Albums : 5 Seconds Of Summer : 5SOS (Deluxe)

Listen To 5 Seconds Of Summer : 5SOS (Deluxe)


5 Seconds Of Summer (Deluxe)
‘5 Seconds of Summer‘ is the self-titled studio album by Australian pop band 5 Seconds of Summer. It was released on digital retailers on June 27, 2014 via Capitol Records.

It comes preceded by the smash hit single ‘She Looks So Perfect‘, and the second single ‘Don’t Stop‘. Alongside the pre-order of the album, the guys released the track ‘Good Girls‘ on iTunes on May 13th.

The song “Kiss Me Kiss Me” was released as a countdown single on iTunes on June 17th. “Everything I Didn’t Say” was released as a countdown single on iTunes on June 24th.

Tracklist:
She Looks So Perfect
Don’t Stop
Good Girls
Kiss Me Kiss Me
18
Everything I Didn’t Say
Beside You
End Up Here
Long Way Home
Heartbreak Girl
Lost Boy
Amnesia

Deluxe Edition

Social Casualty
Never Be
Voodoo Doll
Green Light

Australian Edition

Lost Boy

Target Edition

Tomorrow Never Dies
Independence Day
Close As Strangers
Out of My Limit


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Albums : Lily Allen : Sheezus

Listen To Lily Allen : Sheezus


She famously took inspiration from his album Yeezus to name her latest studio effort.

And it seems that Lily Allen finally got the approval of Kanye West, as they rubbed shoulders at the Met Gala on Monday in New York.

Lily, who was wearing Chanel, excitedly posted a selfie with the rapper, who inspired her to name her third album Sheezus.

The Air Balloon singer even managed to bag a snap with Kanye's fiancee Kim Kardashian, who decided to duck lips for Lily's picture.

Lily - who has previously taken a swipe at Kanye on Twitter - admitted on Australian radio earlier this year that she was 'terrified' he may have taken offense at her naming her album Sheezus.

'It's totally not a diss,' she revealed. 'I love Kanye, I think he's brilliant.'

Sheezus Review
A few weeks ago, Lily Allen released a single called "Sheezus", from her new album of the same name. She begins the song in a weary murmur, announcing that, after five years away, she's ready to step back into the spotlight and endure all the "embarrassing" comparisons she will receive to other female pop stars. Then, in the chorus, she all but invites these comparisons by name-checking some artists she seems to perceive as her contemporaries: "Riri isn't scared of Katy Perry's Roaring/ Queen B's gone back to the drawing/ Lorde smells blood, yeah she's about to slay you/ Kid ain't one to fuck with when she's only on her debut."

"Sheezus" is a maddeningly catchy, deeply puzzling song. Is she paying homage to these women? Is she making fun of them? Maybe a little bit of both? (And while we're asking the unanswerable: Why is she dressed like a Na'vi from Avatar in the song's video?) Maybe Allen wants "Sheezus" to be read as a critique of the ruthlessly combative, Who-Wore-It-Better? pageant that our culture creates for female celebrities—though at the same time, she admits that part of her desires that rigged game's flashy prize. "Give me the crown, bitch," she snaps a little too convincingly at the end of the chorus, "I wanna be Sheezus."

All things considered, the Lorde reference is particularly loaded. Nearly a decade ago, Allen was the promising and precociously literate pop insurgent who was "only on her debut." That record was 2006's enduringly charming Alright, Still—a personable blast of witty, hip-hop-informed pop that featured lively character sketches of famous family members, eccentric London townies, and shitty ex-boyfriends. It sold millions and made her a star, particularly in her home country. Allen became a fixture on the London club scene and an acid-tongued presence in the British media; she took a brief and well-publicized break from drinking after telling Elton John to "fuck off" on national TV.

Her second record, It's Not Me, It's You, was as shimmery and sharp as a shattered mirror, critiquing the vapidity of fame ("The Fear") and the ways in which the deck is stacked against outspoken women who dare to outlive their ingénue phase ("22", a song about the Rock-Forever-21-But-Just-Turned-30 set, now feels like a bleak sequel to Taylor Swift's hit of the same name). Though the tabloids charted Allen's every affair, her most passionate love/hate relationship seemed to be with her own notoriety. (A telling detail that almost every profile of her dutifully noted: After she was arrested in 2007 for attacking a photographer, she blew up a copy of the police citation and hung it in her foyer.)

