The Tupac hologram shocked and awed fans and non-fans alike. People were drawn into the nature of the hologram, and it offered an enticing and original take into a legendary bygone era of rap. It was only accentuated further when Snoop Dogg joined the stage. Basically, the Tupac hologram at Coachella was a perfect storm...
Ke$ha is wildly polarizing for a few reasons. One is, I hate her. Scratch that. Many people hate her. On the other hand, she (or whoever is behind the “she”) craft exquisite dance pop songs, and for what they are, they fit the bill brilliantly. Well, it’s not as if we ever thought pop superstar...
It really surprises me that Tenacious D is still a “thing.” For one, their last greatest achievement was with their 2001 self-titled album, which deliberately created egotistical rock power ballads and acoustic ditties, mixed among some hysterical back-crunching dialogue that was both brilliantly composed and written and oddly offensive. Yet since that record, they have...
Below is the first two episodes of the brand new cartoon series, Suicide Traffic. Suicide Traffic is the adventures of a boy named Alex, a motivated singer who recruits a wild group of kids to join his new band. Every portion of the cartoon has something you can relate to. There’s a little bit of lost...
Sometimes a really fascinating little mix makes for the perfect formula for a new cool-aid drink, and sometimes the blender spits out something brown/gray and faintly smelling of stale crackers. In case you haven’t got the point, that’s bland. Bland. I won’t hold out- Foxy Dangerous is oddly quiet melodically yet so focused and attentive...
Justin Levinson isn’t particularly a household name, but with his electric mix of hearth throbbing-infused aesthetics and country-tinged balladry, he would be right at home in a climate of top 40 melodic guitar rock. Justin Levinson is a few albums deep, and has just recently released his new record, This Side of Me, This Side of You, alongside...
Jack White’s legacy is firmly intact with The White Stripes. Early 2011, the sun was rising and the weather was breezy and chilly, and the White Stripes declared to the world, this is over. Now I can’t say that The White Stripes was anything much more than a Jack White project. He was one of...
Young Money Entertainment has hit quite of a stride the first half of the new decade. Ever since, arguably, 2008 when Tha Carter III became just this huge monster of a thing, Young Money has been manufacturing quite a little eclectic mix of talent. Some failed hard (Lol who the fuck is Tyga?) some have been simply...
Music streaming is easy to come by, but its been made slightly hardly after GrooveShark has lost support from all 4 major record labels stateside. Ouch. This doesn’t necessarily mean GrooveShark is dead, but the cynic in me simply has to question how far a streaming service can go without support from the 4 most...
Just recently I spent a few days camping by a lake, filled with hiking, fishing and reading in a hammock. I felt that it would be quite appropriate for me to reread Thoreau’s “Walden” while I was at the lake. Now I’m sure many of you read “Walden” in high school or are at least...
Perhaps it was LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem that put Every Time I Die over the edge. Frontman Keith Buckley is a partier. The group had their own respective party-rock anthems, with a hardcore slant, yet with a party rock slant none the less. Channeling Andrew W.K. and post-hardcore just as much as slick mainstream production,...
There are very few things you can do to mentally prepare for a new Mars Volta album. It’s not that the music is so amazing it will change your entire musical landscape, though if there was a band that could do that, the Mars Volta would certainly apply. But The Mars Volta’s music is often...
Say Anything had harnessed a creative outpouring a few years into the new millennium, somewhere around 2004 when Max Bemis and Co. dropped the wild and eccentric record, Is a Real Boy… To this day, there was a certain sincerity and honesty, as well as ground-breaking idealistic hooks and melodies, that made that record something infinitely special. Where the...
Just a few years ago, MySpace found itself at the top of the social media totem pole. Showcasing a wide variety of music, a record-breaking base of users spanning the globe, and advertising power that made all the business’s flock to a MySpace feature, MySpace was the totality of social media marketing. Facebook is a...
Apple had us for quite along time. The iPhone 3 broke records with its sales, and the 3GS expanded on the original version breaking into mainstream and becoming a momentous social reinvention of the smart phone market. This a few key issues from the iPhone 4, and emerging competitors, the future of Apple’s iPhone product...
Merging the mediums of fashion apparel and music is not particularly a new brand strategy. Teenagers tend to adore music, as well as idolizing certain fashion aesthetics. Bringing these two concepts together is as old as marketing itself. With that said, a focused strategy that appeals more to a very specific niche of music, as...
You may not be aware, but recently a posthumous book by Philip K. Dick was published in hard back. It is called the Exegesis of Philip K. Dick. It is around 900 pages and it is a collection of his writings: philosophical musings, book ideas, notes, letters covering a variety of topics. It is of...
Sleigh Bells have managed to do something that I don’t believe many artist has done in the last few years. They have, with almost sheer dumb luck or shining brilliance, remained a strong entity before their album, through their debut album, and extended through their sophomore LP Reign of Terror two years later. Let me...
fun. is basically the best smart-pop band in “the game.” Incorporating Jack Antonoff from Steel Train, Andrew Dost from long-lived indie group Anathello and frontman Nate Reuss from the very much deceased The Format. All these groups are formidable in their own right (Steel Train is a fantastic group, but that’s for another time). So when this...
Silverstein has been slaying the post-hardcore scene since 2000, with their obtuse debut record that garnered them a nice little collective of attention under the Victory Records label. Now 12 years into their career and with 5 studio LP’s behind them, Silverstein has earned their stripes and earned the ability to craft a record full...
