Their fifth studio release, Re:(disc)overed is a celebration of sorts for the polyglot band’s 10 years in music, and if someone’s gonna let them do it, well heck they’ll do it. They’re auspicious beginnings demand nothing less.

“We chose some that may be unexpected to some just so we could push the Puddle envelope a bit,” said PoM’s lead guitarist Paul Phillips.

He said the new versions of the songs were more tribute than reinvention. “Our goal in interpreting these songs was to pay more tribute rather than reinvent,” Phillips said. “These are all classics that are perfect in every sense, so who are we to mess with that? We just wanted to represent them in their true form and add a little of our sound to them. We cut everything with very few takes and tried to keep it very live like those old seventies records.”

The new album includes: AC/DC’s “TNT,” Steve Miller’s “The Joker,” Elton John’s “Rocket Man,” Billy Squier’s “Everybody Wants You,” Stevie Nicks/Tom Petty’s duet “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” (which Puddle Of Mudd recorded with BC Jean), Steve Miller’s “The Joker,” Free’s “All Right Now,” Bad Company’s “Shooting Star,” James Gang’s “Funk,” Led Zeppelin’s “D’yer Maker,” Neil Young’s “Old Man,” and the first single, The Rolling Stones soulful classic, “Gimme Shelter.”

Wes Scantlin said winnowing down the songs to the final cut brought out the wrinkles, in a way.

“As I’ve become an adult, I’ve realized that I have become my old man,” Scantlin said. “I seem to have inherited the same traits as him, whether they are good or bad. I’ve been listening to that one forever and now I’m living it.”

Puddle Of Mudd have scheduled five shows where the first half of the show they will perform songs from re:(disc)overed followed by the favorites:

July 23 – Webster Theater, Hartford, Connecticut
July 24 – Northern Lights, Clifton Park, New York
July 26 – Hampton Beach Casino, Hampton Beach, New Hampshire
July 28 – Starland Ballroom, Sayreville, New Jersey
July 30 – House of Blues, Cleveland, Ohio

Some information provided from a news release

On top of the unsettling feeling of not being sure for a little while whether the singer was male or female or something in between the overall sound is too light and too inconsistent.

Released May 23, Torches has all the signs of drool-worthy goodness; fun cover art, unafraid to use weird instruments and even more strange rhythm breaks. But I couldn’t shake the feeling they were trying too hard to achieve something that, as of now, is beyond them. The importance of being earnest is not to come across as too earnest.

Someone in this band (Mark Foster) likes to tell stories and’s good at it. It’s easy to gain more respect for the band just reading the lyrics. (Perhaps only reading the lyrics?)

“Pumped Up Kicks” is, by increment, the best tune on the CD. It may be coincidence that this song seems to have had the simplest recording history – recorded, mixed, produced and performed by Mark Foster. Just has a nice lazy beat throughout telling the tale of a modern day teenage cowboy with revenge on his mind. Tells those with the pumped up kicks “you better run, better run, faster than my bullet.” It’s the most pure sound. There’s whistling.

There’s whistling?

That’s followed by the mess of “Call It What You Want.” Too many styles trying to do too little. Seems like it might be a dance tune, a nice little keyboard riff, some annoying beeps in the background which begin to take on too much earspace. Then it opens in a chorus of voices and the crack in the wall of sound causes the whole thing to crumble. I DID still find myself bobbing my head a little, as I did on several others – but I had long since tuned out of caring about the song.

Still, it ends with wise words:

If I don’t conform to what you were born into then you run the other way. / You say, ‘Now what’s your style and who do you listen to?’ Who cares? / Well that rat race ladder-climbing fake-face smile’s got nothing on me.”

“Don’t Stop” starts promising but then buries itself under layers – and those incessant beeps, as if their robot overlord was in the studio having a fit. I honestly had trouble getting past it and chipmunk giggling in the background just, obviously (should’ve been obvious) is unnecessary for the muse in music.

But I kept on listening and it came back to the voice. Being able to sing means letting those pipes rattle and not clog them with 401 different effects to remind us that it’s not just auto-tune that can kill a buzz with buzz.

“Waste” is Muzak lounge music. “I Would Do Anything For You” is the hackiest slackjaw love song going. “Miss You ” is another highlight, where one sound sticks around long enough to make a pleasant, lasting impact. And the rest of the CD comes to a lazy, shrugging end.