Clearly, Allen possesses a terrific flair for irony. But there's a fine line between using irony to make a cutting point and using it as a protective coating to hide the fact that you're not sure exactly what you're trying to say. Allen was once a master of the former, but Sheezus too often finds her drifting perilously in the latter territory. Even before she was disowning her underperforming singles as "docile pop rubbish" on Twitter a few weeks ago, we got a taste of this back-pedaling and double-speak on the album’s lead-off single "Hard Out Here", which fashioned itself a critique of music industry sexism but, to some listeners, sent an unfortunate mixed message. "I don't have to shake my ass for you, cuz I've got a brain," Allen sang, as though the two were mutually exclusive; behind her, a group of black women shook their asses at the camera. When the video was accused of being racist, Allen clarified, "If I could dance like the ladies can, it would have been my arse on your screens." All of this confusion only muddled her original point, and made you wonder if the song had as much brain power as Allen advertised.

Allen was one of the first high-profile artists to cultivate a fanbase via the internet; she posted demos on Myspace in advance of Alright, Still, and later became known for writing confessional posts on her blog. But the controversy that "Hard Out Here" generated seemed like a barometer of how much the internet has changed in a few short years—especially when it comes to talking (or making music) about feminism. As the writer Michelle Goldberg described in a recent cover story for The Nation, it can sometimes feel on Twitter like there is a radical SWAT team that would rather jump on anyone who Does Feminism Wrong (see also: the "Is Beyoncé A Feminist?" Thinkpiece Fatigue of 2014) than allow people to express "well intentioned" but "imperfect" opinions. Because she is making some valid points about double standards in the music industry, some might find it tempting to consider Allen a victim of this kind of hand-wringing. But in the end, Sheezus fails on much less ambiguous grounds.

There's nothing particularly wrong with the way the album sounds: It's a sleek and bubbly, if somewhat indistinct, pop record. It's not easy to write songs that are as catchy as they are verbose, but Allen and her frequent collaborator, producer Greg Kurstin, have not lost the light, agile touch they showcased on the best of It's Not Me. "L8 CMMR" is cheeky summertime pop, and the Sugababes-sweet "Air Balloon" is infectious enough that I can almost forgive Allen, lyrically, for making the same joke as that stupid Bavaria Radler commercial with Elvis and Kurt Cobain. (Almost.) The record's most satisfyingly on-point moment, though, is "URL Badman", a satirical send-up of spiteful internet commenters. Allen sings it in the voice of a parents'-basement-dwelling "London white boy repping ATL" who says things like, "I don't troll, I make statements." Even though he spends his days spouting Wordpress vitriol at famous women who will never fuck him, he wants us to know that deep down he's really just a sensitive guy, "like Drake."

If only this record could put its money where its delightfully dirty mouth is. But too often, there's a tone of scolding, mean-spirited superiority about Sheezus that, after a few spins, makes you wonder why Allen thinks she’s so different from that blogosphere hater. The feather-light R&B number "Insincerely Yours" is bogged down by cheap shots and Twitter-beef petulance: "I don't give a fuck about the Delevingne, that Rita girl, about Jourdan Dunn… I don't give a fuck about your Instagram, about your lovely house or your ugly kids." Allen's venomous tongue was previously effective when it spewed at unidentified love interests or impersonal cultural institutions like "society" or The Sun and The Mirror, but, as on “Sheezus”, she runs into trouble as soon as she starts naming names. Not only will “Insincerely Yours” age about as well as the Fred Durst diss in "The Real Slim Shady", but less forgivably, it contradicts the record’s overall message. How can Allen not see that she's playing into the very catfight narrative that, four songs previous, she was supposedly trying to end?

Even as Allen takes both serious and “ironic” jabs at her contemporaries, she seems plenty interested in borrowing from their sounds and sensibilities. “Our Time” is her obligatory stab at a YOLO-anthem, a “We Can’t Stop” in everything but name and cutting-edge production. There’s also a particularly noxious song called "Silver Spoon", the main argument of which scans as, “Fuck off, I grew up slightly less rich than you think I did.” Although it aims for empathy across class lines, it just comes off as defensive. Furthermore, although Allen’s records have always been stylistic hodgepodges, Sheezus doesn’t flow as fluidly as her last two. When things get a little weary after the mandatory ballad about not wanting to be famous anymore, cue "As Long As I Got You", which is...a zydeco song?

