Day in Pop Report for 08/01/2014
Now, after a long way away, it looks like Jackson's finally going for No. 7. Idolator reports that after the sizable break, Jackson is back in the studio recording Discipline's followup, which would be her 11th LP overall. The news comes after an interview that speaker company Barefoot Sound conducted for its website with Ian Cross, a producer and engineer who let slip that an album was on the way. "The new album is going to be great," Cross said. "It's a process. There's a lot in store, yet to come. I can't go into too many details but I think Janet Jackson's fans are going to be very excited about the new album, and I think people who don't know her as fans are going to be excited about it, too. The new paradigm of music, the real people in music now, are blending technology and music together. It's becoming more and more seamless." More details.
The tragic incident occurred after Instinct Killers and Banlieuzart took the stage. Their performances were intended as celebrations for the end of Ramadan, the month-long holy Muslim holiday. After Instinct Killers stopped playing, the crowd rushed to get out but was blocked by a rope. "People at the back began pushing and people fell, creating a mass panic," a police source told the AFP. Another police source described the single exit as being a mere "three metres [wide]" while "thousands of people and vehicles were trying to get out at the same time" and said the concert's security team was both small and under-trained. more on this story
Gibb was working on the album when he passed and the tracks assembled are largely from those original sessions, including the last tracks written and recorded by him. The album is named, fittingly, for the address of the house where Gibb was born in Douglas on the Isle of Man. It will contain 17 tracks, largely written and recorded in 2006 and 2008, but not previously released. It is produced by Peter-John Vettese and will include liner notes written by his wife. According to a press release, the album's final track, "Sydney," is a demo of the last track written and recorded by Gibb before his death. "Robin composed this late at night, end of July 2011, at our home, The Prebendal," Dwina Gibb said in the release. "He used the bedroom keyboards and then GarageBand on an iPad. He wished to finish this song in a studio with Barry [Gibb, his brother and fellow Bee Gees member], for a new album he hoped they would record together, but his health prevented this." more.
"I know I'm authentic because I'm 35 million years in the game," Wayne says in the interview. "I don't know where the authenticity is in the game anymore. Today everyone sounds alike, they looking alike, they acting alike, they dressing alike." He added: "I came out when everybody was super different. You had an ODB. You had a Busta Rhymes and then you had a 2Pac. You had a Biggie. And everybody was different. Biggie was talking about Mob and Mafia sh*t. 2Pac was wylin', talking about West Coast this and that. You had n-as like Meth and Red talking about how high they got and making people laugh. "And then now, you got them, them. You got the categories and then everyone falls under it." More.
The former member of the Miracles and solo artist, Robinson will release an album with 11 of his hits on Aug. 19. This time around though, the songs are recorded as duets with the voices of John Legend, Steven Tyler, Cee Lo Green, James Taylor and Mary J. Blige. According to Rolling Stone, "My Girl" features new vocals from Miguel, Aloe Blacc and JC Chasez as well as guitar playing from John Mayer. The publication just premiered Robinson's duet with Elton John. In an interview promoting the album, John explained how he was first introduced to the soul singer. More.
Her curation will include hand picking each artist included on the soundtrack, which will be made available via her U.S. label, Republic Records, this fall. The film will open in theaters nationwide on Nov. 21. "Curating the soundtrack for such a hotly-anticipated film was a challenge, but I jumped at the chance," Lorde said in a press release. "The cast and story are an inspiration for all musicians participating and, as someone with cinematic leanings, being privy to a different creative process has been a unique experience. I think the soundtrack is definitely going to surprise people." more on this story
According to Deadline, the "strong female-led project is a multi-generational ensemble piece set in the heartland." Lambert would take on one of the strong female roles in the film, which is about five women who challenge their men in a bass-fishing competition. The project has been compared to such previous films as Bridesmaids and Steel Magnolias. This isn't the first time Lambert and Fanjoy have teamed up. more on this story
That's not to say the clip, released yesterday (July 31), is droll and uninspired. It may just not be as flashy and colorful as some of Perry's past videos - but boy, are the colors, costume changes and general poppy goodness still there. "This is How We Do" starts with a portrait of Perry in what appears to be a museum as an onlooker sits silently. But once inside the picture, Perry jumps around among multiple sets, from a kitchen setting to playing ping pong. Along the way, the singer continues to lay out some of her favorite pastimes when she's doing nothing more but relaxing and hanging out - Mariah Carey karaoke (Mariah Caraoke? Eh, never mind), playing basketball in the sky and hitting up ice cream trucks. The latter involves the image of an animated twerking ice cream confectionary. You've been warned. Check out the video and read more here.
