The Fray & other: June 2008

Thursday 26 June 2008

Coldplay - Coldplay Sit Atop Uk Chart After Sales Storm

British rockers COLDPLAY have stormed to the top of the U.K. charts - despite their new album VIVA LA VIDA only being on sale for three days.

The Yellow hitmakers' latest LP knocked veteran rocker Paul Weller's 22 Dreams from the number one spot, and is set to be one of the fastest selling albums in history after selling 302, 000 copies since its release on Thursday (12Jun08).

Weller moved into fourth place in the chart, behind legendary crooner Neil Diamond's Home Before Dark at number two and Welsh soul Duffy's Rockferry which has made its way back into the top three albums.

The Fratellis' Here We Stand sits at number five.

In the U.K. single chart, dance group Mint Royale's remix of classic musical tune Singin' In The Rain stays at number one for a second week, with Rihanna and Take A Bow also sitting the same at number two.

R+B hunk Ne-Yo takes the number three spot, after entering the chart last week (Beg09Jun08) at number five.

British duo Ting Tings move back up the chart from number four to the third position, as does U.S singer Sara Bareilles, whose Love Song track also moves up a spot to sit at number 5.

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Children's singer Justin Roberts is loved by grown-ups, too

PARK RIDGE, Ill. - The people who inhabit Justin Roberts' songs stand up for themselves and rat out their brothers. They comfort those in need and prey on the weak. Some are sleepy and one guy's wired on coffee.

That sounds like pretty grown-up stuff, especially since his biggest fans know him as Justin "Woberts." The 38-year-old Roberts is a rising star in kids' music.

In less than a decade he's gone from playing for a few people in a maternity shop to a few thousand in big-city pavilions and concert halls. And he's done it in a way that's increasingly popular: entertaining children without dressing like a purple dinosaur or singing songs that drive parents crazy.

"It's not like a lot of kid music that's almost unbearable for an adult to listen to," said Lee Berger, sitting at a recent show in suburban Chicago with his wife and two small children. "It's actually good music and then they like it as well."

As for the kids, they flock to his shows. In their concert T-shirts, they look like their parents might have at a rock concert - only shorter and without lighters. They act a lot like them, too, darting to the front of the stage, jumping up and down, spinning and singing along with song after song.

"I get to dance to them," said Berger's six-year-old daughter, Emily.

Roberts is among a growing group of musicians who have shifted their focus from nightclubs to daycare centres. From Dan Zanes, best known as one of the Del Fuegos, to Elizabeth Mitchell, who made a name for herself with the indie rock band Ida, musicians who gained fame playing for adults are enjoying success entertaining children.

They're not selling nearly as many CDs as Disney's "High School Musical" and "Hanna Montana," but sales are picking up.

Zanes' 2006 CD, "Catch That Train," sold 85,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Roberts has sold a total of 50,000, Nielsen SoundScan reports, but Missi Callazzo of MRI Associated Labels, which distributes Roberts' label, Carpet Square Records, said that when sales from such non-traditional spots as clothing stores and toy stores are factored in, the number is closer to 100,000. And Roberts' recently released "Pop Fly" climbed into the top 50 on Amazon.com's list of children's music CDs.

The new children's performers don't need a lot of gimmicks - they just walk on stage and start playing.

Though their styles differ, their songs are evidence that they've discovered that kids can listen to and enjoy music that is more sophisticated than "Wheels on the Bus."

For Roberts, it happened when he took a job as a preschool teacher in Minneapolis to supplement the not-so-great money he was making in a band.

"I was listening to this really saccharine-style children's music with the preschoolers that they liked a lot but I didn't want to listen to myself," he said.

He discovered they also liked the Sam Cooke songs and Irish jigs he played for them, and the songs he wrote himself. After he left the school, he kept writing kids' songs, though he didn't have any kids of his own.

Three years later, he'd written enough to make a tape and send it to friends. Among them was fellow musician, Liam Davis, who suggested Roberts go to a studio.

That became "Big Yellow Sun," a self-released CD that came out in 1997.