“The game is changing,” Allen sings on “Sheezus”. “Can’t just come back, jump on the mic and do the same thing.” There is something poignant and disarmingly honest about this song—very few artists pull back the curtain on the kind of fears and anxieties she’s acknowledging here. And while Allen’s right—the game is changing—there are plenty of reasons to feel more hopeful about the future than she does. Katy Perry’s “Roar” wasn’t a catty snipe at anybody’s Instagram, but instead a primal battle cry of female self-empowerment. Yes, Beyoncé did go back to the drawing board—and she returned to completely reinvent the album as a relevant format in 2014 and prove that brains and ass-shaking can coexist and the world shall continue to turn. And in the short amount of time she’s been on the scene, Lorde has not only spoken out against the music industry’s sexism but also cultivated a powerful sense of solidarity with other young female pop stars. Even in the context of a joke, the word “diva” feels applicable to her least of all. She is not the girl who wants to “slay” her “rivals”, but befriend and root for them instead.

So “Sheezus” is based on a false conceit. Nobody’s vying for the title of Top Diva in 2014 because—and this is the great and exciting thing about women in pop music right now—there’s enough room at the table for all different kinds of femininities, sexualities, races, body types, and sounds. (It ain’t perfect, of course, but progress is being made.) Sheezus has a few good points and some admirable intentions, but too often it misses the point. In the end, Allen only fans the flames she says she wants to extinguish.


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Sources : Lily Allen Photo | Listen To Sheezus | Lily Allen Article | Sheezus Review | Lily Allen & Kanye Photo

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Albums : Lea Michele : Louder

Listen To Lea Michele : Louder

It's almost time to say goodbye to McKinley High School for good and say hello to the bright lights of Broadway.

As of right now, "Glee" shifts back and forth between McKinley High and New York, but soon the entire storyline of the show will take place in New York City.

Some of McKinley's graduating class will relocate to New York to join the major characters — Lea Michele's Rachel Berry, Chris Colfer's Kurt Hummel and Naya Rivera's Santana Lopez — who are trying to make their dreams come true in the big apple.

"We are filming, currently, episode 16 of season five and then we have 22 to shoot next year so we have a lot ahead of us," Michele recently told MTV News. "Right now, the show is only in New York. The high school has been — it's over ... Amber [Riley] comes in for a few episodes, which is great because it's so nice having her there. So we are in New York, all of us, it's kind of like 'Friends.' "

Michele, who just released her debut album Louder, says that moving the show to New York feels "natural" and "right" and brings more maturity to the show, which sometimes can't be said for the cast, who have a little too much fun while on set.

"We were shooting the other day, all of us, and we forgot that we were filming. They told us to do a scene where we were like, eating pizza and hanging out on the couch and all of a sudden, the cameras were rolling and we were chatting and I was like 'But, Amber, what did you do'. And they were like, 'You guys, we're filming'. And I was like 'Oh, wait, ok...we have to be our characters,' " Michele said. "But it's so great."

The show, which is celebrating its 100th episode on March 18, will conclude its impressive run at the end of season six. Back in October of 2013, show creator Ryan Murphy said that the final season would revolve around Rachel and Cory Monteith's character, Finn's, story, but due to Monteith's tragic death last year, Murphy reworked an ending that would be "very satisfactory and kind of in his honor."

Michele said there's a "big surprise happening for Rachel" next season but wouldn't divulge too much on the ending of season six. If it were up to her, Rachel would end up on the stage. "For me, I think that....seeing Rachel Barry on the stage at Radio City winning a Tony Award with you know, Kurt and Mercedes in the front row, Artie and Tina, Mr. Schu cheering her on," Michele said. "I think that's how it should end."

Louder Review
It’s an arguable gift and a curse when an artist readies a new album following life-changing events. While on one hand everyone is tuned in, there’s almost a forced requirement to address said situation on record, whether good or bad. For an artist-slash-actor like Lea Michele, her solo debut album Louder (out today, March 4), would have served an entirely different function prior to 2013. The breakout star of Glee was geared for greatness the moment she entered the halls of William McKinley High School. However, she is now left with the unfortunate task of using her first project as a means to either vent or discuss the passing of her love, Cory Monteith. As she makes the inevitable move from Rachel Berryto Lea Michele on her new album, fans are left searching for clues that Michele has made gracefully transparent.

Lea Michele’s first word uttered on Loud is “breakdown,” as heard on her first single and album opener “Cannonball.” Heavy-handed keys and mid-tempo production give way to a gentle anthem punctuated with Lea’s Broadway-esque cadence. Sia penned the track and Stargate co-produced it with Dr. Luke protege Benny Blanco. All four masterminds traveled outside of their comfort zones to provide a plush sound bed for Michele to recline comfortably upon, which is either a testament to the aforementioned team’s tailor-made artistry or Lea’s ability to put herself into anything she touches. Perhaps it’s both.

