One man's journey as he experiences life, music, culture, sex and love.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Friday Video #68: Bob Mould
I've been enjoying the latest Bob Mould album District Line, which was released earlier this month. He's best known as the guitarist, singer, and songwriter for rock bands Hüsker Dü in the 1980s and Sugar in the 90s. He's also released several solo records as well. Here is a video of the electronic press kit promoting the District Line CD.
You can listen to all of the tracks from District Line from Bob's Last.fm page, and his MySpace page is also currently streaming several tracks from that album
BTW Bob will be performing at the Trocadero in Philadelphia on March 14. Hopefully I will be there.
Last week I mentioned about Capitol Records's indesicion on what would be the first US single off of Kylie Minogue's X album. Well they've chosen "All I See" as the first US single. Not a bad choice really--I remember listening to this when X first came out back in November thinking that it sounded like something that the US label would pick to get on US radio. Lyrics are kind of a bunch of cliches but of course this is aimed at the Clear Channel radio stations which are not exactly a hotbed of musical sophisication. Nice understated delivery by Kylie that makes it worth listening to. (Though I still stand by my decision that "Sensitize" would have made a better US single.)
Hedging their bets on getting US radio airplay, the company is releasing a rent-a-rapper remix (how innovative...not!) of "All I See" featuring Mims, best known for his US hit single "This Is Why I'm Hot." (He's also featured on a remix of Enur's "Calabria 2007," which is currently rising on the US pop charts.):
IMHO the remix sounds quite forced and it doesn't really add anything to the song (outside of getting US radio programmers's attention); rather it destroys any subtilies the song has. I hope that that the US top 40 stations will ignore this remix and just go for the original album version instead.
"All I See" will be released in North America on March 11.
Earlier this week it seemed like every news outlet and program fell for the "story" about the Starbucks chain closing the doors at almost 7,100 of its U.S. coffee shops for three hours on Tuesday...just to give the baristas a refresher course on espresso standards.
Okay, is this supposed to be "news?" Talk about being a corporate lapdog.
With all that coverage you'd think that Britney Spears had died and Starbucks was paying tribute to her frequent patronage in the past few months by flying the flag half-mast at all of its franchises.
Last week (February 12) Kylie Minogue's X album finally got released in the U.S., but it's just being digitally released on iTunes and other legal download outlets. It was also supposed to be released as a physical CD, but it seems to be pushed back to March now. Considering that Kylie's US label Capitol haven't even clearly decided what song will be as the first single in this country at this point, so it wouldn't be surprising if they cancel plans for putting out a physical CD. It's a shame considering that X is a joy to listen to.
Anyway this is the video to "Wow," the second UK and Australian single from her album. It was directed by Melina Matsoukas. While I do like this song, I think that there are better tracks off the album that would make better singles than this. Anyway, this video reminds me of her classic "Spinning Around" clip, which both videos take place in a nightclub; only "Wow" uses more vibrabt colors.
BTW I heard through some Kylie fan forum boards that this was going to be the first single, but so far the track hasn't been sent out to the various US dance radio outlets, nor has its mixes been put up on US iTunes.
Now here is the video to "In My Arms," which was released as the second single to other European countries. It was also directed by Melina Matsoukas, who filmed both videos in Los Angeles in early Janurary 2008. Better choice for a single than "Wow." Love the 80s new wave retro-look she's sporting here!
If I had to make a choice of what was going to be the first US single, I would have to pick "Sensitized." It wouldn't sound out of place with all that R&B and hip-hop on US pop radio right now, but it still retains its own identity. Here is Kylie performing the song on her The Kylie ShowTV special, which aired in the UK late last year. (She recycles her infamous European Agent Provocateur commerical with the broncing bronco.)
Friday Video #66: Dancing Free Until The Morning Light
On Tuesday February 12, dance pop singer Amber released her latest single "This Is Your Night 2008," which is a re-recording of her 1996 hit. The new version was produced and remixed by Pathos V2 (a/k/a Wolfram Dettki, who has produced her last two albums). Amber said that she decided to re-record the song was because she got a lot of requests for it but the original version was held up by red tape with Warner Brothers, which currently owns the song (and her albums up until Amber Remixed). The new version of "This Is Your Night" is worth giving a listen to; it's got some nice spacey/trancey elements to it.
Above is the new video for "This Is Your Night 2008). It was directed by Rob Graydon.
I thought that I'd also include the video to the original version of "This Is Your Night" as well. Here it looked liked the people who made that video had seen some of Kylie Minogue's early 90's videos like "Better The Devil You Know" and decided to make it like that.
"This Is Your Night" would be the biggest pop hit for Amber in the US--it reached #24 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart.
"This Is Your Night 2008" is now availible as a legal download on digital sites on iTunes and Amazon.com.
Yes I know that I haven't posted anything here in the past couple of weeks. I guess I haven't been feeling inspired right now to write even though there are thing worth posting about. I'm going through a big depression spell for the past few months and it has really affected my writing output. I'm not sure why. Maybe if I just post anything maybe it'll help me with getting over that bump.
Will post some more later tonight.
Does anyone else go through dry spells with their blogs as well?
