Tag: Indie Rock (61-70 of 510)

Dec 21 2012 11:07 AM ET

Best and Worst 2012: Carly Rae Jepsen, Taylor Swift, and the other best singles of the year

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One encouraging trend that ran throughout 2012 was the egalitarian nature of hit singles. Whether you were a Joni Mitchell-loving Canadian Idol survivor, an Australian with a bruised ego, or a bunch of Florida emo survivors high on Queen, the music world fully embraced you as long as your inescapable earworms continuously delivered thrilling results.

Check out EW’s list of the 20 greatest singles of the year below (as they appear in the current issue of EW, which is on newsstands now), and be sure to check out this specially-curated VEVO playlist that takes you through the year that was one glorious pop hook at a time.

BEST

1. Carly Rae Jepsen, ”Call Me Maybe”
Before the countless YouTube lip dubs, the nine weeks at No. 1, and the 1,000th time you heard it at a BBQ, there was just a song: a purple-ink love letter with a tiny voice whispering about wishing wells and ripped jeans like it was a secret she wanted you to keep forever. It might have been the soundtrack of your summer, or you might’ve rolled your eyes at parties but then secretly put it on your workout mix. But every time it played, life sounded just a tiny bit different. Better maybe. —Adam Markovitz READ FULL STORY »

Dec 19 2012 05:27 PM ET

Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney getting his own SiriusXM radio show

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PATRICK-CARNEY

Image Credit: Simone Joyner/Getty Images

Could the dudes in the Black Keys be any busier?

The indie-rock duo, who were recently announced as nominees in some of the Grammy’s biggest categories, have kept themselves occupied all year with all sorts of extracurricular activities, from collaborating with Dr. John to producing the Sheepdogs.

And it looks like 2013 won’t be any different: SiriusXM has announced that Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney will be hosting his own monthly show for the satellite radio service starting tomorrow.

New episodes of the show, titled Serious Boredom, will air on SiriusXMU at 8 p.m. ET on the first Thursday of every month beginning in January. According to SiriusXM, it’ll feature Carney “talking about and playing his favorite independent music, new and old, as well as music from his personal collection.”

Who does that mean? They say to expect artists like Pavement, Guided By Voices, and Yo La Tengo, plus a new duet by Adam Green and Binki Shapiro.

Read more:
Jack White won’t be scoring ‘The Lone Ranger’ after all
Grammy nominations announced: Frank Ocean, fun., and the Black Keys dominate
Black Keys and RZA duke it out in the ‘Baddest Man Alive’ video: Watch it here

Dec 19 2012 12:38 PM ET

EW's Holiday Playlist -- Christmas Cheers and Tears: Stream it here

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Cee-Lo

Image Credit: Gilbert Carrasquillo/FilmMagic

In this playlist, we skip the standards in favor of some lesser-known holiday gems — whether you’re bursting with yuletide joy or sobbing under the mistletoe.

Take a look at our picks below, and stick around to the end to listen to all these songs (except for the Dum Dum Girls song, which, sadly, wasn’t available) via Spotify stream.

CHRISTMAS CHEER

• STEVIE WONDER, “Christmastime” (1967) Forget the scent of pine or even the spirit of brotherhood: True seasonal bliss is Stevie’s harmonica-laden fireside swoon.

• WIZZARD, “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday” (1973) Awesomely zonky glam rockers hang their glitter boots by the chimney with flair.

• JULIAN CASABLANCAS, “I Wish It Was Christmas Today” (2009) The Strokes frontman turns an SNL skit into a song-length sugar rush for all the cool kids whose stockings come stuffed with artisanal candy canes and Portlandia DVDs.

READ FULL STORY »

Dec 10 2012 06:03 PM ET

'Girls' soundtrack album announced: See the tracklist here

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GIRLS-OST

Image Credit: HBO/Fueled by Ramen

You may have to wait until Jan. 13 for a new season of Lena Dunham’s Girls, but the soundtrack to the HBO’s show’s first season will be at your service before then.

Thanks to indie label Fueled by Ramen, the official season-one soundtrack to the groundbreaking comedy will be available for purchase beginning Jan. 8. Dunham herself took to Twitter yesterday to debut the album’s cover art, which looks more or less how you expect it would.

As for the actual soundtrack, there aren’t many surprises on that front either. The Robyn song “Dancing on My Own,” responsible for one of the more significant and memorable role in the series, kicks things off, followed by the band fun., whose guitarist Dunham has been linked to romantically.

Beyond that, fans of the HBO comedy can expect contributions from the likes of Icona Pop, Santigold, Fleet Foxes, and Belle & Sebastian. Take a look at the full Girls soundtrack below:

READ FULL STORY »

Dec 10 2012 11:23 AM ET

Ra Ra Riot's new song 'When I Dream': Hear it here -- EXCLUSIVE

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Image Credit: Shervin Lainez

In the mood for some new indie ra ra rock? New York foursome Ra Ra Riot will provide.

Last month, fans were treated to the Passion Pit-y goodness of “Beta Love,” the first single from the Syracuse group’s upcoming third album, also titled Beta Love. Though that album won’t hit streets until Jan. 22 (you can pre-order it here), the baroque-pop band is letting us in on their newest single, “When I Dream,” which you can listen to exclusively here.

Beta Love, recorded in Mississippi, will be the first album Ra Ra Riot has recorded as a four-piece (cellist Alexandra Lawn recently left the band), and it shows in the new single. “When I Dream” is still full of snaps, strings, and shiny vocals, but the song moves along at a more subdued pace.

