Dan Henrick of Playboy.com is wearing out his iPod to bring you this report:
Until recently, Sweden’s most popular exports have been moody, black-and-white art films, an amply gifted bikini team, and affordable furniture for college students and the newly divorced. And then there’s always ABBA. So it’s a bit of a shock to discover the sudden wave of remarkable female pop singers coming out of the land of high cheekbones.
-The most notable is Robyn (pictured), a pop dynamo who recently collaborated with Snoop Dogg on the single “Sexual Eruption.” Her own tracks, “Be Mine!” and “Konichiwa Bitches” are explosively catchy too.
-El Perro Del Mar is the pseudonym of Sarah Assbring (please, no jokes). Her new album “From the Valley to the Stars” merges Wall of Sound arrangements with a sweet, subtle melancholy.
The opening paragraph presents Lil’ d (as opposed to Big D, Dallas, 35 miles to the south) as a classic Texas town as imagined by a New Yorker. Piggly-Wiggly supermarkets! Pawnshops! Football fever! Yee-Haw!
Yes we have Piggly-Wigglys, lovingly referred to as “the pig” and barely patronized. Yes, we have pawnshops. So does NYC. Yes, one of our local colleges, University of North Texas (Texas’s fourth largest university) has a football team. Last year our record was two and twelve and our home games averaged 18,000 fans. The average for other NCAA Division IA games? 46,000. Yep. We’re crazy about our football, just like Texan stereotypes should be.
Curiously, our gourmet sushi restaurant, historic home district, and “South Denton” shopping haven, complete with such bourgeois trappings as a Barnes and Noble bookstore, Starbucks and multiplex theater, went unreported.
Thanks to Brian Eno, Antonia Simigis of Playboy.com thinks maybe the popular band might be, uh, okay:
Pop culture critic Chuck Klosterman declared that "Coldplay is absolutely the shittiest fucking band I've ever heard in my entire fucking life" in 2004's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. New York Times music critic Jon Pareles seconded that emotion in his classic 2005 piece "The Case Against Coldplay," deeming the Brits "the most insufferable band of the decade." (The fact that the group took out a full-page ad for its album X & Y in the paper that day is still delicious irony.) The Coldplay backlash -- something I've always enthusiastically supported -- is nothing new, but the fact that I'm still forced to hear Chris Martin's grating Thom Yorke-wannabe falsetto on "Clocks" while grocery shopping is a regular twist-the-knife reminder of how much I hate this band.
Earlier this week, intern Seth Fiegerman, acting wholly on his own, attended a concert. While we devise the appropriate response, you may read his report:
On Monday night, I saw The Verve perform at the first of their two concerts in Madison Square Garden. Richard Ashcroft, the pretentious yet affable lead singer, walked onstage wearing a full raincoat with the hood up. Ten minutes later, the coat was off, as were his shoes, socks and most of his shirt.
“Time obviously hasn’t made us any less psychedelic,” Ashcroft announced to the audience. “Just more weird.”
The Verve broke up in 1999 at the peak of their popularity, after having just released their third album Urban Hymns, which featured the huge international hit, “Bittersweet Symphony.” This was not the first time the band dissolved, but it certainly seemed like it would be the last. Over the summer, the band announced they were reuniting for a tour and eventually a new album. Last week, they played their first show in America in nearly a decade, performing at the Coachella festival in California.
At virtually the same time Seth was seeing The Verve, intern emeritus Ben Conniff attended a different concert. While we attempt to figure out if a trend is at work, here’s Ben’s report.
In one of my favorite Paul Simon songs, the time-tested songwriter laments, “down the decades every year, summer leaves and my birthday’s here, and all my friends stand up and cheer and say ‘man, you’re old.” He wrote that almost a decade ago. And yet, as Simon wrapped up his month-long residency at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last weekend, he pulled out the same fresh, unadorned voice and playful humor that have been his trademark for all those decades. And in the process, the old man outplayed all the young disciples who came to honor him.
