Steve Lillywhite is the man responsible for producing the debut albums by U2 and Dave Matthews Band as well as many of their subsequent million-selling releases. While Bono and Dave have both consistently trusted Steve to fit their visions between the speakers, so have artists as diverse as The Rolling Stones, Peter Gabriel, Johnny Thunders, Ultravox, Guster, She & Him, XTC , Jason Mraz, The Pogues,...
There’s been a lot of hoo-hah and kefuffle over the fact that we’re celebrating the 20th anniversary of the arrival of Wallace & Gromit into our lives. Frankly, we couldn’t give a toss – the old man’s a prick and the dog’s a sly, self-serving arsehole. There – you probably won’t read opinions like that everywhere [...]
As I've mentioned before, music is capable of just about anything, and so are people. This is why it's always important to be in touch with your anger and to know how to properly express it through different musical means. People oftentimes suck, and you are morally obligated as a decent member of society to call out the offending party appropriately.
Picking out a key scene from "Cousins," the just-premiered-today video from Vampire Weekend, is something of a mistake. After all, the spastic new clip is all about kinetic energy. The entirety of its three minutes takes place in an alley and features frontman Ezra Koenig rolling backwards and forwards on a track set up in [...]
So says Peter Gabriel discussing the future of the music business. There’s no doubt the big business end of the music industry is in crisis, as the disruptive technology of broadband internet undermines the existing business model of the major labels. While some people are running around screaming that the sky is falling in, and in [...]
The former Genesis frontman on fan funding, reliable filters, and why he would commission an alternative to The X Factor When I blogged about the lack of women in the music industry , one manager claimed that this is because girls are less interested in who worked on a record than what the band looks like on the cover. I'm not sure that's entirely true. After all, I was one of those girls who studied...
DOWNLOADS: (91) PLAYS: (378) Usually I try to find reasonably off-the-beaten track videos for LNMC -- and I usually prefer live stuff -- but every now and then it's fun to dust off the ol' faves. At one time this video was considered the best studio vid ever made. I expect that's no longer true, but I'd like to know what you all think would be the videos that surpass it. Post some nominees in the...
Howzit Foreign currency mid-rates updated... -o00o- It isn't very often that household names stand up and are counted - especially when the person that they are standing up against is Robert Gabriel Mugabe. " Peter Gabriel, Susan Sarandon, Cyndi Lauper, and Citizen Cope have signed a petition calling on Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai, to help end politically motivated violence against...
It's official: Visceral Games staffers Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey (best known for Dead Space ) have taken positions at a new Activision studio in Foster City, California, called Sledgehammer Games. This tidily clears up two rumors we've been hearing. Yes, Schofield and Condrey went to Activision. Yes, the trademark for " Sledgehammer Games " is for their new studio! As for the small...
Kate Bush -’Never For Ever’ (EMI, 1980) I’ve written before on this blog about my love for Kate Bush. Certainly, when I decided I was going to do this series (so much for my finishing with my favourite on my birthday; we’ve gone past that but I’m still 33, so I guess it’s not too late), [...]
Yesterday I stumbled upon a rather good BBC Four documentary about British progressive rock on Vimeo. Watch or grab it before it's gone. Aside from the groups most everyone knows (or maybe dreads by reputation) - Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Genesis, ELP - other lesser-known bands get much more than a nod as well, including two of my favorites, Soft Machine and egg (bonus music geek points for...
Think of eight memorable musical moments, not necessarily all time favourites, but those when, for example, you felt compelled to wait in the car when listening to this amazing song on the radio because you just had to know who it was by. Or the piece you heard on the tv in a drama that drove you straight onto iTunes to download... (remember once we spent the princely sum of 6s 8d on a vinyl single?!)....
7 Worlds Collide, spearheaded by Crowded House’s Neil Finn, is a loose collective formed with friends, acquaintances and contemporaries coming together in a studio to hash out some songs. It’s a nice concept, though not an entirely unique one, the most recent comparison (relatively speaking, considering its decades-long gestation) being Peter Gabriel’s Big Blue Ball. [...]