6 posts tagged “russia”
)Top 5 Albums of 2008
1. Beach House – Devotion
Their first album was nice.
Occasionally heavy-lidded and aimless (as in, the mind wanders when
listening), but nice, certainly a curious take on dream pop. Then Devotion
came out and it was like Beach House even further demented the dreamy stargaze domain,
in, you know, a really, really attractive way.
With Victoria’s
sad, velvet voice (not at all, never ever cute,
for godsake), the off-putting pace, the hollow beat, the moodiness, the
sometimes romantic/sometimes painful lyrics, the harpsichord, that Daniel
Johnston cover…it just works. How often do all the pieces fall into
place? It may never happen again. Enjoy, Beach House.
2. The Raveonettes – Lust Lust Lust
So the Raveonettes are getting fuzzier and less defined, and moving further from those neo-noir 60s Phil Spector-inspired melodies into darker territory. Darker, louder territory. Like, seriously loud. I’d probably be less impressed with this album if it wasn’t for the sheer enormity of sound. Every song has a kind of feverish build-up; by the end it’s bye-bye future hearing, hello creepy weird aural enlightenment, or something.
3. Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – Real Emotional Trash
What I like about Real Emotional Trash is that it combines the best of the Pavement core—bizarre/absurdist lyrics and sprawling noise/extended “jammin’/freak deaky guitar rifts. This album sounds very Malkmus; it isn’t the work of a middle-aged rocker desperate to fit in one last reinvention and prove to the twenty-somethings that he’s “still got it.” No, Malkmus hardly seems concerned with too much change; he may choose different directions with each of his solo albums, but there’s always a comfortable familiarity. (And, for the record, he’s definitely still got it.)
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4. Santogold – Santogold
Let’s just get the obvious out of the way: yes, she reminds you of M.I.A. Sure, Santogold sings through her nose, loves a crazy beat, and is scarily supa fly (intimidating to the average-looking), but if you actually listen to her album you’ll realize that she ain’t no M.I.A. Which isn’t to say that Santogold ain’t fabulous. Au contraire, it’s perfect downtown club music (for the mild, hip and white). You can bump, grind, convulse, jump, rapidly move your hands in front of your face, remain mostly still while nodding your head, twirl, whatever. Also, with the absence of any kind of political message you don’t even have to pretend that you care about real things.
5. The Magnetic Fields – Distortion
What an aptly titled album. I’m found of aptly titled things. I wish Animal Collective and Xiu Xiu would take note and start naming their albums “Weird Crazy Things That Sound Like Woodlawn Creatures and Kitchen Utensils.” It would be convenient for writing reviews. Anyway, Distortion is Stephen Merritt doing distortion, which means fuzzy, drone-y guitar that lovers can still swoon to, and sad/silly lyrics like “sober, you’re old and ugly; shit-faced, who needs a mirror” (“Too Drunk to Dream”).
Top 5 Songs of 2008
1. Beach House – “Heart of Chamber” (Devotion)
Honestly, I could have chosen any song from Devotion, but “Heart of Chamber” is the one that gives me the strongest heart palpitations (like remembering a teenage night that never happened). As I said before, it works, and who needs solid logic?
2. Beck – “Walls” (Modern Guilt)
My relationship with Beck is similar to my relationship with thrift shopping: 99% of the time I leave the store irritated and resentful; however, maybe once a year I find something absolutely stunning, like amazingly, disgustingly perfect that I forget about all the previous disappointments. “Walls” is my disgustingly perfect gold lamé romper that I will never wear again.
3. Okkervil River – “Lost Coastlines” (The Stand Ins)
Apparently there are (self-proclaimed) straight men out there that would “go gay” for Will Sheff. Who knew. I cannot make that same declaration, but I will say this: Jonathan Meiburg’s voice keeps me comfortably heterosexual.
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4. Benoît Pioulard – “Brown Bess” (Temper)
His name is Tom (hint: he’s not French). Tom taps into those same otherworldly arrangements that Zach Condon used to convince hipsters that foreign music could be edgy too. “Brown Bess” is just too pretty to ignore. I don’t know what he’s singing (it’s in English; he mumbles, I selectively listen), but similar to hearing a beautiful French phrase, do you even care?
5. Lucinda Williams (ft. Elvis Costello) – “Jailhouse Tears” (Little Honey)
The whole album’s kind of a mess: a few old-school bluesy ballads, some terrible angry rockers, and a truly frightening AC/DC cover (Lucinda, no). However, this duet with Costello makes me smile because I think Lucinda’s being a bit cheeky, no?
Top 5 Bands to Think About in 2009
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1. Sybris
What: Anti-twee
indiepop
Where: Chicago, IL
Think about: “Oh
Man!” (Into the Trees, 2008)
More! http://myspace.com/sybris
What:
Halloween-voiced lad + pop music + geek beats
Where: St. Louis, MO
Think about: “Gamble”
(Classy Entertainment EP, 2008)
More! http://myspace.com/jumblingtowers
3. Alina Simone
What: Folk/punk
Where: Brooklyn, NY
Think about: “Half My
Kingdom” (Everyone is Crying Out to Me,
Beware, 2008)
More! http://myspace.com/alinasimone
4. The Pharmacy
What: Dirty rotten
indie rock
Where: New Orleans, LA
Think about: “Little
Toys on the Shelf” (Choose Yr. Own
Adventure, 2008)
More! http://myspace.com/pharmacy
5. Doomtree
What: White-friendly (read: non-threatening or “not too ghetto”) “smart” hip-hop
Where: Minneapolis, MN
Think about: “Dots
and Dashes” (Doomtree, 2008)
More! http://myspace.com/doomtree
Note: Doomtree is
extremely popular within their home state of Minnesota, but have they crossed the
border? Let me know.
Links:
www.weheartmusic.com
podcast.weheartmusic.com
news.weheartmusic.com
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Tour Dates
06/17/08 Hotel Cafe - Hollywood, CA
Discography
06/20/08 Alice 96.7 FM Fresno, CA 06/21/08 WARNORS THEATRE - Fresno, CA 06/24/08 HARD ROCK CAFE MOSCOW 06/28/08 Aktovy Zal Moscow 07/06/08 State Theatre - Falls Church, VA* 07/08/08 Bitter End New York 07/10/08 Sellersville Theatre Sellersville, PA* 07/13/08 Lou Bredlow Pavillion Woodland Hills, CA* 12/03/08 Merrimack College North Andover, MA 12/15/08 PVCC Center for the Performing Arts Phoenix, AZ Opening up for Howard Jones
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Russian-born Los Angeles resident, Marina V (Verenikina) has just release her 3rd CD entitled Modern Fairytale. She permanently moved to the US at the age of 17 and has been pursuing her dream of being a Pop/Rock Singer/Songwriter. She is an unusual mix of Tori Amos, Jewel and Paul McCartney. Her influences have been Tchaikovsky and the Beatles. Marina muses "There aren't many performers who blend Russian music with Pop/Rock, so I feel it's part of my mission to be a cultural ambassador in this world".
My favorite track on the CD is the opening song "Hope". She has a very haunting voice and the songs flow together very nicely. It's a magical journey through love & loss, peace & war, struggle & success, togetherness & loneliness, with a very fairytale like feeling.
Marina's CD was released in January 2008. It is available at her website (www.marinav.com) and she will sign it for you as well. A self-described ambitious workaholic, Marina continues touring, writing & recording while looking for an artist-friendly record label.
I love writing songs and I really love performing them for my audience. I can't imagine a day without music. I will be doing this forever.
She will be touring this summer so drop by one of the shows, she would love to perform for you.
Hey, I have to extend the Win Brett Dennen's DVD/CD and T-Shirt because I got a few late entries. The final cut-off date is now 3/15/2008 and your chances of winning are basically 1 out of 14. These odds are really good. Much better than the state's lottery.
Also, I love Dereks' comment about Russian orphan boys so much that I've decided to mention it here, since many of you probably missed it the first time around. They were in response to Steklovata.
| Dereks wrote: Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 6:31 AM |
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[this is good] Oh-ho-ho-ho))))))
Well, since I Russian is literally my second native language (Ukraine is fully bilingual), I can tell you a lot.
Basically, I don't know who exactly discovered them, but on the Runet, they became something like a big meme. Like Tay Zonday's Chocolate Rain.
You know, in general they are nothing special at all. They band is just another example of "Ласковый Май" (Laskoviy May / Gentle May) trend that exploded at the down of the USSR era. Laskoviy May was purely commercial project. One producer created a band of orphan boys with very tearful luscious glossy lyrics. In general it was a normal success of another pop-band. But since all the boys were of pre-pubertal age, all of them had almost similar high voices. You just needed another boy under the age of 12 with basic musical skills and he would sound indistinguishable from the original "Laskoviy Maj". Thus by the end of the 80's there were literally dozens of same bands of orphan boys performing all over Russia. Sometimes they even went under the same names.
So Steklovata is part of that "orphan-band" movement, which still sometimes emerges in small province cities. But their feature, that turned them into a meme is their name. Steklovata in Russian means "glass wool". As you see, it's nothing sweet and glossy in that title. Moreover, they have a song, which goes under the same title. The lyrics in translation are something like that:
It's all your own fault, you're thorny like glass wool, glass wool, glass wool, our love turned to be evil, 'cause you're like glass wool.