Go ahead and listen here:

READ FULL STORY »

Dec 6 2012 01:22 PM ET

What songs did you listen to the most this year? EW's music staff weighs in

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Image Credit: Mads Perch/Getty Images

Sometimes 2012 felt like a continuous loop of the same seven pop songs (or maybe just one, “Some Young Gangnam Diamond That Never Called Me Maybe on a Payphone (Like, Ever),” if you prefer a mashup.)

Some of those songs are truly great, and you’ll find more than a few of them on our official Year End Top 10 list in the upcoming Best and Worst issue of EW on stands Dec. 17.

But this is a separate list: One that our staff put together to celebrate the dozens of other artists — from Japandroids and Jessie Ware to Meek Mill and Avett Brothers (and yes, some Taylor and Ke$ha and Kanye, too)  — who stayed on repeat in our offices and on our iPods these past 12 months.

Read on, and listen to them all on the Spotify playlist we’ve provided while you do — it will be like you’ve been right here with us all year. Lucky!

READ FULL STORY »

Dec 6 2012 12:03 PM ET

Grammy snubs and surprises: Pink, Miguel, Carly Rae Jepsen, and Frank Ocean

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Frank-Ocean

Image Credit: Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images

Last night, in between LL Cool J and Taylor Swift beatboxing “Mean” and Maroon 5 performing that 311 song that was somehow number one for nine weeks, the nominees for the Grammy Awards (or at least, selected categories of them) were delivered live.

And like always, they they didn’t disappoint the armchair critics with their surprises and, in some eyes, oversights.

Unlike last year – a.k.a. Adele-apalooza: Beyond Thunderdome –  no one artist was dominant; the most nominations scored by any one artist was six, and six separate artists hit that number: Mumford & Sons, Fun., Kanye West, Frank Ocean, Jay-Z, and Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach.

That’s a pretty eclectic list, but there’s more to dig into from the big list.

Surprise: Miguel
The critically lauded (and EW-beloved) R&B singer’s Prince-style opus Kaleidoscope Dream hasn’t made a huge impact yet commercially, but it still nailed down five well-deserved nominations, including a major nod for Song of the Year for the ultra-sexy “Adorn.” 

Snub: Carly Rae Jepsen
Sure, “Call Me Maybe” was nominated for some big prizes, including Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance, but why was it left off the list for Record of the Year? And why didn’t Jepsen get a nod for Best New Artist? Grammy voters seemed to be implying that while they would honor her huge sales year, they may not be expecting her to stick around. READ FULL STORY »

Dec 6 2012 10:35 AM ET

Rod Stewart, John Travolta, Cee Lo Green, and the best (and best-worst) of the season's new Christmas music

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ROD-STEWART

Image Credit: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

For some of you, the focus on Christmas shifted roughly 20 minutes after swallowing the last bite of Thanksgiving pie and you set out to find the best spot for your Black Friday tent.

One of the great joys (or, depending on who you are, nightmares) of the holiday commerce season is the never-ending stream of Christmas music filling in all the empty airspace in your local shopping malls and department stores. But what if you’re shopping online, and somehow avoiding every other vestige of public-space holiday-music inundation?

To help you, here’s a rundown of some of the new stuff added to the yearly snowpile of Yuletide releases (and at the end of this post, a Spotify playlist to let you try out the wares like so many Costco samples.)

Rod Stewart, Merry Christmas, Baby
The undisputed champ of this season’s holiday music bonanza is Stewart, whose first holiday album is currently doing big business (it narrowly missed preventing Alicia Keys from being the top album in the country this week). His approach is very much “Over-Eggnogged Uncle Croons Hugs ‘Round the Tree,” but it’s still Rod-ily charming, and his original composition “Red Suited Super Man” will be an alternate-universe hit next Yuletide season.

Cee Lo Green, Cee Lo’s Magic Moment
The music world was half-expecting a new album from Green’s old hip-hop group Goodie Mob this holiday season, but instead we got The Voice favorite’s blast of red-velvet funk (and that’s red velvet like Santa’s suit, not the sexy cake kind). Its Motown bounce recalls all the great Stevie Wonder Christmas tracks of yesteryear, and the inclusion of the Muppets (on “All I Need Is Love”) is never not awesome. READ FULL STORY »

Dec 5 2012 10:00 AM ET

Django Django get trippy in 'Life's a Beach' video: Watch it here -- EXCLUSIVE

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DJANGO-DJANGO

Image Credit: Joss McKinley

As we noted in our November playlist, the spacey British indie rockers in Django Django have made quite the impression on our playlists since their Mercury Prize-nominated debut made it to our shores this fall.

That impressive self-titled album was coupled with their surrealist “Hail Bop” video, which combined Tron, Salvador Dali, and our weirdest lucid dreams. Now the four-piece has a new clip for their song “Life’s a Beach,” and it takes that psychedelic aesthetic one step further with out-there visual effects that one might encounter on late-night public-access television circa 1989.

Check out Django Django’s latest visual treat in the video exclusively on EW.com below:

READ FULL STORY »

Nov 26 2012 03:28 PM ET

Bjork's vocal cord surgery successful

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Image Credit: Roger Kisby/Getty Images

Icelandic singer Bjork says she has had successful surgery to remove a vocal cord polyp.

The eccentric 47-year-old singer says on her official website that she had been trying to tackle the problem with exercises and diets since doctors first discovered the polyp, a benign growth on either one or both of the vocal cords, several years ago.

Bjork said that she decided to undergo laser surgery and it has worked, though she had to stay quiet for three weeks.

She wrote: ‘‘Surgery rocks! … It’s been very satisfying to sing all them clear notes again.’’

The singer apologized for cancelling various shows earlier this year, and that she looked forward to singing for her fans next year.

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