Though he started graduate school, a few years later he released "Yellow Bus" and went on tour, playing in thrift shops, church basements and that maternity shop in Soho.

Today he plays with a five-piece band - the Not Ready for Naptime Players - or just with Davis, who plays keyboards, guitar, bongo drums and kazoo.

The songs are a mix of rock, folk, rockabilly and punk, influenced by Elvis Costello, Paul Simon and the "Schoolhouse Rock" he listened to as a kid and still admires.

Most of the songs are upbeat, about temper tantrums and tickling, messy rooms and monsters, with titles like "My Brother Did It" and "Brontosaurus Has a Sweet Tooth." He also touches on kids' fears and sorrows, whether they come from the dark, bullies or their parents' divorce.

Roberts still doesn't have children and, except for the 38-kilogram dog that looks and moves like it might be two kids in a dog suit, there is little in his suburban Chicago home to suggest he has any particular insight into their lives.

Instead, he has his own memories and the memories of those around him.

The song "Giant-Sized Butterflies" was inspired by the moment during his own childhood, when "I realized my mom was going to leave and I was going to be alone in school." His wife's experience of moving over and over as her dad's job took him around the world became "Moving."

Tammy La Gorce, who has written about children's music and reviewed Roberts' work, said his songs resonate with kids because they are written from a kids-eye view.

"He knows where kids are coming from; he gets it," she said.

And La Gorce, who in one review praised Roberts for "some of the most inspired and intelligent kids' lyrics ever," said the music reminds parents of their own childhood.

Roberts is careful not to preach to kids. In "Billy the Bully," for example, a little girl stands up to bullies, but it's not completely clear how things turned out.

Nor does he want to give them too much information.

In "Mama is Sad," divorce is handled with the simple line, "She's taking off her ring," and her profound sadness with phrases like: "Give her my Lego blocks to play/ Blocks won't fit together today."

That's enough, said Roberts. "They get the concept of a parent being sad and that being OK," he said.

He also turns the sometimes painful experiences of childhood on their ear, as in "Get Me Some Glasses," which he portrays as something to be savoured.

"It's the whole thing of you are in a cool club with glasses," he said. "It's really the opposite of reality."

There is plenty for adults and, say critics, his music resonates with them because there is something universal about themes like overcoming fears that nobody outgrows.

Roberts agrees, and says he's come to understand that by writing something about children, he's writing about grown-ups too.

"Some of the ways that I'm reaching both audiences is we have these really common experiences that I think you experience as a child and you experience as an adult," he said. "And it's the same kind of thing and you have to go through it over and over."

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Edinburgh film fest brings the glitz

EDINBURGH, Scotland -- Poetry and drama by the seaside marked the opening of this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival as the red carpet rolled out Wednesday for the world premiere of John Maybury's Keira Knightley/Sienna Miller starrer "The Edge of Love."

Maybury's World War II-set film, which tells the story of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and two women who love him, unspooled at the first gala event for the Scottish capital shindig, which is being held in June for the first time in its history, switching from its usual August slot.

Click here for the full story

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Kapel Maister

Artist: Kapel Maister

   Genre(s):
Metal

Discography:

Into Salvation

Year: 2005
Tracks: 9

Jennifer Pena

Artist: Jennifer Pena

   Genre(s):
Rock
   Pop
   Latin

Discography:

Confesiones

Year: 2005
Tracks: 8

Seduccion

Year: 2004
Tracks: 13

Houston Rodeo Live

Year: 2004
Tracks: 11

Mis 20 Exitos

Year: 2002
Tracks: 20

Libre

Year: 2002
Tracks: 17

For the first phase angle of her career, Jennifer PeÃ±a was invariably compared to Selena, with whom she had professional ties, just with time she came into her have stylistically and became one of the more accomplished young singers in popular Latin music. PeÃ±a's ties to Selena go back to 1995, when she performed onstage at the latter's Houston Astrodome tribute concert. This was the performance that launched PeÃ±a's life history, as she later on was interpreted under the wing of Selena's family, the Quintanillas, wHO would manage and produce her EMI Latin recordings as share of the tejano chemical group Jennifer y los Jetz. As share of this chemical group, PeÃ±a, barely a stripling at the time, enjoyed a favourable sum of success on the regional Mexican circuit with hits like "Ven a Mi," "Tengo Miedo," and "AbrÃ¡zame y BÃ©same." When she turned 18, she signed a new recording contract and embarked on a solo career with Univision as a Latin pop isaac Merrit Singer, beginning with Libre (2002). PeÃ±a stab to fame at this decimal point, as her debut solo undivided, "El Dolor de Tu Presencia," spent eight-spot straight weeks atop the Hot Latin Tracks chart. Her s album, SeducciÃ³n (2004), followed suit with another chart-topping ballad, "Vivo y Muero en Tu Piel." Both of these albums were number ones, each selling all over three hundred,000 units. PeÃ±a's vocation took a slender flex in the eld that followed. She entered the reality of motion-picture show, for case, and dated fellow Latin pop asterisk Obie BermÃºdez, with whom she co-wrote her tierce album, Dicen Que el Tiempo (2007), which she as well co-produced.Born on September 17, 1983, in San Antonio and raised in Corpus Christi, Jennifer Marcella PeÃ±a CantÃº began her professional career at age 11, when she performed onstage at a Selena testimonial concert held at the Houston Astrodome. Her recording vocation commenced just a year subsequently with Dulzura (1996), after she'd signed a management deal with Selena's forefather, Abraham Quintanilla, Jr. (i.e., Q Productions), and a recording contract with EMI Latin, Selena's sometime mark. Produced by Selena's buddy, Abraham Quintanilla III, aka A.B. Quintanilla of Los Kumbia Kings fame, the album was clean successful, spawning a pair of hits, "Pura Dulzura" and "Ven a Mi." The Quintanillas shaped PeÃ±a into a younger version of Selena, whom they'd likewise managed and produced: Jennifer y los Jetz, as she was billed, purposefully resembled Selena y los Dinos, as did the group's music, which was a candied mix of tejano, cumbia, and ballads. A few more Jennifer y los Jetz albums followed, each produced by Quintanilla III: Jennifer y los Jetz (1997), Mariposa (1998), and AbrÃ¡zame y BÃ©same (2000). The sometime iI featured a few minor hits ("Tu Castigo," "Cosquillitas," "Tengo Miedo"), whereas the latter became a major success. Essentially an album by Quintanilla III's group, Los Kumbia Kings, with PeÃ±a as the frontwoman, AbrÃ¡zame y BÃ©same boasted a string of hits ("AbrÃ¡zame y BÃ©same," "Si TÃº Te Vas," "Contigo Otra Vez," "No Te Voy a Perdonar") and was nominated for a Grammy (Best Regional Mexican Performance).At this point, with her future never brighter, PeÃ±a split from the Quintanillas and pursued a solo career. She gestural a new recording contract, this one with Hispanic media giant Univision, and when she made her mark debut, Libre (2002), the title spoke volumes. Free of her sometime handlers as well as the stylistic confines of tejano, PeÃ±a was teamed with Latin pop hitmakers Rudy PÃ©rez and Kike Santander and broadened her style substantially. In particular, she indulged in sweeping wild-eyed balladry such as lead single "El Dolor de Tu Presencia," which topped the Hot Latin Tracks chart for octad straight weeks, in the process drive Libre all the way to turn two on Billboard's Top Latin Albums chart. The album's 2 further strike singles, "Entre el Delirio y la