videos

Like It’s the End of the World

Posted by John on January 26, 2009
Posted in: reviews, videos, youtube. 6 Comments

I swear I had the best of intentions of posting the review of the Adele show, but then I came across the video clip below, and my heart melted and swelled, all in the span of 3 minutes and 30 seconds (thanks to Joe.My.God).

Matt Alber is a wonder. As in, “I wonder why he’s not a household name already?” Oh, wait…quality singers don’t become household names in the real world. I could sit here and type up a witty little bio, but how ’bout I just point you toward teh Interwebz for information, and talk more about why music like this matters. It must be touching people, because as I followed his Facebook links, I found two friends had already beaten me there.

mattalberstand72One of the things I hate more than anything else when reading critiques of new artists are the comparisons to other artists. Not necessarily because they are comparisons, but more because I didn’t come up with the comparison myself. [Competitive, anyone?] I read Rufus Wainright meets Duncan Sheik, and damn, if “Monarch” doesn’t fit that to a “T”, I don’t know what does. For me, Matt is a male version of kd lang, and I mean that as the highest compliment I can think of. There are more than a couple of parallels between Matt’s “Hide Nothing” and kd’s “Watershed”.

In a world where everyone is looking for a gimmick to make them stand out, isn’t it cool when the “gimmick” is the pureness of the message and the voice? For once, the gimmick isn’t that the artist is gay. Matt’s the real deal, and while he’s not singing mainstream pop songs, the melodies and lyrics found on “Hide Nothing” can appeal to a wide swath of the general public, if given the opportunity. The songs here touch on feelings of new love, dying love, and a range of emotions found somewhere in the details of a life lived as cautiously as it is recklessly. I’m torn on a favorite track, because the formula of “Monarch” is custom-built for my love of slow-building songs of optimism (with a banjo, to boot), but the unique arrangement of “End of the World” draws me back in over and over. So since I’ve already shared “End”, let’s close it out with “Monarch”.

A Tale of Four Singles

Posted by John on January 20, 2009
Posted in: new releases, singles, videos, youtube. Tagged: , , , , . 8 Comments

While my instinct is that folks out here in the blogosphere wouldn’t get nearly as excited about new singles from established artists, I am constantly proven wrong by the near fanatical buzz when a blog’s patron saint releases a single, and then you see the ripple effect across other nearby blogs. There are several examples of hyped singles, with varying degrees of success.

1. Kelly Clarkson/My Life Would Suck Without You – The buzz has been deafening, and most folks are declaring that Kelly is BACK! Well, okay. I’ll give you that. Kelly is back, and she’s tucked her tail between her legs so tightly you’d swear she was hiding her candy. Don’t get me wrong…I do love me some Kelly Clarkson. “My December” was highly underrated, but you can never go home again, although she’s sure giving it the old college try. Besides, I would argue that P!nk did this much better just a few months ago.

2. U2/Get On Your Boots – Trans World Entertainment, which is basically the last stand-alone music store chain in the U.S., blamed some of it’s soft holiday season sales on the decision by Universal to push back fourth quarter releases like Eminem, Dr. Dre, and U2. While that’s a big ol’ cop-out in a lot of ways, they probably would have had a better Christmas had those releases come out. So it’s not a big overstatement to suggest that U2’s upcoming “No Line on the Horizon” would sure help Universal’s bottom line. There’s no comeback relying on this song blowing up, but if this is indicative of the rest of the CD, they’re gonna need a comeback for the next record, because this song is LAME.

3. Lily Allen/The Fear – Here’s one where the buzz just completely turned me off, and I think I may have been too hard on the song initially. I haven’t been enamored of Lily, so she’s got a little more work to do with me. Once again, not bad, but not great. But today I came across the new Wideboys remix of the song, and on first listen, I fell in love. It all makes sense to me now. Her vocals belongs with the blips and bleeps of this version, and the Wideboys deserve some kind of award for their remixing vision.

4. Rascal Flatts/Here Comes Goodbye – Seriously…hear me out on this one. Rascal Flatts haven’t been country for a few albums now, and they ended up with one of the more distinctive pop hits of 2007 with “What Hurts the Most”, so I perked up when I saw their new single leak yesterday. Maybe there’s something to be said for low expectations, but “Goodbye” starts with a slow building verse, leading into a violin-punctuated first chorus. By verse #2, Gary LeVox’s vocals kick into overdrive, and the song just takes flight. Some will pishaw this track, but I promise that if Carrie Underwood or Kelly Clarkson had recorded it (and I can easily hear either of them on it), those same folks would eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner on the daily.

Cookin’ In the New Year

Posted by John on January 11, 2009
Posted in: concerts, videos, youtube. Tagged: . 3 Comments

Happy New Year to you and yours from David Cook! Not too much earth-shattering news here, other than a college tour planned for next month. Still no word on the next single, although for my money, “Declaration” is the natural pick. Check out the video for the newest member to the Cook entourage, and make sure you’re watching Jimmy Kimmel on Tuesday night for a live performance.