Sia’s DNA is actually scattered all over the project, from the loving regret on the acoustic “Battlefield” (that’s begging for a dance remix) to the nuvo-power ballad “You’re Mine.” And then Sia appears once again, to pen the Cory Monteith ode “If You Say So.” The closer lets you know its intent from the moment it starts, as Michele sings, “It’s been seven whole days since you paralyzed me / seven whole days since you lost your fight.” The track captures the week following the passing of Monteith, and while listening carefully, the heavy sighs signify that this was an incredibly difficult song for the Glee star to sing. Despite being an established actor, this song was no “performance” for Lea; rather it was her love letter to Cory and we were all just fortunate enough to listen in.

Other songs like “Burn With You” continue the power balladeering, where Lea emphasizes that she’d rather be in hell if that’s where her love will forever reside (religious fanatics feel free to dissect that one). There’s no shortage of pop songs either, as “On My Way,” “Thousand Needles,” “Cue The Rain,” and “Don’t Let Go” all deliver steady EDM, while the intensely subdued “Empty Handed” is another convincing notch in Lea’s “I Will Someday Be Celine Dion” belt.

We can pick apart Louder and deduce that the entire project is about Lea Michele’s love lost, or we can absorb it as the very first offering from a TV/Broadway star brave enough to step away from her roles and unveil her truest self. If taken as either, it’s still a partial win, though the singer still errs on the side of show tunes, and many songs sound like they can be gingerly inserted into staged scenes. The real test will come once the Glee and media mist fades, and Michele will be left with conceptualizing a sophomore project, since her debut’s concept was unintentionally decided for her.


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Sources : Lea Michele Photo | Listen To Louder | Lea Michele Article | Louder Review

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Albums : John Newman : Tribute

Listen To John Newman : Tribute

"It feels real this time," says John Newman, one day after his debut solo single, the stirring "Love Me Again," debuted at No. 1 on the U.K. singles chart. The song sold 125,000 units to shoot to the summit, breezing by global hits like Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" and Icona Pop's "I Love It" on the regional tally, according to the Official Charts Company.

The Yorkshire-born singer has been here before: the 23-year-old served as the featured vocalist on Rudimental's overseas chart-topper "Feel The Love" last summer. But the arrival of "Love Me Again" -- one of the most vibrant pop singles of the year, and a song which coincidentally became available for purchase in the U.S. this week -- is a watershed moment for the 23-year-old, who's hard at work on a breakup album as potentially devastating as Adele's "21."

Love Me Again

"It felt very surreal [hitting No. 1] with Rudimental, because, although I helped write the song and performed on it, it wasn't what I was aiming to do," Newman explains to Billboard. "It was a brilliant platform for what I am doing now, but this time, it really sank in that I went No. 1."

Newman first discovered a passion for music through his mother, who was obsessed with Motown and soul music, and began writing and producing songs in his bedroom before eventually turning the cupboard under the stairs in his Settle, North Yorkshire home into a tiny studio. After studying at the College of Music in Leeds, Newman moved to London and started working at an Old Dairy pub… until he got fired for giving a drink away. "That was the thing to do, I thought!" Newman professes, before shrugging off the incident and saying, "Eh, I had a good time, anyway."

The singer worked (briefly) at the pub with the sister of Piers Agget, who later became the frontman for drum-and-bass quartet Rudimental, and when Newman got canned, he moved in with the Agget family. The two started jamming, and Newman ended up providing vocals for the soaring single "Feel The Love" as well as the "Not Giving In," both on Rudimental's debut album, "Home."

Rudimental - "Feel The Love" ft. John Newman

"Feel The Love" hit No. 1 in June 2012, and Newman joined Rudimental on tour and for various promotional appearances, including for a live performance on "Christmas Top of the Pops" last December. Once promotion of "Feel The Love" died down, Newman retreated to a professional studio to work on his debut solo material for Universal Island, who signed the singer to a deal two years ago. "I was a little anxious in there," he admits, "because the Rudimental tour was in the past, and I remember still being called 'the singer from the Rudimental tour.'"

"Love Me Again," which was unveiled last May in an official music video that has since gained 5 million YouTube views, blows away that perception with a searing fusion of house, hip-hop and soul music, as Newman and writer-producer Steve Booker (who helmed Duffy's "Mercy") demand to know if the singer can find forgiveness after screwing up a relationship. It's a scorching opening statement for a forthcoming debut album that will focus on the dissolution of Newman's last long-term relationship.

