Posts tagged new releases

Come September 28, Bowie fans will be giddy with EMI’s reissues of David Bowie’s 1976 classic Station to Station firmly grasped in their clammy hands.

One package will feature a three-CD Special Edition of the album with video and audio from the Nassau Coliseum show that occurred March 23, 1976. But for the extreme Bowie freaks, there is the Super Deluxe Limited Edition, as shown above, that features the CDs, LPs, EPs, DVDs and countless memorabilia of the album’s era, including a reprint of a Bowie Fan Club membership card, posters and badges. As the latter characterization of Bowie fan, I will see you all on the street outside of the nearest Best Buy Sept. 28.

Pitchfork has all of the juicy details, but here are some of the tracks listed.

Station to Station Special Edition:

Station to Station (original analog master):

01 Station to Station
02 Golden Years
03 Word on a Wing
04 TVC15
05 Stay
06 Wild Is the Wind

Live Nassau Coliseum ‘76 (part one):

01 Station to Station
02 Suffragette City
03 Fame
04 Word on a Wing
05 Stay
06 Waiting for the Man
07 Queen Bitch

Live Nassau Coliseum ‘76 (part two):

01 Life on Mars?
02 Five Years
03 Panic in Detroit
04 Changes
05 TVC15 
06 Diamond Dogs
07 Rebel Rebel
08 The Jean Genie

By Alicia Fiorletta

Eminem’s newest album is breaking chart records.

To some, he was a music industry phenomenon. To others, he was a social threat that promoted violence. But to most, Eminem was the voice of a generation.

Since his 1999 major-label debut The Slim Shady LP, the artist also known as Marshall Mathers has been recognized for obliterating enemies with his venomous tongue and creating coarse narrative that showcased his less-than-humble upbringings in Detroit.

No one was untouchable in the white rapper’s material. His mother and even his then-wife and mother of his children Kim were the main and fatal targets of his tracks. But it was his walking-time bomb flow and raging swagger that drew in fans and haters alike.

With six albums under his belt, Shady has more gusto than ever. Focusing more on his inner demons than his beefs and annoyances in the outside world, his newest album Recovery is proving after each moment of turbulence, the man can still break records like no other MC in today’s game. 

According to Billboard, Eminem is officially the top-selling artist of 2010, selling 741,000 copies its first week and topping the Billboard 200 chart. Recovery is also the highest-selling release since AC/DC’s Black Ice in 2008 with 784,000 units sold. The album surpasses the first week sales for the rapper’s last two albums — Relapse, which closed its first week with 608,000 units sold in 2009, and 2005’s Curtain Call, which sold 441,000 units.

Recovery is the MC’s sixth straight number-one debut, trailing behind only hip-hop entrepreneur Jay-Z for most number-one albums in the genre. Hova holds the record with 11.

Eminem also managed to break digital records, racking in 255,000 downloads of the LP in its first week. As a result, he holds the number two spot for the most digital downloads sold in a single week of all time. Coldplay’s Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends holds the ultimate record, with 288,000 downloads in its first during the summer of 2008. 

 However, the most impressive record he is inches from breaking is being held by rock legends the Beatles. Slim Shady stands firmly at the number two spot for most consecutive number-one debuts. With six albums debuting at the top of the charts in the last decade, the Brits are the only ones standing in the way, with eight consecutive number-one debuts from 1965-69.

Despite the countless protests against his work, Eminem has claimed his relevancy in the mainstream music circuit and in hip-hop history. He has the spunk to continue growing as a musician despite setbacks and emotional demons, but it’s safe to say this Recovery will help guide the way.

It was in 1865 that Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, known by most as Lewis Carroll, created the ultimate adventure of a spunky blonde-haired girl trudging through a dark and mad world where a queen decapitated her subjects and zany tea parties were a regular occurrence.

An array of interpretations followed the conception of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” including nearly 30 films, 10 TV shows and inspiration for bands such as Jefferson Airplane and the Beatles. Most well-known is Walt Disney’s take on the tale, although it has been criticized for being a soft and false take on the work.

Cult-movie hero Tim Burton veers in favor of the original in his twisted vision of “Alice in Wonderland,” starring Mia Wasikowska as a 19-year-old Alice.

Although the film is meant to be more of a sequel, she follows the spunk of Carroll’s child-heroine by making her independent and unwilling to settle, having hints of a pre-Suffrage Movement attitude.

In Burton’s film, Alice experiences reoccurring nightmares for more than a decade. These nightmares feature a white rabbit, a do-do bird and a mad hatter.

After Alice runs away from an intervention-like engagement party to a revolting redhead, she tumbles down the rabbit hole to follow the ever-timely white rabbit. Her childhood nightmares become a reality after she is knocked around the secret passage and makes her way to Wonderland. However she is told by its talkative inhabitants that it is in fact called Underland, not Wonderland.

As she meets the quirky creatures of Underland, Alice learns that she may not be new to the world at all. The Mad Matter (Johnny Depp) and his eerie accomplices show her the world’s bible, a trusted scroll called the Oraculum, which explains her past visits.

It also foretells the overthrowing of the evil Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) and the return of the pure-hearted White Queen (Anne Hathaway). For this to happen, though, Alice must first become true to herself and get her sense of “muchness” back to slay the Red Queen’s most deadly weapon — the Jabberwocky.

Alongside Depp and Bonham Carter, the cast features some of the acting world’s top creative minds, including Stephen Fry voicing a creepy Cheshire Cat and Alan Rickman as Absolem, the hookah-smoking Blue Caterpillar. The interpretations of these characters put a more intense and melancholy twist than Disney’s film.

However, with the elements of 3-D, CGI, animation and real life meshed together, it becomes borderline psychedelic and a sheer trip for an all-age audience.

