Kranky Records Free Sampler

By Dan Shumate
November 4, 2009 10:22 AM
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deerhunter_575x225.jpg (Pictured: Deerhunter)

Chicago-based Kranky Records has been tearing both electronic and rock music a new one since 1993. From the droning post-rock of the label's first signing Labradford, to the crackling landscapes of Tim Hecker, and the now-defunct lo-fi pop act Deerhunter, the label has chucked the envelope clear out the window into a nebulous cloud of beautifully musical goo.

For neophytes and fans alike, here's a free Kranky sampler of recent releases to get your get your feet--and ears--wet, including tracks from Atlas Sound, Pan American, Windy and Carl and more. Soon you too, ladies and gentlemen, will be floating in space.

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Rhapsody Iphone App Upgrade Out Now

By Nick Dedina
November 4, 2009 9:44 AM
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The groovy Rhapsody iPhone App now comes with improved sound and graphics!
rhapsody_iphone.jpgWhen I first downloaded the Rhapsody iPhone App, I was actually pretty impressed with the sound quality. I played Andrew Bird's "Plasticities" (this song rules) on both the Rhap App & on the iPhone's iPod App, and and I couldn't really tell any difference between the two.

Now, I just upgraded to the new Rhapsody App release and was blown away with the increase in sound quality.

Trying to be an audio nerd instead of a music geek, I brought up Steely Dan's "Black Cow" on the Rhap App and appreciated its richer, deeper and fuller sound and noticed more dimension to the music than I did before. You can feel the space that the music was recorded in now.

I also noticed that Aja's CD cover art comes off as much more defined. Another bonus was that the playback on my awesome Rhapsody radio stations like '80s Alternative and Frank's World keeps on truckin' now.

There are some more big upgrades just around the corner, and I'd tell you about them but I just discovered a mess of long out-of-print Bill Withers reissues on Rhapsody that I want to check out.

  

Music Goes to the Movies

By Sarah Bardeen
November 3, 2009 10:12 AM
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michael-jackson-concert-2.jpg Any star is an unknowable quantity, one from whom we expect distance but crave intimacy -- it’s the paradox that drives the star-making industry. With our pop stars, we literally can’t get enough: we flock to flawed films, hungry for a glimpse of the “true” person behind the persona. We’ve watched Bette Midler channel Janis Joplin (sort of) in “The Rose,” Elvis remain himself even when he should be acting (just about any film), U2’s self-aggrandizing at the dawn of its career in “Rattle and Hum,” Madonna playing herself in both fiction (“Desperately Seeking Susan”) and documentary (“Truth or Dare”). The latest in line? Michael Jackson, who’s drawn a flood of viewers to the posthumously released rehearsal doc “This Is It,” which topped the box office last weekend.

Continue reading Music Goes to the Movies.

Playlist: Everything You Need to Know About Blister Pop

By Justin Farrar
November 2, 2009 9:09 PM
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Blister Pop is the name of an album from the Embarrassment, this wonderful little band that has become something of a cult legend over the last two decades. The Kansas-based group crafted a shambolic -- and really quite nervy -- brand of underground awesomeness that fell in the cracks between post-punk, hardcore, power pop and Attractions-style pub rock. Nowadays, the Embarrassment would be considered indie rock or quite possibly pop-punk, but back in the 1980s there wasn't a quality name for what they were doing.
Continue reading Playlist: Everything You Need to Know About Blister Pop.

Steven Curtis Chapman Q&A

By Wendy Lee Nentwig
November 2, 2009 3:51 PM
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MusicianS_Steve_16531891_Max.jpg May 21, 2008 forever changed the life of award-winning singer-songwriter Steven Curtis Chapman. His five-year-old daughter Maria Sue was struck and killed in the driveway of the family home outside Nashville, Tennessee. One of Chapman’s teenage sons was behind the wheel when the little girl stepped out where she shouldn’t have been. Just hours earlier, Chapman and his wife had been celebrating the engagement of their oldest daughter and the impending high school graduation of one of their two sons. Playing nearby were their three younger daughters, all adopted from China. These fresh-faced additions to the family had turned their world upside down and made the whole family ferocious adoption advocates. Now, this awful tragedy would change the course of this family once more.
Continue reading Steven Curtis Chapman Q&A.