It seems as if we’ve been caught in a Ross changing room. Each song tries on a new jacket, looking for a style it can’t find. And you can smell the desperate hope for a worthy destination without a plan for how to get there.

Foster The People out on tour now. They tackled Coachella (without having released an album) and will hit Lollapalooza in August. I missed my chance when they were in Tempe, Arizona. I’d be curious how they sound live. Tell me.

Official website: FosterThePeople.com – Main members: Mark Foster, Vocals, Guitar and Synth. Mark Pontius, Drums. Cubbie Fink (?), Bass.

Tracks
Helena Beat
Pumped Up Kicks
Call it What You Want
Don’t Stop (Color On The Wall)
Waste
I Would Do Anything For You
Houdini
Life On The Nickel
Miss You
Warrant
Broken Jaw

If it wasn’t for one thing, I would think this band represents the second coming of Jesus. Well, his support band.

“It’s A Good Thing” has an insanely catchy opening riff, that instantly sends your mind spinning into “Who is this?” territory. Not so much that Choo Choo sound like anyone, but that they sound like they’ve been around long enough to produce milkshake-smooth-n-tasty music.

They sound like you should have heard of them. Bonus, no one you know will have ever fucking heard of them.

Lush, layered, with an accomplished steady crunchy pop sound, I refreshed as I listened. When I breathed, their positivity stood right over me, stiletto heels stomping holes through my skin to let the music enter more quickly. Less surreally, this foursome from Switzerland catches your ears and won’t let go – expanding your listening habits like a double-zero earlobe gauge.

It’s the vocals that seemed to let down the side.

While everything from the guitars to Lili’s keyboards is infused with energy, Dan Joerg’s vocals don’t fit perfectly into the fun. (They don’t seem do last names by the way) His voice actually do work much better in the more relaxed-tempo, “The Sun” but generally, in place of the expected supersonic and technotronic his voice has ironic and laconic. It’s slow where your body wants to dance.

Again, I’m new to this band. I’ve heard four songs, total. (“It’s A Good Thing”, “The Sun”, “We Go” and “Bits+Pieces.”) The found Soundlust.com via Like.fm and saw that I reviewed Cage The Elephant and thought we might dig them, too. I really do. I wanna hear more. And so do you because if you don’t you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.

Look out for an upcoming review of the rest of Choo Choo’s second album, Cannes, (Chop Records nope, it’s not in English) released earlier this year.

Win a song download:

Radiohead self-released an album again. People are again calling it the model of the future and thebestthingeverohmyGod.

OK, but what about the music?

“Lotus Flower” and “Feral” are The King of Limbs two best songs. At least on first and second listen, so take that for what it’s worth. These two have a sound that make them accessible. While this is not a barometer for musicianship, I’ve never given a band “bonus points” just because they’re famous. If they sound good, they’re good. If they sound like they’re following a trend and phoning it in; like they have no passion or vision – or skill – they’re the opposite of good.

In that vein, Radiohead sound like any other band just getting started, an idea that comes ripe with the positive, the negative and the irrelevant. And yes, Yorke in the Lotus Flower video looks like he’s trying to become the album title. Go with your bliss, man.

A fuller, more informed, review comes later.

This tune comes off the highly-anticipated release Collapse Into Now from the Athens legends. Due in April.

Listening to Michael Stipe – as I have not for a long time – is like seeing your cousin who you used to play with everyday decades down the road and it looks like he’s been run over several times while trying to get across.

This entrant into the American trubadour warble-off is a slow, pleasant, slow, weepy beseeching, mournful, slow song. Did I mention slow? I think anytime you start your song off, “The kids have a new take. A new take on faith,” you’ve entered geezer territory. “The kids” !?!?!?

Now saying all that, I’ve listened to the song dozens of time and there’s a quality in the song that prevents it from dying a quick death. In the story which seems to be about a soldier coming home from war realizing home is forever changed, it’s not too hard to figure out that this same battle-scarred voice carries the song. Still, it’s more soul crush than Orange Crush.

Unfortunately, hearing Stipe made me think of how half the people I like will sound when they’re crooning and in their 60s. It’s a horrific thought. Oh, my heart.

Band Website: REM HQ

Punk roots are turned upside down here, completely exposed to whatever elements these guys want to beat it up with. At times, caressing, at times angry and abusive, Thank You, Happy Birthday reaches out to touch you.

Breaking out into the public consciousness in 2009 with their self-titled debut they’ve clearly evolved with more depth and more experimentation. Even lead singer Matt Schultz’ voice seems better and richer. The unreasonable idea that they had lost interest in performing disappeared (which I fully admit may have just been alive only in my own mind). Luckily, TYHB buries that idea deeper than Rush Limbaugh has soiled his dignity.

Schultz’ siren wail on “Aberdeen” carries the first reminder of the effort these guys put into not sound like everyone else. The great disdain leading into” Indy Kidz” seals the deal. The song highlights the punk aesthetic and timbre of the band saying and playing what they want with the least amount of sugar coating or moderation.

It won’t be to everyone’s liking. Certain songs splinter – like “Indy Kidz” – and you have to have the patience to know they’ll come back eventually. Fans of Sonic Youth will know the feeliing, and I could certainly understand a heavy crossover of genres. If the two bands ever played together the feedback alone could send a message to the aliens that their impending takeover might be better at another time.

“Shake Me Down” is wonderful and “2024″ cranks up the awesome to anthem level. What will you be doing that year? With any luck you’ll be listening to this song’ which like “Sell Yourself” that follows, starts a slow immolation and always, despite the coheseive choruses in both, seems to be ready to explode out of the speakers.

Basically this album is full of win, with each song getting earthier and elements eroding the walls someone might put up to the sound. “Rubber Ball” is like that; a true ballad that comes across as sincere even while we try to figure out exactly what the song might be about. It’s slow and allows everyone to take a breath. “Right Before My Eyes” survives but it made me long for the aggression to return. And it never completely does.

What comes after is like the start of a second act with a different plot; teddy bears are having a picnic and Alice is jumped up in a reefer wonderland. It’s still good but the energy never comes full-force. Ok, that’s not completely true. The monkey chat of the album’s first single “Around My Head” is fun and needs to be played at the zoo to gauge primate reaction.

Who knows if CTE felt a stratocasting typecasting cage closing in around them as they recorded? As so many bands do they might’ve temporarily got a little tired of themselves and their sound. Yet, like a different typeface in a font, it remains them. With the same attitude. The same controlled anger. And the same clever word play and lyrics. It’s what they do best.

“Shake me down, not a lot of people left around. who knows now. softly laying on the ground. Not a lot of people left around. In my life i have seen people walk into the sea just to find memories plagued by constant misery. Their eyes cast down fixed upon the ground. Their eyes cast down. .. i keep my eyes fixed on the sun.”

Once you get past enjoying the sound, their lyrics succeed by being pregnant with meaning. Stories are being told, lives are allowed to unfold. All except the jarring ”Flow.” It’s an almost 8-minute wankathon tacked on at the end of the 12-track release. It’s fun to listen to once but I just found myself stopping it on repeated listens of the CD. “I can’t take this any more any more. It breaks my mind.” Yep that about sums up the tune. It also takes away from all the goodwill built up over the previous 38 minutes.

It takes away some of the momentum, yes. But this was a well-planned party and its good memories will last a long long time.

Band site: Cage The Elephant They are on tour now in support of the album and will appear on Dave Letterman the day the album releases, Jan. 11

TRACK LISTING
Always Something
Aberdeen
Indy Kidz
Shake Me Down
2024
Sell Yourself
Rubber Ball
Right Before My Eyes
Around My Head
Sabertooth Tiger
Japanese Buffalo
Flow

Go ahead, don’t feel bad. Sit back and enjoy the music. New is almost always better than nothing and MICHAEL exists, however it got there, to get you to contemplate … everything.

Pet Peeve Alert
Since it’s right up front as the first song off the album, let’s get the peeve out of the way. “Hold My Hand” is a duet between Michael Jackson and Akon. Don’t announce this negligibly interesting fact in the song. How this abomination of ego got started and stuck I’ll never know but, we know who’s singing. We know, we know, we know. Since so much music started sounding the same and radio DJs became machines, the need to get your name out there increased. So the in-song name check was born. Here’s a tip; radio is no longer the major drive for music of any kind so it’s time for a sleeper chokehold on this abysmal trend.

The song itself is standard fare. Akon doesn’t do anything special yet Jackson’s voice soars through orchestra, basic rhythm and even more basic, beautiful piano to lift it. Entirely listenable, but it could almost be anyone.

On To The Beauty
Speaking of Tupac, as we were, it became so easy to read too much into his lyrics after he died. Every time he sang about the passage of time or the sorrow felt in death or whatever, it hit a twinge of regret buried near the surface. Every song, no matter what it was, brought pain.

