February 2009 Archives

Song: Love Story
Album: Fearless
Artist: Taylor Swift
Date: February 26, 2009

The country-pop sweetheart has taken over the charts with her sweet candor and down-home charm. Get Taylor Swift’s uber-hit “Love Story” -- for free!

It's no secret these guys are huge Gojira fans, and they haven't gone full-on prog or anything like that, but the unbridled galloping speed and incessant violent chugs of former arrangements are hard to find on this record, making it oddly angrier. Like, Blythe isn't just pissed and letting you know it: he's at a Michael Myers level of hate, where he's slowly instilling the fear of god with his quiet confidence and methodical movement. That's what songs like "Fake Messiah" and "Broken Hands" do sonically. But not just because of Blythe -- because of the raw power, massive riffing and technical progression of the whole band.

If ever there were a chart-topping metal act since the days of Slayer and Pantera, this is it. If you're a metalhead, you're pretty familiar with the Virginia crew, and if you're not, you definitely know their name. With 2006's Sacrament landing in the Billboard top 10 and garnering a Grammy nod in 2007, big things are downright expected at this point, and as this band has only been growing and building since their start in 1990, it's nice to see that on Wrath they haven't choked under the pressure. From the understated intro of precise musicianship to powerful miscreants "Set to Fail" and "Everything to Nothing," Wrath has raised the bar of American death metal and emerges as one of the best metal records so far this year.

Song: Just Dance featuring Colby O'Donis
Album: The Fame
Artist: Lady GaGa
Date: February 24, 2009

Sleek, sexy and sizzling its way up the charts, “Just Dance” has helped make Lady GaGa a force in the pop world. Get the uber-glam hit here -- for free!

McKagan played bass in one of the most prolific rock bands to come off the Sunset Strip (ahem, Guns N' Roses) and one of the highest-profile rock supergroups ever (Velvet Revolver), in addition to collaborating with many punk musicians on fleeting side projects and cover bands over the years. He's now back again with alt-metallers Loaded, and we caught up with the legend on the set of That Metal Show and got the eccentric soundtrack to his pre-show, backstage antics.

Song: O...Saya
Album: Slumdog Millionaire
Artist: M.I/A. and A.R. Rahman
Date: February 20, 2009

Get the Oscar-nominated song from Slumdog Millionaire, featuring M.I.A.

On previous records Vetiver's Andy Cabic was a freak-folkie who obviously owns a fat stack of awesome albums -- not bad, but not great either. With the release of Tight Knit, however, the dude is no longer a talented collector-nerd. He's an artist. This is profound landscape music, a misty coastal piedmont thoughtfully carved from the singer-songwriter's twin loves: vintage British folk and West Coast soft rock. Everything here locks together perfectly, from the elegant compositions to Cabic's phantom whisper to his band's patient gait.

I entertain this theory that Vetiver's recent collaborations with Gary Louris were critical to Tight Knit's success. As his backing band for both 2008's Vagabonds album and the subsequent tour, Vetiver had to learn 25 to 30 of the ex-Jayhawks' songs. This did two things: 1) teach Cabic the nuts and bolts of songwriting as craft (think a young Hunter S. retyping The Great Gatsby) and 2) helped transform his group from a loose recording project into a real-deal touring act. It's kind of like a carpenter who has graduated from apprentice to journeyman: Vetiver now builds better, and more meaningful, folk music.

Song: You Found Me
Album: The Fray
Artist: The Fray
Date: February 19, 2009

The Fray are back with more poignant piano pop -- get their latest heart-tugging single here.

Song: Crack a Bottle
Album: Crack a Bottle
Artist: Eminem
Date: February 18, 2009

Shady's back. And he brought some friends. His old cohorts Dre and 50 help Em get his Relapse started with his first new single in two years.

Filipino folk musician Grace Nono.

SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

The Philippines is all too often epically ignored by the world music industry. The island nation's snubbing is in large part a result of twin colonial legacies. First, there's the imperialist notion (perpetuated by more than 400 years of Spanish, American and Japanese colonialists) that the Philippines has "no culture" (whatever that means). Second, there's the truth: the more than 7,000 islands that make up the Philippine archipelago are actually host to more than 180 ethnic and language groups. These groups were lumped together by colonizers who typically paid little attention to the myriad distinctive precolonial cultures or the creative ways Filipinos have negotiated outside influences.

Enter Grace Nono -- musician, composer, producer, label owner, activist and champion of diverse Filipino cultural practices, including music, art, theater, and healing and spiritual traditions. Nono got her start as a much-heralded solo artist, carving a niche for herself in the Philippines' alt-rock scene with her neo-folk-pop in the 1990s. Nono's music is dizzyingly wide-ranging and often just slightly avant-garde, but the constant is her artistic vision: the combination of indigenous folk melodies and rhythms with global pop aesthetics. Since her critically lauded debut, Tao Music, in 1992, Nono's solo output has slowed down as she has diverted her focus to other projects. Her two most recent albums, however, continue to showcase her overlapping visions of innovation and tradition.

Song: Top of the World
Album: Top of the World
Artist: The Pussycat Dolls
Date: February 17, 2009

The Pussycat Dolls' tune about escaping life's pressures comes with its own implied antidote: partying all night long, making love and dancing the night away.
 

Song: Love Hurts
Album: Hair of the Dog
Artist: Nazareth
Date: February 13, 2009

Because Feb. 14 is the day for lovers, we're sending this classically discontent Nazareth ballad to comfort the scorned. And he's right: love is like a flame that burns you when it's hot.

Song: Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)
Album: I Am...Sasha Fierce
Artist: Beyonce
Date: February 12, 2009

Beyonce's sage advice goes out to all the single ladies. And, since Saturday is V-Day, who knows, you might even get a ring of your own.

Song: What Love Can Do
Album: Working On A Dream
Artist: Bruce Springsteen
Date: February 11, 2009

Since Valentines Day is right around the corner, we look to Bruce's uptempo rocker to hear about some of the lovely things that love can do.

Although Alela Diane's 2006 debut, The Pirate's Gospel, demonstrated the singer's promise, the rewards were fairly subtle. The skeletal, foggy-headed folk fit too snugly alongside lesser beings in Joanna Newsom's shadow and received little notice other than watchful fans of their shared ZIP code in Nevada City, Calif., and (strangely) France. The songs of Gospel, while spare, were pulled off with the same trick that has helped her go-to influences like Sandy Denny and Karen Dalton remain so durable: they're fragile enough to invoke the hope of spring but scrappy enough to last through the winter.

But the promise of Pirate Gospel is only delivered upon when you dig into the follow-up, To Be Still. The development lies not in the quality of the songwriting itself -- though tunes like "White as Diamonds" are more confident, visceral, and sure-footed than anything on her first collection -- but in the full realization of what Diane can do with a robust accompaniment. Take "...Diamonds," for instance, which opens in the kind of spare and melancholic loll that structures Gospel's "The Rifle." This time around, she's backed by an unvarnished violin line, a syrupy backbeat and a stormy descent of strings, and suddenly the emotive punch of her alto is dramatically increased. With restraint and careful choices in orchestration, the songs find a warm context.

The entire record is shaped and shaded by these dynamic decisions, from the wistful shuffling of "To Be Still" to the pulsing tom-toms that relentlessly drive "The Ocean." And even if it does have the bells and whistles absent from her earlier work, the focus remains on Diane's agile vocals (often accompanied by her own voice in a breathy harmony), which needs little assistance to inspire chills on "Tatted Lace" or "Lady Divine."

Song: Heartless
Album: 808s & Heartbreak
Artist: Kanye West
Date: February 10, 2009

Lovebirds get their day on Feb. 14, but what about the lovelorn? Well, they can turn their broken hearts into hit singles -- right, Kanye?

Did you know that Motown Records turns 50 this year? To mark the occasion, we're letting you take an extraordinary peek into the recollections of one of Motown's greats, Otis Williams of the Temptations. Here, the sole surviving founding member of the group shares some of his favorite songs - and a few memories - from the golden era of Motown. Ready for the ride?

Song: No You Girls
Album: Tonight: Franz Ferdinand
Artist: Franz Ferdinand
Date: February 09, 2009

Up to their old tricks, Franz Ferdinand strut their stuff with this stomping, clomping dance tune about girls, girls, girls.

Philadelphia-based DJ, songwriter and producer Diplo.

SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

One month into 2009 and we're already staggering under the great releases. Some of them have been bubbling in Europe for awhile: Rokia Traore's bird-bone delicate Tchamantche, Mariza's melancholic but slightly more pop-oriented Terra (check out that luscious collabo with Tito Paris, "Beijo De Saudade"). Others have seemingly popped out out of nowhere -- like Cesaria Evora's lost tapes from an impromptu recording session in Cape Verde 40 years ago. And then of course there's the musically ravenous Diplo, a DJ/producer who's helped make M.I.A. a pop star. Get caught up on the latest releases -- and listen to a free sampler after the jump.

Finnish folk metal band Turisas.

So here's a question: do you think, if genuine Vikings still existed (assuming they don't, of course), that they would actually choose metal as the music they'd listen to through their helmet earbuds? Ponder that, while you consider these:

Trivium, Shogun (Roadrunner Records): In theory I like the idea of Teeny-'tallica, really I do. But man, for kids trying to act tough, Trivium sure do whine a lot. Not sure whether "Torn Between Scylla and Charybdis" is a Sting reference or not.

Song: Please Read the Letter
Album: Raising Sand
Artist: Alison Krauss and Robert Plant
Date: February 06, 2009

With its ethereal magic, this Record of the Year contender is one of a handful of songs that demonstrates the worthiness of Plant & Krauss’ multiple nominations.

Song: Love Song
Album: Little Voice
Artist: Sara Bareilles
Date: February 04, 2009

We’re not trying to toot our own horn here, but it was just after Sara Bareilles’ “Love Song” was featured on a Rhapsody commercial that the feisty California-born songwriter blew up. Bareilles lent her voice to one of the most ubiquitous pop songs of the year and the album from which it came, Little Voice, has charted all over the world. If it brings home the award for Song of the Year, she totally owes us.

Latin freestylers, back-alley punks, boogaloo trailblazers, techno precursors, hard-rock gals, nu-metal boys, squishy electronic animals that leap from lily pad to lily pad: the trapdoors that keep fine artists out of the Hall of Fame (or even its public bathrooms) may not be fair, but they touch all bases. A few are below.

Song: Miss Independent
Album: Year of the Gentleman
Artist: Ne-Yo
Date: February 04, 2009

The quintessential gentlemanly track from Ne-Yo’s Year of the Gentleman has earned a Grammy nomination for both Best Male R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Song. It also put the hot handed production team, Stargate (the fellows behind Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable”), in the spotlight again.

Rhapsody Reviews: Text about music -- remember that?

The Denver boys have been living well off their debut How to Save a Life for over three years thanks to a multitude of TV exposure. They keep the trend going here, debuting their first single, "You Found Me," on Grey's Anatomy. It's a lucrative plan, and this second album is sure to succeed along the same soundtrack-appealing path. Over 10 songs, though, it all becomes a bit predictable: soft piano intro; pensive chorus that builds with the passion of a lovers' quarrel; and Isaac Slade's sensitive, sometimes strained croons (you just want to give the guy a hug!). "You Found Me" and "Say When" are guaranteed hits, but the little goodies here are in "Ungodly Hour," a track that could very well be confused with a Coldplay ballad (in fact, Slade stretches his vocals from a soothing softness to a casual falsetto in nearly the exact same way Chris Martin has trademarked); and in "We Build Then We Break," where the band finally busts out a little bit of rock 'n' roll 'tude. There's certainly an appeal to the Fray -- it's hard not to get wrapped up in their sentimentality without feeling just a little bit introspective. We'd just like to see a tad more oomph next time around.

Song: I'm Yours
Album: We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things
Artist: Jason Mraz
Date: February 02, 2009

Jason Mraz earned a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year with this head-over-heels slice of folk rock. It’s freshly upbeat and breezy as a summer day. .