ChordStrike

Amazon wins big again at NARM

We're pleased to announce that for the second year in a row, the Amazon.com Music Site has been awarded the Large Retailer of the Year Award by the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM). Amazon was nominated along with six other large online/physical music retailers in the category. Twelve members of the Amazon Music Team were on hand to accept the award at this year's NARM Gala Dinner as the association celebrated its 50th Annual Convention.

Top musician awards were also presented to Jackson Browne, who received the Harry Chapin Memorial Humanitarian Award, and to B.B. King who received the Chairman's Award for Sustained Creative Achievement. In addition to the award, B.B. King brought everyone to their feet when he treated the crowd to a live performance with Michael McDonald at the award show.

Each year NARM also features live performances from up-and-coming developing artists who are about to break out on the scene. This year was no exception with incredible live performances from Naturally 7, Esperanza Spalding, Rev Theory, Ludo, Delta Goodrem, Will Hoge, and many, many others. We are amped and excited to help introduce these artists to larger audiences and customers like you. Watch for them in 2008 and beyond.

Pictured left to right: Esperanza Spalding, Schwayze, Rev Theory, Ludo, Delta Goodrem

 

~Lucas Hilbert

Government Sponsored Rock?

What do you do when your band wants to make a video, but you're too broke to hire a camera crew? Well, if you happen to live in the quasi-police state of Great Britain, you can always play in front of some of the 13 million closed-circuit TV cameras positioned around the country, then request the footage of you playing using the Data Protection Act. That's exactly what unsigned band the Get Out Clause did. Witness:

(via BoingBoing)

~Alan Wiley

Interview with Mark Pickerel (Amazon Wire #73)

This week on Amazon Wire we're talking to singer and songwriter Mark Pickerel about his music and latest CD, Cody's Dream.

Based in the Pacific Northwest, Mark Pickerel served as the original drummer for Screaming Trees and played for the power trio Truly. He has recorded with a host of reputed musicians, including Brandi Carlile, Neko Case, Kurt Cobain and Chris Novoselic of Nirvana.

Recently, Mark Pickerel and his band--His Praying Hands--released their second studio album, Cody's Dream, on Bloodshot records. Amazon's music specialist Shelby Earl sat down to chat with Pickerel about his music and creative process.

Podcast Listening Options
* Stream below with Flash player
* Download the podcast
* Explore more podcasts

Thanks for listening!

 

Receive this and other podcasts weekly via e-mail - subscribe now.

Three to write home about...

Not that you asked, but I often identify my favorite vocal songs (barring hip-hop and opera) by how well they'd sound preceding or following Sam Cooke on a well-planned mix for a really close friend. Enter the bold, British, blonder-than-thou singer Duffy. The newcomer's debut album opens with "Mercy," a soulful sashay of a song with all the aggressive abandon of a trench-coat flasher in a moonlit public park. Mercy, indeed.

And speaking of women, they've overtaken my player of late. The most ubiquitous, hands down, is Liliana Barrios. On her new Troileana, this leggy Argentinian evokes tangos both iconic and obscure (by stateside standards). The showpiece is a pair of takes on what Barrios calls a "National Tango Hymn," but between and after these two versions of "La Última Curda (The Last Binge)," this album paints an audible equivalent to huge, sad, bedroom eyes in deliquescent sonic strokes. As essaying as it is yummy, Troileana gives The  Best of Sade a run for its place as an iconic audio aphrodisiac.

Finally, a heave-ho for Hilary Hahn. On her new Deutsche Grammophon disc, the violinist makes perfectly matched bedfellows out of a concerto each by Sibelius and Schoenberg. The former (piece) is a full-blown commodity, the latter rarely sees a professional program. Together, they're a few bow-strokes short of magical. (Aside: Outside of her Grammy-winning classical prowess, the unpredictable Hahn nearly stole the show accompanying indie-singer/songwriter Tom Brosseau at Seattle's homey Tractor Tavern last year, and she moonlights with rock acts, including And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead). Here, she's an apex soloist in rare form.

What are your three most recent musical binges?          ~Jason K

An '80s Moment: Chaz Jankel - "Number One"

When I was a kid, one of my favorite movies was the Val Kilmer vehicle Real Genius--a story of college student scientists trying to create the most powerful laser known to man.  It's funny, smart, exciting, and in my mind still easily Val Kilmer's finest hour. It's one of those movies I've watched over and over and over again, to the point that I could probably recite it in it's entirety. It also has one of the greatest soundtracks ever gathered for a film--a soundtrack that is quirky, awesome, and criminally unreleased.