“Everybody say that time is borrowed and hanging down your head is no good,” Michael sings in “Keep Your Head Up.” It’s the first song that sounds like the heart of Michael Jackson still beats. Tupac had a song of the same title, and though it came from a different POV the message was the same – don’t let the shit that happens keep you from moving ahead with your life. In both cases it’s advice to a woman with a baby. In both songs, it’s powerful.

My favorite moment of the whole album is the instructions about tempo and melody ahead of “(I Like) The Way You Love Me.” The ballad that follows, hits every note right. Nothing complicated. It’s the purest song here. As well, “Much Too Soon” brings out the strong quality of emotion in Jackson’s voice. It was written in the Thriller-era. A light harmonica, rides the goose bumps created as it plays. In a gentle, resigned spoken delivery, the tune is a jarring, heart-breaking end to the album, which amid gentle strings, ends with the words, “Yes, I guess I learned my lesson much too soon.”

There’s a lot you can read into that – and people will. It’s inevitable. He’s dead. He can no longer answer for himself. Both songs surpass “She’s Out Of My Life” and are right there with “Earth Song.” But it’s amazing that one person performed all four.

There are so many echoes of Michael Jackson through the years in “Behind the Mask” that it becomes a history of his career by sound. It’s got the cool attitude and pace of “Smooth Criminal”; it’s got the old funk he showed early (Rock With You); it’s got “eee-heee,”; it’s got the shouts from “Jam” and the pace of “Black or White”; and it’s got a disco beat halfway through for shit’s sake.

“Another Day” is another song that, surprisingly, works. Lenny Kravitz is a performer whose pedestrian work never did anything for me. But their voices twin well on “Another Day.”

Behind The Scenes
When Michael Jackson was alive, he existed in my mind as someone with a few great songs, and someone trapped by circumstances and his own actions, too, into perpetual distraction from creating music.

Like a politician who suddenly gets a backbone and a voice of conscience once they leave office or no longer have to maintain a front, a pop artist often wants to do more with their success and their words as they get more comfortable in their skin. Whether they succeed, whether they live on or not depends, largely, on their own intelligence.

“This Is It” was the first new song from Jackson in years. It too came alive after his death. And like Chris Rock dropping the microphone it had a sense of complete finality about it. I watched the film of the same title – essentially of how he got ready for his concert – and he become three dimensional in a way that his public persona never quite revealed. You knew he was childlike, yet one never quite believed he wasn’t a manufactured product of others. But he wasn’t. He knew what he was doing and those who met him and performed with him knew this and appreciated it and respected it.

These people who met him discovered their awe from afar was not without merit, which as psychology goes, made them love him more for not letting them down.

A song like “Breaking News” shows this real side, as “Leave Me Alone” did before it. They show a man who couldn’t always just let shit blow through the fan. Sometimes it did stick. This may be controversial but, unlike Britney Spears whining about the media (“Piece of Me”) who covered a truly stupid person and all her pratfalls – and threw herself out there to be examined with a reality show – Jackson was hit down because of accusations that were never proved.

His main fault in the eyes of others was that he was weird, that he didn’t think like them. (People also have an entirely understandable, gut and gutter reaction to the kind of gross conduct for which he was accused, though not found guilty.) Metal bands flip the big fuck you and don’t care that they’re different. It’s part of the genre, it’s part of who they are. But because Jackson was a pop artist, he was expected to conform and be, well, popular.

Songs like “Scream” and “They Don’t Care About Us” were similar but they aren’t self-referential. The 25th Anniversary of Thriller release (iTunes link) also showcases insight into the man behind the public mask. His death propped that door wide open.

At the beginning of the Teddy Riley produced “Hollywood Tonight” after the quiet choir verse, a beat that exists solely in the realm of the King of Pop, fades in. Jackson hits a deeper voice but the chorus gets old fast, like Jackson never could or would.

“Monster” describes the decay of culture and celebrity. Take: It’s a song where Jackson shows the public’s perception of him, as well as his own perception of himself. In the first chorus, he sound checks the tone and timber of the “Off the Wall.” Listen to both songs, it’s there completely. 50 Cent hits a solid rap in the middle of the song; one that contrasts well with Jackson’s voice.

