Happy Birthday to the gorgeous Taylor Swift who turns 25 today! You know you’re pretty lucky when the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, sings Happy Birthday to you! Ariana Grande was asked to sing as well but even though she tried to work herself in a couple of times, it was impossible, the Queen of Soul was on a roll!
It was only recently that Franklin was asked for her opinion on Swift in a Wall Street Journal interview and she replied, “OK, great gowns, beautiful gowns.” Certainly a comment that gets at the utter soullessness of pop stars today and one supposed, at Swift herself. However, after this birthday performance, all is forgiven!
All this took place at Billboard Magazine’s Women In Music panel on Friday (December 12) which honoured the most influential women in music in 2014.
The host Matt Lauer moderated the panel and got the chance to share a pretty spectacular selfie with the women in the panel after the Q & A ended. The women included Ariana Grande, Aretha Franklin, Jessie J, Hayley Williams, Idina Menzel, Charli XCX and Taylor Swift (Iggy Azalea was also on the panel, but had to leave before the photo happened).
Billboard Magazine’s women in music for 2014 and one very lucky old bald guy! pic.twitter.com/QeIMMlKAzl
Swift actually sang in her birthday whilst on stage at the iHeartRadio Jingle Bell Ball in Madison Square Garden with 18,000 fans to join her. “I think I’ve officially celebrated my birthday with you tonight. I’m 25-years-old New York City,” she told the crowd after performing her No. 1 hit Blank Space.
Sam Smith has just released a gorgeous new music video for his latest single Like I Can. Dressed like a true English gentlemen Sam and a group of friends enjoy some time out in the Big Apple – they stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge, dance in alleyways, makes wild romantic gestures and end up downing shots in a bar. We’re thinking stag do…and the one marrying is the one Sam wants to marry?
The release of this video comes just after Smith scored six Grammy nominations including Album of the Year, Best New Artist and Song of the Year for Stay with Me. The UK is already in love with him and he is slowly becoming America’s latest music crush.
Smith’s track record is truly impressive – it’s only been six short months and the 22-year old from London has sold over 3 million copies worldwide of his debut album In the Lonely Hour. He is on track for becoming the biggest selling new artist of the year. The album recently became the second album to sell one million copies in the US, following Taylor Swift’s 1989.
Talking about the album in a recent interview Smith said: “I’ve never been in a relationship before and I really wanted to make an album that was about love. But in different forms of love – so unrequited love and loneliness. I’ve been brutally honest in the album.”
On January 9 Smith starts a North American tour including concerts in all the best venues, New York’s Madison Square Garden, Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, and L.A.’s Forum.
Smith recently released a cover of the Christmas classic Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, which premiered during A Very Grammy Christmas earlier this month.
Once called “the most lovable punk band on the planet” by MTV, Shonen Knife have come a long way since 1981, when sisters Naoko and Atsuko Yamano teamed up with Michie Nakatani to play Ramones-inspired pop punk. In the meantime they’ve gone through various line-up shifts, played with the alt-rock elite, survived the death of a former bandmate and generally persevered through all the ups and downs of a 33 year long career in punk rock. They released Overdrive, their 20th studio album earlier this year and just played their first ever gig in India at the New Wave Music Festival. We talk to guitarist, vocalist and the only remaining founding member Naoko Yamano about food, cats and The Ramones.
Overdrive is your 20th studio album. How difficult or easy is it to keep writing songs for so long? I can create melody lines easily but it’s a little difficult to write the whole song. It’s always difficult to write lyrics. Since I’m not a native English speaker, writing lyrics in English is particularly difficult.
Food is a recurring theme in Shonen Knife’s music. How would you describe your relationship with food? People have to eat to live and I like to eat delicious food. It’s an important and global topic.
Cats are another of your favourite muses. Could you tell me a little about your new music video for Like A Cat? I’ve [always] had cats as pets. I like their faces, it’s so cute. Cat’s eyes are beautiful and cats are selfish. It’s attract[ive] for me. A woman from our English label made a suggestion that we should collect cats’ videos from all over the world through the internet and make a music video for Like a Cat song. She edited it by herself. It was a very fun project.