"This album… it's going to be quite hard for me to listen to," says Newman. "In the time that I was going through watching things change and the music picking up, I was trapped in this house that me and my girlfriend had built this whole relationship in. And I had to move out of that house, because it was like every wall reminded me of this break-up. A lot of the songs come from that -- how I couldn't look at certain things in that house, and how I had to get out."

Love Me Again (Glastonbury 2013)

The still-untitled album does not have a release date, but Newman says that he's "really happy" with what the long studio hours have amounted to thus far. "We had a really special moment the other day," he shares. "We'd been working on a string arrangement, and then we went into the studio to record, and I had a tear in my eye because it felt like the album's little bits were finally coming together. All the little ideas had a consistency running through them, and it just felt like the album was very close to being done. And I've got viral ideas and campaign ideas, and everything's really coming together. It feels incredible."

As "Love Me Again" vies for a second week in the top spot of the U.K. singles chart, Newman says that he's gearing up for the song's inevitable stateside push, especially now that it's commercially available. The singer has a handful of U.K. live shows lined up through the end of 2013, including appearances at the Wilderness Festival and V Festival in August, but says that U.S. shows are "of course" coming as well. "I think Americans like to see a good show," he says with a laugh.

Tribute Review
"It's all for you/ For what you have shown me/ And for what you do," John Newman sings on opening track 'Tribute' from his debut album of the same name. The soul singer is paying homage to a wide range of musical influences that have helped shape his sound, the list including everyone from Elvis Presley and Tina Turner to Jay Z and Adele. While his tastes are obviously eclectic, his first collection infuses these inspirations without compromising consistency.

Let it be said that John Newman is neo-soul to the core - his distinctive vocal with a tinge of rasp giving him no option in the matter. That's not to say other influences don't play an important part throughout his music. 'Try' flirts with italo piano and jaunty strings which echoes '70s disco, while recent single 'Cheating' bounds around with tin-rattling break-beats from the shadows of '90s house.

But while the musicality of the record dips its toe in and out of genres, the subject of love remains prominently at the forefront. Whether Newman is reflecting on the difficulties of the heart on 'Easy' or crooning for forgiveness on 'Love Me Again', Tribute thrives on a rollercoaster narrative of broken relationships, gutsy emotions and broody intent.

What's more, the collection doesn't suffer from burn-out towards the finish. 'Running' is a pulsing mid-tempo with a strong whiff of Emeli Sandé to it, while 'Goodnight Goodbye' soars with a lofty chorus that is primed for an impressive live outing. The list of influences for John Newman's debut may be long, but rather than emulating his idols, he is in fact following in their footsteps - and Tribute gets him off to a very strong start.


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Sources : John Newman Photo | Listen To Tribute | John Newman Article | Tribute Review | Love Me Again Video | Rudimental - "Feel The Love" ft. John Newman Video | Love Me Again (Glastonbury 2013) Video

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Albums : Sia : Healing Is Difficult

Listen To Sia : Healing Is Difficult

Who Is Sia
Sia Kate Isobelle Furler (born 18 December 1975), better known mononymously as Sia (/sɪə/or /ˈsiːə/), is an Australian downtempo, pop, and jazz singer and songwriter. In 2000, her single "Taken for Granted" was a top 10 hit in the United Kingdom. Her 2008 album Some People Have Real Problems peaked in the low 50 on the Billboard 200. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2009, she won the award for 'Best Music DVD' and received six nominations at the ARIA Music Awards of 2010 and won 'Best Independent Release' and 'Best Pop Release' for We Are Born and 'Best Video' for the song "Clap Your Hands". As a writer, Furler has collaborated with many artists including Christina Aguilera, Eminem, David Guetta, Flo Rida, Afrojack, Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, Lea Michele, Rihanna, Leona Lewis, Hilltop Hoods, Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Rita Ora, Britney Spears, Jessie J, Oh Land and Celine Dion. She co-wrote and featured on Billboard Hot 100 top ten hits, "Titanium" with DJ David Guetta, and "Wild Ones" with rapper Flo Rida. Both achieved international success.