Also they are using some elements of low-class language, criminal slang, which also promoted them to their success (in terms of becoming a meme, of course).
I love reading about music that I know nothing about - so this is the kind of stuff I really love hearing about.
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04/08/08 Great American Music SF, CA
04/10/08 The Aladdin Portland, Oregon 04/11/08 The Triple Door Seattle, WA 04/13/08 The Paradise Boston, MA 04/14/08 Bowery Ballroom New York 04/16/08 World Cafe Live Philadelphia,PA 04/18/08 The Birchmere Washington DC |
I was also recently invited to join IODA. I think the website is private or invite-only currently because it's still in Beta, but it should be interesting to see this takes off.
The idea behind this seems to be for promoting music to influential webmasters and bloggers. They have the usual artist biography and some of them offer 1 or 2 MP3 for download.
Unfortunately, discovering new music is hard for me because there are a lot of artists to shift through. Plus, not all the bands offers sample music, so you literally have no idea what they sound like. Fortunately, there is a check box that will only display artists with sample music (but you do limit your selections of bands).
They do have some "featured" artists that seems to be popular with all the members using the website. Such as Bauhaus (did you know they were still around? and not dead?) and Robots in Disguise.
Anyway, one of the artists I was told to check out is a pretty young woman called China Forbes. The only song that was available was "Everybody Needs Somebody", which actually pretty good. It sort of has that country twang, but that's not a reason to not check out this catchy song.
Upon checking her out some more, I found out that she's the singer of Pink Martini, who recently put out Hey Eugene! and appeared on the Jools Holland show in 2007.
'78 is her second solo album, and judging from that one song, I think her album is going to do very well with her core Pink Martini audience.
You can find out more about her on myspace and her official website.
PS, my new theme for album reviews will be bands on tour. I'm working on the other three artists, but you can head over to ♫ew music for the latest three.
03/08/2008 23:30:34
vu
my♥posts
www.weheartmusic.com
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I caught a brief glimpse at "Новый год" (New Year) on Rocketboom and was so amused by this Russian boy-band, that I had to find out more information on them.
First of all, the band is called Стеклоvата (Steklovata),
and they are from Estonia, not Russia (but they speak and sings in
Russian).
All of their music is available for download on (their official?) the website gosdetstvo.ru. Since I don't speak Russian (and none of the websites out there that had any information were written in English) it was kind of difficult to figure out who they were.
Here are
some facts I was able to gather: they were the project of mastermind composer/creator Sergei Kuznetsov (Сергей Кузнецов). At first he only had
one singer, Dienis Bielikin (Денис Беликин), but added Artur Jeriemiejew (Артур Еремеев) to the team. I believe both boys were aged 13.
They released three albums between 2001 to 2005, and ultimately are no longer together... but I suspect they are still making music under different groups and projects.
What's interesting about "Новый год" is that video features two additional singers, I believe one of them is called Siergiej Diadiun (Сергей Дядюн) and the other is not known to me. It is definitely not Kuznetsov, as he appears on one of their album cover and he appears to be over the age of 40.
I would really appreciate if any readers could provide me with additional information on this Eurodisco boy-band.
03/01/2008 10:02:04
vu
my♥posts
gosdetstvo.ru/steklovata
| Dereks wrote: Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 6:31 AM |
[this is good] Oh-ho-ho-ho))))))
Well, since I Russian is literally my second native language (Ukraine is fully bilingual), I can tell you a lot.
Basically, I don't know who exactly discovered them, but on the Runet, they became something like a big meme. Like Tay Zonday's Chocolate Rain.
You know, in general they are nothing special at all. They band is just another example of "Ласковый Май" (Laskoviy May / Gentle May) trend that exploded at the down of the USSR era. Laskoviy May was purely commercial project. One producer created a band of orphan boys with very tearful luscious glossy lyrics. In general it was a normal success of another pop-band. But since all the boys were of pre-pubertal age, all of them had almost similar high voices. You just needed another boy under the age of 12 with basic musical skills and he would sound indistinguishable from the original "Laskoviy Maj". Thus by the end of the 80's there were literally dozens of same bands of orphan boys performing all over Russia. Sometimes they even went under the same names.
So Steklovata is part of that "orphan-band" movement, which still sometimes emerges in small province cities. But their feature, that turned them into a meme is their name. Steklovata in Russian means "glass wool". As you see, it's nothing sweet and glossy in that title. Moreover, they have a song, which goes under the same title. The lyrics in translation are something like that:
It's all your own fault, you're thorny like glass wool, glass wool, glass wool, our love turned to be evil, 'cause you're like glass wool.
Also they are using some elements of low-class language, criminal slang, which also promoted them to their success (in terms of becoming a meme, of course).
