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- New music: Kanye West - Power
The rapper returns with a prog-rock sampling new single
Ever since Kanye West went off for a bit of a brood after making a massive tit of himself at the MTV awards, we've missed his big mouth. Fortunately, it seems the rapper has returned (from recording in Hawaii, apprently) with new song Power, which features an unlikely sample from King Crimson's 21st Century Schizoid Man. But was it worth the wait? Have a listen and let us know what you think.
Kanye West – Power (Via Nah Right)
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Переслать - Whatever happened to Lauryn Hill?
The former Fugee won five Grammys for her chart-topping solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, in 1998. But we are still waiting for the follow-up ...
Rumours circulated earlier this week that former Fugees singer Lauryn Hill would headline American hip-hop festival Rock the Bells this summer, performing her 1998 solo debut The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in its entirety. Well, it's not as if she has much other material: more than a decade after its release, the reclusive singer has yet to complete work on its follow-up. And the few concerts or tours she's booked in recent years have either been subject to last-minute cancellations or unsettling onstage behaviour.
It's an ignominious turn for a career that began with so much promise. It was the release of the Fugees album The Score in 1996 that announced Hill as an audacious new talent. Two years later, she returned with Miseducation, a solo debut steeped in classic soul, with a spine stiffened by hip-hop. Written while Hill was pregnant with her first child with on/off partner Rohan Marley (they now have five children together), the album brilliantly pondered love, heartbreak, spirituality and still-raw wounds from the collapse of her relationship with Wyclef Jean.
Miseducation went straight to the top of the charts in 1998 and, the following February, won five Grammy awards including best album – hip-hop's first victory in this category. Showcasing her skills as a rapper, singer and songwriter, it should have been the start of a glorious solo career, but soon after Hill had completed promotional duties on the album, it became apparent something was seriously wrong.
2001's MTV Unplugged 2.0, her sole album release since Miseducation, sketched in some details. Hill performed new songs before a studio audience, accompanied only by her acoustic guitar (she had since parted ways with New Ark, the musicians who helped her record Miseducation; they later sued for songwriting credits, settling out of court for a reported $5m). The songs themselves, many of which were works-in-progress, and some of which were brilliant, were darker than Miseducation's soulful confections, painfully honest and powerfully cathartic, but lacking the memorable hooks and melodies that had made Miseducation such a success.
More troubling were her rambling, vulnerable between-song "interludes", where she discussed at length the troubles her new songs represented, including depression, severe discomfort with fame, and a creative perfectionism that, seemingly, has rendered her inactive.
Since Unplugged, Hill embarked on a short-lived reunion with the Fugees, beginning with a 2004 open-air concert filmed in Brooklyn for Dave Chappelle's Block Party movie, and yielding one poorly received new single – Take It Easy – before the group dissolved again, in even more acrimonious circumstances than before. "At this point I really think it will take an act of God to change [Lauryn]," Pras told Allhiphop.com in 2007, "because she is that far out there." Friend and former tour-mate Talib Kweli took a more sympathetic line on his track Ms Hill, from 2005 album Right About Now: "The industry was beating her up / Then those demons started eating her up / She need a saviour."
Her record label, Columbia, claims to have spent millions on sessions for her unfinished, unreleased second solo album, which supposedly features collaborations with soul legend Ronald Isley and similarly troubled and AWOL neo-soul auteur D'Angelo. In this vacuum, New York label Think Differently has released an unofficial compilation of highlights from her decade of inactivity, Khulami Phase, currently available via Amazon.
The gem among these scraps is Lose Myself, cut for the soundtrack to 2007 kids' cartoon Surf's Up. It boasts a synth-pop fizz with autobiographical lyrics Hill wrote in the shower, describing her anguish these past years as a trial she's having to endure to discover true peace and self-love. It's a powerfully moving track, both bleak and hopeful, suggesting the serenity Hill has been searching for is finally within her reach. But Lose Myself was released three years ago, and still Hill's sophomore album has yet to materialise. And those rumours about Rock the Bells were, sadly, unsubstantiated.
