“Butterfly Melt,” by Anda Volley: Saturday Video Roundup
Our friend Anda Volley is back, and her latest music exploration leans into the sort of ambient I have always been intrigued by. Also, great video. Tune in, turn on, happy Saturday.
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Vive le France: 2013 has been a great year for Pop, and the French are leading the way
Once upon a time the term “Pop” simply referred to popular music, and little effort was devoted to differentiating between styles. R&B, Rock & Roll, standards (Ol’ Blue Eyes and his ilk), Soul, whatever – it was all lumped together on AM radio and while you probably liked some things more than others, it was a mass media world and you
Read moreTunesDay: Phoenix and Aline are making 2013 a big year for French Indie Pop
We haven’t historically regarded the French for their rock & roll. Wine and cuisine, sure. Beautiful women, absolutely. But Europe’s greatest pop music has always tended to emerge across the channel. Then, in 2009, a little band from Versailles called Phoenix blowed up with Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix and one of the year’s hottest Indie singles, “Lisztomania.” Phoenix had been around for a
Read moreI feel a disturbance in The Force: quick, check the Billboard Hot 100 chart
Not to belabor the point – because it doesn’t really need a lot of explanation – but the US Top 40 has sucked moose balls for a very long time. The fashion in recent years has tended toward prefabricated diva pop, braindead hit-hop and cynical producer-driven techno-pop music-like product. Imagine Simon Cowell’s iPod, in other words. Oscar Wilde once described
Read moreTunesDay: What the hell is going on in Boulder?
When I first moved to Boulder, Colorado in 1993 there were three big local bands: Big Head Todd & the Monsters, The Samples and The Reejers. BHTM were and still are an outstanding blues/rock band. The Samples were an alt act that reminded me at times of The Police and at other times of Johnny Clegg & Savuka (although both
Read moreIf only there were an American Idol for grown-ups: how to market new, indie music to an adult audience?
Once upon a time, marketing music must have been so simple: in the ’50s you just bribed a local DJ and off you went. By the ’80s it was a little more complicated – in addition to cash you needed to bring coke and hookers, but still, it was a straightforward process and everybody understood the rules. Maybe that’s understating
Read moreThe S&R Interview: 22 questions with Sarah Lewis of Jag Star
I remember distinctly how I first discovered Jag Star. I was snooping around on eMusic for new bands and was using the old triangulation method – who sounds like band X? One of my favorite bands is VAST, and Jag Star turned up as a “Similar Artist.” That was both a great moment and a confusing one. On the one
Read moreTunesDay: Go West, young man
You may not have heard of Adam Marsland. You may not have heard of his former band, Cockeyed Ghost. But as we’ve tried to demonstrate, time and time again, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Radio is a wasteland, the RIAA is waging a toxic war on the artist, and the explosion of media and Internet channels has so fractured and
Read moreTunesDay: The best CDs of 2008, pt. 2 – the Platinum LPs
Our Best CDs of 2008 continues today with a review of the super-premium Platinum Award winners for Excellence in rocking and rolling. As with last week’s Gold Awards, these are in alphabetical order. Band Web sites link to the band name, and if the CD is available via eMusic, that links to the CD title. (Mike Smith of Fiction 8,
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lullaby pit 