Video Notables – Killer On the Dancefloor

Posted by John on January 11, 2009
Posted in: videos, youtube. 5 Comments

My #1 CD of 2007 was Private’s My Secret Lover, which will never see the light of day in U.S. CD bins, but it’s a brilliant body of dance-pop that deserves any accolades it can get. Over a year later, they’re apparently still working singles from the disc. Here’s “Killer On the Dancefloor”:

Two things…Private seems to do the black & white video pretty well, so why mess with the formula. Having said that, some of their videos are a bit low-budget. It’s nice to see that someone sprung for a little extra moolah to give “Killer” some extra oomph.

Above the Fray

Posted by John on January 10, 2009
Posted in: holiday, reviews, videos, youtube. Tagged: . 5 Comments

gothic-marqueeSo back to Beyonce, Boston Terriers and the Fray. Tuesday’s Fray show opened up a more intimate theater tour to promote the release of their self-titled second CD, coming out February 2nd (tour dates here). Getting into the show, however, wasn’t as easy as you would imagine. Several Denver venues, including the Gothic, are general admission, and you have to wait in line until an hour before the show. Seeing how the Fray are hometown boys, and the show was sold out instantly when tickets went on sale (due to pre-sales), the line was long, and the weather was cold. I was a bit chilled by the time I got in the door, but being surrounded by die-hard fans took some of the edge off the cold. Either that, or I was experiencing early stages of hypothermia.

Seriously, though, it’s pretty cool to feel the hometown pride for this band. It reminds me a bit of how Syracuse feels about Benny Mardones, even though he’s not even from Syracuse. There was this sense of “they’re one of us” in the crowd waiting to get in, and people were recounting shows they’ve seen in the past, how much they paid scalpers for tickets (I heard up to $300 for $28 tickets), and of course favorite songs. Personally, I’m really jaded right now, because “You Found Me” has eclipsed any favorites I had on How To Save A Life. In fact, to give you an idea of what the venue looked like, here’s a clip of them doing that very song. Sorry about the cut off at the end, but check out the lamps all over the stage. The video just doesn’t do them justice for the impact they had.

So the show itself was wonderful. As you will find at every concert these days, there were a few tools doing their best to ruin the show for everyone around them, but at a certain point, I tuned out the jerks, and just got immersed in the music. They performed all of the songs that you would expect: “How To Save A Life”, “Over My Head”, “She Is”, “Look After You”, and of course “You Found Me”. The band doesn’t deviate too far from their formula, and some of their biggest hits are ripe for sing-along. There was a LOT of singing along.

The big question going into this show was the new material, since I’ve put myself on radio silence towards that stuff. In order to get tickets for the show, I had to pre-order the Deluxe Edition of the physical CD. That pre-order got me a pre-sale code, and that’s how I only ended up paying face value for the tickets. In addition, I will also get the opportunity to download a live digital release of songs from the tour. See, if you’re going to create a value-added promotion for die-hard fans, THAT’S the way to do it.

As a result, I decided I wanted to experience them live first, and then on the CD when it shows up. Overall, I’m pleased. While the baseline Fray sound remains intact, there are some extremes now. The mellow songs got more mellow, and there is at least one grunge-ish song called “We Build Then We Break”. Highlights for me were “Syndicate”, which is potentially the second single, and “Happiness”, which Isaac dedicated to his “pops” during the encore. Here’s “Syndicate” for your perusal:

Okay, so where do the Boston Terriers and Beyonce fit into this? Well, Isaac had some interesting banter between songs. By his own admission, the Fray is good at many things, but “talking” is not one of them. I think he did fine, though. He talked about his new Terrier puppy, about the holidays, and the family. And while we’re talking about the boys in the band, let’s contemplate just why Mr Fizzy isn’t completely infatuated with Joe King, who SO looks like his type. But the big surprise of the night was the only cover song that I could pick out, and it was a doozy. Check out the video below…

It was great to see that these guys have a sense of humor, as well as the ability to translate what they do in the studio to a live setting. There’s no doubt in my mind that The Fray will debut at #1 the week it’s released, especially if the performance of “You Found Me” is any indication. It’s only competition will be the likes of Melissa Doolittle and Liza Minnelli. What I’m looking for is the longevity. While How To Save A Life went double-platinum, it never got above #14. There’s only one direction to go when you debut at the top. From what I heard, it shouldn’t be a problem for them to get a good run out of the new record as well.

Shayne Ward Grows On You

Posted by John on January 5, 2009
Posted in: concerts, new releases, news, videos, youtube. Tagged: . 6 Comments

Ah…I have gone much too long without a Shayne entry, haven’t I? No word on how the new record is going, but he recently played some gigs back in the homeland, including multiple shows in Killarney (“third show just added!”). No surprises musically from these shows, although his presence seems a bit…larger than normal. Check out “No U Hang Up” for yourselves:

Now, you’re not necessarily going to hear my complain about Shayne putting on a little bit of the winter weight. It’s just a radical difference from the Shayne that appeared in the video of the song. But wait…it gets weirder. Making Backstreet Boy AJ as the Phantom look downright normal, here’s Shayne performing “Tell Him”:

One other item…turns out a production team called Camberjem has posted three tracks on iTunes with Shayne on lead vocals. According to the chatter on the Shayne forums, his team isn’t too happy with the release, and from the sound of the production, I can’t blame him for being upset. They’re really not even B-side caliber tracks. These do mark the first audio tracks of Shayne available in the U.S., though. Let’s just say he’s guaranteed to still be anonymous in the States after these songs see the light of day.