Considering that the poll generally reflects the most popular DJs as opposed to their skills on the decks, many artists and industry insiders don't put a lot of merit on the annual rankings. Although to be fair, just as many DJs vie competitively to move up the list, eliciting fans through social networks to cast votes in their favor. With voting for the 2014 poll in full swing, a new DJ ranking poll has mysteriously emerged online, only with an 180 degree twist: instead of looking for the world's top DJs, this one is looking for the bottom of the barrel. Tagged Bottom100DJs.com, the poll looks very similar to DJ Mag's voting page, but with some very noticeable differences. There are parody ads on the page, including one hawking fictitious music-making computer program, "Fableton 3.0″ ("make pro beats in minutes"), an obvious play on the widely used Ableton software. more on this story
The New York Daily News reports that the singer, real name Shaffer Smith, let a business relationship that began in 2005 become a personal relationship with Kevin Foster, and ultimately turned out to be misplaced trust, with the singer reportedly swindled out of a couple million dollars. As a result, Ne-Yo is suing, with papers filed in Manhattan Federal Court. The paper says a third party hired by the singer "uncovered instances of Foster engaging in self-dealing and inappropriate conduct, including forging his signature on loan documents." More details.
The music video for the song, released yesterday (July 31), is a similar affair. "Amnesia" is reflective and contemplative, as the boys remember a love that has been lost and they wish they could forget by losing their memories of the relationship entirely. 5 Seconds of Summer are seen in various locations singing the song, oftentimes noticeably alone, like Calum Hood, who's found sitting on the kitchen floor as he belts out his verses. The shots of woe are mixed in with what appear to be flashbacks of times when the guys had their ladies with them as they frolic around town and in a swimming pool. The images are certainly fitting for, say, a summer fling that's come to an end, which many are undoubtedly experiencing or will experience in the coming month or so. Watch the video here.
The Chicago rapper teamed up with a few of his musical friends that he's calling the Social Experiment for a cover of the theme song from the animated children's show Arthur. To celebrate everyone's favorite 8-year-old aardvark, Chance enlisted Wyclef Jean, Jessie Ware, Elle Varner, Francis and the Lights, Eryn Allen Kane, the O'my's, Peter Cottontale and Donnie Trumpet to get together with him and make things better. You know by working together. This isn't the first time Chance has covered the theme, most recently he threw it into his Governors Ball set. Check out the new cover here.
So it is not surprising to learn that a short film based on the album has been in the works. However, news that the film is actually done and is ready for a screening in just over a week? Maybe a little more surprising. The 14-minute-long film, entitled m.A.A.d., will see its premiere at next month's inaugural Sundance NEXT Fest in Los Angeles on Aug. 9, Hot New Hip-Hop reports. Directed by Kahlil Joseph, who provided Lamar's visuals on the Yeezus tour and has worked with Flying Lotus, the brief movie features a cast put together from surveying the corners of the album's neighborhoods. more on this story
According to PUNCH, the wine is available for a limited time at Domaine LA and the store's online shop for $29.99 per bottle and includes a download link for the new album. The wine is also available at two of Lewis' favorite LA restaurants, Night + Market and Night + Market Song. Lewis has been known to enjoy a bit of red wine when she's onstage performing (Don't worry, a little baking soda and vinegar will take any stains out off that white suit) and even talks about enjoying a glass of cava or "Spanish champagne" on her new track, "Aloha and the Three Johns." The story behind that track, which is about a failed trip with her band to Hawaii, makes it clear why she would have needed a drink on her way back to Los Angeles. Read about that here.
According to CNN, 23-year-old Patrick Morgan was nabbed by federal agents in Buffalo, N.Y., on counts of drug possession, distribution and conspiracy charges. He is charged with selling MDMA (AKA "Molly") laced with methylone to at least three attendees at last year's Electric Zoo, including a sale of 80 pills for about $1,100 to an acquaintance of Jeffery Ross, 23, who collapsed and suffered a seizure after taking the drugs. Taken to Harlem Hospital Center on the night of Aug. 30, 2013, with a rapid heartbeat and body temperature as high as 108 degrees Fahrenheit, Ross was pronounced dead in the early morning hours of the next day, according to court documents. The third and final day of Electric Zoo 2013 was canceled after a second drugs-related death and several other attendees fell ill over the course of the festival weekend. Morgan was nabbed after trading text messages with one of Ross' friends, who wrote to the suspect: "Hey it was great to see you last week. Glad we got to talk about Jeff a little it was bugging me. Just know that I no longer blame us for giving the molly to him because it was him that made the mistake of taking too much." more on this story
"Rude," a song about a guy seeking his girlfriend's parents' approval to marry her that sounds like it could be a Police tribute, didn't seem primed for a hip-hop remix, but the trio have managed to put their own spin on it. Kid Ink, Ty $ign, and Travis Barker's rendition has a harder-hitting feel, as you can imagine. Barker gave the beat and drums a clapping makeover, while Ink and Ty take the song's PG rating to an almost R with raunchier lyrics. "Why you gotta be so damn bad, girl?" they ask. "Why you gotta have so much ass, girl? / Ay, I'ma let you lick the rapper / I like it when you tell me, 'faster, faster.'" Listen here.