Rock's Best Albums of the Decade

By Justin Farrar
November 2, 2009 12:51 PM
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As you scan our 25 best rock albums of the '00s, you'll quickly notice that a lot of these artists could be claimed by other genres: Susan Tedeschi by blues, Drive-By Truckers by alt-country, Wilco by indie. And that's the thing about rock in this young century: it's less a definable genre and more of a fractured aesthetic scattered across numerous genres. But make no mistake -- had Back to the River or Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or Southern Rock Opera come out in the 1970s, they would've been considered nothing but rock.

Because of rock's current state of affairs, readers are going to stumble across new flavors. Fans of Jack Johnson are going to read about High on Fire's Matt Pike, while followers of Nickelback will get to learn about something called Creepjoint. So yeah, keep an open mind and instead of bemoaning what rock has become in the 21st century, embrace it. There are a lot of killer jams to be found here.

Continue reading Rock's Best Albums of the Decade.

Frank's World: When Sinatra Met Hazlewood

By Nick Dedina
November 1, 2009 3:40 PM
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Welcome back to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe.

Frank Sinatra never really considered himself a singles artist. He felt that most singles were disposable snapshots, while his albums were monuments that would last forever. Sinatra loved recording extended concept albums better than doing pretty much anything else, though every once in awhile he'd handpick a special tune and put out a magical single like "Witchcraft."

In the mid-1960s, Sinatra continued to craft superb albums, but he had no idea (or real interest) in what singles the kids were buying. He'd just show up at the studio and cut whatever his producers gave him and save his creative juices for his album work. Most of his singles from this period (which, face it, is probably the greatest singles era in pop history) are forgettable ... and forgotten.

But Lee Hazlewood, an eccentric psychedelic cowboy type, was doing fine production and songwriting work with Sinatra's daughter Nancy. Their groovy, often weird recordings were laughed at by the blues-rock throngs at the time because that audience mainly seemed to care if something was "authentic" or not. Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra's music was not "authentic" -- it was good. This concept is still with us today; it is what Weird Al satires every time he does another surprisingly funny, dead-accurate hip-hop rewrite.

When the Old Man gave the nod to Hazlewood for a rock 'n' roll tune, he knew authenticity wasn't in the cards. The single they cut together, "This Town," is inauthentic as hell. But the tune is also a complete gas, with country harmonica, sweeping cinematic strings and stabbing jazz organ fills splashing around a commanding, rebellious vocal performance from a guy who wasn't supposed to know how to rock 'n' roll but obviously did. He usually just chose not to.

For more Sinatra, you can listen to my superlative Frank's World Rhapsody Radio Station, which now has "just-click" links for your Facebook and Twitter pages.


Continue reading Frank's World: When Sinatra Met Hazlewood.

Funny Business

By Mike McGuirk
October 31, 2009 12:12 PM
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flight_of_the_conchords blog.jpg With the new Flight of the Conchords album out this week and Weird Al releasing a career-spanning Greatest Hits next week, we got to thinking about the intersection of comedy and music. As in, there are quite a few intersections of comedy and music. So in honor of the laughs the Conchords and Weird Al give us on a regular basis, we've compiled enough humor-driven songs and clips to kill a workday. Be sure to check out the playlist at the end for a sampling of some of these artists, or sign up for your free trial Rhapsody subscription and listen to high-quality audio of all of these artists whenever and wherever you want.
Continue reading Funny Business.

Hip-Hop's Best Albums of the Decade

By Sam Chennault
October 31, 2009 9:28 AM
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There were about a million things that happened in hip-hop this decade: it went gangster (again), went pop (again), traveled below the Mason-Dixon line, took a detour to Houston, got crunk, got hyphy, beefed with its brothers, embraced its roots, looked to the future, counted its money, flexed its muscle, bemoaned its impotence, sulked in the corner, fell in love, broke up, went to counseling, and embarked on a world tour. There was 50 Cent, Mike Jones, Cee-Lo, T.I., Lupe, Weezy, Jeezy and , Yeezy. There were basements, clubs and prisons -- black presidents, Jewish Rastafarians and masked supervillains. Anthems came and went, we got low and got blunted. All in all, it was a good decade, not without its disappoints, but certainly not without its triumphs. We’ve tried to assemble some of those triumphs. Try not to get too cross-eyed about who did or didn’t make it -- if your horse didn’t place, let us know in the comments box.
Continue reading Hip-Hop's Best Albums of the Decade.

