The nineties really are back. Fiona Apple, The Cranberries, Soundgarden, flowered rompers and floppy hats... they're all back! Also, Everclear, Sugar Ray, Gin Blossoms, Marcy Playground, and Lit are all going on tour together. But that's not all. I got on the subway the other day and saw backpackers, velco sandals, dudes with long hair, toques, Doctor Martens, plaid, and an oversize Bob Marley T-shirt. ALL ON ONE SUBWAY CAR.
And now we've got new music from Alanis Morissette.
Granted, it's totally unfair to cast Alanis as some sort of transplant from the 1990s, as she has released plenty of music in the past decade but, as her heyday - and WHAT a heyday it was - was in that decade, everthing she does just has an undeniable whiff of it.
The track is titled "Guardian" and it's from the album, Havoc and Bright Lights, which will be released August 28.
Alanis will perform the song on ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" on Tuesday, May 15. That same day, it will be made available on iTunes. Billboard reports that she'll also perform on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" on May 22.
"This record, as always, is a snapshot of what I currently obsess about, care about, and what strikes me at 4 in the morning in my most introspective moments," says Morissette, who married and gave birth to a child in 2010.
"(Havoc) is my emotional, psychological, social and philosophical commentary through song."
Here's the lyric video the song. What do you think?
Nelly Furtado is back with new music and has released a video for her latest single "Big Hoops (The Bigger the Better)," in which she wears big earrings and appears to be walking around on stilts.
The song is about big earrings. Really big earrings. The bigger the better. And getting on the dance floor and getting the attention of some guy and, oh, I don't know. What is pop music about these days, anyway?
I haven't spent much time auditing parliamentary discussions so, someone tell me, are they always this amusing?
Iconic rock trio Rush sat in on question period the other day, as they were in Ottawa, along with several other artists, to receive the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards, the country's highest artistic honour, according to the CP.
Here's a new single and video from the inimitable Neil Young & Crazy Horse.
The track is a gritty cover of Oh Susannah, but with a contemporary trope of spelling out B-A-N-J-O, as in "I come from Alabama with my B-A-N-J-O on my knee."
The track is off their upcoming album, Americana slated for release June 5. The album features classic folk tunes rejigged in Neil Young rock style.
Toronto musician and producer Billy Bryans has died at age 62.
Bryans, drummer and co-founder of the 1980s pop group The Parachute Club, died this morning (Monday, April 23) after a battle with lung cancer, the CBC reports.
Canadian singer-songwriter Alex Cuba said in a statement, "Rest in peace, gentleman of music. Many thanks for your love and support always."
The London Free Press reports that the second shooting happened last Thursday, during a fight inside the London Music Hall, just after 11:30 p.m., while an opening act was on stage. Concert-goers ran for the exits while others helped an unconscious man lying facedown on the floor.
Drake and Rihanna flirted on video once before, for Rihanna's "What's My Name?" single. And now: Round 2.
The video for Drake's title single off his smash Take Care album features the two superstars getting cuddly once again.
The visuals for "Take Care," a tune that has been been in radio rotation for a while now, is a pretty slick, stripped-down affair, shot almost exclusively in black and white.
Besides a sensitive Drake, dressed in a simple black tee, and a sultry Rihanna, sort of dressed in a sweater that's trying to slump right off of her, the video features some amazing slow-mo shots of a fish, a bull and a blue jay.
Justin Bieber was discovered by Usher, who became his mentor and ushered him into the music biz with style. (Oh! I totally just realized I wrote that “Usher ushered...” It’s kind of awkward but it’s true.) So now The Bieb is paying it forward for fellow Canadian Carly Rae Jepsen.
Bieber signed Carly Rae to join his newly formed Schoolboy Records, via Interscope, which he talked about during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show with her.
Oooh! Is it a new feud? Probablt not. But Canadian/American musician Rufus Wainwright doesn’t think much of Lady Gaga.
Wainwright, the son of Loudon Wainwright III and Canadian folk singer Kate McGarrigle, is currently promoting a new album titled Out of the Game. In an interview with Music Week, he chatted about his romantic crush on the album’s producer Mark Ronson, and about his decided lack of crush on Gaga.
He says of the pop star, “I totally admire her tenacity, her ambition and her strength of vision. There’s just not one good song there.
“People, especially gay men, are falling so hard for it. Certain things that [she] says: ‘Look at me. I was like you one day and now I’m this – and you can do it too.’ I find it a bit disingenuous. We are in this somewhat sinister period and [artists have] got to kind of toughen up and be real. I guess I want to put a little bit more grit into my presentation of what’s happening in the world. It’s about conveying what’s inside us, as opposed to the return of the cone breasts. I find it predictable and boring.”
Huh. Rufus Wainwright is awesome. He's a fascinating a courageous artist. But did he just call Lady Gaga predictable and boring? And hasn’t it become a bit predictable and boring to call Lady Gaga predictable and boring? Also, it’s difficult to argue after watching her perform acoustically that she’s not a very good songwriter. See?
Anyway, Rufus’ album drops April 23.
He says it’s influenced by greats like Elton John, Freddie Mercury and David Bowie, and calls it “the most pop album I’ve ever made,” while Ronson says “It’s the best work of my career."
Featured musicians include Amy Winehouse's backing band the Dapkings, Wilco’s Nels Cline, Nick Zinner of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sean Lennon and Rufus’s sister Martha Wainwright.
Canadian singer and one-woman anti-Via rail campaigner (well, and her little dog, too) Jann Arden posed nude for the April issue ofZoomer magazine, which hits newsstands today.