Obsessive music dork that I am, I scrounged around everywhere to find all the songs from the movie to compile my own soundtrack.  Finding tracks like Carmen McRae's fantastic version of "You Took Advantage Of Me," which opened the film, and ending credits song "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" by Tears For Fears were a piece of cake. It's the obscurities that were hard to hunt down (and usually the better songs too).

Case in point: Chaz Jankel's brilliant "Number One," a song used during one of the film's "working" montage sequences. They just don't make them like this anymore--without a hint of irony, you witness the successes and setbacks of the young geniuses as they build laser after laser, while the powerful synths of Jankel's inspirational powerhouse pound in the background, pushing them to get it right. To this day, this song is an essential workout track for me, and whenever it comes on, I get that little extra boost I need to do one more lap. While this track is great for that practical purpose, it is also absolutely essential listening for any '80s fan, especially those who enjoyed the film.

I've come to find that there were a lot of great soundtracks in the decade of leg warmers and puff paint shirts. I've since become a bit of an '80s soundtrack nut, and am always on the hunt for some gem I've yet to discover. Help me out--what are some of your favorite '80s soundtracks?

~Alan Wiley

Morning Metronomes

I woke up this morning and started web surfing from my bed (yes, I really love the internet) and the first thing I found in my quest for random news and interesting tidbits was this fascinating video of 5 metronomes syncing. What a wonderful, whimsical way to start the day. Enjoy! (via metafilter)

~Alan Wiley

Sample This Week's New Releases

This is a huge week for new music releases. Of course, any week with a new Madonna album would be huge, but with the '90s' foremost makeout jam purveyors Portishead making their triumphant return and a solid selection of just-bubbling-up acts like Santogold, Jamie Lidell and Estelle dropping potential hits, this is the first week that's gotten me truly excited since Kanye and 50 duked it out last Fall. Sample those albums, plus music from Tom Petty's Mudcrutch and eclectic Latin artists Nortec Collective, as well as new singles from Busta Rhymes/Linkin Park and R. Kelly below:

~Jeff Reguilon

P.S. We're testing out this widget. It should be available soon for you to plug into your blogs or MySpace pages or whatever you'd like so you can show off your own playlists. Leave a comment and let us know what you think about it.

Radiohead: Remixed in the Raw

In yet another fan-savvy move, the world's greatest rock band recently launched a remix competition, allowing fans and knob-twiddlers to reimagine "Nude," a track from this year's In Rainbows. For those of you who aren't studio gurus, the competition's website allows you to listen to all the entries and vote for your favorite. (Voting ends May 1!) Meanwhile, I'm partial to "Dont Get Big Ideas" by Switch. As moodily understated as the lyrics themselves, it also features a pitch-shifting, abysmally deep bass hit that's surely one of my favorite sounds, period. Check it out:

Share your favorite(s) with ChordStrike. Be as honest, brutal, and nakedly straightforward as the day you were born. ~Jason K

Hard Candy

Does Madonna's spread eagle pose on her new album cover solidify her feminist status, or put women back 500 years? Discuss. (Personally, I wish she would come up with another trick.) Also, let me know what you think of her new album: sweet, or leaves a bitter aftertaste? Personally, I am diggin’ it so far. Especially, the beats on the latin-tinged “Spanish Lesson.”

~Renata

Get Ready To Shred

There are many great technical guitar players in the world: Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan (RIP), Yngwie Malmsteen, Carlos Santana--and often times these guitar gods have the ego to match (especially Malmsteen). Enter the "shred" video. What is a shred video, you might ask? A shred video takes concert footage of one (or more) of these incredible players and overdubs the sounds a talentless air guitar master might make if handed a real guitar, with hilarious results. Guitars are often accented by keyboard, drums, and vocals where visually appropriate (not to mention enthusiastic crowd sounds). Think of it as a kind of Mystery Science Theater 3000 for music. Watching Eric Clapton play something that might generously be called free jazz almost made me pee my pants. Witness:

And it doesn't stop with Clapton. With a simple YouTube search for "shreds" you can find lots of examples to keep you entertained for hours. Here are some other performances of note: Led Zeppelin, Steve Vai, Santana, Creed, and Slash.