Furler was born in Adelaide, South Australia on 18 December 1975. She went to North Adelaide Primary School. Her father, Phil B. Colson, was a musician in various bands including Foreday Riders, Rum Jungle, Fat Time, Jump Back Jack, and Mount Lofty Rangers. Her mother, Loene Furler, is a singer, songwriter, musician, and art lecturer who also provided backing vocals for Mount Lofty Rangers. Her parents were both in an Adelaide rockabilly band, The Soda Jerx. Furler is the niece of UK based actor/singer Kevin Colson. Singer/songwriter Colin Hay of Men at Work though not related, is affectionately known as "Uncle Colin". "Philby" Colson played slide guitar on Men at Work's last single, "Everything I Need" from their album Two Hearts, then toured extensively with "The Colin Hay Band" in 1988. In her 2008 NPR Music interview, she said that she had mimicked other singers while growing up and counts Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and Sting as her early influences. She attended Adelaide High School. At fourteen, Furler said, her parents had enough money to pay for her getting her now famous snaggletooth removed, or a chance to attend school in Italy. Furler chose Italy, and she said that she doesn't regret keeping her snaggletooth.

Discovering her voice in a karaoke bar while in Italy, taking a university gap year, Sia explains to Gigwise: "I got up and sang at this karaoke bar in Italy. I didn’t like any of the songs they had so I just got them to clap their hands and sang "Lean on Me" by Bill Withers." Because of her unique singing voice, Furler was offered the chance to record a song by a local DJ who happened to be in the bar. Fourteen years on and it all seems rather distant and amusing, as Sia recounts holding back the laughter: "I was seventeen and writing about racism and homophobia; I had a message and wanted to change the world. Then I went back to university in Adelaide (the University of Adelaide) to finish studying Italian and Politics and I hated it after having spent a year out of school, so I quit straight away."

In the early 1990s, Furler started gigging in the Adelaide acid jazz scene and at the age of 17, joined the jazz-funk band, Crisp. Crisp included Furler on vocals, Jesse Flavell on guitar, Jeremy Glover on bass guitar, Sam Langley, Ben Timmis on keyboards, Steve Rooney on drums. The group released two albums: Word and the Deal (1996) and Delerium (1997). By 1997, Furler had left Crisp and as a trip hop artist, released her debut solo album OnlySee from an Adelaide garage – which sold 1,200 copies, 1,000 in Adelaide alone. It was produced by former Crisp band mate Flavell, who also wrote most of the tracks, for Flavoured Records. During a November 1997 episode of Home and Away in her OnlySee days, Sia guest starred on the show and she sang a song called "How to Breathe" on a beach after Rebecca and Travis are declared husband and wife. Furler and her boyfriend, Dan, travelled together on a world trip, she stopped off in Thailand. Dan was killed in a traffic accident in London, a week before she arrived. She lived in a London boarding house with Dan's friends. In 2007, Furler recalled the impact of Dan's death, "We were all devastated, so we got shit-faced on drugs and Special Brew. Unfortunately, that bender lasted six years for me."

In 2000, Furler signed a recording contract with the Sony Music's sub-label Dance Pool. While living in London, she performed backing vocals for British jazz funk band Jamiroquai. On 9 July 2001 she released her second solo album, Healing Is Difficult, an eclectic mix of R&B and jazz, that was favourably received by critics. All the tracks were written or co-written by Furler and it was co-produced by Furler and Blair Mackichan. The album included the songs "Drink to Get Drunk" and "Little Man" which became popular in UK nightclubs. The album's single "Taken for Granted", peaked at No. 10 on the UK Singles Chart for one week, 3 June 2000 but was on the chart for five weeks. The album's lyrics dealt with her boyfriend's death, "I was pretty fucked up after Dan died. I couldn't really feel anything. I could intellectualise a lot of stuff; that I had a purpose, that I was loved, but I couldn't actually feel anything." Unhappy with the promotion of the album, Furler fired her manager, left Sony Music and signed with Go! Beat Records, a subsidiary of UMG. At the APRA Awards of 2002, Furler won the 'Breakthrough Songwriter' category alongside Brisbane pop duo Aneiki's Jennifer Waite and Grant Wallis.

In 2003, Furler released an extended play, Don't Bring Me Down, its lead track was used over the closing titles of the French film, 36 Quai des Orfèvres. Her second album, Colour the Small One, was released in Australia on 19 January 2004 and in Europe later that year. This downtempo album had Furler employ a mixture of acoustic instruments and electronic backing to her material, which led to comparisons to artists such as Dido and Sarah McLachlan. It featured "The Bully", which was a collaboration with American musician Beck Hansen. Two further songs were co-written with Beck and recorded, but have yet to be released. Colour the Small One spawned the singles "Breathe Me" and "Where I Belong". The latter was earmarked for the Spider-Man-2 soundtrack, its cover depicts Furler dressed in a Spider-Man costume. However, owing to a record label conflict, it was withdrawn. Six tracks on the album had been co-written with her bass guitarist, Samuel Dixon.

