Radiohead made the headlines from the Grammys with their performance of 15 Step in collaboration with the USC Marching Band, and afterwards they went home with the award for “Best Alternative Album”. See their performance, as well as other notable award winners and news about new albums from Muse and Green Day inside.
Blink-182 fans have waited several long, desolate years to hear from the band concerning a reunion. And tonight, at the 51st annual Grammy awards, the fans were finally rewarded.
Ben Kweller's Changing Horses album.
Ben Kweller is an all-around fantastic musician with a surprisingly large underground fanbase. He’s multi-instrumentally talented, and on this and past records, he shows us his versatility in that area. His first album in 3 years, Changing Horses is a risky experiment for Kweller, transitioning from contemplative, mid-tempo piano pop to a country sound. I won’t over-pun such a title with excessive remarks regarding Kweller’s genre change on Changing Horses; although, it is easy to do. Anyhow, the switch has been made and the stage is set. All we need now are the results.
Manchester Orchestra have put the first single, I’ve Got Friends, from their up-coming album, Mean Everything To Nothing, up for grabs absolutely free of charge, over at Spinner.com. Additionally they have also, according to AbsolutePunk, revealed that they plan to release Mean Everything on April 21st. Get on over there and get a taste of the musical delight to come, or read on for our impressions!
Starting today we will introduce a new regular column here at Silent Sound Waves that will help you stay updated on the latest news about your favourite (or not so much) artists. One or two times per week we will do a little round-up of the latest and greatest that have caught our attention in the past couple of days, but doesn’t necessarily fit our requirements for a dedicated news post. This way you will have a chance to stay updated without having to wade through 200 something new posts in your RSS reader every day. Hit the jump for new songs from My Chemical Romance, Coldplay and more!
Rediscovery, Issue 2
Over the past few months, I’ve had plenty of time to sort through my music collection and rediscover some more noteworthy albums to share with you all.
Album art for Noble Beast by Andrew Bird
Reviewing a record is not as straight forward of a process as it probably looks. At first you get a hold of a new record, and start listening to it. Usually it only takes a listen through it or two to see if you should be reviewing it, as there is not much point in trying to say something about music don’t understand, because after all reviewing is about trying to put express with words what the experience of listening to a certain collection of songs is like.
Album art for the self-titled album by The Heyday
It is not often the first spin of a debut record from a fresh band leaves you with that tingling sensation, thinking that these guys actually have potential, but to a certain extent this 5 piece power pop group from Denver known as The Heyday manage to invoke those feelings with their first full length release. Serving as a perfect validation of the stereotypical perception that all good bands in this genre immaculately conceive their careers in a garage or a basement, the self-titled effort by Randy Ramirez and the rest of the band is well worth a listen.
The track list for Manchester Orchestra’s soon-to-be-released sophomore full-length, Mean Everything to Nothing, has been announced. As you will no doubt notice, it corresponds quite well with what we gave a taste of in our premature preview article. The only song missing on the record is Black Man. Whether or not it has simply been renamed, or dropped from the record altogether is yet to be revealed.
Album art for Davy by Coconut Records
Much unlike his character from the cult-movie Rushmore that propelled him to fame and celebrity, Jason Schwartzman doesn’t suffer from illusions of grandeur, or at the very least doesn’t when he assumes his alter ego Coconut Records and starts to churn out pop tunes. Not content with being a drummer in a relatively successful band, Schwartzman left the now broken up Phantom Planet to pursue an acting career, but that as it turns out that was hardly enough to keep the multitalent from keeping a foot in the music business.
