The editors of Modern Tonic present a weekly music update here on Towleroad. The rest of the week, they scan the pop-culture landscape for movie, TV, book and Web recommendations in their daily email.
ARTISTS TO WATCH AND FREE DOWNLOADS:
The French DJ/producer David Guetta introduced himself to the world with an album called F**k Me I’m Famous, which — come to think of it — we’d like on our business card. That sentiment might have been wishful thinking in 2003, but it’s a fact now, as evidenced by the A-list guest vocalists on his hi-NRG One Love, out August 25 (SAMPLE IT IN A FREE DOWNLOADABLE MEDLEY HERE). From the worldwide summer club smash “When Love Takes Over” to the Akon-on-AutoTune “Sexy Bitch” and Estelle’s jubilant disco hustle on the title track, Guetta’s at the top of his — and every other DJ’s — game. In a year of great club-friendly records — including MSTRKFRT’s Fist of God and Simian Mobile Disco’s forthcoming Temporary Pleasures — One Love is the club-banging king. And let us be the first to say that Ms. Kelly Rowland, who appears on “When Love Takes Over” and two other tracks here, has found her true calling. Disco diva is your destiny, child.
The difference between Grammy-nominated R&B singer Ledisi’s last release, Lost & Found, and her latest,Turn Me Loose(out today), is evident before you play one note of the new album. The cover of L&F was a dark, muted, twilight image of the performer. Turn Me Loose features Ledisi throwing down at the mike, clad in black and popping against a bright red background. And when she counts down to leadoff track “Runnin’” with “Keep your faith, stay strong, move forward,” and the rock-ish dance groove kicks in, you’ll hear an artist unleashed. If L&F was a midnight storm of love and hope, Turn Me Loose is the carnal prequel — the girl’s on the prowl. Last time an R&B singer was this feral, Chaka Khan was still fronting Rufus. Old school meet new school. Now everybody go off and get laid. GRAB A FREE DOWNLOAD OF "GOIN' THRU CHANGES" HERE.
The folks over at Entertainment Weekly are on a quest to declare The Greatest Guilty Pleasure Act of All Time. But they’re not making the choices — everyone who participates online is, via a nifty series of match-ups. First up: Nickelback vs. Phish (we abstained from that one) and Britney vs. Pussycat Dolls. No contest there!
After an aborted debut for Mercury Nashville Records in 2002, mainstream country hunk David Nail finally releases his first album, I’m About to Come Alive, featuring a remake of Train’s title track.
Though overshadowed by their parent band Bauhaus, Love & Rockets finally get a tribute album with New Tales to Tell, featuring remakes by acolytes The Flaming Lips, Blaqk Audio and more.
Imagine The Cure’s Robert Smith turned New Wave soulman and you might approximate English singer Jack Peñate’s sophomore release Everything Is New.
The Sound of Arrows: “Into the Clouds” Filmed in Technicolor, this clip from the Stockholm techno duo NME calls "Enya-loving Disney characters" is fantastically twee and catchy-annoying in the best possible way.
Lights: “Saviour” The first single from the Canadian dream pop artist’s debut album, The Listening, features Lights aka Valerie Poxleitner as an animated heroine on an interstellar adventure.
Bananarama: “Love Comes” Robert DeNiro can stop waiting! Bananarama offer this Eurodisco single “Love Comes” from their forthcoming European release, Viva (due in September).
David Gray: “The Fugitive” The wobbly-headed troubadour from Greater Manchester gets literal on this first track from his forthcoming Draw the Line. As he plays alone in a stark room, artwork magically happens all around him. Just another day in the life of David Gray.
A DJ in Israel was punished with an assault for playing a Pet Shop Boys track at a Bedouin wedding, AFP reports:
The DJ initially put on Arabic tunes for the hundreds of guests
attending the event in Aroer village in Israel's Negev desert region. At one point, he decided to stir things up and put on a song by the
British electronic music duo Pet Shop Boys, causing some women to 'dance exuberantly to the foreign music,' angering some of the men
present, the daily said. Several angry young men gave the DJ a 'severe beating' after he
refused to go back to playing Arabic music. Police later arrested two
men in connection with the incident."
The Pet Shop Boys video for "What Have I Done to Deserve This?", AFTER THE JUMP...
The editors of Modern Tonic present a weekly music update here on Towleroad. The rest of the week, they scan the pop-culture landscape for movie, TV, book and Web recommendations in their daily email.
Little Boots (aka Victoria Hesketh) is the best thing to happen to the thigh-high since Beyoncé’s Foxxy Cleopatra strutted her way through Austin Powers in Goldmember. Her import debut Hands — with production help from Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard, Greg Kurstin of The Bird and The Bee and Simian Mobile Disco’s Jas Shaw — is a dancing, leaping, jumping blend of 80’s synth-pop, big beat drums and hooks galore. “Stuck On Repeat” and “New in Town,” her Kylie-licious singles, are available on both the full-length album and her U.S.-only EPIlluminations (out today), a sampler to keep U.S. listeners happy until a domestic release date is set for Hands. (Illuminations has three additional tracks — including a remake of Freddie Mercury’s “Love Kills" — not on the album.)
This Soho boho Gaga-esque goddess, who won the BBC’s “Sound of 2009” survey, revs her synths into overdrive for some hand-clapping, foot-stomping instant classics.
Beth Ditto of The Gossip on working with Rick Rubin ("That gave me chills"), snarky blog comments ("I don't Google myself"), being gay and out ("Samantha Ronson and Lindsay Lohan - that would have been kept a crazy secret five years ago. To be part of that visibility is really important"), and her band's forthcoming album Music For Men.
MPHO — “Box ‘n’ Locks” This mixed-race Londoner makes like Santigold with a Smiths-esque stroll through this bouncy single (featuring a riff from Martha and the Muffins’ ‘80s classic “Echo Beach”) from her fall U.K. debut, Pop Art.
WALE ftrg. LADY GAGA — “Chillin’” Mark Ronson-sponsored D.C.-based rapper cruises Washington’s mean streets with Lady Gaga fronting her best M.I.A. impersonation.
DAVID GUETTA ftrg. KELLY ROWLAND — “When Love Takes Over” David Guetta’s summer club anthem gets a downtempo remake when vocalist Kelly Rowland takes the BBC Live Lounge stage.
FRANKMUSIK — “Confusion Girl” Even with pink sneakers and a tragic haircut, Vincent Frank (aka Frankmusik) gets the girl in this clip for the current single from his forthcoming Complete Me (out July 27 in the U.K.).
The Pet Shop Boys have posted the video for their new single, "Did You See Me Coming?"
The PSB shot the video on April 22. The video was directed by Douglas Hart, former bassist for the JEsus and Mary Chain. The PSB twittered this photo (below) of Hart and Tennant on set back when they were shooting.
Watch the clip (it's very "Minimal"-esque), AFTER THE JUMP...
In the interview, which touches on gay culture, America, AIDS, religion, and the music, Neil Tennant confesses: “I got alienated from the gay world -- when I went through my famous
heterosexual phase -- because everyone looked the same. To this day,
I’ve never got the everyone-looking-the-same thing...this was the clones and the checked shirts and the 501s and the same
mustaches, you know. I mean, now you can look back, and it seems sort
of endearingly kitsch. It’s Tales of the City, you know -- it’s
that period. I found that alienating because it seemed professional and
narcissistic and just about doing sex really well. And all of that I
don’t find very sexy."
Tennant also speaks of his fondness for Obama: “We’re crazy about Obama in Europe. Everyone thinks he’s sexy. Lovely teeth, as my mother would say. He’s brought back dignity, which is an amazing thing to put back on the cultural agenda. There’s a slightly corny song on our album called 'More Than a Dream,'
which was written when Obama was slugging it out with Hillary in the
primaries, and you could feel the potential for the world to change
away from the sort of paranoia -- justified as it may be -- to
something different. And that spirit is what we’re riding at the
moment, although of course we wrote that before the economic crisis."
Robbie Daw presents a weekly pop music update here on Towleroad. Robbie runs his own site called Chart Rigger.
This morning I headed out to Target to pick up cat food and paper towels. And might as well grab a Mother's Day card. And one for grandma. And vinegar. And chewing gum.
I also could use new headphones. And there's the new Depeche Mode CD, for only $9.98. What's one more impulse buy at this point?
Is buying music on CD completely passe now? Granted, I'll still pick up older stuff or imports not available here in the States on disc occasionally. Perhaps the real question should be whether actually driving to the store to buy music on CD is an outmoded concept.
The three remaining U.S. Virgin Megastores (Los Angeles, Orlando, Denver) will shut their doors for good this year, joining defunct chains such as National Record Mart and Tower. And while those out there actually paying for music are still, percentage-wise, opting for CDs over MP3s, they're doing so online, at places like Amazon.
Hence retailers like Austin's Waterloo Records and San Francisco and L.A.'s Amoeba Records getting involved in the brick-and-mortar-supporting Record Store Day this past Saturday.
It sort of all comes full circle to the dilemma I had when I was a teenager—whether or not to buy an album on cassette or CD. My beat up '87 Dodge Shadow I used to tool around my hometown in during the early '90s had a tape player, so often cassettes won out, even though my parents invested in a CD player for their stereo system pretty early on.
Maybe it all just comes down to practicality.
Anyway, my friend—a big Depeche Mode fan—texted me later and said that I could have gotten theirSounds Of The Universe off Amazon's MP3 store for only $3.99 today. Just my luck.
I would have argued that I did it all for the artwork, but I've listened to the album three times now, and haven't even thought about opening the booklet inside.
STANDOUT TRACKS: "Peace," "Perfect" and the current single "Wrong."
TODAY'S NEW RELEASES:
Yes, the 10th studio album from the Pet Shop Boys. (Check out my track-by-track review.) Also available (though only as a physical CD) is a limited edition two-disc version called Yes, etc., containing the extra song "This Used To Be The Future" (which features both Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe singing, as well as Human League's Phil Oakey) and six dub mixes of Yes album tracks.
TODAY'S NEW RELEASES: 
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