Are Your Tracks Disappearing?

By Tim Quirk
October 29, 2009 10:03 PM
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I’ve been a music-is-a-service-not-a-product evangelist for almost a decade now, so most of my friends and a lot of reporters (some people fall into both groups) are accustomed to hearing me go on and on about why I think Rhapsody’s so great. They don’t hear me talk about its problems as frequently, but there’s one big issue with subscription services that frustrates me every bit as much as it does our customers: sometimes, a track that was in the service on Monday disappears on Tuesday. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s incredibly disturbing when it does, so I want to explain to our customers why it sometimes occurs, and what we do about it.
Continue reading Are Your Tracks Disappearing?.

Free MP3s

By Dan Shumate
October 29, 2009 9:38 PM
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Every week, you can download guilt-free MP3s from Rhapsody recommended artists from our vast abyss of a catalog. For this installment, we're firing off tracks from Brooklyn hip-hop innovators Anti Pop Consortium, Americana troubadour Langhorne Slim and more. Get them while they're hot -- or at least still warm enough to melt butter.

After a six-year hiatus Anti Pop Consortium are back en forme with Fluorescent Black, one of the most inventive hip-hop albums in recent years. It may lack the immediate accessibility of the Blueprint 3, but it's equal in lyrical flow and trumps most in experimentation. [To download, click the button below. When page loads, click "save as."]

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langhorne_slim150x100.jpg Langhorne Slim sheds his reputation for minimalism on his third album, Be Set Free, with a little help from Chris Funk (the Decemberists) and a small tabernacle of horns, strings, guitars and backing vocalists -- yet Slim's new look never seems overdone even with all the added arrangements.



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the_grates150x100.jpg Aussie trio the Grates aren't as ... um ... grating on their sophomore album, Teeth Lost, Hearts Won; the noise-rockers seem to have grown up and polished their act a bit.




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twilight_sad150x100.jpg The Twilight Sad have blaring, fuzzed-out guitars in common with fellow Glaswegians Mogwai, but they blend it together with bittersweet pop -- as heard on their recent album Forget the Night Ahead.




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And finally, since the early '60s Preservation Hall Jazz Band have been keeping up the tradition of New Orleans jazz. This recent incarnation of the band as Hot Four updates the time-honored sound with a remix from Philly soul-house maestro King Britt.



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Raves from the Grave: Posthumous Hits

By Linda Ryan
October 27, 2009 11:19 PM
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With Michael Jackson's This Is It hitting digital outlets and Halloween just around the corner, it's a good time to examine pop's greatest posthumous releases. "This Is It," the most current rave from the grave, looks like the tip of the iceberg as far as Jackson's post-breathing releases will go. Tommy Mottola, the former chairman and CEO of Sony Music, told the Associated Press that there are "dozens and dozens of songs" that did not make the pop star's albums. Indeed, "This Is It" was reportedly found in a box of tapes the singer had. The song was actually penned around1983 for a duets album Anka was recording, but was never used. That's probably why it feels like something off of the Bad album -- which is a good thing. Back then, the song was titled "I Never Had," but it had the same eerie opening lines: "This is it/ Here I stand/ I'm the light of the world/ I feel grand."

Time will tell if Jackson will join the handful of stars such as Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, Bob Marley, the Doors and Tupac who have had numerous releases since their passing. For many, multiple posthumous releases come as a mixed blessing: some fans would rather not see their favorite singer's light dimmed with inferior work, while others see posthumous works as career-making highlights. Let's take a look -- in no particular order -- at some of the biggest posthumous hits over the years.

Continue reading Raves from the Grave: Posthumous Hits.

