Massive Attack - Heligoland
Heligoland is the fifth album from Massive Attack and the first full-length album that they’ve put out in seven years. Seven years. Seriously.
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Top 5 Electronic Albums of 2009
My exposure to good electronic music experienced a significant decline sometime at the beginning of the decade, but it seems like things are starting to pick up a bit. Two of the albums on this list are technically good enough to make the main top 10 albums of 2009, but “Electronic” is an important subgenre that should have its own list.
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Ke$ha - Animal
Ke$ha has appeared out of what seems like nowhere with an electropop dance album that sounds surprisingly fresh …considering the fact it took seven years to complete.
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Top 10 EPs of 2009
EPs are not the ideal format to release music when your fans have been waiting to hear new music from you for years. They are, however, a great way for a band to get some music out into the world, to supplement an already released album or to preview an upcoming album.
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Top 3 Instrumental Albums of 2009
It seems like instrumental albums get no love from the music world, but there are people creating some really great music with no vocals.
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k-os - The Trill: A Journey So Far
The Trill: A Journey So Far is a compilation album from k-os, the Canadian singer-songwriter/rapper that already put out two other albums this year.
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Best Song of November 2009
There were ten songs in the running for the month of November, but one of them almost stood out enough to invalidate the others. A list with only one song on it would be boring though.
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Blakroc - Blakroc
Rock rap was certainly thrust into the mainstream when Run DMC teamed up with Aerosmith for “Walk This Way,” but even Blondie’s “Rapture” hinted at the eventual fusion of rap and rock.
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Jets Overhead - Bridges
Jets Overhead is a group that I missed when "Bridges" was released. I would still be missing them, as well, if it weren't for a key moment in this week's House where a track from the album, "Where Did You Go?," plays. I saw the episode twice and both times I thought "I really like that song."
By Christopher Calicott · 0 Comments · Leave a Comment
Norah Jones - The Fall
The Fall is the fourth studio album from Norah Jones and if it continues the trend of her other albums – selling about half as many copies as the one before it and hitting number one on the charts – then sales on her new number one record should only reach about three and a quarter million copies worldwide.
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50 Cent - Before I Self-Destruct
50 Cent is the stage name of Curtis Jackson, a rapper whose claim to fame seems to be selling crack, getting arrested, getting shot nine times and releasing a mixtape that somehow got in the hands of Eminem’s lawyer. (At least we know that he’s not frontin’ when he raps about being a gangsta.
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Snow Patrol - Up To Now
Up To Now is a two-disc compilation from the Northern Irish Indie Rock band, Snow Patrol. Frontman Gary Lightbody insists that it is not a “greatest hits” album – partly because he hates those types of records and partly because he claims that they haven’t had enough hits to warrant one.
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Best Song of October 2009
October boasted a decent number worthy tracks …and a few that were even better than that.
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The Twilight Saga - New Moon Soundtrack
The soundtrack for New Moon features more big-name bands than its predecessor and, of the eleven artists that contributed a song for Twilight, Muse is the only group to return.
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People Under the Stairs - Carried Away
Do you feel that pot and pills and assorted academics aren’t enough anymore? Do you need something more? …more than a pill or a pipe or a poem? Well, I’m not sure if the new album from People Under the Stairs will help, but at least you can relate to the first sample on Carried Away, the seventh album from People Under the Stairs. Wait a second…the seventh album? …Ferreal?
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Editors - In This Light and On This Evening
In This Light and On This Evening is the third studio album from the British indie band, Editors. Their first two records both went Gold in Ireland and Platinum in the UK, but their second album was the only one to make the US charts…and it never even made the top 100, peaking at 117.
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Natalie Imbruglia - Come to Life
Australian singer-songwriter Natalie Imbruglia became an international star in the late nineties with the song “Torn” and the subsequent album, Left of the Middle, sold in excess of six million copies worldwide.
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Best Song of September 2009
September is apparently a great month for good music because the total number of songs this month is thirteen. They’ve been arranged in groups to fight it out like a martial arts tournament.
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Paramore - Brand New Eyes
Paramore’s previous album, Riot!, was filled with addictively catchy songs and an energy that made the name choice more than appropriate. Their sound is quite as bit more subdued on third album, Brand New Eyes, which is almost easy-listening by comparison. This discrepancy poses at least one important question.
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Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions - Through The Devil Softly
Hope Sandoval is not an immediately recognizable name, but her previous band, Mazzy Star, is a bit more familiar because of the song “Fade Into You.” And, if, through some miracle of fate, you somehow managed to avoid hearing that song, then maybe you at least caught Anthony Kiedis’ reference to the “star of Mazzy” in “Aeroplane" by The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
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