Maude Maggart has gained a following by singing standards such as “Always” and “Star Dust.” In her new show “Speaking of Dreams” which runs at the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel through May 10, she adds some modern songs to her repertoire. Maggart met with Playboy‘s Joe Westerfield to discuss her new show, the state of cabaret, and her sister Fiona Apple.
PLAYBOY: How does someone your age, 33, get into cabaret? MAGGART: I sang a standard at the funeral of family friend, composer Marshall Barer, and the singer Andrea Marcovicci heard me. Afterward she told me I should consider singing that kind of song and offered to help me. A couple of years went by before I took her up on it. She asked what I was interested in and suggested music from the 1920s and 1930s because she thought that would be appropriate for my voice. Then she helped me pick out songs, create my first show and get a booking at the Algonquin.
PLAYBOY: Most people think of cabaret as Marlene Dietrich singing in a dingy dark room. How would you disabuse them of that notion? MAGGART: First of all cabaret is noun, not an adjective. One of the worst abusers of that is Simon Cowell, who always says “Oh, you’re toooo cabaret.” He doesn’t seem to know what the word means. A cabaret is a room where people traditionally sing songs from the Great American Songbook, but they don’t have to.
Like his music, Ben Watkins has been on an epic journey. His name might not sound familiar but he has been involved with various bands and genres of music, including the scoring of several films. Today he releases his seventh Juno Reactor album, Gods and Monsters (check out our review right here). We recently caught up with the artist to discuss the past, present and future of his band.
PLAYBOY: Gods and Monsters is one of your most ambitious efforts to date. Can you tell us a little bit about the recording process and why it took almost four years to follow-up Labyrinth? WATKINS: On Gods & Monsters I didn’t have a road map, or if I did, it was three-dimensional and I felt I could go anywhere—try out anything under the Juno Reactor flag. I usually go pretty mad as I enter the vortex of an album, not a good time to be around me, nothing seems to make sense. I get job envy and I usually wish I were a marine biologist. Slowly the pieces come together, harder on this album as I saw it as a driving album not club, not live, just driving with your iPod on shuffle.
Independent records stores have been pronounced dead continuously ever since the days of disco. But guess what? They have more lives than a litter of kittens. We could wax rhapsodic about our love for dusty bins and know-it-all clerks, but it sounds better coming from Paul McCartney, Joan Jett and Norah Jones. These celebrities and several more lend their support to Record Store Day, happening TOMORROW- Saturday, April 19th, 2008. Hundreds of these supposedly extant music stores will open their doors to in-store performances, great sales and maybe even some freebies. Visit RecordStoreDay.com to read the stars’ quotes and find participating music stores near you.
Not sure you’ve seen a music store besides iTunes in a while? We put together a short list of our favorite spots in the U.S. (though Canadian stores are participating too) to get you going:
Copy Editor Joe Westerfield has been putting on his top hat and steppin’ out. Here’’s his report:
In “Speaking of Dreams,” Maude Maggart’s excellent new show at the Oak Room—that perfect setting for cabaret singers in New York’s Algonquin Hotel—Ms. Maggart, who usually mines some of the more obscure nooks and crannies of Tin Pan Alley for her work, adds a some more-recently composed songs to her repertoire.
The show’s theme is the connections between dreams and love. But this isn’t just a girlie-girl show—due in no small part to the heat Ms. Maggart brings to the more romantic songs. Cabaret doesn’t usually get this hot.
That added dimension comes though whether she sings “Isn’t It Romantic”—and making everyone forget the dozens of times we’ve heard it in films—or songs more often associated with Joan Baez, Cass Elliot and Helen Forrest.
Ms. Maggart doesn’t try to evoke Judy Garland with “Over the Rainbow,” and the results are excellent. She sings about rainbows in two other songs “Look to the Rainbow” (Finian’s Rainbow) and “The Rainbow Connection,” and while I’ll never forget Kermit’s rendition of the latter in The Muppet Movie, Ms. Maggart does manage to hold her own against the velvet frog.
