Red White and Blues

Brendan Benson wants us to know that these colors don't run (or something to that effect). Go get your free download of Red White and Blues right here so you can have a rockin' Independence Day!

MP3: Brendan Benson - Red White and Blues

There Will Be No Trumpets Blowing

Guided By Voices is reuniting! Unfortunately it's only to play a show and not to record a new album or kick off a full-scale tour. Matador Records is celebrating its 21st Anniversary with a series of shows in Vegas October 1-3. The GBV crew of the mid-90s is going to steal the show!

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Trust in Desire

The Charlatans are releasing their 11th album Who We Touch on September 6, which hopefully means we'll see it in the states the next day. I'm astonished they're on their 11th album. I was really into their first few albums, but they lost me somewhere in those middle years. The last two albums have been quite good, which makes me think I should probably revisit those that I've missed. My favorite is probably their second, Between 10th and 11th, and I'm surprised Tim Burgess called it a "bit too much of a curveball." Hmm. No. Sounded just right to me at the time.

Here is more on the new one:

So, existentially, culturally, commercially, ‘Who We Touch’ is a big record for The Charlatans. In places, you may hear echoes, or hommages, reflecting music the band collectively hold dear – The Stooges, perhaps, in ‘Love Is Ending’’s crashing riff; The Byrds in Mark Collins’s solo on ‘My Foolish Pride’; etc etc – but they are still unmistakably themselves, only remodelled, reimagined, re-energized.

And here's the tracklist:

Love Is Ending
My foolish Pride
Your Pure Soul
Smash The System
Intimacy
Sincerity
Trust In Desire
When I Wonder
Oh!
You Can Swim

Read all about it here.

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Well I Tell Them There's No Problem, Only Solutions

Big news for John Lennon fans today. In honor of what would have been his 70th birthday this year, a new campaign called Gimme Some Truth hopes to net Yoko some more big bucks. His eight classic solo albums are being remastered and rereleased:

· John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970)
· Imagine (1971)
· Some Time In New York City (1972)
· Mind Games (1973)
· Walls and Bridges (1974)
· Rock ‘n’ Roll (1975)
· Double Fantasy Stripped Down (2010) / Double Fantasy (1980)
· Milk and Honey (1984)

Double Fantasy is the most curious one in the collected. Stripped Down? Was anybody really clamoring for a stripped down version ala Let It Be Naked? Feels like a bit of a money grab to me. Nonetheless, it'll be great to hear the classic remastered. Other notable releases in the campaign:

· A hits compilation in two editions titled Power To The People: The Hits
· A 4CD set of themed discs titled Gimme Some Truth
· A deluxe 11CD collectors box with the remastered albums, rarities, and non-album singles, titled the John Lennon Signature Box

It'll be a good year for Lennon fans. Hopefully we McCartney fans won't have to wait 20 years after his death for his catalog to get similar treatment.

Find all the details here. 

Where Were You While We Were Getting High?

It's nice to see a post about Oasis by a legitimate website that doesn't succumb to mockery. With the exception of a few tunes Oasis was never cool enough for us in the U.S., but they were a significant force elsewhere. Now is your chance to revisit their singles with the release of Time Flies...1994-2008. Popdose gives credit where credit is due.

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The More You Change The Less You Feel

Levi's continues its cover-your-inspiration Pioneer Sessions with a stellar, synthy version of the Smashing Pumpkins' Tonight Tonight by Passion Pit.

It's free. Now go buy some Levi's.

MP3: Passion Pit - Tonight, Tonight (Smashing Pumpkins)

via TwentyFourBit

There's Nothing to Say

You'll see this story replicated ad nauseam everywhere else in the online music world so why not throw Too Poppy into the mix.

RADIOHEAD WILL BE RELEASING A NEW ALBUM THIS YEAR! AND GUITARIST ED O'BRIEN SAID, "IT'S THE BEST RECORD WE EVER MADE."

This is truly newsworthy because most guitarists tell their fans prior to its release that their band's new album is complete shit.

Break the Silence

In a break from my norm, one of my favorite albums of the year so far is Nada Surf's If I Had a Hi-Fi.

It's not that I don't like Nada Surf - I do, very much. It's that Hi-Fi is an album of covers, which I'm typically indifferent toward. But Nada Surf owns every cover as if it was their own composition so the entire album seems less like a mix-tape than most cover albums. The song selection is unmatched in balancing the well-known (Enjoy the Silence, Question) with the lesser-known (Electrocution, Evolution). This balance is tricky, but the flow of the first five songs alone justifies the entire album's existence.

To me, Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence is the most recognizable tune, but if you had never heard it before you'd swear it was a Nada Surf tune. Their handling of the classic reanimates it to fit in nicely with the band's oeuvre - quite an achievement.

