Other Lives, recently off of a tour opening up for Radiohead, have released a video for their Man vs. Nature track, “Dust Bowl III.” Comparing and contrasting the themes of this song to those of The Grapes of Wrath while sipping a nice zin would have made 10th grade English would have been a lot more interesting.
On their Facebook page, The xx (apparently it’s now lowercase) announced that, “We have finished our new album! We are now on tour + playing festivals. We will continue to post the songs we love + the things we see. Lots of love, The xx.” Coexist is due out on September 11th, proving that the terrorists haven’t yet won.
The Flaming Lips and a continually-changing cast of supporting acts played a whole lotta shows in the south to prove that they could play more shows in 24 hours than anyone in history. Which leads one to the conclusion…they must have been bored of sitting around smoking weed in Oklahoma.
On the occasion of its 20th anniversary, Stereogum looks back at what was perhaps the defining film soundtrack of the 90s, Cameron Crowe’s Singles. Some believe that it contained the best songs recorded by Mother Love Bone (“Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns), Screaming Trees (“Nearly Lost You”), Alice in Chains (“Would”), Smashing Pumpkins (“Drown”) and Pearl Jam (“State of Love and Trust”), respectively.
Speaking of the Pumpkins…just after his former bandmate Billy Corgan released a pretty kick ass record, Oceania, (with a band he’s still calling Smashing Pumpkins), James Iha has resurfaced with a tune from his upcoming album, Look To the Sky. The first track, “To Who Knows Where,” is a spacy romp that may remind some of the b-sides from The Aeroplane Flies High. To hear it, you’d never know that this guy was recently shredding with A Perfect Circle.
Also in new music, Canadian band Stars unveiled a new track, “The Theory of Relativity,” from their upcoming September 4th release, The North. If the intro reminds you of The Naked and Famous, it’s actually because The Naked and Famous remind you of Stars. That same day, San Francisco’s The Fresh and Onlys will be releasing Long Slow Dance and beginning a brief West Coast tour. The first single, “Yes or No,” has been posted by Mexican Summer.
Jimmy Cliff and Tim Armstrong (of Rancid) talk about collaborating on Cliff’s upcoming album (Re.Birth, out July 17th). If the recorded version is half as good as the songs sound live…it’s gonna be a classic. And, according to the video, he’s apparently going to play a show in Antarctica.
Brit songstress Laura Marling has confirmed completion of a forthcoming record, to be released into the wild in early 2013. That is, if 2013 actually happens.
Rolling Stone has decided to rank the 100 greatest Beatles songs, and commissioned Mr. Elvis Costello to write an intro. Let’s just go ahead and stipulate that any band who can have 100 songs rated as being amongst their best wins Best Band Ever, hands down.
Muse will do for the 2012 London Olympics what The White Stripes did for the 2006 World Cup, providing “Survival” as its anthem. Italians still haven’t stopped chanting “Seven Nation Army” in honor of the Azzurri, (which, if you’ve experienced this, has almost certainly forever ruined the song for you). If you don’t like its orchestral-meets-Queen-meets-masturbation soundscape, well, you can always blame Kate Hudson.
M83 put out one of 2011’s best albums — a double album, at that — and yet Anthony Gonzalez is set to make more money on a side project than he ever will from that record. How, you ask? Well, even if Katy Perry doesn’t let him write her next album, he’s providing the score for a Tom Cruise movie. Just remember Anthony…points on the gross, not the net!
Updating an earlier story, Russian-Riot-Grrrls Pussy Riot remain in prison because they dared to call Russian Strongman / President Vladimir Putin out for being…Putin, and the Russian Orthodox church for being…the Russian Orthodox church. In America, we see more caustic challenges to power each day on cable news. But, even after pseudo-victories in the Supreme Court, our Presidents don’t posture like this:
