The Artist of the Day…Jimmy Eat World

Posted on January 27, 2012 at 4:00 am by hezzer19

I’m all bad moody tonight so this will be short.

All Music

Once a trailblazing name in the mid-’90s emocore scene, Jimmy Eat World eventually found a larger audience by embracing a blend of alternative rock and power pop that targeted the heart as well as the head. The band’s influence widened considerably with 1999′s Clarity — an album that has since emerged as a landmark of the emo genre — it was the band’s follow-up (specifically the infectious single “The Middle”) that crowned them as major figures in commercial rock. The emo label proved difficult to shake throughout the 2000s, even when subsequent albums like Futures and Chase This Light did little to evoke the hard-edged sensitivity of Clarity, but Jimmy Eat World still remained a league above the generation of emocore torch-bearers they helped spawn.

Rolling Stone has shit all on these guys so on to YouTube.

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The Artist of the Day…The National

Posted on January 26, 2012 at 5:00 am by hezzer19

You know back when we came up with the idea of doing the artist of the day posts I thought we’d run out of ideas long before a year was up. I was SO wrong. I had clearly been in a musical rut for quite some time. All Music has been awesome, reminding me of old favourites and introducing me to ones I’d missed over the years. Like this one. I’ve heard of them before but I’ve never taken the time to really listen. I’m about to.

Although formed during the post-punk revival of the late ’90s, the National took inspiration from a wider set of influences, including country-rock, Americana, indie rock, and Britpop. The lineup began taking shape in Ohio and officially cemented itself in New York, with baritone vocalist Matt Berninger joining forces with two sets of brothers — Scott (bass) and Bryan Devendorf (drums), and Aaron (guitar) and Bryce Dessner (guitar). After establishing themselves as a live act, the bandmates made their studio debut with The National, a self-titled record that appeared in 2001 to considerable acclaim. Two years later, the band returned with Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers, a deft blending of alternative country and chamber pop that found the band partnering with producer Peter Katis.

Hey Rolling Stone has a page on these guys as well. Well a page is pushing it, they have a couple of paragraphs.

The National create darkly serious, literate and lush indie rock that reached critical mass with the group’s fourth album, 2007′s Boxer, which reached Number Five on Billboard’s Top Independent Albums chart.

Let’s see what they sound like.

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The Artist of the Day…Crash Test Dummies

Posted on January 25, 2012 at 4:00 am by hezzer19

And we have more Canadian content. Kac, back me up here. Do you remember these guys? I had forgotten all about them. In fact at this point I think the only song I remember is the Superman song. I was never a big fan of these guys. Let’s see if we can tweak my memory any further.

Not unsurprisingly Rolling Stone has nothing on these dudes but our old reliable All Music does.

With their clever, smug lyrics and cloying folk-tinged melodies, the Crash Test Dummies were a perfect rock band for affluent ’90s college students and yuppies. Their first album was a multi-platinum hit in their native Canada, but only gained a small cult following in other parts of the world. Thanks to former Talking Head Jerry Harrison’s clean, radio-friendly production, the follow-up album, God Shuffled His Feet (1993), broke big in the States and, in turn, Europe. The first single from the record, “MMM MMM MMM MMM,” became a worldwide Top Ten hit, making the group a minor sensation with their self-consciously bizarre lyrics and singer/songwriter Brad Roberts’ deep baritone. A Worm’s Life followed in 1996, and three years later the Crash Test Dummies returned with Give Yourself a Hand, which found Roberts sharing vocal duties with bandmate Ellen Reid.

OK then, on to YouTube.

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The Artist of the Day…Dave Matthews Band

Posted on January 24, 2012 at 4:00 am by hezzer19

Ohhh look who the Artist of the Day is over at Rolling Stone…my beloved Smiths! *opens iTunes library* Focus Hez, focus. It’s Dave Matthews Band day. Oh, Rolling Stone has a page for them. For some reason I didn’t expect that. Let’s see what they have to say.

The Dave Matthews Band exploded in the 1990s with its hybrid of jazz, folk, and world music, all of which were channeled through Matthews’ distinct pop sensibility. Often associated with the decade’s jam-band movement, DMB started as a college favorite. By the end of the decade, Matthews’ introspective lyrics and distinctive vocal timbre resonated through stadiums across the U.S. In the new millenium, the band continued to evolve, releasing one of their strongest, most complex studio album, 2009′s Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King, after the untimely death of founding sax player Leroi Moore.

All Music doesn’t have much but it’s still worth a look see.

Formed in the early ’90s by South African vocalist/guitarist Dave Matthews, the Dave Matthews Band presented a more pop-oriented version of the Grateful Dead crossed with elements of jazz, funk, and the worldbeat explorations of Paul Simon and Sting. Matthews populated the group with several Virginia-based musicians — bassist Stefan Lessard, saxophonist Leroi Moore, violinist Boyd Tinsley, drummer Carter Beauford, and short-lived keyboardist Peter Griesar — and the band built up a strong word-of-mouth buzz by touring the country constantly, with special attention paid to college campuses. Griesar left the lineup in March 1993, but the Dave Matthews Band moved ahead in his absence, releasing the independent album Remember Two Things later that year and issuing a live EP, Recently, in 1994. After fielding offers from major labels, the band signed with RCA and released the debut effort Under the Table and Dreaming in September 1994. By the following spring, the record had launched the hit single “What Would You Say” and sold over one million copies, thus setting the stage for an extremely successful career.

And now to YouTube.

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The Artist of the Day…Dashboard Confessional

Posted on January 23, 2012 at 4:00 am by hezzer19

Every time I hear this band’s name I think of Paradise by the Dashboard Lights by Meat Loaf. I wonder what that says about me. *ahem* I wonder what All Music has to say about our artist of the day.

Singer/songwriter Christopher Carrabba became the poster boy for a new generation of emo fans in the early 2000s, having left behind his former band (the post-hardcore Christian outfit Further Seems Forever) to concentrate on vulnerable, introspective solo musings. Armed with an acoustic guitar and soul-baring song lyrics, he christened his new project Dashboard Confessional — named after a lyric in “The Sharp Hint of New Tears” — and began releasing material in 2000. By 2001′s The Place You Have Come to Fear the Most, Dashboard Confessional had evolved into a full-fledged band, but Carrabba nevertheless remained the focal point of both the group and the rejuvenated emo genre.

Let’s have a listen.

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The Artist of the Day…Iron & Wine

Posted on January 22, 2012 at 4:00 am by hezzer19

OK before we get to the main portion of this post can we please pause and appreciate the epic facial hair of this dude? Seriously! Epic! Sorry.

Rolling Stone has shit on this guy and All Music has less than I would have expected and nothing particularly interesting.

Singer/songwriter Samuel Beam, who rose to prominence with a blend of whispered vocals and softly homespun indie folk, chose the moniker Iron & Wine after coming across a dietary supplement named “Beef Iron & Wine” while working on a film. Raised in South Carolina, Beam received his bachelor’s degree in art from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and later his Master of Fine Arts degree from Florida State University Film School. Although Beam would later expand his sound to include electric instruments and rich, lush textures, he was firmly exploring the former style when several of his lo-fi recordings caught the ear of Jonathan Poneman, co-owner of Sub Pop Records. The songs had been recorded in Beam’s bedroom without the aid of studio flourishes, but Poneman nevertheless requested that additional material be sent to the label for submission, and Beam responded by sending two CDs in the mail — both of them full-length albums. Poneman considered releasing them both, but instead slimmed down the set to 12 songs and released it in September 2002 as The Creek Drank the Cradle.

I guess the music will have to speak for itself.

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The Artist of the Day…Sufjan Stevens

Posted on January 21, 2012 at 4:00 am by hezzer19

I’ve not actually heard much of this guy though I’ve been told I’d like him often enough. I own nothing and have only ever heard the odd YouTube. I figured this would be a good way to get to know him…musically I mean. Let’s see what All Music has to say before we head to YouTube.

A singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Detroit-born Sufjan Stevens started venturing into the music world while attending Hope College as a member of Marzuki, a folk-rock band based in Holland, MI. Following the release of two full-length albums with the group, Stevens decided to go solo in late 1999, investing fully in a career that was waiting to shine by itself. Sun Came, his debut album, appeared in 2000, confirming his superior musical command, complex instrumentation, and sparkling melodies. The promotion of the disc included playing on the road with the Danielson Famile, with whom he began regularly working. The heavily electronic Enjoy Your Rabbit, a song cycle concerning the animals of the Chinese zodiac, hit record stores in 2001, followed in 2003 by Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lake State, a 15-track conceptual piece produced and performed by Stevens — he played over 20 instruments — that placed his home state under the writer’s microscope. Despite the record’s narrowed focus, it was among the best reviewed that year and made many critics’ year-end lists. In 2004, Stevens released his follow-up, Seven Swans, a thoughtful, spiritual, and quasi-mystical collection of stand-alone songs produced by Danielson Famile mastermind Daniel Smith.

Hmm. Rolling Stone has nothing so on to the music.

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The Artist of the Day…Jethro Tull

Posted on January 20, 2012 at 4:00 am by hezzer19

I was out with in public tonight…with people…so I’m a wee bit cranky and I’m just going to get right to it.