~ Alan Wiley
 

Mike Doughty's "Fort Hood" Video

It's hard to find a modern political song that isn't ham-fisted hectoring or half-baked hippie-style pleas for a general idea of peace and that has a lot to do with why I find Mike Doughty's song "Fort Hood" so moving. He and writer/producer/comedian Bex Schwartz recently shot a video for the song, without support from Doughty's label. Check it out:

If you're seeking clarity as to the song's meaning, check out Doughty's blog post on the subject. For further reading, dig another Doughty blog post about why he chose to release it now.

~Jeff Reguilon

In My Earbuds: The Singer by Teitur

I primarily know of singer-songwriter Teitur from his song "I Was Just Thinking," which is a total jam, even though it sounds like something that would be played during an especially poignant moment on Scrubs. As such, I expected straightforward acoustic Starbucks fare—not a knock! I promise!— when I popped in The Singer, but was instead treated to great, weird, semi-operatic pop songs with intriguing instrumentation-- marimbas, bass clarinets, horns and the like. I could do without the occasional quavering indie rock guy vocal tics, but that aside, this is pretty fantastic.

Recommended Songs: "Catherine The Waitress," "Don't Let Me Fall In Love With You!"
Recommended If You Like: Rufus Wainwright, the Shins, reminders of doing time in high school concert band

~ Jeff Reguilon

     

In My Earbuds: Ego Trippin' By Snoop Dogg

Doggystyle hit me during  one of the last adolescent Summers before I was old enough to work, which means I spent three months doing pretty much nothing outside of developing a wicked case of Nintendonitis from marathon Tecmo Super Bowl sessions while Snoop's debut played on repeat in the background. Since it's likely I've heard that record more than anything else by any other artist, it would be hard for me not to have a soft spot for it.

Still, I feel conflicted about present day Snoop. It's interesting that he somehow went from being a terrifying gangster in the '90s to now being a lovable clown without doing much to change his behavior other than smoothing out his voice on his cuts. Ego Trippin' manages to sound both pop and adult, which is no small feat, considering how frequently and blatantly his lyrics continue to disrespect women as sharply as "Ain't No Fun (If The Homies Can't Have None)" did fifteen years ago.

To make a bad analogy, this transformation would be akin to a band like Limp Bizkit (assuming their popularity never waned) gradually mellowing their sound over a decade and a half to the point you might hear one of their songs and confuse them for Train, only they still wrote lyrics as dumb as "Break Stuff." Also, Fred Durst would make hilarious cameos on "King of the Hill."

That said, Ego Trippin' is a decent listen if you can ignore the intermittent moral idiocy, which has always been the case with Snoop (especially when Murder Was the Case). I just feel like he should (and probably does) know better by now.

Recommended Songs: "Cool," "Press Play," "Neva Have 2 Worry" 

Recommended If You Like: Most of the rap songs T-Pain has guested on, Flo Rida, flow over content

~Jeff Reguilon

     

Live Music Lives: Lady Antebellum

                       

In case you missed it last night, we've got the CD release performance from the budding country music stars of Nashville's Lady Antebellum. The show went down at the Key Club in Los Angeles, in celebration of the band's eponymous debut album. Check it out.

In My Earbuds: E=MC² by Mariah Carey

It’s worth noting that Mimi's return to the top coincided with her abandonment of the multi-octave vocal acrobatics that originally made her famous back in her "Visions of Love" days. I’m sure she can still hit the dog whistle notes if she feels the need and she’s certainly still got pipes, but it's just not necessary to show 'em off anymore. In her maturity, she likely realized two things: 1) restraint is sexier, and 2) her songs stand more of a chance of making it on the radio if they're not red-thumbed by her now-jettisoned tendency towards melisma. That new approach results in fascinating hits like "Touch My Body," which makes me think less about clandestine Mariah sex romps and more about how much time Mariah spends hunkered over her MacBook surfing the YouTubes looking for videos of said clandestine sex romps. Regardless, I’m glad she pulled herself away from the Internet and the bedroom long enough to record E=MC², because—aside from the misguided Young Jeezy featuring clap track "Side Effects"— it’s a very good, highly listenable straight-up pop album.