You’ve been touring for over 25 years now. Any tips for new musicians on how to survive the grueling experience? When I started overseas touring, everything was a big adventure. There was no Internet. I exchanged postal mail. Now I am used to tour[ing] and I know how survive. [My advice is to]… take it easy and keep yourself healthy.
I know Ramones and the Beatles are major influences for the band. What else are you listening to these days? Buzzcocks, Jam, XTC, KISS, Nick Lowe, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Judas Priest, Boston, Chicago etc. There are too many but I especially love 70s rock music.
You released a Ramones cover album called Osaka Ramones a few years ago. Any plans on playing any live shows as Osaka Ramones? We’ll be playing an Osaka Ramones set in Hobart, Australia in January 2015.
What is the best, and worst, show you’ve ever played? All shows are the best. Playing in front of our fans are always fun. I don’t have a good memory. I always forget the details. I just remember the vague images for the tours. Anyway, the Lollapalooza tour in 1994 was fun. I could enjoy other bands on stage. The headliner was Smashing Pumpkins and the opening band was Green Day.
What do you think is your best album that you’ve made so far and why? Overdrive. It’s the latest one, of course.
You just played a headlining set at the New Wave Music Festival in India. How was the experience? Were you surprised to find out you have fans in India? I was so happy to find out we have fans in India. The New Wave Music Fest was great. The atmosphere was peaceful, happy, artistic and fun. It became a precious experience for us.
Did you check out any Indian bands at the festival? Were there any that you liked? I had no chance to see many bands and I can’t remember the names because I had to prepare for our show but all bands I saw there were great. Their music was ROCK!
Overdrive tracklist 1. Bad Luck Song 2. Black Crow 3. Dance to the Rock 4. Ramen Rock 5. Shopping 6. Fortune Cookie 7. Like A Cat 8. Green Tea 9. Robots from Hell 10. Jet Shot
Feast your eyes on the insane new trailer for Warner Bros & George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road. Jammed packed with explosions and burning rubber, this is all about the ride and the roar! Released 2 days ago (December 12) it already has close to 5 million views! This remaking of the brilliant 1979 cult favourite, Mad Max is bound to hit record-breaking box office figures.
Mad Max: Fury Road is the fourth instalment of George Miller‘s post-apocalyptic series co-written and directed by Miller. Starring Tom Hardy in Mel Gibson’s old role of Max Rockatansky, the trailer sees a molotov cocktail of screams and squeals and futuristic-looking warriors in ugly bondage outfits stomping across the sunbaked desert.
Trying to find a way to exist is the midst of the insanity Max finds a partner in Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa. “Out here, everything hurts,” Theron’s character says in the clip. “You want to get through this? Do as I say. Now pick up what you can and run.”
The movie also stars Rosie Huntington-Whiteley as ‘Splendid’, Zoe Kravitz as ‘Toast’, and Josh Helman as ‘Slit’.
Mad Max: Fury Road opens in cinemas on May 15, 2015.
Bad Bitch alert! Nicki Minaj has just dropped a dark and twisted music video for Only. The Queen of the rap shows off her killer curves as she plays an evil dominatrix, who tortures her male victims in an underground sex dungeon. Warning: Explicit, definitely NSFW.
In the Hannah Lux-Davies directed clip Minaj’s Young Money brothers Drake and Lil Wayne spend their time looking at her ample assests, while her Love More collaborator Chris Brown makes a really creepy cameo, complete with coloured contact lenses and a grill.
Only has so far peaked at Nº27 on the Billboard Hot 100 and is taken from Minaj’s upcoming third studio album The Pinkprint which will be released on December 15. The album reportedly has collaborations with Ariana Grande, Jessie Ware, Beyoncé, Jeremiah and Meek Mill. It serves as the follow-up to 2012’s Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, which reached Nº1 in the UK and US.
Minaj is due to appear on the The Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Real next week to promote the album.