Google Partners With Rhapsody

By Nick Dedina
October 27, 2009 10:22 AM
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People use The Google to find out everything from the origins of the Chihuahua to where they can find Halloween costumes that fit tiny Mexican dogs. And folks use Google to search for music on the internet a heckuva lot more than they use it for Chihuahuas. Now, Google is launching its initiative and consolidating the scatter-shot universe of internet music through partnerships with Rhapsody, Lala and iLike. Curious listeners will now be able to google an artist, song or album and immediately click on a Rhapsody link, where you can listen to music for free.

Once on Rhapsody.com, curious listeners will enter a well-ordered, easy-to-understand world of pure music. Those who google Owl City's "Fireflies" can instantly stream the hit single on Rhapsody. From there, they can go on to stream Owl City's entire Ocean Eyes CD while reading the artist biography or the check out user generated playlists featuring Owl City songs. They can also stream free Rhapsody radio stations that feature Owl City, such as The Lite Alternative, Indie Now and Pop Hits.

For those who take the next step and subscribe to the Rhapsody music service, they will discover that listening to an unlimited amount of music through their computer is only the start. At Rhapsody we are currently revolutionizing the way that music is consumed.

Rhapsody's To-Go service takes our vast music library off your computer and allows access on your iPhone or Verizon VCAST system, with a number of other smart phone apps on the way.

Likewise, you can access your Rhapsody music library on a host of MP3 players, home audio devices, the award-winning Sonos system and other cutting-edge devices, such as digital televisions.

Rhapsody delivers the power of exploration with unprecedented accessibility, and now, with Google's Music it’ll be easier than ever to discover all that Rhapsody has to offer. For more information, see our partner blog right here.

Take-Off

By Sam Chennault
October 24, 2009 2:02 PM
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Mr. Larry Becker
Director of Development, NBC
437 Shyer Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90211


Dear Larry,

This has been an exciting past month for the Heene clan. Mayumi managed to shed five pounds, Falcon went through a bout with the mumps (emerging as adorable as ever), and I spent a week researching and testing various hair dyes. And, oh yeah, we also perpetrated the greatest hoax of the year, if not the past decade, when we pretended to send Falcon aloft in a silver weather balloon.

Though the hoax may have some unintended consequences, it also brought near-universal recognition to our family's name and clearly established the Heene brand as one of the most viable in the reality TV realm. We were able to break through the social media market -- “Balloon Boy” was a top trending topic on Twitter -- and we also were the top story in nearly every major media outlet, from the Drudge Report to CNN to the New York Times.

The natural question now is: what next? We hope to hit the skillet while it’s hot, capitalizing off this newfound fame to push forward and develop a new roster of Heene reality shows that will impact the market for years to come. I’ve laid out some potential pitches.


Continue reading Take-Off.

Coup De Stereo: Hall & Oates Rule

By Nick Dedina
October 23, 2009 9:55 AM
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Hall&OatesCouch.jpgI've been seeing Hall & Oates references all over the place during the past few years. At the start of the decade, their soft-rocking 1970s period came back into vogue, and now, at the end of the decade, it's their synth-y 1980s hits (and videos) that have made a big comeback. These days practically every indie rocker around (including Josh Rouse and Ben Gibbard of Death Cab) cite the duo as a major influence.

As a child of the 1970s and '80s, I can say that Daryl Hall and John Oates ruled the airwaves during both decades. I can't remember a time when their '70s hits like "She's Gone" and "Rich Girl" weren't omnipresent. Later, at the start of the 1980s, when Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" first came out, I kept thinking it was the Hall & Oates tune "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)" starting up (Jackson and Quincy Jones lifted the song's kick-ass bassline intro and tempo and fit it into their song to give it extra juice).

Hall and Oates are still recording and touring, but they wisely spend a lot of time on their own projects (Hall seems to be the more driven of the two). The duo have now released a surprisingly rich box set, Do What You Want, Be What You Are, which offers a complete portrait of their career.

I interviewed Daryl Hall the other day about the box set, his Philly soul roots and his truly entertaining internet TV show, Live From Daryl's House. Hall gave thoughtful, B.S.-free answers and took it in stride that a fleet of work trucks pulled up right outside the Rhapsody offices and jackhammered the city streets to dust for the duration of our conversation. Click here to read the interview and to play a selection of music from the most successful duo in pop history.
Continue reading Coup De Stereo: Hall & Oates Rule.

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