Postscript
The album, like some kind of reeling zombie, sways back and forth between soft and hard, sentimentality and prescience, love and hate, light and dark. It’s dizzying, but there’s still beauty found on both sides of this, now money machine. Too cynical?

Well, perhaps the ultimate sadness is that Jackson has the ability to create moments of purity like almost no one else; a personification of everything sacred, an expression that hits to the very core of what it means to be human.
Yet, no one can hear his name now, because of the celebrity status he achieved – and yes encouraged – without thinking of tragedy. Michael Jackson will never quite escape, “MICHAEL.”

Billed as “Dance-Pop” to my ears it’s more pop than dance, made up of well-crafted songs rather than Ibiza-style club anthems. Musically, comparisons with The Buggles are I suppose inevitable, but I can also see slight elements of late-period ELO when a disco flavour crept into their sound. The overall feel is certainly very 1980s, down to some synth sounds that are either delightfully retro or cheesily dated depending on your point of view. The arrangements are entirely keys and programmed rhythms, but one or two of the actual songs wouldn’t sound out of place on an Asia, or for that matter, a Panic Room album. Certainly the choruses of songs like opener “Shine On”, “Dance To The Music Of Time” or the gorgeous closing ballad “Golden Days” get lodged in the brain as earworms after just a few listens.

With Geoff Downes credited with all the songwriting, Anne-Marie Helder’s only contribution is as lead singer, and she gives a stellar performance on vocals; demonstrating once again what a versatile singer she can be. It’s quite a way from my usual tastes in listening, and an album I probably wouldn’t have given any attention had it not been for the people involved. It’s an enjoyable listen nevertheless.

Like many non-major label releases, it’s available as a pre-order now directly from The New Dance Orchestra website, and will have an official retail release in the new year. It gives no information about international shipping, or even which country it’s shipped from; Paypal billed me in US Dollars but the album turned up within 48 hours posted from a UK address. Don’t know what will happen if you order from the US.

I discovered more about Michael’s music after he died. Invincible is my favorite Michael Jackson album.

(NEWS RELEASE) – Much Anticipated New album From The King Of Pop NEW ALBUM FROM THE KING OF POP MICHAEL To Be Released December 14

Stay tuned for the worldwide launch of the official first single from MICHAEL later this month.

source: michaeljackson.com

And that’s almost all I need for the music review. It’s the best new song I’ve heard this week. No, really. Ke$ha speaks-raps more than sings; a very electronic processed feel to everything. Yet, still a character comes through. Bonus a likeable one.

Why do I have a soft spot for Ke$ha. I don’t know. Her roots are a childhood subsidized by food stamps and welfare; a single mother. This is not a person grown up through servility nor privilege.

Brutal honesty is always helpful and exciting when it arrives as self-awareness. Ke$sha is self-possessed enough to get through some bad story line. Attitude. Something to say. Wit. Humor. Yeah all that. Too, she’s a beauty in a unconventional sense; someone you’d meet almost anywhere, pretending a little but not having to pretend much.

Before you think I’ve lost it (too late?) turn on Pink’s newest, “Raise Your Glass.”

Right right, turn off the lights,
We’re gonna lose our minds tonight
What’s the dealio?

I love when it’s all too much
5am turn the radio up
Where’s the rock and roll?

Certainly, this in’t the sum of Pink. She’s well respected for, arguably, her attitude and her work ethic and mixing fun with meaning in life and song. Yet she also, began her career getting the party started.

I think KeSha has that potential, songwriting brushes with Paris Hilton and Miley Cirus, aside. Put them down as black marks done to survive through high-profile, though largely meaningless, association.

Is it sad that anything past a marketing package seems “rebellious” these days? Yep it is. Lady Gaga is pure marketing; without it she’d be nothing. Yet, these short messages on the front page of Ke$ha’s website belong to a person without an obvious packaging;

Nov. 2: “driving home from my video shoot same time traffic starts sunrise soo tired n soooo fking lucky u guys r gonna flip over this one”

and Oct. 31, “http://bit.ly/aSkBDT WANT “WE R WHO WE R” for.99 cents?! thaZ cheaper than balls.cheaper than a taco.pak o gum.coffee.CHEAP AS HELL!get it!”

While I think sincerity is one of Ke$ha’s strong points, this is by no means a universally held belief:

“… Ke$ha doesn’t really believe what she’s selling … she’s a young pop star who wouldn’t think twice about selling her family to the circus in order to succeed.

Yeah, but she’d do it … sincerely.