So what do you buy for the audiophile that has everything? We’ve rounded up a selection of Christmas gift ideas for music lovers that’ll have them rocking around the Christmas tree.
Flexson VinylPlay
Not many people know that it’s possible to hook a turntable up to a Sonos system and have vinyl playing in every room of your house. Well you can. But you can’t use any old turntable; it needs to have a phono stage to provide the necessary power in the absence of a proper amp. Flexson’s VinylPlay has just that built in, plus an analogue-to-digital converter and all the cables required to plumb it into a multi-room system or a pair of powered speakers, so you can be up and running on Christmas morning. Just add records. Price: 450€ (available on Amazon)
The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ten Songs by Greil Marcus
Unlike all previous versions of rock ’n’ roll history, this book omits almost every iconic performer and ignores the storied events and turning points that everyone knows. Instead, in a daring stroke, Greil Marcus selects ten songs recorded between 1956 and 2008, then proceeds to dramatize how each embodies rock ’n’ roll as a thing in itself. In Marcus’s hands these songs tell the story of the music, which is, at bottom, the story of the desire for freedom in all its unruly and liberating glory. Marcus braids together past and present, holding up to the light the ways that these striking songs fall through time and circumstance, gaining momentum and meaning, astonishing us by upending our presumptions and prejudices. This book, by a founder of contemporary rock criticism—and its most gifted and incisive practitioner—is destined to become an enduring classic.
Price: 25€ (available on Amazon)
Arcam MiniBlink
The mini Blink is a simple, pocket sized (and rather attractive) Bluetooth receiver designed to allow absolutely any Hi-Fi system to receive music from a Smartphone, Tablet, PC or Mac computer. The mini Blink uses the renowned aptX™ transmission system meaning a crystal clear sound with quick and simple pairing of devices. A mini-USB power socket, 3.5mm audio output jack and pairing button are all that is needed to get the mini Blink streaming music to any audio system with a ‘line level’ input. The mini Blink’s audio circuitry is engineered by Arcam to ensure real audiophile sound quality. The mini Blink even comes with a PSU and all required cables! This will make Here Comes Santa Claus literally bounce around the house on Christmas morning. Price: 90€ (available on Amazon)
The Art of McCartney
The Art Of McCartney is a very special project celebrating the songs of Sir Paul McCartney. It features songs such as Maybe I’m Amazed, My, Love, The Long And Winding Road, When I’m 64, Let It Be, Helter Skelter, Eleanor Rigby, Live And Let Die and many more recorded by some of the world’s greatest artists backed by McCartney’s long time band. The caliber of artists showing their respect to Paul’s songwriting genius is staggering with Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, The Cure, The Who’s Roger Daltrey, Brian Wilson, Alice Cooper, Dr John, Yusuf, Barry Gibb, Jamie Cullum, Kiss, Chrissie Hynde, ELO legend and Beatles producer Jeff Lynne and many more recording McCartney classics exclusively for this album.