Although Burton’s elements for the physicality of Underland are creative in execution, the final product seems somewhat expected. It’s a journey half-way there — a goal reached, but not quite met. More so, it seemed that certain inner-characterizations were lacking.

Depp’s Hatter was spot-on, with him getting inspiration of the Hatter’s bi-polar outbursts and orange-tinged fingertips and hair from pure research. Felt hats made in the 18th and 19th centuries contained mercury and seeped into the skin, causing mental illness and a hint of tangerine, making the character scientifically accurate and entertaining.

However, the overall message of “Alice” falls flat. The concept of discovery and the power of the inner-self are hinted at, especially by the Blue Caterpillar. It’s evident that when it comes time for the movie’s end, the resolution of the plot is met, but for the characters it is insignificant. This makes the conclusion less-than-satisfactory, when in fact, it should be victorious.

The Philadelphia-based group will release their new album Blue Sky Noise April 20. Until then, to appease their fans and ever-praisers, their new track “Get Out” not only gives a glimpse of CS’s advancements as a group, but a nice revisit to the sound loyal listeners love.

Lead singer Anthony Green’s vocals are stronger than ever—hefty and passionate. The pounding drums compliment the swooping guitars as Green croons “Lock myself up in a room/without a window/ just to see if it was any easier to breath/I was wrong.” The lyrics are torturous and self-loathing in a seemingly mocking way. It’s not worth it to try, although this motif has a tinge of frustrated hope. There has to be more, right? That’s what Green seems to be searching and asking for.

A flowing guitar solo follows a scream, heavy syncopation follows a warble, and thus ends the roller coaster ride that is just the beginning for CS and fans, come the release of Blue Sky Noise.

It’s no new development that Fall Out Boy is finished. They say hiatus, we say dunzo. At the end of the day, their royalties checks still come in the mail, so hey, everyone’s happy.

However, the newest interview from SPIN.com with former-lead singer Patrick Stump shows that he’s not only drifting from his three bandmates, he’s abandoning the genre all together.

A video on Stump’s web site shows him recording instrumentals for an untitled track, infused with a funk rhythm and techno-inspired keyboard part (which I’m guessing will eventually turn to synth). This demo is just the beginning of Stump’s forceful journey into the funk realm.

Gearing inspiration from Prince, the untitled album due for a summer release is a somewhat skeptical concept. He has the soul in him, and he has experience producing tracks for some of Gym Class Heroes’ funkiest, sample-driven tracks, but can this really work 12 or 13 times in a coherent album without being obnoxious?

“It’s like, ‘What kind of record do I put out? Am I a singer? Am I trying to impress people with my songwriting? Or my skills as an instrumentalist? Am I going to be avant-garde? Who am I?!?’” Stump says. “It’s a new and interesting challenge,” he told SPIN.

With someone whose “default setting” is funk, it seems like quite a turbulent road to venture on. Turbulent or rather, planned by marketing agents?

FOB’s out of the picture, Wentz’s mouth is shut and his eyes are full of crocodile tears, Hurley and Trohman are probably more happy than they’ve been in years, and here’s the kicker, folks, Stump is thin again!

Let’s get the girls into funk because he may be bald, but at least he’s cute. Buy your “Purple Rain” shirts now, because pretty soon, they’ll be very hard to find.

The following is a review I wrote for Muse’s “The Uprising.” This article was originally published in William Paterson University’s The Pioneer Times. It’s published here for portfolio purposes. Read on, enjoy.

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Haunting progressive-rock-space-tinged-instrumentalism — does this bizarre concoction of music genres even exist?

After the release of Muse’s “The Resistance,” it certainly does. And, to put it bluntly, any artist willing to make an attempt at this concept of creativity has quite a standard to live up to. The English rockers have raised the bar since their 2006 album, “Black Holes and Revelations,” by creating a flowing concept piece (vocalist Matt Bellamy claims the album was inspired by the love story of Juliette and Winston in “1984.”), while sticking to the quintessential “Muse sound” and throwing in natural homage to their musical influences. Bellamy, Chris Wolstenholme (backing vocals/bass) and Dominic Howard (drums) successfully create a turbulent journey for listeners.

The Resistance kicks off with their first single “Uprising.” Political overtones set to claps and a Depeche Mode-style arrangement. Synths, catchy guitars, and pulsating drums add an encouraging urgency as vocalist Bellamy belts out the chorus “They will not force us/They will stop degrading us/They will not control us/We will be victorious,” inspiring the chanting background vocals. However, the political aspect isn’t merely venom-tongued and bitter. In the following song, “Resistance,” Bellamy sings of a sacred yet forbidden love, forced apart by unnamed forces.

The title track seems to create a bottomless pit in your stomach at the build up to the chorus. The vocals are nothing short of angelic and create an edge as haunting harmonies back Bellamy, which sounds obviously inspired by Queen. Although it seems a bit tongue-in-cheek, in the end it’s so enthralled in bittersweet passion that’s too strong to be ignored. Although the Queen inspiration is evident in a few other songs (“United States of Eurasia” and “Guiding Light”), the executions of the arrangements never reach try-hard status. Rather, it seems genuine.

“Undisclosed Desires” shows traditional Muse, while mixing in a hint of Nine Inch Nails-inspired techno with an edge. This stated “edge,” is finished off with a full-string melody. “Unnatural Selection” also has the powerful rock edge and catchy guitar licks that Muse has become known for. However, it’s the elements of classical music that is refreshing and brings the work to another level. The last three tracks are literally a symphony, mixing an orchestra and the band, with Bellamy crooning along.

Muse has rightfully received stellar reviews for The Resistance. This band isn’t a hype or a trend. If anything, they are just beginning to gain the exposure they deserve. The Resistance may be the best album of the year, if not for its musical complexities, but for its pure passion.