"How did this thing that I love so much so easily and so quickly turn into something I loathe and hate?" she asked rhetorically, in one lucid moment during her 2001 Unplugged performance. It's a riddle Hill sorely needs to solve, if she's ever to graduate from the creative purgatory that's plagued her since Miseducation.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Music Weekly: The National
Music Weekly springs into action with the dulcet tones of the National's Matt Berninger. He tells Rosie Swash about the method behind his songwriting and why the National's music is much more fun than you might think.
Singles Club sees Rosie joined by Alex Needham and the Guide's Will Dean to discuss Kano's Get Wild, Ratatat's Party With Children, and the comeback single from Scissor Sisters, Fire With Fire.
And there's live music from Californian quartet Princeton, who are influenced by the Bloomsbury group and are not, repeat, not named after the university.
That's your lot this week, come and find us on Facebook or Twitter. Until next time, happy listening.
Переслать - Eurovision 2010: full list of winners, 2010 participants and UK performance since 1956
It's the Eurovision final this Saturday. Pick your favourites from the list of participants
• Get the dataThe final of the Eurovision Song Contest takes place in Oslo on Saturday night. Josh Dubovie will be representing the United Kingdom with his song That Sounds Good To Me, penned by popmeisters Mike Stock, Pete Waterman and Steve Crosby. Can he better the credible fifth place of last year's UK entrant Jade Ewen (ably supported by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber)?
Josh's entry aside, the participants are a mixed bag of heartfelt ballads and campy Europop, which is what we love about Eurovision after all. A competition for statisticians and mathematicians, run by Kaggle, puts Azerbaijan's Safura, singing Drip Drop, in first place, followed by Germany (Satellite, sung by Lena) and Armenia (Apricot Stone, sung by Eva Rivas). Azerbaijan and Armenia will of course need to make it through the semi-final tonight to be sure of performing on Saturday.
Check out the table below for this year's contestants (including at semi-final level - some of these have already been voted out of the competition), and download the spreadsheet to see the UK's finishing position in all Eurovisions since it started in 1956 - and the full list of all winners ever, with ISO country codes.
Download the data
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guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Readers recommend: Songs with 10 words or fewer
Last time was all about the pleasures of live music. This week, it's songs with minimal lyrical content
Beltway Bandit observed that the "pool of genres might be narrower this week", and his prediction was correct. In fact, one genre stuck out above all others, but while I know what it is I'd struggle to put a name to it: classic rock? Canon rock? Men with beards from the late-60s rock? There was a lot of it and it was all good, making me wonder once again whether the 60s really was an age devoid of cynicism and full of great live shows. And sex, obviously sex. Anyway the preponderance of one genre made this week's lists a challenge, but also a pleasure, to select.
A-list as follows (and the column that discusses it): The Clash – (White Man) in Hammersmith Palais; Janice Martin – My Boy Elvis; Wilco – The Lonely One; Peaches – Rock Show; The Who – Long Live Rock; Jackson Browne – The Load Out; Saxon – And the Bands Played On; Yo La Tengo – We're An American Band; Morrissey – Get Off the stage; Grateful Dead – New Speedway Boogie.
B-list, now is your moment:
Buffalo Springfield – Broken Arrow
Wonderfully smart, with great key and tempo changes and the confidence to play with the entire structure. Who is the brown-skinned voyeur though?
Matthew's Southern Comfort – Woodstock
My preferred version because it does something memorable with the melody. All versions, however, shine a light on an age different from our own.
The Band – Stage Fright
Another good tune, particularly love the bass part. Confused by the tone of the thing; is the portrayal really as empathetic as it seems? Plus more about performance than a concert per se (that, along with touring, was one of the common points of cross-pollination).
The Byrds – So You Want to Be a Rock'N'Roll Star?
My favourite track of the week. Hadn't heard for a long time and – potentially erroneous technical terminology ahoy – the contrapuntal melodies work rather beautifully.
Hank Mizzell – Jungle Rock
Where else would you find an alligator and a hippo doing the bop? That said, I am unable to establish whether a jungle rock is a gig or a club.
Ben Folds – Hiroshima
Pop star falls off stage in Japan, writes song about it. Suspect few other artists could do it with as much gusto as Ben Folds though. Great incorporated crowd chant too.
Bonnie and Delaney – Superstar
Second favourite track of the week, and got a little distracted by this pair who I'd never heard of before but look super-cool man!
Tom Petty – Zombie Zoo
Wasn't that prepossessed by the tune, a bit chuggy, but the lyrics are sharp as anything else this week, revealing all those prejudices that come from observing a youth cult that is not your own.
Warren Zevon – Johnny Strikes Up the Band
Another song that's more about performance than about a concert, but also another piece of classic rock (pop?) that hooked itself into my head immediately.
Pete Atkin – Star of Tomorrow
Not a great song perhaps, but good satire, detailing the hubris and humiliation of an act that's going places (home, with his tail between his legs)
This week, it's songs with a minimal lyrical component. I don't want instrumentals – there have to be lyrics that convey meaning (ie not na na hey heying), but with 10 words or fewer.
The toolbox: Archive, the Marconium, the Spill, the Collabo.
DO Post your nominations before midday on Monday if you wish them to be considered.
DO Post justifications of your choices wherever possible.
DO Be nice to each other!
See you on the blog!
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Janelle Monae puts the android into R&B
An obsession with science fiction and 60s soul could help Janelle Monae become this decade's most interesting pop star
In a world where even surrealists such as Lady Gaga opt for lowest-common denominator beats, and where whole albums, even genres, are constructed around non-specific emotional heft, Janelle Monae's rich blend of historical reference points, uncompromising style and keenly felt pleasure is heady and refreshing.
The R&B singer has been slowly building word of mouth for the last three years, and it's coming to a head with the release of her new album, The ArchAndroid, this week. Pitchfork have bestowed on Monae their often career-cementing Best New Music accolade; she gave a stunning performance on Letterman; and P Diddy, who described her as one of his most important label signings, is feeding her constant noisy praise on Twitter ("WE'RE ALL INSPIRED!!!!!!!!").
Musically, it's predominantly (and often wildly) uptempo soul – even I start sassily fingerclicking and jiving, which isn't a great look with a ginger beard. But there are also moments of modern syncopated boom-bap, and lush Dap Kings-style retro grooves; she'll even please those poor folks who use the phrase "I mean real R&B, from the 60s".
But what makes Monae really stand out is how she deploys and presents these tunes. The new album comprises parts two and three of a concept album quartet, set in 2719 in the megacity Metropolis. Allowing a little artistic licence for the fact that pop fans 709 years into the future are still digging mid-20th-century rock'n'roll, this is the setting for Monae's alter ego, Cindi Mayweather, an android with "a rock-star proficiency package and a working soul" (according to the liner notes of the first part, The Chase Suite), who goes on the run after illegally falling in love with a human; the new album sees her elevated to messiah status by her fellow androids.
By drawing in these references from classic science fiction, Monae joins a rich history of black artists looking beyond the ozone layer. Take Lil Wayne's Mars fixation, or Afrika Bambaataa and Rammellzee presenting themselves as beamed-down Afrofuturists. The spaceship imagery of Sun Ra, George Clinton and Herbie Hancock is arguably an extension of the spiritual ascension of John Coltrane and Albert Ayler, all of them perhaps attempting to escape racism and the spectre of slavery. Is Monae, with her own intergalactic canvas, trying to rise above the pigeonholes for today's black female singers?
Her styling would seem to confirm this: an androgynous, notably non-flesh-baring suit harking back to Little Richard, sealed with a wetly sculpted quiff. She tweeted recently: "You diss my black and white uniform, you are dissing the working man and woman. My mother and father. Your ancestors." This, blended with her android persona, seems to suggest Monae is also archly referencing black history by creating a robotic simulacrum of a subordinated black musician, who then breaks free. Meanwhile, in Mr President, from The Chase, she creates a passionate social manifesto, recorded in the dying months of the Bush administration.