In early 2005, Furler left Go! Beat Records, disappointed at the company's poor promotion of the album, and the failure of the label's US counterpart to pick up the record. She relocated to New York City. Meanwhile, "Breathe Me" appeared on the series finale of the US HBO television series Six Feet Under and the broadcast of the 2006 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. It was also used in an episode of the BBC show Luther (Season 1, Episode 5). The track had been licensed to Astralwerks – which also produces the Six Feet Under soundtracks – and Colour the Small One was given an American release by that label in early 2006. Furler toured the US throughout that year, promoting the album and cross-promoting the Six Feet Under season five DVD release. The US version of the album features four bonus tracks: "Broken Biscuit" (from the Don't Bring Me Down EP), "Sea Shells" (the B-side to "Breathe Me" in the UK) and two remixes of "Breathe Me" by Four Tet and Ulrich Schnauss.

Sia Furler has provided vocals for English downtempo group Zero 7 (musical duo of Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker) on their first three studio albums and has toured with the band. She is heard on their hit singles "Destiny" and "Distractions" from their debut album, Simple Things, released in April 2001. Their second album, When It Falls appeared in March 2004 and featured Furler voicing "Somersault" and "Speed Dial No. 2". Their third album, The Garden issued May 2006, found six contributions from Furler, with two ("Throw It All Away" and "You're My Flame") released as singles in the UK and North America. Simple Things reached the UK Albums Chart top 30 and both When It Falls and The Garden peaked in the top 5.

On 3 April 2007, Furler released a live album, Lady Croissant, in the US. It featured eight live songs from her April 2006 performance at New York's Bowery Ballroom. One new studio track – "Pictures" – was included on the album. Allmusic's Marissa Brown felt "The recordings sound good, the band ... tight and lush, and Sia herself is spot-on, her vocals rich and passionate." In November, a four-song EP, Day Too Soon, was issued on iTunes, which included the tracks "Day Too Soon", "Buttons", "The Girl You Lost to Cocaine", and a remix of "Day Too Soon" by Mock & Toof. "The Girl You Lost to Cocaine" reached No. 8 and "Day Too Soon" peaked at No. 24 on Billboard's Dance Music Club Play Singles Chart.

Furler's third studio album, Some People Have Real Problems, was released in January 2008, which peaked in the top 30 on the Billboard 200. Its first single, "Day Too Soon", was issued in November 2007. A video for the song "Buttons" was created. The track "Little Black Sandals" was featured on the television show Private Practice in the season one episode, "In Which Addison Finds a Showerhead". Also in January 2008, Furler performed "The Girl You Lost to Cocaine" on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. It has remix versions by Sander van Doorn, Stonebridge, and Jens O. The Sander van Doorn remix was a hit in the Netherlands, reaching the No. 11 spot on the Dutch Singles Chart and it peaked at No. 12 on the Spanish Singles Chart. Furler and her band members wore glow-in-the-dark costumes on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in January, performing "Buttons" and "Breathe Me". The Mylo remix of "Breathe Me" was used in the nightly segment "Wall Street Crisis: Is Your Money Safe?" during the economic crisis of 2008–2009. Furler's music video, "Soon We'll Be Found", was used on the US front page of the iTunes Music Store. Customers were able to download a high quality version of the video for free. Her cover of Ray Davies' "I Go to Sleep" appeared on the TV shows Dollhouse ("Gray Hour" episode) and Packed to the Rafters ("Perfect Bubble" episode).

In May 2009, Furler released TV Is My Parent on DVD, which includes a live concert at New York's Hiro Ballroom on 12 September 2007, four music videos and behind-the-scenes footage. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2009, she won the award for 'Best Music DVD' for TV Is My Parent. Some People Have Real Problems was nominated for 'Best Breakthrough Artist Album'.

Furler approached Christina Aguilera's manager in 2007 to record "Death by Chocolate" and Aguilera contacted Furler herself. During 2009, Furler and Samuel Dixon collaborated with Aguilera on tracks for the US artist's sixth studio album, Bionic (2010). Three of the songs were included on the standard version and a fourth was included on the deluxe edition. Furler, Aguilera and Dixon also co-wrote "Bound to You" for the soundtrack of Burlesque of the film of the same name, which was performed by Aguilera who co-starred with Cher. "Bound to You" was nominated for the 2010 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. In May 2011, Furler appeared on the inaugural season of the US version of a singing competition, The Voice, as an adviser for Aguilera who is a vocal coach and judge.