Recommended Songs: "I’m That Chick," "Last Kiss"
Recommended If You Like: Rihanna, Beyonce, having nightmares about Mariah stalking you after she menacingly sings “I will hunt you down” on "Touch My Body"

~Jeff Reguilon

     

Interview with Ingrid Michaelson (Amazon Wire #70)

This week on Amazon Wire we're talking to musician Ingrid Michaelson about her album Girls and Boys that's becoming a 2008 favorite.

Apart from her popular songs, Michaelson has been getting some high profile exposure--her music has been featured on episodes of Grey's Anatomy and commercials for Old Navy. While fans love her music, some say she's selling out to big corporations.

The musician recently visited Amazon.com and chatted with music editor Jason Kirk about her music and what fans have to say.

Podcast Listening Options
* Stream below with Flash player
* Download the podcast
* Explore more podcasts

Thanks for listening!

 

Receive this and other podcasts weekly via e-mail - subscribe now.

Blindingly Familiar

Recently, while listening to a live acoustic set of the “new” Blind Melon in our Seattle office, I had a strange conversation in my head. In front of me, the new Blind Melon singer, Travis Warren, took center stage 13 years after the death of former Melon frontman Shannon Hoon. There was an eerie similarity in Warren’s voice, as if the band went looking for someone sounding like Hoon. The question in my mind: When the singer of a band dies, should the band change their name? A journalist solicited my opinion on this question recently and I have to admit, I couldn’t come up with a definitive answer, even though I’m happy enough with the one I gave in an article in which other answers and commentaries were teased out on this topic. On the one hand, a singer is the most visible face of the band, and once they reach a certain level of notoriety, their face becomes synonymous with the band itself. Therefore, if the singer no longer fronts the band, the band should not carry on with the same name (in the vein of Nirvana, Queen, Morphine, and Mother Love Bone), or so went my thinking. On the other hand, for bands like Pink Floyd or AC/DC, whose original singers died or left the band (thanks Mikey) relatively early on in the bands' careers, perhaps before significant notoriety set in, it doesn't seem as unethical to continue on with the same name. One thing I do know, the Rock Star INXS prime time media spectacle to replace INXS’ late, great singer Michael Hutchence through an on-air TV contest was overly callous and commercial. Can anyone out there shed light on this conundrum? Should the band name stay or should it go now?

~Lucas

     

Listen to This!

Occasionally, despite being behind in my projects and deadlines I will hear something so fantastic I have to drop what I am doing and let you know about it. John Richards (KEXP) played a song by Joshua Morrison on his morning radio program yesterday that stopped me in my tracks (“Home” the title track from his new album). Now, Joshua is a singer-songwriter, and truth be told, I am not really entranced by this particular genre with few exceptions: Ray LaMontagne, Damien Rice, Alexi Murdoch and the like.  Joshua is a veteran of the Iraq War and he crafts amazingly gentle, breathy compositions packed with immense sentiment. His songs will plow through the fortress you have erected around yourself to keep the bad stuff out, and remind you what it means to be human.  Clips are up on his myspace page. I highly encourage you to take a listen and drop me a comment to let me know what you think.

~Renata

Warm Breezes Are Calling You

Win a trip to see Jack perform at the Fifth Annual Kokua Festival at the Waikiki Shell in Honolulu, Hawaii.  Click here for details.

~Renata      

Free Songs from Kate Voegele and Pete Rock

Kate Voegele is an up-and-coming singer-songwriter (and probably many other things that involve hyphens) whose music has been all over TV recently. You might have caught her six-episode appearance on One Tree Hill, where her character suffered the ignominy of playing second banana in a rock band to World's Best Dad, Kevin Federline. On the show, her talent was too strong to keep her in the background for long and we think that might be true in real life, too. You can judge for yourself when you download her song "Only Fooling Myself" for free at Amazon MP3.

This week's second free song comes from hip hop icon Pete Rock, whose new album NY's Finest hit shelves and servers last week. Widely considered one of the greatest producers of all time, Pete's influenced an unknowable number of urban music makers-- most notably Kanye West, whose early fame-making production work expanded on the soul and jazz sampling template Rock helped popularize in the early '90s. Pete's finally using modern equipment on his new record, but he sounds as good as he ever did. Check out his latest work by downloading "Till I Retire" for free. This song has some explicit lyrics, so cover the kids' ears or skip it if that's the sort of thing that offends you.

Both of these songs are available for free at Amazon MP3 through March 10th. Enjoy!

-- Jeff Reguilon, Amazon MP3