Hearts of Stone has been called “the best album Bruce Springsteen never recorded”, which is not quite accurate. Springsteen did pen the title track and the radio-friendly “Talk To Me”, and is credited along with Southside Johnny Lyon and Steve Van Zandt on “Trapped Again”, but Van Zandt takes solo credit for the remaining six tracks. More to the point, this record pointed the way to the kind of music the reincarnated “Little Steven” would begin making in the early 1980s. Van Zandt tapped photographer Frank Stefanko to shoot the album cover art, after meeting Stefanko when they worked together with Springsteen on Darkness on the Edge of Town.
More gorgeous melancholia from Ron Sexsmith, a singer-songwriter who sees the flip side to Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong. On his last album, 2011’s Long Player Late Bloomer, Sexsmith worked with Bob Rock, who helped him reach for brass rings. The record was successful in many ways, but perhaps not the hit wildly dreamed of. Now, the sound is stripped back down, with Sexsmith’s former producer Mitchell Froom perhaps restoring a comfort zone. A French horn introduces sinking feelings: “Stuck in a painting, unable to cry or to make a sound, and there’s nowhere to go but down.” There are few who could translate Newton’s law with such grace, and with a voice that never lowers itself to the down moods about which it sings. Lovely. [Source]
She Sleeps is the second single from FaltyDL‘s coming-of-age masterpiece, Hardcourage, and perhaps the centrepiece of the album. The only vocal song on the full length, “She Sleeps” features a brilliant, haunting turn from the Friendly Fires’ Ed Macfarlane. Mysterious, tender and reflective, his lyrics weave around the driving, purposeful percussion and a melody that’s singularly exploratory and gentle. The single comes with a remix package that more than does justice to the quality of the original. Holland’s electronic pioneer Martyn has reworked the track into a writhing, muscular dancefloor stomp. Gang Gang Dance need no introduction, and their take on the song proves why once more. Lifting the inter beauty of the song to the fore, they’ve turned it into an opus of rich texture and uplifting, melancholic melody. Ital is the solo moniker of Planet Mu’s Daniel Martin-McCormick, and his remix takes things a touch darker and industrial edged, warping the melody into something altogether more ominous. Finally, exuberant London boogie-ists 2000Black have worked “She Sleeps” into a deep, hypnotic soulful groove. [Source]
New single to be released for Record Store Day. In celebration of Record Store Day 2013, Columbia Records will release a 7″ vinyl single featuring an unreleased demo of “Wigwam” backed with a previously unreleased recording of “Thirsty Boots” from the forthcoming Bootleg Series Vol. 10. Pick up your copy on Saturday, April 20, at participating independent record stores. For a complete list, visit http://www.recordstoreday.com/Venues. Read more: http://www.bobdylan.com/
New Single and Pre-Order of First New Album in 10 Years Exclusively Launching on the iTunes Store Today
New York, NY–January 8, 2013–In the early morning hours of Tuesday the 8th January, Iso/Columbia Records released a new single by David Bowie titled ‘Where Are We Now?’ exclusively launching in the iTunes Store in 119 countries. David Bowie’s first new album in ten years and his 30th studio recording, THE NEXT DAY is also available as a pre-order on iTunes with a wide release scheduled for March. January the 8th is of course David Bowie’s birthday, a timely moment for such a treasure to appear as if out of nowhere. [Source]
Listen to the single and watch the video on the new official David Bowie Vimeo channel here.
Had to get the train
From Potzdamer Platz
You never knew that
That I could do that
Just walking the dead
Sitting in the Dschungel
On Nurnberger Strasse
A man lost in time
Near KaDeWe
Just walking the dead
Where are we now?
Where are we now?
The moment you know
You know
You know
Twenty thousand people
Cross Bose Brucke
Fingers are crossed
Just in case
Walking the dead
Where are we now?
Where are we now?
The moment you know
You know
You know
As long as there´s SUN
As long as there´s SUN
As long as there´s RAIN
As long as there´s RAIN
As long as there´s FIRE
As long as there´s FIRE
As long as there´s ME
As long as there´s YOU
“Happy New Year” is a popular song by Swedish pop group ABBA from their 1980 album Super Trouper. The lead vocals are by Agnetha Fältskog. The song’s working title was all the more festive and humorous; “Daddy Don’t Get Drunk on Christmas Day”. Although recorded in 1980, the English-language song wasn’t released as a single until 1999 and charted in Sweden, The Netherlands (#8),[3] and Germany (#75), to promote the CD re-release of many of ABBA’s singles.
“Graveyard Girl” is a song by French electronic/dream pop act M83. Written by Anthony Gonzalez with his brother Yann, it was released in April 2008 as the second single from M83′s fifth studio album, Saturdays = Youth. Anthony Gonzalez cited English bands such as Tears for Fears and Cocteau Twins, as well as John Hughes teen films The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles, as inspirations for Saturdays = Youth. A girl resembling Molly Ringwald appears on the album cover, and the lyrics and music video for “Graveyard Girl” further highlight these influences. “I wanted to have the feeling of a teenager mixed with this period of the Eighties,” Gonzalez said. The song tells the story of a goth girl Gonzalez once knew who “worships Satan” but “dreams of a sister like Molly Ringwald.” Spin’s Mosi Reeves called “Graveyard Girl” one of the album’s “few compelling songs.” Dave Hughes of Slant Magazine said the song is “certainly the most typically, successfully pop moment this difficult, often transcendent act has ever produced.” Pitchfork’s Amy Phillips wrote that “Anthony Gonzalez makes the teen years seem idyllic, a time in life when all emotion is pure and beautiful,” and that the song is “melodramatic, overblown, and even a little bit silly. But then again, so is high school.” Jer Fairall of PopMatters suggested that on “Graveyard Girl”, M83 found “pure pop perfection by dipping into the pool of mid-’80s synth-pop. “Treble’s Tyler Parks noted: “It is quite possible that no one has ever sung quite so sweetly of someone worshipping Satan.”
It has been the worst-kept secret in pop. But the sheer obviousness of Adele being the right candidate for the Bond theme – that big voice for international audiences to swoon to – sits at odds with the themes we’ve had in recent years. They have been jagged, awkward things: Jack White and Alicia Keys’ Another Way To Die; Chris Cornell’s You Know My Name. It’s as if they’ve tried to match Daniel Craig’s craggy toughness with earthier sounds. Sadly, those tunes were too forgettable to get any pistols firing. [Source]