Video Notables – Perfect Symmetry

Posted by John on December 29, 2008
Posted in: videos, youtube. Tagged: . 2 Comments

Say what you want about Keane’s new CD, but I’ve enjoyed it consistently since it was released back in October (was it only October?). In addition, they are making some interesting videos to accompany their progressively worse-charting singles, and “Perfect Symmetry” is no exception. Rather than resorting to some lame split screen effect a la “When Doves Cry”, they go the path of less-obvious, utilizing some beautiful natural shots edited into a mirror-wrapped soundstage performance from Tom Chapin.

The Radio 1 Chart Blog gets it right on Keane, making this brilliant observation:

…isn’t it strange that a certain demographic of indie fan has always had a hard time with Keane making the epic noise that they do, while applauding the Killers for doing a pretty similar thing? Aural bigness, yelpy vocals, the letter K…I mean, some consistency would be useful here, people!

Ah, the injustice of it all…

Merry Christmas, Darling

Posted by John on December 24, 2008
Posted in: holiday, personal, videos, year-end, youtube. Tagged: , . 1 Comment

hancock-syr-signGreetings from the Salt City, aka Syracuse, New York. The sign up above is the first visual many folks have of Syracuse as they arrive at Hancock International Airport, and for a native like myself, it’s a welcome sight. Despite my love of travel and Colorado, I always enjoy returning home to see my folks and reconnect. Funny how we can romanticize such mundane things as grocery stores and neon signs, isn’t it?

Over the next few days, I will be posting my year-end lists. While I have already been told that there won’t be much of an audience for this type of thing between Christmas and New Years, year-end lists are kind of hallowed ground to me, and I like to remain as pure as possible when it comes to these. You’ll get a couple of singles-oriented lists, with the big album list on New Years Eve.

I would tell you that I am here to wish you Happy Holidays from the staff and management of Pop Music Notes, but, alas, they all walked out on me on day one, so please allow me to speak for the “company”. When I think of this time of year, I think of all the warm and fizzy fuzzy things like family, giving, hope and renewal. However, it’s been a rough year for so many folks. While I have felt like I got the short end of the stick on so many things over the past 12 months, there are so many people out there who would envy my “troubles” and trade for them in a heartbeat with their own. In this season of giving, please remember those who don’t have the luxury of taking things like a job, food, shelter, and warm clothing for granted. My charity of choice this year has been the Ali Forney Center (with a huge h/t to Joe.My.God), and if you need a suggestion, I think this one would be a wonderful choice. However, no matter where your gift of time or money goes, I’m sure it will be appreciated.

So here’s my Christmas wish to you…may you be surrounded by the family and friends of your choosing who love and care for you, may your mind and soul be at peace, and may you carry an appropriate tune with you as your journey continues on. Because life without music…well, let’s not go there. Be well, my friends.

And now, to answer a question posted a few weeks ago, here’s my favorite Christmas song. It’s as relevant now as it was when it was first recorded.

Video Notables – Beyonce Two-Fer

Posted by John on December 23, 2008
Posted in: videos, youtube. Tagged: , , . 3 Comments

Holding true to form, Beyonce drops not one, but two videos from her current ‘I Am…” CD. Video #1 is from the softer side of Be, and in my eyes, it’s the most disappointing part of the record. “Halo” sounds like “No Air”, “T-Shirt”, and all of the other sound alikes that emerged when “Umbrella” became so popular. From a visual perspective, simply overexposing the frames does NOT make your video angelic. It’s getting to the point where it looks like the record company said “you can do two videos at a time, but you’re only getting the budget for one of your usual videos. Make it work!” Tim Gunn would be most disappointed…

For Beyonce’s Ying, there’s gotta be Sasha’s Yang. And her Yang is doing it’s thang in the video for “Diva”. It’s a Beyonce Dance-a-palooza, with an edgy feel to it. That is, if you define “edgy” as black and white, dim lighting, and Lady GaGa-inspired outfits. Here’s the interesting thing about the video for me, though. While a lot of the young’uns will look at this video and scream “she’s ripping off the Lady!”, she really isn’t. Ladies have been doing coordinated dance routines for years, and there’s as much early Mary J. Blige in this dance routine as there is GaGa. Shoulder pads do not make a GaGa. Now that REALLY futuristic outfit just seems inserted for bragging rights or something. Makes her look like a fancy perfume bottle sitting on someone’s dresser that only gets touched once a year, and for good reason.

What’s the verdict? After the fully-fleshed out videos of Round 1, Round 2 is a huge disappointment. Here’s hoping that Round 3 sees the release of “Sweet Dreams” (aka “Beautiful Nightmare”). It just seems like the dual release worked once, but to go to that again is a bit much