I picked it up a while back during Record Store Day, but they just widely released it earlier this month. Get it and reminisce about old favorite tunes while listening to them through an accomplished Nada Surf filter.

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Download the Electrocution MP3 free! Find the link here.

All I ask of music is that is sounds good.

Ben Folds has announced a new album and it's intriguing...

The album features music and vocals by Folds and lyrics by [High Fidelity author Nick] Hornby, with string arrangements by one of the most influential pop string arrangers of all time, Paul Buckmaster (David Bowie, Elton John, Leonard Cohen). The record, which Folds made specifically to be listened to on vinyl, was recorded on 2-inch tape and will be available on audiophile-grade vinyl, cut with the Direct Metal Master process at Abbey Road Studios and pressed at Pallas Manufacturing in Diepholz, Germany. Lonely Avenue will also be available on CD, digitally, and in a special deluxe edition that includes four short stories by Hornby.

Lonely Avenue is out September 28. I'm a big fan of both so it can't come out soon enough. Read more here.

Looking Up

Grab a free MP3 of Looking Up, a brand new tune from the Eels from the upcoming Tomorrow Morning due out several tomorrow mornings from now - August 24.

Previously...

You Want a Better Kind of Future

Here is the full list of upcoming Paul McCartney shows on his Up and Coming tour. He's really announced only a few shows at a time so who knows if he'll show up anywhere else. Regardless, never miss an opportunity to see Sir Paul!

Sunday 20th June – Hampden Park, Glasgow
Saturday 26th June – Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
Sunday 27th June – Hard Rock Calling, London
Saturday 10th July - AT&T Stadium San Francisco
Tuesday 13th July - Rio Tinto Stadium, Salt Lake City
Thursday 15th July - Pepsi Center Denver
Saturday July 24th - Sprint Center Kansas
Monday 26th July - Bridgestone Arena Nashville
Wednesday 28th July - Time Warner Cable Arena Charlotte
Sunday 8th August - Air Canada Centre Toronto
Thursday 12th August - Bell Centre Montreal
Saturday 14th August - Wachovia Center, Philadelphia
Wednesday 18th August - CONSOL Energy Center Pittsburgh

Buy tix here. Shows are selling out quickly!

Nothing Stands Between Us Here

Sarah's new album, Laws of Illusion, is available today. I've not had a chance to download or listen, but I'm hoping it's good. A few of her songs have popped up on my iPod recently and I really do yearn for some really good new Sarah.

If you have had a listen, please let us know how it is in the comments!

If you prefer, iTunes

There's Always a Way to End This Isolation

In the countdown to the release of Crowded House's new album Intriguer in Australia this week, they are streaming tracks on various news websites. You should be able to access them from anywhere, though. For those of us in the US, we still have more than a month to wait for its official release (7/13).

Pre-order via Amazon.com or the import if you just can't wait.

A Little Touch, A Little Taste, The Pheromones Embrace

Sarah McLachlan's new album Laws of Illusion comes out next week, but you can stream the whole dang thing on her Facebook page. I'll reserve judgment until I actually have a chance to listen, but I remain hopeful that she will regain that edge she once had and still exhibits on occasion.

Pre-order via Amazon.com

UPDATE: A great interview with Sarah in the Toronto Star. Sarah is sad.

She's Like a Star Tonight

I've been meaning to write about Broken Bells for months now but I've been too busy listening to it. The collaboration between Danger Mouse and The Shins' James Mercer just might be permanently burned into my iPod after all the plays its received. It isn't instantly catchy like a lot of Too Poppy music, but once it catches, you can't let go. Clean beats and downer lyrics create quite an atmospheric listen - probably not one to play while boating on a sunny day with your beer-drinking buddies, but when the rain comes we all need something special. Broken Bells is special.

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Check out the new video for falsettoed The Ghost Inside starring that busty lady from Mad Men (well, she is - I dare you to look away). It's cinematically sci-fi and fits the tune quite well.

Wow the Crowd

Metric released one of my favorite albums of 2009 and now have released one of my favorite videos of 2010. From Fantasies, here's Stadium Love (epileptics and agrizoophobics beware)...

What Price Now For a Shallow Piece of Dignity?

Fellow 90s music lovers, brit-rockers Manic Street Preachers and Charlatans both return with new albums this fall. Let's hope we can get them here in the U.S. without paying exorbitant import prices.

You Were Only Waiting For This Moment To Arise

Tonight at 6pm CDT you can stream Paul McCartney's concert at the White House commemorating his receipt of the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. Your local PBS stations will play the performance at another time to check it out in real time tonight.

In completely unrelated news, Sir Paul tells journalists to "lay off" President Obama.

UPDATE: Nevermind. From PBS:

Due to circumstances out of our control, we regret not being able to stream tonight's performance honoring Sir Paul McCartney. Please note the full program will air on PBS on Wednesday, July 28 at 8PM ET.