Locura" and "A Fuego Lento," were both ballads besides. The manic album-closer, "Vamos al Mundial," which was elect by the Univision tv set net as peerless of the official songs of the 2002 World Cup, showcased a a great deal more than upbeat side of PeÃ±a. And, of course, there was slew of tejano, albeit of a comparatively watered-down form, to be plant elsewhere on the album, in addition to respective cumbia versions tacked on as bonus tracks. Overall, Libre was a considerable leap forrad for the 18-year-old late Princesa de la MÃºsica Tejana, and it earned her a long list of accolades, including some other Grammy nominating address (Topper Mexican/Mexican-American Album), a Premios Lo Nuestro Award (Female Regional Mexican Artist of the Year), 2 South Texas Music Awards (Female Vocalist of the Year, Female Entertainer of the Year), and 4 Billboard Latin Music Award nominations.PeÃ±a followed up her solo breakthrough with a similar record album, SeducciÃ³n (2004). Again helmed by producers Rudy PÃ©rez and Kike Santander, with Emilio Estefan also providing supervising, the album is strikingly interchangeable in approach to Libre. If anything, there's a greater emphasis on the sweeping ballads that proven so successful on the late go-round. Lead single "Vivo y Muero en Tu Piel," written by PÃ©rez, was one such ballad, and it spent basketball team weeks atop the Hot Latin Tracks chart, affirming PeÃ±a's gift for delivering slick, big-sounding love affair. "Hasta el Fin del Mundo," the second single, as well written by PÃ©rez, this time in alignment with Manny LÃ³pez, followed the same template: a glossy lay with an uplifting, multi-tracked chorus and a contact of electric guitar soloing on the bridge. "Si Yo Me Vuelvo a Enamorar," the other single to break the Hot Latin Tracks Top 20, was the exception, employing aspects of regional Mexican music. "No Hay Nadie Igual Como TÃº," a Spanish-language cover of "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," and so of late popularized by Lauryn Hill, was too released as a single. SeducciÃ³n didn't clear PeÃ±a the accolades that her Univision debut had, in time it solidified her hearing, merchandising merely as well (three hundred,000-plus units) and topping the Latin album chart in the process. While the album was still equitation high on the charts, Univision released Samuel Houston Rodeo Live, a Top Ten-charting concert album that had been recorded in front of 45,000 fans at the Astrodome during the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.PeÃ±a's third solo record album, Dicen Que el Tiempo (2007), reflected the growth she experient during her clip sour in the stir up of the back-to-back successes of Libre and SeducciÃ³n. For one, PeÃ±a dated Obie BermÃºdez, a likewise young and successful Latin come out artist; notably, the deuce appeared together on El Show de Cristina, where they american ginseng a duet. Secondly, PeÃ±a began performing in films, get-go with the MTV production All You've Got (2006); another load-bearing role followed, in the main plastic film Amexicano (2007). When PeÃ±a did return to the studio to start work on Dicen Que el Tiempo, she entered with BermÃºdez at her side, along with his producer, SebastiÃ¡n Krys, world Health Organization has a long runway record of hitmaking. Moreover, she'd co-written ten-spot of the 12 songs that would close up on the album, and ennead of those ten had been written with BermÃºdez, world Health Organization is a talented songwriter. The one cover song, Juan Gabriel's "Pero QuÃ© Necesidad," is a span featuring PeÃ±a and BermÃºdez. The album's track individual, "Como Entender," unsurprisingly was a sweeping ballad; however, it's one of the few on the record album, which showcases a novel width of styles. There's no escaping the imprint of BermÃºdez on Dicen Que el Tiempo, for the album plainly resembles recent releases of his such as Lo Que Trajo el Barco (2006) and Todo el AÃ±o (2004). Upon its release, Dicen Que el Tiempo didn't match the commercial succeeder of its predecessors, though it was intimately received by fans and critics alike.

