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Below we have the latest music news headlines, features and some of our favourite reviews from the past 7 days that have been featured on the AltSounds pages. This is also the AltSounds Weekly Newsletter that hits your inbox during the week.
Week ending October 7th 2012 | Bored of reading already?
Adele, NME, Justin Bieber, The Beatles and Psy
Here come the Koreans...
If you haven’t heard of the rapper Psy, then you are about to experience something so cold, so amazing and unique, that your head may just explode a little. You have been warned. YouTube has been overrun, 405 million views at time of press, and it has reached number #1 in the UK. I’m not entirely sure if Psy is blind, but he doesn’t take his glasses off, he appears on the toilet with his trousers down, and has invented a dance craze more popular than the one MC Hammer invented to ‘U Can’t Touch This’.
Happy Birthday NME
We’re not averse to giving props to our competitors, and NME certainly deserve it. 60 years is a long time, especially in the world of print press when magazines and newspapers are closing daily, with thousands of jobs being cut, but the New Musical Express are still going strong. Well done and happy birthday to our rivals at NME who first published on March 7, 1952.
Adele, back on top
If you thought for a moment that the power of Adele was going to wane after over 18 months on no new material, you thought wrong. Returning to the traditional James Bond style of bold brassy Tina Turner/Shirley Bassey songs, 007 has caught the hearts of fans young and old once again.
Justin… and out again
Silly little girls were let out of their cages last week as Justin Bieber opened up his digestive system on the opening night of his world tour. Right in the centre of the stage, halfway through ‘Out of Town Girl’, Bieber turned his back on his adoring public, bent over and projected his insides over the stage. Fans were visibly appalled and the singer ran off the stage to puke some more. In fairness to the little prat, he returned and completed the show, even though he had to say, “will you love me even though I’m throwing up on stage”, like a pathetic attention seeker. He later tweeted, “milk was a bad choice”.
The Beatles, at 50
The greatest band of all time have been featuring in documentaries and receiving plaudits in celebration of the 50 year anniversary of their first single ‘Love Me Do’. Beatlemania rocked the world in 1962, even though The Beatles’ first single only reached #17 in the singles chart.
What we have been featuring...
AltSounds Online Artist Development Prize Package worth $1000's
AltSounds has been helping artists and bands for over 8 years. This year AltSounds are taking their role even further and more seriously by offering one (1) lucky ReverbNation band / artist the chance to work with them as part of an Exclusive AltSounds Online Development Prize Package. [READ MORE HERE]
AltSounds caught up with Devin to talk about his latest curve ball, the stunning Epicloud (read the review here: Review: Devin Townsend Project - Epicloud [Album] and his plans for the future. [READ FULL INTERVIEW HERE]
Happy 50th birthday Mr Bond! With the release date of the brand new James Bond film fast approaching, and the whole of the UK going mental for snippets of Adele’s new track for Skyfall, there has never been a better time to take a look back at some of the absolute classics that accompanies the Bond girls dancing during the opening credits. There have been some incredible anthems, and some fiascos when it comes to the theme songs for James Bond, clearly some couldn’t handle the pressure of having the privilege of penning and performing one of the ultimate honours in film and music (in my opinion). [READ MORE HERE]
AltSounds caught up with these indie-devils who, once combined, are known to you and I as Dog is Dead. They’re a 5 - pieced suitably disturbed lot, hot on the alternative trail. [READ FULL INTERVIEW HERE]
What we have been listening to...
Bleed Electric – This is my Masterpiece [Album]
As a fan of the electronic music genre, the name Bleed Electric really excites me. Just thinking about the name draws up various connotations of synthesisers and beats galore. This EP must surely be a well-crafted electronic piece of art, with futuristic sounding choruses, winding synth-lines and frenetic rhythms. [READ FULL REVIEW HERE]
Lower Than Atlantis – Changing Tune [Album]
The crown for my favourite British alternative-rock band is forever changing hands. Last year, Lower Than Atlantis just stole it with their amazing sophomore album, World Record. It was a haven of raw, memorable and melodic rock gems that I'm still to this day growing more and more attached to with every listen. [READ FULL REVIEW HERE]
The heavyweights of past compilations, like Jamiroquai and Groove Armada, would suggest that Late Night Tales would pull in an even heavier weight if they wanted to. But they haven't. To my surprise Late Night Tales have gone for Friendly Fires and, whilst I'm not knocking the St. Albans trio - their debut self-titled album was a corker - I can't help but feel a little underwhelmed, Friendly Fires last album Pala wasn't exactly the knock-out I'd hoped for. Are they really justifiable for this landmark Late Night Tales release? [READ FULL REVIEW HERE]
Similar in almost every way to the Kaiser Chiefs, Winter Olympics have decided to eschew the original for a painstaking recreation of everything that was wrong with the early noughties indie scene. Their lyrics are meaningless to the point of indecipherable, the sound is all straightforward drum beats and clean guitar chords, and the singer sounds like a carbon copy of Kaiser Chiefs lead singer Ricky Wilson. [READ FULL INTERVIEW HERE]
What we are giving away...
Tell us the Tune T-shirt competition
Over the next week AltSounds have promised to give away 10… that’s right… 10 AltSounds.com t-shirts for free in our Tell us the Tune T-shirt Competition. We will be holding 10 separate quick fire competitions over Twitter, so make sure you are following and have your wits about you. [ENTER COMPETITION HERE]
Green Day, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Jack White, Skrillex and Nas are playing in New Orleans at the Ultimate Voodoo Music Experience on October 26 – 28 2012. Fuse.TV are teaming up with AltSounds to offer one person and a guest a chance to win round trip flights to New Orleans, hotel accommodation, premium passes and VIP access for three days. [ENTER COMPETITION HERE]
To begin November, Evanescence will be playing four major dates around the United Kingdom and AltSounds are delighted to team up with them to offer a pair of tickets to a venue of your choice. There will be support at each of the gigs from The Used and Lost Alone, which will take place in Nottingham, Manchester, Birmingham and London. [ENTER COMPETITION HERE]
To celebrate the return of the iconic Volkswagen Beetle, London’s legendary Abbey Road Studios and Volkswagen have teamed-up to present an exclusive, one-off performance by Paul Weller in the famous Studio One on 9th November. [ENTER COMPETITION HERE]
We hope you enjoyed flicking through the newsletter for this week. I'm off to go cry about XFactor, as I've only just found out that it's fixed. Bad times for music.
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