She also joins the recent spate of black artists with multiple albums united under a single banner (Maxwell's BLACKSummers'night, Erykah Badu's New Amerykah, Jay-Z's Blueprints), and also those creating alter egos (Ghostface Killah's Tony Stark). Such expansive gestures can produce unfunny skits and bloated records, but in the case of Monae, she's creating distinctive and multifaceted music that marks her as one of this decade's most brilliant artists.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Robert Johnson revelation tells us to put the brakes on the blues
We've been listening to the immortal 'King of the Delta Blues' at the wrong speed, but now we can hear him as he intended
I wouldn't agree with Eric Clapton about much, but he's always been bang on the money when it comes to Robert Johnson. Clapton once described Johnson as, "the most important blues singer that ever lived". The recordings that Johnson made between 1936 and 1937, collected in two volumes entitled King of the Delta Blues Singers, not only mark the apogee of the blues form, they stand among the most influential recordings of all time. Johnson's songs come at the listener with such combustible force that they sound for all the world like the very first rock'n'roll recordings. In the years following his death in 1938, Johnson's story was reshaped as myth, largely thanks to the wonderfully daft notion that he'd sold his soul to the devil in order to master his guitar and play the blues. The myth endures but the extraordinary power of his work has ensured that the music effortlessly transcends the myth.
And now, nearly 50 years after Columbia first packaged his work as King of the Delta Blues, we discover that we've been listening to these immortal songs at the wrong speed all along. Either the recordings were accidentally speeded up when first committed to 78, or else they were deliberately speeded up to make them sound more exciting. Whatever, the common consensus among musicologists is that we've been listening to Johnson at least 20% too fast. Numerous bloggers have helpfully slowed down Johnson's best-known work and provided samples so that, for the first time, we can hear Johnson as he intended to be heard.
As we speak, I'm listening to a slowed-down version of Come on in My Kitchen. The original version is so familiar to me it's practically cemented in my DNA. Once accustomed to this slower version, acclimatised to the lower-pitched vocal and less hectic guitar, I find it even more beautifully haunting than the rendition I've known and loved for more than 30 years. In the new version Johnson sounds more natural, exactly like he ought to sound.
Initially though, the effect is not a little disconcerting. Not unlike the childhood experience of deliberately playing records at the wrong speed for a laugh, invariably bringing on bouts of dizziness and nausea. After a certain age (say, seven) the novelty of playing songs at the wrong tempo tends to wear thin, although it was always highly entertaining to hear John Peel regularly get his 33 and his 45 RPM mixed up. On one memorable occasion, Peel distinguished himself by playing an entire side of Fripp and Eno's No Pussyfooting backwards. Brian Eno was the only listener to notice anything was amiss.
If hearing music at the wrong speed is the sort of thing that grills your kippers, then you might want to check out the supremely bonkers back catalogue of Brighton-based Wrong Music. For the rest of us, the right speed will do just fine. Like me, you might be left not a little incredulous to learn that some of the most beloved albums in the canon were released at the wrong speed. As late as 2003, a music professor pointed out that all the early Doors albums, on vinyl and CD, had been slowed down due to a cock-up at the mastering stage. When Kind of Blue was first released on CD it received ecstatic reviews despite the fact that Miles Davis' trumpet was at the wrong speed on half the tracks. There are those who swear blind that the vinyl version of Dylan's Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands from Blonde on Blonde was mastered at the wrong speed as it plays at a quarter-tone below the CD version. Most famously, all the original Rolling Stones ABKCO releases were mastered at the wrong tempo, an error first noticed by Keith Richards when the albums came out on CD.
Does any of this matter? Well, I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to hear an album as it was meant to be heard, rather than a version birthed by a studio muppet flicking the wrong switches as he lights up another jazz woodbine.
In the case of Robert Johnson, we have much to be thankful for. After years spent listening in awe to his blues masterpieces, we can now enjoy his work as if hearing it for the first time. Just as soon as Columbia pulls its finger out and releases his 41 recordings at the right speed. It won't win Johnson his soul back, but at least we finally hear the world's greatest bluesman as he actually sounded in that lonesome San Antonio hotel room back in the mid-30s.
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