Jazzinho

Artist: Jazzinho

   Genre(s):
Other

Discography:

Camponesa

Year: 2004
Tracks: 3

Girls Aloud's Cheryl Cole To Judge X-Factor

Alex K Katz

Artist: Alex K Katz

   Genre(s):
Techno

Discography:

Polish Drums Vinyl

Year: 2003
Tracks: 3

Death Has A Plan_FORM10 005 Vi

Year: 2003
Tracks: 2

Weezer - Weezer

"I am so unlike the singers in the other bands...There isn't anybody else exactly quite like me".
So sings Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo on the opening track to the band's sixth (and third self-titled) album. Truth be told there isn't a rock star out there quite as interesting as Cuomo. Famously he once sold all his possessions and moved into a one roomed flat in LA with just a mattress and a guitar. He's also into meditating and fasting while locked in a wardrobe for days. Generally, Cuomo is what many would term something of an eccentric.
In keeping with his unconventional behaviour (for a rock star), earlier this year Cuomo embarked on a song-writing project with fans via YouTube, called 'Let's Write a Sawng'. As you might guess, the on-going process involves him taking on-board ideas submitted by fans and writing a song over the coming weeks.
Collaborating hasn't always been the Cuomo way. Early in Weezer's career he's said to have insisted on his name being tacked on as the sole songwriting credit, despite other members having contributed to various songs. Rolling Stone reported that this was one of the reasons original bassist Matt Sharp jumped ship. Sharp is said to have allegedly co-written much of the band's second album, 'Pinkerton'. Only Cuomo was credited.
His YouTube project aside, Cuomo has been making amends. On Weezer's 2005 album, 'Make Believe', he penned a track entitled 'Pardon Me', which was meant as an apology for his supposed dictator-like ways in not letting his band-mates contribute. True to his word, he's loosened the reigns.
All four Weezer members contribute songs to this, 'The Red Album' (like the previous self-titled albums, this record has become known by its colour). Guitarist Brian Bell contributes acoustic slacker-track 'Thought It Knew', a fairly pedestrian though inoffensive tune. Bassist Scott Shriner rolls in with 'Cold Dark World', again nothing special, while drummer Pat Wilson's 'Automatic' is a pretty poor, lumbering track and undoubtedly one of the worst to grace a Weezer album.
All three come together in one decidedly mediocre patch on 'The Red Album' and, notably, all are self-produced by the band rather than given the big expensive producer treatment afforded Cuomo's superior tracks (Jacknife Lee and Rick Rubin look after his tunes).
As a songwriter, Cuomo is light-years ahead of his band mates and, really, they should leave that side of things in his trustworthy hands. Certainly when he's penning songs as mind-bogglingly brilliant, geeky, fun and epic as 'The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn), which is like a power-pop take on 'Bohemian Rhapsody' complete with piano, police sirens, choral sections, rap, punk and pop thrown into the mix. It's undoubtedly the most bizarre, ambitious track the band have attempted.and they pull it off. One can only picture the band in rehearsal, playing each other their new songs, and Cuomo going 'well here's my one.'
Elsewhere, lead single 'Pork and Beans' is another vintage Weezer track, though it's out-of-step with the rest of the album. While 'The Greatest Man That Ever Lived', mark a step away from the three-minute power-pop-geek-punk formula that has so served them well in the past, so to does 'The Red Album' mark the dawn of a new Weezer.
While 'The Blue Album' marked the band's birth; 'The Green Album' its return after a five-year hiatus; 'The Red Album' finds Cuomo trying out new styles and moving more into the realm of experimenting with other sounds.
The mellow 'Heart Songs' has a light hip-pop feel to it and could be easily adapted to fit the needs of a boy band or pop singer. Another classic Cuomo moment, the lyrics serve as a bio of Cuomo's musical journey from listening to Springsteen, Stevens and Joan Baez as a boy before moving onto Metallica, Judas Priest and Michael Jackson right up until the recording of Weezer's debut. It's a great song and another future single.
'Dreamin' meanwhile harks back to the band's early days, it's updated Sixties-feel sounding like a distant relation to 'In The Garage' or 'Surf Wax America'. The dull 'give the others a chance' section dilutes the power of the ten-track LP before Cuomo comes roaring back in fine form with the beautifully hushed 'The Angel and the One', one of the most beautiful and mature tracks he's had a hand in. It completes the huge step-forwards Cuomo is moving in as a songwriter.
The Weezer formula is still in-tact, though the canvas has been widened. While 2005's 'Make Believe' pointed to a band running out of ideas, 'The Red Album' sees them re-energised and positively brimming with the joys of ripping-up their own rule book. Let's hope that their next album, tentatively pencilled in for release at the end of this year, sees Cuomo reengage with his inner-dictator.
Not Weezer's best album then, but it nonetheless houses some of their best songs.
Steve Cummins