finally got to see country artist Billy Currington headline a show (as opposed to the first two times I saw him, opening for Carrie Underwood and Kenny Chesney).

And I’m still thinking about his perfectly-constructed five-song encore: It began with a cover of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” which, of course, Currington, the singer of the R&B-flavored ballads “Let Me Down Easy” and “Don’t,” would love.

The audience ate it up, particularly the young man behind me who stood and did rhythmic pelvic thrusts for the duration of it. (I can’t find a YouTube clip, but I’ve embedded Currington covering Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” below. Judging from his smile, I suspect he’s seeing similar moves.)

Then came a cover of Hank Williams Jr.’s “Family Tradition,” which predictably killed with a few thousand rowdy country fans in Johnstown, PA who’d been drinking for a couple of hours.

After his own “Must Be Doin’ Somethin’ Right” (and more pelvic thrusts) came Steve Wonder’s “Superstition,” which got everyone grooving. That’s the kind of song that makes you notice the folks dancing around you; you make friends as you laugh at/join them. By the time Currington ended with his own “Good Directions,” a tipsy twentysomething had thrown his arm around my 64-year-old mother and was swaying her back and forth for the singalong.

What’s the best encore cover song you’ve seen in concert? My colleague Jeff Labrecque will get the nominations started: Josh Ritter doing Bruce Springsteen’s “The River” tops his list.

READ FULL STORY »