Benji, who has been dating Cameron Diaz, since May, playing coy when asked about recently being spotted on vacation in Italy and France with Cameron, "Was I on vacation�I haven't Goggled myself lately," but revealing he is happy, "I'm having a great summer and I'm really happy." Benji and Joel are really proud of their album, and talked about the newly released first single, "We Are Done." Joel explained, "What's been happening a lot on social media is kids have been holding signs, saying what they are done with and that's kind of what the whole song is. Being done with something, standing up for yourself, moving on from something." The brothers said they do like to write songs about personal life experiences. Joel said "'California Rain' is about our personal journey through the whole thing. The last almost 20 years of making it, the music business, the trials and tribulations of what you go through in life and in trying to follow your dreams." Even more personal, Joel wrote the love song, "Out Of My Mind," for his wife Nicole Richie. The Madden brothers' full album of "Greetings from California" will be released in September. more on this story
Christian & Marco - aka songwriting team "DraLo": One night, at the end of rehearsal while everyone was breaking down, Nick started playing this haunting guitar picking riff that had a feel similar to "Turn the Page" by Bob Seger. I remember being drawn in by the vibe of the riff. Then Caleb sang the first line "When the lights go down in Detroit" and just hummed through some melodies. I mentioned that I thought it had tremendous potential and we should write a "Detroit'" themed song around that line. We'd been waiting for the right song idea to experiment with and explore adding Hip Hop elements to it, and we ended up putting a loop underneath the main guitar riff that ties the groove together. When writing the lyrics we wanted to paint a picture of the reality of the despair felt by many and then bring it all together with a message of hope and love for the city that so many people feel. The first part of the song is about the desperation that people have felt through the years. The pre-chorus and chorus are basically saying that "we are the answer". Lets stop waiting for some outside force to come in and fix things. Let's take things into our own hands and take action on our own to rebuild Detroit. The song is meant to inspire people come together and make this city great once again. Jefferson Ave. is a main thoroughfare that runs parallel with the Detroit River for the entire length of the city, and we wanted to use a point of reference that everyone knew and everyone could understand. If you are from here, when you think of Jefferson Ave., you think of Detroit. The choir was the last part of the writing process. Detroit has a great Gospel heritage and we wanted the song to have that "everyone come together and sing" feel to it, and the choir gives that sense of community to the song. Some songs are difficult and laborious to translate from an idea to an actual album track, but Down Jefferson was captured perfectly the way we envisioned it and we couldn't be happier with the end result. Nick - guitar: When I originally wrote the riff I had it in mind for a hip hop song, something melodic that would work over a heavy beat. The song formed in to something both desperate and hopeful sounding, fitting for a song about Detroit and Marco was inspired the same way when he heard the riff for the 1st time! Caleb - singer: It's pretty straight forward and literal. Detroit is unfortunately known around the world as a city with high crime and a place to be scared of. The opening line is explaining and setting up a scenario for the listener to be put in to understand Detroit. 'Down Jefferson' is a song of hope and truth. It specifically talks about Detroit but the bigger message can be understood by everyone, which is about humanity coming together to make something and in this case some place better for our future generations. Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself here and learn more about the album, the group and see where you can see them live right here!
According to the Tennessean, the Hendersonville, Tenn., property, where the Cash family lived until their deaths in 2003, is being eyed for possible redevelopment as a residential medical facility. Paperwork has been filed to rezone the area for use as an employment center of some sort - in this case a facility that is being touted as "high-end" and would focus predominantly on helping women with eating disorders, much like the property owner James Gresham's Illinois facility Timberline Knolls that treats women's eating disorders, alcoholism, drug addiction and more. More on this story.