All Music

Jethro Tull was a unique phenomenon in popular music history. Their mix of hard rock; folk melodies; blues licks; surreal, impossibly dense lyrics; and overall profundity defied easy analysis, but that didn’t dissuade fans from giving them 11 gold and five platinum albums. At the same time, critics rarely took them seriously, and they were off the cutting edge of popular music since the end of the 1970s. But no record store in the country would want to be without multiple copies of each of their most popular albums (Benefit, Aqualung, Thick as a Brick, Living in the Past), or their various best-of compilations, and few would knowingly ignore their newest releases. Of their contemporaries, only Yes could claim a similar degree of success, and Yes endured several major shifts in sound and membership in reaching the 1990s, while Tull remained remarkably stable over the same period. As co-founded and led by wildman-flautist-guitarist-singer-songwriter Ian Anderson, the group carved a place all its own in popular music.

Rolling Stone

Named for no apparent reason after an 18th-century British agronomist who invented the machine drill for sowing seed, Jethro Tull has been one of the most commercially successful and eccentric progressive-rock bands. In 1987, two decades after its founding, the band won a Grammy for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance, Vocal or Instrumental, for Crest of a Knave.

Jethro Tull began as a blues-based band with some jazz and classical influences, and was initially proclaimed by the British press in 1968 as “the new Cream.” By the early 1970s, it had expanded into a full-blown classical-jazz-rock-progressive band and in the late 1970s turned toward folkish, mostly acoustic rock, all the while selling millions of albums and selling out worldwide tours. Jethro Tull’s driving force is Ian Anderson. With his shaggy mane, full beard, and penchant for traditional tartan-plaid attire, Anderson acquired a reputation as a mad Faginesque character with his Olde English imagery and stage antics like playing the flute or harmonica while hopping up and down on one leg. (He confessed to ROLLING STONE in 1993 that he had only recently learned the correct fingerings.)

YouTube

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The Artist of the Day…Leonard Cohen

Posted on January 19, 2012 at 4:00 am by hezzer19

OK confession time. I had NO idea Leonard Cohen was Canadian. Seriously. I find myself most astonished. I’ve been sitting here for three minutes asking my computer if it was serious. I’m gobsmacked I tell you, completely gobsmacked.

Let’s see what else All Music knows.

One of the most fascinating and enigmatic — if not the most successful — singer/songwriters of the late ’60s, Leonard Cohen has retained an audience across four decades of music-making interrupted by various digressions into personal and creative exploration, all of which have only added to the mystique surrounding him. Second only to Bob Dylan (and perhaps Paul Simon), he commands the attention of critics and younger musicians more firmly than any other musical figure from the 1960s who is still working at the outset of the 21st century, which is all the more remarkable an achievement for someone who didn’t even aspire to a musical career until he was in his thirties.

Rolling Stone has a fair bit on him as well.

Singing elegant, melancholic songs in a glamorously tattered voice, Leonard Cohen emerged from Montreal in the 1960s, an artist well into his thirties before he even made his first album. After a few records, he was royalty, on equal footing with Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman, and other top-notch singer-songwriters. His songs sound like sinful confidences shared over a bottle of blood-red wine; sadness is his strong suit, though sex is never far from his mind.

Well then. Let’s have a listen.

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The Artist of the Day…The Go-Go’s

Posted on January 18, 2012 at 4:00 am by hezzer19

So I finally noticed that season 5 of The Guild was available on iTunes and I’ve just finished watching all 5 seasons in one sitting. No, I’m not kidding. Ergo this post is going to be short and to the point.

All Music

The Go-Go’s were the most popular all-female band to emerge from the punk/new wave explosion of the late ’70s and early ’80s, becoming one of the first commercially successful female groups that wasn’t controlled by male producers or managers. While their hit singles — “We Got the Beat,” “Our Lips Are Sealed,” “Vacation,” “Head Over Heels” — were bright, energetic new wave pop, the group was an integral part of the Californian punk scene. And they did play punk rock, even if many of their rougher edges were ironed out by the time they recorded their first album, 1981′s Beauty and the Beat. Even as they became America’s darlings, the Go-Go’s lived the wild life of rockers, swallowing as many pills and taking as much cocaine as possible, trashing hotel rooms, and just generally being bad. More importantly, their earliest music — now collected on Return to the Valley of the Go-Go’s — was raw and rocking; it may not have directly inspired the female alternative rockers and riot grrrls of the ’90s, but it certainly foreshadowed it.

Rolling Stone

The Go-Go’s began as a comically inept all-girl punk novelty act, but within a few years they had made a #1 debut album that yielded two Top 20 hit singles (“Our Lips Are Sealed” and the gold “We Got the Beat”) and were selling out arenas on tour.

YouTube

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