If you haven't had a chance, you should check out Riot Grrrl, which I have also compiled.
♥ The Veronicas
www.theveronicas.com
These are two Australian twin sisters, Lisa and Jessica Origliasso. They're probably best known for their pop song 4ever (although if you listen to it, it's pretty slutty, isn't it?)
They got their name from Betty & Veronica from Archie Comics. Archie Comics, the evil empire as it is, sued these girls. They settled out of court. [Just a note, I've hated Archie Comics since I found out that they had denied Jose & The Pussycats' creator and "Archie-style creator" Dan DeCarlo credit and money :(]
Anyway, the song I've picked out is a cover song "Mother Mother", originally by Tracy Bonham. This was the final song off their debut album in 2005. The song is surprisingly faithful to the original song, but somehow I can't believe the Veronicas' anguish as they scream "everything's fiiiine".
They have a new album out in November called Hook Me Up and are currently on tour in Australia. Details of the tour on myspace.com/theveronicas
♥ Atomic Kitten
www.atomickitten.co.uk
These three girls are from Liverpool. Their pop songs have sold over 12 million albums and I actually have never heard of them.
I do know this song, "Eternal Flame", originally by the Bangles.
They actually broke up in 2006, but have reunited to release one single, a cover of Cila Black's "Anyone Who Had a Heart" for 2008.
♥ Feminnem
www.feminnem.com
Pamela Ramljak, Neda Parmac and Ivana Maric makes up Feminnem. They're from Bosnia.
So what's funny about these girls are they met on Croatian Idol (the equivalent of Pop Idol and American Idol). They all lost, so they decided to stick together and formed Feminnem in 2004.
They only have one album out, Show and all of their songs are in Croatian... all except "Call Me", which was used in Eurovision in 2005.
"Call Me" is an incredibly poppy song and I would've voted for them if I live in the UK.
♥ Vanilla Ninja
love-ninjas.com
Unlike the other girl-pop bands, these girls actually play their instruments. They also don't have an official website (the link above is a fan website). The reason for the lack of official website is that as of late last year, the band was dropped from EMI Records.
These girls (Lenna Kuurmaa, Katrin Siska, and Piret Järvis) are from Estonia, which is a country just south of Finland.
They formed in 2002 and debut with their single "Club Kung Fu", which I've include here.
Essentially, without management representations and record label, I'm assuming the band have broken up.
♥ t.A.T.u.
www.tatu.ru
From Moscow, Russia, comes the fake lesbian duo of Lena Katina and Yulia Volkova have released about 6 albums!
I previously mentioned t.A.T.u., and someone wrote in:
Interviewer: Did you hear t.A.T.u.'s version of "How Soon Is Now?"
Morrissey: Yes, it was magnificent. Absolutely. Again, I don't know much about them.
Interviewer: They are teenage Russian lesbians.
Morrissey: Well, aren't we all?
They only have two English albums in the States, but are planning on releasing Waste Management in 2008.
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♥ Shampoo
angelfire.com/grrl/shampoo
They are Jacqui Blake and Carrie Askew, two girls who found fame with their "Trouble" song. They got their name by giving excuses to boys whenever they asked them out. They were always "washing their hair", and soon was known as the shampoo girls.
They broke up in 2000, after releasing Absolute Shampoo only on the internet. Although the last time I saw them in print, they were in touring in Asia (in the late 90s) and were pretty popular there.
That's it for now. I hope you enjoy these pop songs... maybe next time I will get around to the Spice Girls.
Special thanks to Mike.
10/17/2007 00:02:09
vu
my♥posts
vu@weheartmusic.com
wikipedia.org/wiki/Europop
Having 30 contributors to this blog, there are a bunch of different musical tastes and it's great to share all of it to open ears. Although I think we're neglecting some genres... one being game music.
Back in the early '90s when I was a child, a little handheld gaming console made a splash in the gaming industry. This device I'm referring to was the Nintendo Game Boy. It was released in 1989 and shipped with the addictive puzzle game Tetris. I was only three when it was first released, but I still remember playing it at age five when I was first introduced to it... always leaving one of the sides empty, anticipating a stick or "I", trying to fill up as many gaps as possible with the other six tetrominoes falling, but the "I" never appeared and soon it was game over.
Type 1 Opening Song
Type 2 (A) Korobeiniki by Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov
Type 3 (B) Unknown Title
Type 4 (C) French Suite No. 3 in B-Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach
Type 5 High Score Song
There are a bunch of videos on YouTube of Tetris parodies and people covering the various songs. Below are a handpicked few.
Parodies
Cover Songs
Jason :: Nintendo | Tetris | Wiki (Tetris) | Wiki (Tetris Game Boy) | KH Insider | Directory of Tetris Cover Songs