At 37, Congleton has racked up an impressive list of credits that range from producing to mixing to engineering to drum programming for artists like David Byrne, Swans, Amanda Palmer, The Walkmen, The War on Drugs, Bill Callahan, fellow Texans Explosions in the Sky and his own band The Paper Chase. This year alone, he's worked on eight albums, producing three of the most well-received indie records of 2014, so far: Cloud Nothings' Here and Nowhere Else, Angel Olsen's Burn Your Fire For No Witness and St. Vincent's self-titled release, which is his fifth collaboration with the singer. "A lot of producers have a X, Y and Z way of doing a record. That's not the way I work," Congleton told Radio.com over the phone. "Mainly because I think that's unfair to the artist, but also boring to me. I might as well go work at a bank if I'm going to do the same thing all the time." Unlike other producers, Congleton doesn't think it's interesting to have an overt style. "Just picking over everything and making it exactly how I want it, that's so boring. I'm just gonna have a bunch of records that sound the same," he said. "It's also not particularly playing its part in the nexus of music that you're just sort of destroying a style that an artist has cultivated throughout the years." Instead Congleton says his goal as a producer is to capture that feeling he had when he was 13 years old, back when he felt like his favorite music just fell out of the sky. "It just felt like it just happened as opposed to created," he explained. Congleton considers himself to be a "spectrum producer," meaning he will take on whatever role the band needs him to just as long as the record sounds good. Sometimes a band comes into the studio and has tortured themselves over every note so Congleton's job is to record as much as possible and use his ear to decide which takes are best. Other times, Congleton is like an additional band member, co-writing music or acting as a session player, something he prefers not to do. "The moment I play something, I become one of the musicians and I sort of have some weird preciousness about it," he explained. "It f-ks with your brain too much." Congleton mixed the latest Strand of Oaks record, HEAL at his Dallas studio, Elmwood Recording with singer Timothy Showalter asking him to take "broad strokes," knowing if there was something he didn't like, he could send it back. Congleton sent what would become the final product to Showalter in just five days. "I'm not a technically minded person so I have no idea how he made [HEAL] sound that good," Showalter said, before offering up a well-thought explanation, "You could tell there was compassion in his mixing. It wasn't a job. It wasn't, 'Oh this band is paying me, I'll just go through the motions.' It was actively being involved and actively making artistic choices, not just technical choices." A lot more here.
"Back Home" is the lead single off Grammer's sophomore album, Magazines or Novels, out Aug. 5. The follow-up to his 2011 self-titled debut, this time around Grammer took inspiration from artists like Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Drake and Coldplay with their honest lyrics. While he likens his debut to a first meeting, Grammer said Magazines or Novels is more like a best friend that he shows his scars and wounds to. "What I was finding was the music that I was listening to, people were sharing of themselves in a deeper way. A lot of the albums that I've been really into are like, 'Oh man. That doesn't make him look like a perfect human. That actually shows his warts and his scars and for some reason I'm super drawn to him now because he shared that or she shared that with me,'" Grammer explained. "That was the biggest shift. I'm going to try to go more after humanity and more after honesty and hopefully people will feel that and it will pull them in the way I've been pulled into other artists. It was a little scary to go after exactly what I wanted sonically because I knew it was such a departure but I love it. I think people will follow you if it's what you love." Where Grammer's debut was mainly written on piano and guitar for a street crowd where he performed in Santa Monica, Calif., Magazines or Novels was written while on tour with acts like Train who were playing in front of big crowds. And, performing a song for arena audiences is very different than for those passing by on the street. "How do you mirror your life, even the dark interesting parts, and keep people bobbing their heads?" he asked rhetorically. "I think I did it. I hope." Songs like "Holding Out" are just one example of Grammer's blatant honesty. What he calls the most honest song on the album - which details saving his virginity for that special someone "with a little bit of prayer, a little bit of porn sorry" - he said many friends who heard the song said he shouldn't cut it.
"Oh, I watch Beyonc� videos every day with my friend at home," Trainor told Radio.com over the phone from Los Angeles. "That's the one performer I study a lot. I'm not saying I am her though, she's perfection." The Nantucket, Mass. native who now calls Nashville home is getting ready for a daytime appearance on Live with Kelly and Michael, which is set to happen in the next few weeks. Her excitement over her TV debut has translated into her spending as much time as possible rehearsing. "They got me dancing," she said. "I've never danced before. So it's like, 'Oh man, I've gotta learn to be Beyonc� for a second.'" Trainor is in high demand since her body-acceptance anthem "All About That Bass" took the internet by storm earlier this month, thanks in large part to its pastel painted video featuring women and one man - Sione Kelepi, better known as Vine star SioneMaraschino - with all the right junk in all the right places getting their groove on. The track has since crashed onto the chart, earning the No. 54 slot on the August 2 Billboard Hot 100, an impressive 30-spot jump since it debuted at No. 84 just a week ago. Trainor's debut track came out of a writing session where she decided to stop thinking about what would be right for the artist and simply write something honest. "That's your first song to say, 'Hey, I'm a little chubby, but I love myself,' that was a scary thing to do," she said. "I got a lot of support from a lot of people and it's really helping me and my confidence." One of those people was L.A. Reid - head of her label, Epic - who heard the song and immediately told Trainor it was hers, and only hers, to sing. The track has since become an anthem for all those who don't feel like they fit the perfect beauty mold. "I tear up all the time when I see young girls write about it," she said. "It's amazing." More.
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