What a great little Christmas gift solution for the orderly and ever-faithful music fan; these neat little frames are both a storage solution and a great way to display your favourite record, these frames allow easy access to their 12in contents so you can show off your impeccable taste and keep the place nice and tidy. Price: 50€ (available from artvinyl.com)
Get On Up
Universal’s Get On Up is the story of James Brown through troubled childhood, a prison stint and into his music career. Starring Chadwick Boseman—who played Jackie Robinson in last year’s 42—as Brown, with Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer as his mother and aunt respectively, the movie is stacked with acting talent. It’s also directed by Tate Taylor, of The Help fame. And in terms of music we can relax because Mick Jagger is one of its producers. Price: 17€ (available on Amazon)
B&O BeoPlay A2
This has got to win the prize on this list for a sleek and chic stylish little contraption to play your music on. While many Bluetooth speakers are beige anonyboxes, you can always rely on Bang & Olufsen to put the effort in. The A2 has a hint of World War 2 field radio about it, it has that neat little leather strap for a bit of haute couture addition and its aptX Bluetooth is bang up to date, giving you top-notch streaming quality. It’s our chic and cheerful winner on the Christmas wish list. Price: 325€ (Available on Amazon or directly from Creation 5 – send us an email)
Kate Koeppel Design Record Dividers
Keeping your vinyl organised is part of the joy of owning it in the first place. Alphabetising your records has never been less nerdy or uncool. Let’s make geek into chic with these Kate Koeppel Record Dividers; available for 7” and 12” collections and a choice of typefaces; get sorted this Christmas, literally. Price: 150€ (available on katekoeppel.com)
Sony MDR-EX650AP
Little in-ear headphones were on the back burner for a while there since the Dr. Dre Beats came along and swiped them off the shelves. However…these little beauties are back with a vengeance; the Sony MDR-EX650AP (crazy long name though) have an excellent sound quality for the price, AND come with a remote and microphone to boot. They have more to offer than the price tag suggests which is always a winner in our book. Price: 60€ (available on Amazon)
Personalised Favourite Song Soundwaves Print
This is a perfect gift for the die hard fan who has all the memorabilia and every album going. Think of their favourite song and have it personalised. A framed soundwave version of their top tune hung on their wall this Christmas, the perfect gift for the muso with everything! This wins the personal touch gift award. Price: 33€ (available on notonthehighstreet.com – house of Yve).
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YouTube Rewind: Turn Down for 2014 – the epic end-of-year tribute to all things internet. This is an unprecedented mashup, featuring over 120 YouTube creators and taking place on four continents. This Rewind represents the culmination of more than 6 months worth of inspiration, thousands of hours of work and collaborations with hundred’s of YouTubers.
The video has plenty of cameos including the top-viewed trending videos, music videos and commercials of the year. The Ice bucket challenge is very prominent, as it was throughout the whole year, as was 10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman, a video produced by anti-street-harassment group Hollaback. Mutant Giant Spider Dog topped off the list of viral videos (113 million views) and Katy Perry’s Dark Horse gained more than 716 million views.
The 6-minute video is jam-packed with YouTubers like Jenna Marbles, Tyler Oakley and Michelle Phan and the late night TV hosts also appear Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Conan O’Brien and John Oliver.
The soundtrack to this jazzy mashup is a medley of the biggest tracks of 2014, everything from Frozen‘s Let It Go to Iggy Azalea and Charli XCX‘s Fancy to Meghan Trainor‘s All About That Bass to Pharrell‘s Happy.
This video is light years away from the very first Rewind in 2010 which was basically just a mashup of the years most popular music videos.
Jessie J keeps it fierce and real in her perfect new music video for Masterpiece that just premiered online today (December 10). Masterpiece is the follow-up single to Jessie’s Grammy-nominated hit single Bang Bang and Burnin’ Up, taken from her third studio album Sweet Talker.
The music video was shot in downtown Los Angeles last month and was directed by Tabitha Denholm. It joins Jessie in her hectic work schedule as she travels from one place to another, has a photo shoot and meets her fans. The internet has literally thousands of pictures of Jessie in a black fringed leather jacket over a black bra, leather pants and a pair of strappy heels.
With beautiful lyrics this song is perfectly honest and raw: I still fall on my face sometimes / And I can’t colour inside the lines /‘Cause I’m perfectly incomplete / I’m still working on my masterpiece
Masterpiece was written by Emily Warren, Josh Alexander and Britt Burton and was originally released as a promotional single before her Sweet Talker album arrived back in October. The album peaked at No. 10 on Billboard 200 and at No. 5 on the UK album charts.
What does it take to make a historically relevant rock song? The recipe seems to include an instantly recognizable guitar riff, a loud anthem backdrop and a kick ass band to perform it to a crowd of natural born rock lovers.
Listed as one of the greatest songs of all time, it ranks highly in all the relevant rock accolades, winning a Grammy Hall of Fame award among many others. When this single hit the charts it stayed there for an incredible 15 consecutive weeks, peaking at Nº4. It was the band’s only song to become a top 10 singles hit in the US.
This was their 3rd single off the ’87 debut studio album Appetite for Destruction. The bands then bassist, explains how the song came about: “The thing about ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine,’ it was written in five minutes. It was one of those songs, only three chords. You know that guitar lick Slash does at the beginning? It was kinda like a joke because we thought, ‘What is this song? It’s gonna be nothing, it’ll be filler on the record.’ And except that vocal-wise, it’s very sweet and sincere, Slash was just fuckin’ around when he first wrote that lick” – Duff McKagan, 1988
This 1965 mega hit written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards refers to sexual frustration and commercialism. That world famous three-note guitar riff was intended to be replaced by horns, good thing they kept the guitar in! The single held strong for 14 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, taking the Nº1 spot for four of those weeks. In an interview for Rolling Stones Magazine, Jagger states: “It sounded like a folk song when we first started working on it and Keith didn’t like it much, he didn’t want it to be a single, he didn’t think it would do very well. That’s the only time we have had a disagreement.”
As Cream’s only gold-selling single in the United States, this 1967 release was one of their proudest accomplishments. Jimi Hendrix performed an instrumental version as a setlist staple throughout his concerts in the late ’60s and the legacy lives on in the Rolling Stone magazine’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, as well as The Rock and Roll Hall of Fames’s 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.
Written by Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon, it is considered one of rock music’s definitive love songs. Layla was inspired by the persian story of Layla and Majnun by 12th century poet Nizami Ganjavi. A tale of a moon princess who was married off by her father to someone who was not in love with her, resulting in her madness. This struck a deep chord with Clapton and the result was a chart peaking ”Greatest Ever” list surfer.
A two-week straight running Nº1 on the UK singles chart, it was the group’s breakthrough hit. Prior to this the group had released two singles which had flopped. As a result they were under tremendous pressure from their record company Pye. 14 years later, hard rock band Van Halen recorded a cover for their 1978 debut album. Safe to say the song helped jump-start the band’s success.
The video to this song was considered ground breaking as it was one of the first uses of computer-animated human characters back in 1986. Band member Mark Knopfler never wanted to use music videos of any kind. His opinion was that videos would destroy the purity of the songwriters. All he wanted to do was perform. However, after it won Video of the Year award (among many other nominations) at the MTV Video Music Awards, we are guessing Mark might have had a change of heart. The track dominated the charts across the globe, reaching Nº1 on the US Billboard Hot 100, US Billboard Top Rock Tracks, US Cash Box, and Canada Top Singles.
Off their 1972 album Machine Head, it made it to the Rolling Stone magazine’s famous list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Perhaps the most epic use of the song has been recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records in 1994 – in Canada 1,322 guitarists gathered to play the world-famous riff all at the same time. Then in Kansas City 2007, the record was topped by 1,721 guitarists. Then again in Germany with over 1,800 people! It goes on… In 2009 Poland out numbered all the previous record holders when 6,346 guitar players, joined by current Deep Purple guitarist Steve Morse, performed the song during the Thanks Jimi Festival.
After Hendrix’s death in 1970, Voodoo Child, using the title Voodoo Chile was released in the UK, becoming his only Nº1 single in the British Record Charts. In an AllMusic song review the track was described as ‘The perfect example of how Hendrix took the Delta blues form and not only psychedelicized it, but cast an even more powerful spell by delivering the lyric in the voice of a voodoo priest’.
The song was written for AC/DCs former singer Bon Scott. Brian Johnson, his replacement, was asked by the band members to write a lyric for this song. The band had said to him ‘It can’t be morbid – it has to be for Bon and it has to be a celebration’. Brian recalls to Mojo magazine: “I just wrote what came into my head, which at the time seemed like mumbo, jumbo. ‘Nine lives. Cats eyes. Abusing every one of them and running wild.’ The boys got it though. They saw Bon’s life in that lyric.” The song got to Nº1 on the UK Singles Charts and US Hard Rock Digital Songs (Billboard). We won’t even begin to go into the explosive success of the album which was named after it.
The single achieved platinum certification for over 1 million copies which were shipped in the US. Sales of 30 million+ copies, slingshot the band into global popularity. AllMusic critics declared it ‘One of Metallica’s best moments. A burst of stadium level metal that, once away from the buildup intro, never let’s up’.
Certified double platinum, by September 2010 the song had sold over 1.75 million downloads. Rated 9th Greatest Guitar Solo ever by over 25 million readers of Guitar World magazine, also 9th on the list of the 40 Greatest Metal Songs by VH1. In 2009 it was named the 23rd Greatest Hard Rock Song of all time, also by VH1 which is the highest placement by a solo artist on the list.
Their 1970 release off their second studio album Paranoid turned out to be one of their greatest ever hits. It was the second Black Sabbath single in the US, getting very little radio play but that didn’t stop the development of a cult following, which led to enough sales to give it a chart position. Funnily enough, the track was originally named Iron Bloke by vocalist Ozzy Osbourne. Osbourne remarked that “It sounded like a big iron bloke walking about”. Later it was changed to Iron Man, with Geezer Butler writing the lyrics around the title.
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French electronic music producer, The Avener, is due to release his upcoming debut album The Wanderings of the Avener in January 2015 on the back of his hit single Fade Out Lines, released late 2013. After having made it to the No.1 spot on the iTunes electronic music charts in countries across Europe, The Avener’s big upcoming project promises an eclectic mix of genres, compelling and sophisticated rhythms that conjure up a mosaic of atmospheres. His music transcends the boundaries of genre, period and style, the commercial and the underground, the nostalgic and the energetic. Far from seeking to be defined or placed in one single category, The Avener meanders along the pathways of the intermediary. Embracing each aspect of his musical path, always seeking to enrich his sound with a touch of elegance, always seeking to dodge the norm through harmonic experimentation.
Congratulations on the success of your hit single Fade Out Lines, released late 2013, which went to No.1 on the iTunes electronic music charts. What’s the story behind the song? The track speaks about life in general, about the bad times and the feeling of desperation that follows, a feeling that takes a hold on you. It’s also about having to keep moving forward despite our struggles.
How did you come to know Phoebe Killdeer and the Short Straws? To be honest, I didn’t know her personally before working on the track; I was just a big fan of her work.
Why did you choose to sample this song instead of another? The melody particularly moved me and made certain things resonate with me that I hadn’t found elsewhere.
How did it all begin for you and how would you describe your journey so far? It all began on the 11th October 2013, when my label 96 Musique decided to go ahead with the single. At first, we were really happy to have reached 1000 views (hahaha)… today we’ve reached over 5 million views. We still can’t believe it… I’m living a true waking dream.
What does The Avener represent for you in terms of name, image and sound? The Avener is a name I came across in a book on the United Kingdom. ‘The Avener’ is the person who looks after the horses of the Royal Guard. Yes, I love horses…
The Wanderings of the Avener is your big upcoming project. What can you tell us about it? I’ve produced a lot over the past 5 months, finding inspiration in everything that I love: Deep House, Folk, Blues, Pop, Jazz, Soul… There’s something for everyone in this eclectic album, which is due to be released in January 2015.
What message do you seek to communicate through your music? In the most humble of ways, I’m looking to transmit the emotions that make me tremble.
What are your 3 main sources of inspiration as a producer? I really listen to everything! From Chopin to Daft Punk, I don’t restrict myself to one particular style.
Did you set yourself a deadline for the production of your album? If so, did this influence your creative process? Yes and no, I was quite free with regards to time, even if there was of course a ‘deadline’ to finish the album. But my creativity is constantly churning and so I was very productive in the studio.
Which is your favourite track on the album and why? I don’t really have a preference; I love them all! Each track represents a different aspect of my personality.
What has been the most unique experience for you throughout the production of your album? I was lucky enough to have been able to record real instruments in the studio, which makes a huge change from the Home Studio. It adds real emotion to the album.
What would be your dream collaboration and why? Moby and Nicolas Jaar – they represent an artistic freedom that I would like to attain.
When will The Wanderings of the Avener be released? Do you have any plans to go on tour? The 19th January! You can find all the info regarding tour dates on: www.theavener.com/tour