If you’ve never heard of Juno Reactor, there’s still a pretty good chance you’ve heard their work before. The band, fronted my mastermind Ben Watkins, has remixed and produced tracks with Traci Lords and Siouxsie Sioux (Siouxsie and the Banshees/The Creatures), and had tracks featured in movies such as Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Juno’s biggest, most recent break was their collaboration with composer Don Davis that resulted in a handful of kick-ass tracks for the last two Matrix movies.
In late 2004, the band put out their sixth studio album titled Labyrinth, a masterful work that combined elements of trance, industrial-rock, tribal/Celtic music and an arsenal of orchestrated strings. Now, Juno Reactor is set to unleash its seventh album, Gods and Monsters, on April 22nd, and it is no less amazing than its predecessor. The album continues the Juno tradition of featuring talented musicians and vocalists from across the globe. This time around we have singers Ghetto Priest, Taz Alexander and Yasmin Levy; guitarists Sugizo, Eduardo Niebla and Steve Stevens (Billy Idol); pianist Mike Garson (David Bowie/Nine Inch Nails); drummer Greg Ellis (Beck/Billy Idol) and many more.
Ladytron has posted a free MP3 from their upcoming album, Velocifero, due in June. The UK combo returns to its darkwave origins on the track, with a cold hard beat and brooding analogue synths backing Mira Aroyo's Bulgarian-language musings. Grab the new song here.
“I’m back from hell with a story tell,” sings lead vocalist Imani Coppola in Little Jackie’s “Black Barbie,” a tongue-in-cheek send-up of the media’s obsession with the comings and goings of Paris, Britney, Lindsay and their ilk. The New York-based duo certainly knows how to wrap innuendos around smooth beats influenced by ‘70s funk, ‘60s doo-wop and modern hip-hop. The “Black Barbie” video, which features dolls in all sorts of compromising positions, boasts the most impressive toy sex since Team America: World Police. Little Jackie’s debut album, The Stoop, is due out on June 10 from S-Curve Records.
Ben Conniff still has his Irish up from Monday. Here is his report:
As Conor and Rocky pointed out on Monday, the idea that U2 has come to represent Ireland’s music is heresy to us Irish Americans. So this St. Patrick’s Day I found myself craving some real Irish melody, or as my dear mother calls it, “deedly-dee music.” As luck would have it, The Chieftains were tuning up just down the street at Carnegie Hall, so I headed over to celebrate my heritage the traditional way.
The Chieftains have certainly been around a while. They’ve played with the likes of Joni Mitchell and fellow Irishman Van Morrison, and as head man Paddy Moloney pointed out at the beginning of the show, they’ve been together one year longer than the Rolling Stones. But despite their age they performed with energy, passion, and stamina—the show went on for almost three hours. Their whirlwind fiddle, flute, and whistle licks showed that they hadn’t lost any dexterity or lung capacity, and my distant kinsman Michael Conneff mixed a clear tenor voice with some salty Irish humor.
Dan Henrick of Playboy.com is wearing out his iPod to bring you this report:
Intern Callie Enlow has been reading the paper. She is surprised by what she’s learned.
Earlier this week, intern Seth Fiegerman, acting wholly on his own, attended a concert. While we devise the appropriate response, you may read his report:
At virtually the same time Seth was seeing The Verve, intern emeritus Ben Conniff attended a different concert. While we attempt to figure out if a trend is at work, here’s Ben’s report.
Maude Maggart has gained a following by singing standards such as “Always” and “Star Dust.” In her new show “Speaking of Dreams” which runs at the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel through May 10, she adds some modern songs to her repertoire. Maggart met with Playboy‘s Joe Westerfield to discuss her new show, the state of cabaret, and her sister Fiona Apple.
Like his music, Ben Watkins has been on an epic journey. His name might not sound familiar but he has been involved with various bands and genres of music, including the scoring of several films. Today he releases his seventh 
Intern Callie Enlow strikes this appeal:
If you’ve never heard of 
Ben Conniff still has his Irish up from Monday. Here is his report: