Ok, nu ska jag lyssna igenom Norah Jones nya album “The Fall”. Återkommer om jag gillar den eller inte. Känner jag är på humör för den musiken…..

Poche novità significative nella settimana di vendita dei dischi. Spunta il secondo album di Leona Lewis “Echo“, fresco di uscita in Gran Bretagna e subito schizzato in vetta sia in patria che in Irlanda. E mentre in Belgio impazza clamorosamente la piccola Laura Omloop, addirittura terza in classifica dopo la sua partecipazione allo Junior Eurofestival dove è giuntan “solo” quarta, Spagna e Portogallo ci regalano sorprese.

In terra lusitana unione in vetta di fado e dance, strana accoppiata, mentre i portoghesi Buraka Som Sistema, dai suoni decisamente africani comandano la classifica dei singoli spagnoli. In Spagna subito trionfo per il nuovo album del cantautore e poeta Joaquin Sabina. Primati di gran classe in Svizzera con Norah Jones e Melanie Fiona. Da noi finalmente si rivedono in testa artisti italiani. Per chi non la conoscesse riascoltiamo la travolgente “Zo verliefd” di Laura Omloop. Sotto, i numeri uno.

Most of us associate the excitement over the Christmas season with personal memories from childhood. For some it’s the sight of drifting snowflakes or candles and Christmas tree decorations. Others might be thinking of the scent of baked apples – or even mulled wine. But there’s one memory that everyone has in common: the sound of rustling wrapping paper as you excitedly unpacked your gift-laden stocking.

The latter tradition is the legacy of Nicholas of Myra aka Saint Nicholas, the historical 4th century figure behind Santa Claus. The legends surrounding his deeds as a patron of sailors, merchants and children made him a highly revered saint among Catholics and in general made him one of the world’s most famous gift givers.

So with the advent of Advent we once more wonder what would make the ideal present for a cherished friend or family member. Look no further for the ideal solution than California Sunset Records and moreorlessCHRISTMAS 5. Artists including Till Brönner, Norah Jones and Laura Fygi provide the perfect mood for cosy evenings in by the fireplace. Their enchanting versions of familiar Christmas classics (incl. ”Winter Wonderland”, ”White Christmas”) revive all those childhood memories and nostalgia and help roll back the years. Click here to order your copy now.

The new music hitting right now as far the brand new material is about as across the board as one can get. Them Crooked Vultures combines Grohl, John Paul Jones and Josh Homme doing epic quasi-garage rock that changes it up. Norah Jones plays out more acid while John Mayer stays with the status quo but keys in some personal trudge while keeping the guitar singing. Rihanna brings back the rear with a bit of slice, but because of recent incidents, gives her presence of mind a weight not available before.

Them Crooked Vultures – “Elephants” [Them Crooked Vultures] Using simple power chords but with change ups, this track from the new supergroup of the moment changes throughout without becoming overtly apparent. Despite this, the cut has an undeniable charge to it. Each of the players involved just loves blasting it out. The groove is there for the taking without even a thought like a dark burning roadhouse where everybody is slamming beers and dancing, sweaty into the night.

John Mayer – “All We Ever Do Is Say Goodbye” [Battle Studies] This song shows Mayer’s pop sensibilities within an Elton John progression while using an arpeggio structure he rarely uses. The song has a specific thought train almost like Aniston incarnate considering the intro lyrics but with a longing that plays very close because it works. You also get the vintage guitar like Clapton would have wanted despite a basic chorus line. The reality will get the cell phones waving.

Norah Jones – “Stuck” [The Fall] The girl goes a little trip with this bar singer ditty that feels smooth and dirty at the same time with a great elegance to it. The dreamy center of the chorus mixes aspects of country with acid jazz before amping it up with a heavy sound that heightens the feel into flux. You can see the smoke cresting in the bar with Andy Warhol chillin in the corner while a girl in silk dances.

Rihanna – “GL4″ [Rated R] The starting beat keys into a rolling song. Rihanna’s initial dark entrenching jumps her out with a sultry but confident air that gives the persona a more specific poise. The grind sound plays the club right without grooving out too much while the lyrics don’t mess with the fact that she is “down for life and love” but she and her girls “know revenge is sweet”. Girl got some edge now since the beat kicks it to the floor.

Norah Jones e uma galera se juntaram uns anos atrás e fizeram essa banda que até hoje só tem um cd. The Little Willies (nome em homenagem a Willie Nelson) tem um som que me leva pra uma época que eu não vivi, num país que eu mal conheci: não sei porque diabos, mas me sinto em Nova York em 1920 e não sei porque diabos [2] essa sensação é bastante animadora.

John Mayer’s Battle Studies debuts at number one on the Billboard 200 album chart. The album sold 286,000 copies in its first week of release.

Andrea Bocelli’s My Christmas is at number two, selling 185,000 copies (which is a 36% sales increase from last week). Norah Jones’ The Fall debuts at number three, selling 180,000 copies in its first week of release.

Casting Crowns’ Until the Whole World Hears debuts at number four, selling 167,000 copies in its first week of release. 50 Cent’s Before I Self Destruct debuts at number five, selling 160,000 copies in its first week of release.

Justin Bieber’s My World EP debuts at number six, selling 137,000 copies in its first week of release. The This Is It soundtrack falls three spots to number seven, selling 96,000 copies (which is an 18% decrease in sales from last week).

The Twilight: New Moon soundtrack moves up two spots to number eight, selling 93,000 copies (which is a 77% gain in sales). Carrie Underwood’s Play On drops six spots to number nine, selling 86,000 copies (which is a 33% decrease in sales). Taylor Swift’s Fearless falls five spots to number ten, selling 84,000 copies (which is an 8% decrease in sales from last week).

This week’s sales (7.98 million units) are up 13% from last week, but down 16% compared to the same week last year.

So I was watching good ol Stephen Colbert getting my fake news fix when he brought out Norah Jones. Now I remember the first time I heard Norah was around the time of her release ‘Come Away With Me.’ It was around 3am, I was flipping through the channels and stopped on VH1 to watch the video for ‘Don’t Know Why,’ and I remember thinking to myself I hope this is a new artist. It was so good that I hoped she would be around for a while and wasn’t someone I had never heard of before that released on album and disappeared. The thing is, I loved that album but her follow ups I felt were lacking. Anyways, back to the Colbert Report. She came on and did a new song and I was in awe. What happened, I don’t know but I am glad it did. I went to her web site and listened to some more of the new songs and now know I must own this album. The best way I could describe it is if Tom Waits was born 20 some years ago as a woman he would have become Norah Jones. The sounds are dreamy and haunting her voice is (as always), amazing and her song writing is developing swimmingly. I can’t wait to her where she goes next.

A friend of mine did a show recently where she sang Norah Jones “Don’t Know Why.”

Detta eviga regnande. Tänk den dag när det är uppehåll hela dagen igen, och kanske till och med lite sol. Jag längtar… Nu är ju snart november slut, håller alla tummar för att december blir en vädermässigt bättre månad. Men kanske i övrigt lika bra som november trots allt blev.

Lite värme i november-mörkret; Norah Jones senaste singel för er som mot all förmodan inte hört den än. Hm, rysningar. Chasing pirates.

The music of Norah Jones has always been a bit “safe” for my taste, however, credit is due for her new album “The Fall” for which she has stepped out from behind the safety of her piano to deliver a set of songs which have an edge in part missing from her earlier albums.

The “edge” may in part be due to her split from her long term music and personal partner and her decision to work with a whole new group of musicians and collaborators.

Here is a live version of one of my favourite tracks from the album.

“Waiting” (Live) – Norah Jones

Here is a brief review from www.independant.co.uk

Parts of Norah Jones’s 2007 album Not Too Late sounded rather like a scrubbed-up, housetrained Tom Waits, so it’s no surprise that for this follow-up, she enlisted the services of producer Jacquire King in an attempt to obtain the “balance between beautiful and rough” that he secured for Waits’s Mule Variations.

  To help achieve that effect, they’ve drafted in a session crew that includes drummers James Gadson (Bill Withers, Al Green) and Joey Waronker (REM) and guitarists Marc Ribot (Tom Waits) and Smokey Hormel (Johnny Cash); but the dominant instrument here is Jones’s own guitar, a quivering vibrato throb at the heart of most of these tracks. Otherwise, the significant impression is of heavier drums behind her warm, lazy croon, setting up the chugging grooves of “Young Blood” and “Chasing Pirates” and the boogie swing of “It’s Gonna Be”.

The best tracks come towards the album’s end, with the shimmering guitar haze hanging around the Johnny Cash rhythm of “Tell Your Mama”, the combination of acoustic picking an gentle piano chords on the lullaby ballad “December” and the downhome “Man of the Hour”, a song to her dog in which she admits, “I can’t choose between a vegan and a pothead, so I chose you”.

To buy the music of Norah Jones click HERE

Playlist:

1. Chew Lips ♥ Salt Air (Alex Kapranos Remix)
2. The Drums – Let’s Go Surfing
3. 20 Fingers ♥♥♥ Short Dick Man
4. Max Justus – Ctrl Alt Dance (Coulson’s ‘Cheap Arcade’ Edit)
5. Jack Johnson – Constellations (with Eddie Vedder)(live)
6. DJ Assault – Nympho
7. Jamie Cullum – I’m All Over It
8. Norah Jones – Man of the Hour
9. Air ♥♥♥♥ Sing Sang Sung (sayCet remix)
10. Washed Out ♥♥ New Theory

En fait:

1. Alex Kapranos nous propose ici un nouveau remix! Peut-être est-ce le nom ou peut être est-ce la chanson original qui fait de ce remix un très bon choix. Quoi qu’il en soit, c’est extrêmement bien foutu et on s’en lasse bien difficilement!
2. Une jolie balade pop au rythme ensorcellent. Je ne l’aurais peut-être pas ajouté dans cette playlist s’il n’y aurait pas eu se plagia (reprise) de Hot Dog de Smd. M’enfin, la qualité est là, on ne crache pas dessus.
3. Un rythme glaciale, une langue bien pendue(ou pas), une mélodie quasi techno. Rien de très réjouissant à priori mais pourtant on se laisse vite aller et…arf, ma foi, c’est assez marrant . Ce titre nous est proposé par Madame, il n’est pas forcément récent mais n’a pas vieilli d’un pouce.
4. Ça à l’air tout bête comme ça : quelques bruitage snes, un fond pop/electro vaguement entrainement….Puis, je ne sais pas à peine 15 seconde le charme opère et on est complètement sous le charme de ce petit bijoux.
5. “En Concert” de Jack Johnson est juste somptueux. Les titres sont tous revisités, revigorés, par cette initiative. Il est si beau de découvrir que de si jolie ballade en CD peuvent être d’une beauté sans nom en concert. Constellations en duo avec Eddie Vedder lui même n’est qu’un exemple entre tous les autres.
6. Ces derniers temps, je me suis un peu attardée sur les compile Kitsuné et je suis tombée sur ce titre de DJ Assault “Nympho”. Un jolie petit tube bien impacté, bien léché, entêtant.
7. Je vous avouerais  que le dernier album de Jamie Cullum m’a complètement déçue. Pas qu’il soit foncièrement mauvais, mais je suis restée sur ma fin ; il manque cette petite chose qui fait toutes la différences. Pourtant, I’m All Over It était un single extrêmement prometteur.
8. Idem pour le dernier Norah Jones. A vouloir jouer sa rockeuse, ça ne ressemble plus vraiment à grand chose. On appréciera l’initiative mais attendra quelque chose de plus consistant.
9. Comment vous dire…C’est juste sublime.
10. Oui, ok. New Theory pourrait être assimiler à cette vague électro totalement à la mode( ou has been selon le point de vue) mais il y a ce machintrucchose qui vous fait sentir qu’il y autre chose…Toujours cette fameuse chose. Un jour, je ferais un blog qui s’appellerait, “Le truc”, ça sera un bide mais l’idée y aurait été.

Photo : Toujours par là bas

Car la moustache d’Alex Kapranos, c’est mythique.

Ogni anno me ne vengo fuori con una compilation estiva per i miei conoscenti, una sorta di tradizione che continua dai tempi del liceo. Le compilation sono piccole creature d’amore, veri e propri omaggi a quegli artisti la cui musica diventa, giorno dopo giorno, ascolto dopo ascolto, la colonna sonora delle nostre vite.

Grazie a queta pratica (fare compilation, cassette, cd o anche semplici playlist) attraverso gli anni ho fatto conoscere moltissimi artisti a svariate persone, che poi si sono trovate anche a comprare dischi o ad andare ai concerti di questi musicisti. Di nuovo la domanda sorge spontanea; quanto realmente danneggia un musicista la cultura del file-sharing?

E comunque bisogna sempre guardare avanti, come ci dice Chris in questo brillante intervento su youtube. La grande opportunitá per gli artisti di slegarsi dalle logiche di mercato e dalle regole imposte dall’industria discografica sta proprio nel trovare alternative alla vendita del prodotto/disco.

Anche i Radiohead, che in una recente intervista affermavano che non avrebbero piú rilasciato un disco, non hanno annunciato la loro fine ma un nuovo inizio, come poi ha spiegato Colin Greenwood in un susseguente intervento. Gli artisti devono pensare le loro opere all’interno delle nuove culture tecnologiche e sociali. Il formato cd é ormai obsoleto. Un musicista oggi ha l’opportunitá di presentare i propri lavori sotto moltissime nuove forme, grazie soprattutto a internet.

Questa qui sotto é la mia compilation proposta per l’inverno. La tracklist é un semplice consiglio d’ascolto, ma guarda caso sono riuscito a trovarla da qualche parte in rete, perció se vi va di scaricarla, accomodatevi: http://is.gd/52rS9

Buon ascolto a tutti!!

THE COLONY COMPILATION
Winter 2010

01 – BIG ELF – Money is pure evil
02 – WOLFMOTHER – New Moon Rising
03 – PORCUPINE TREE – Time Flies
04 – DIABLO SWING ORCHESTRA – Balrog Boogie
05 – JOHN ZORN – Miller’s Crake
06 – THE MARS VOLTA – Copernicus
07 – PINK MARTINI – And Then You’re Gone
08 – THE DEAR HUNTER – The Poison Woman
09 – NORAH JONES – Even Though
10 – TRANSATLANTIC – The wind blew them all away
11 – JULLIETTE LEWIS – Fantasy Bar
12 – TORI AMOS – Snow Angel
13 – BEARDFISH – Destined_solitaire
14 – ALICE – Island

Picture by Willoclick

FONTE: http://colonyofslippermen.wordpress.com/

Häromdagen släppte Norah Jones ett nytt album och den här gången går hon ifrån sin hissmysiga pianomusik och låter nästan singer-songwriter. Med god hjälp från min (gamla) hjälte Ryan Adams. Ville visst låta lite opolerad och rå, enligt intervjuer och recensioner i bland annat HD, Expressen och DN. Men hon har ju fortfarande en sammetslen röst, så det låter ju liksom inte Janis Joplin. Inte heller låter det country bara för att gamle gode Ryan Adams skrivit en låt. Men å andra sidan var det ett tag sedan Ryan själv lät country, om vi ska vara riktigt ärliga.

Vad många dock inte vet är att Norah Jones faktiskt KAN låta country, bara hon vill. Och det vill hon i bandet The Little Willies”, och hon/dom gör det bra. Låter country alltså. Men så är det också ett coverband med idel ädel nobla musiker som alla huserar i New York och till vardags spelar med artister som Martha Wainwright och Diana Krall. Förutom bostadsort har de fem medlemmarna, med Norah Jones i spetsen, även det gemensamt att de hyser en stor kärlek till country musik. Efter att ha jammat tillsammans på klubben The Living Room i New York några gånger, och ett par välgörenhetsevenemang, insåg bandet att fans uppskattade deras, i många fall synnerligen alternativa (läs upptempo) versioner av countryklassisker, att det var läge för en skiva. 2006 ger The Little Willies ut sitt självbetitlade album som innehåller smittsamt glada och frejdiga låtar/versioner som “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive” av Hank Williams, “Tennesse Stud” som bl a Johnny Cash gjort och “I Gotta Get Drunk” av Willie Nelson.

Om du tror att country är förknippat med släpig, gnällig, tempofattiga låtar i moll – think again. The Little Willies dammar av och livar upp nya och gamla klassiker på ett sätt och med ett sound som får dig att dansa på bord, stolar och fönsterbräden.

Vill du inte sövas av Norah Jones vanligtvis, förvisso behagliga men också slöa röst, höj ljudet på stereon/datorn och pumpa The Little Willies för glatta livet. För precis s känns livet när tonerna från detta spelglada band sätter tänderna i sina countryfavoriter. Tror du mig inte så lyssna på “I Gotta Get Drunk” nedan. Har du Spotify kan du för nöjes skull kan du jämföra med Willies version.

Lyssnar mer på Spotify:

The Little Willies – “The Little Willies”

Willie Nelson – “Both Sides Now”

Johnny Cash – “American Recordings” (med Tennessee Stud)

Albumul de debut al cantaretei Susan Boyle, senzatia de anul acesta de la concursul Britain’s Got Talent, al carei destin semana cu al tenorului Costel Busuioc(castigator al concursului spaniol “Hijos de Babel”, de la canalul TVE),a reusit sa inregistreze cel mai mare numar de comenzi la nivel global pe Amazon, inainte de lansarea sa oficiala, potrivit Reuters.com.

Albumul “I dreamed a dream” va fi lansat pe 24 noiembrie de Sony Music si este debutul lui Boyle, in varsta de 48 de ani, care a luat cu asalt Internetul si a uimit o lume intreaga cu intrepretarea sa de la celebrul concurs “Britain’s Got Talent” in aprilie.

Boyle este dintr-un orasel din Scotia, nu are un loc de munca si este voluntar la biserica.

“Albumul lui Susan in mod clar captureaza inimile clientilor nostri de pe intreg globul,” a spus Craig Pape, senior manager la Amazon.com.

Compania nu a dorit sa dea cifrele ale pre-comenzilor, dar a spus ca albumul a depasit recordul care era detinut in 2008 de japonezii Mr. Children cu albumul “Supermarket Fantasy”, pe Norah Jones cu “Not Too Late” si Take That “Never Forget: The Ultimate Collection”.

Boyle a pierdut finala concursului in fata unei trupe de dans, apoi a fost internata la o clinica din cauza epuizarii.

Cu toate acestea a semnat un contract pentru album prin Simon Cowell, membru al juriului atat la Britain’s Got Talen si American Idol si a interpretat piesa “Wild Horses” de la Rolling Stones in septembrie la America’s Got Talent.

***IATA, CE  SCRIAM IN APRILIE 2009, CAND SUSAN BOYLE A DEVENIT SENZATIA CONCURSULUI BRITAIN*S GOT TALENT:
http://mihaimarin.wordpress.com/2009/04/27/britain%c2%b7s-got-talent/

MARIN MIHAI-HAI, ROMANIA!-BLOGUL ROMANILOR DE PRETUTINDENI(http://mihaimarin.wordpress.com)