Furler released her fifth studio album, We Are Born, on 18 June 2010. She had performed some new material from the album ("You've Changed", "The Co-Dependent" and "Clap Your Hands") during her 2009–2010 tours. In 2008, "The Co-Dependent" was expected to be part of an animated pop project, "The H-Crusaders". The album's first single, "Clap Your Hands" was issued in May. The track "You've Changed" was premièred on music blog, Sheena Beaston, on 18 November 2009. It was co-written with Lauren Flax, American DJ and producer, and was originally released in 2008 by Flax, Furler re-recorded it for We Are Born. "You've Changed" peaked at No. 31 on the ARIA Singles Chart. It was played in the television show The Vampire Diaries, while "I'm in Here" (piano vocal version) was used in Gossip Girl, Rookie Blue, a Canadian police drama, The Nine Lives of Chloe King, and Nikita. "You've Changed" placed 72nd in the Triple J Hottest 100, 2009, despite being only available from December, her track "Buttons" (CSS Remix) appeared in 50th place.

She received six nominations at the ARIA Music Awards of 2010 and won 'Best Independent Release' and 'Best Pop Release' for We Are Born while Kris Moyes won 'Best Video' for "Clap Your Hands". The album was also nominated for 'Album of the Year', and "Clap Your Hands" was nominated for 'Single of the Year'. "Clap Your Hands" peaked at No. 17 on the ARIA Singles Chart. It earned Furler and co-writer Samuel Dixon a nomination for 'Song of the Year' at the 2011 APRA Music Awards. The album received gold album accreditation by the Australian Recording Industry Association in 2011 for shipment of 35000 units.

According to her Twitter site, Furler wanted to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show in the 2010 season. Furler did not appear on the show, although the trailer for Oprah's final season featured "Breathe Me". In June 2010, Furler cancelled her touring commitments and later announced that she had been diagnosed with Graves' disease, after rest and treatment she resumed performing from January 2011. She performed at the Big Day Out concerts in New Zealand and Australia. Further touring of Australia followed in February. According to Furler's website, her tour of North America is due to start in late July. During the 2012 Royal Rumble, a Pay-Per-View produced by the WWE, a promo featured in between matches where the Flo Rida song "Wild Ones" that she features on was used in the background. The song would later feature in the following weeks for various other WWE content and would later be announced as one of the theme songs for WWE's biggest show of the year, WrestleMania XXVIII. Sia also provided vocals for David Guetta's song "Titanium" released on 5 August 2011, which can be found on his album Nothing but the Beat. Sia also performed this song live alongside Guetta at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 2012, as well as featuring in Guetta's 2012 single "She Wolf (Falling to Pieces)".

On 30 March 2012, Sia released the career retrospective Best Of... in Australia. It peaked at No. 27 on the Australian Albums chart. She recorded "Kill and Run" for the soundtrack of the 2013 film, The Great Gatsby. On 17 June 2013, Furler won both Urban Work of The Year for the single "I Love It" with Hilltop Hoods and Songwriter of the Year at the 2013 APRA Awards.

Furler co-wrote "Loved Me Back to Life," the lead single from the upcoming album by Celine Dion. The song was released on 3 September 2013. In August 2013, it was announced that Sia co-wrote a song with Jennifer Lopez, the track is set to be included on Lopez's upcoming eighth studio album. Fuler co-wrote the track "Double Rainbow" with singer Katy Perry. The track is included on Perry's 2013 album, Prism.

On September 13, 2013, Sia announced that she is finished up her sixth album with Greg Kurstin, and is to be released in March 2014. Sia also features on Eminem's eighth studio album The Marshall Mathers LP 2, on a track only available with the Deluxe Edition.

Sia has also contributed towards pop sensation Beyoncé's highly anticipated album expected for release in late 2013. Sia wrote the summer release 'Standing On The Sun' and also features in the song providing ad-libs for Beyoncé in the track.

In November 2005, Furler recorded, "Sweet One", as a duet with fellow Australian singer Katie Noonan (ex-George). It was expected to be included on each artists' next solo albums but it did not appear on Furler's Some People Have Real Problems nor Noonan's Skin. "Sweet One" appeared on Katie Noonan and the Captain's album, Emperor's Box (2010). In 2006, Furler recorded a cover version of Radiohead's "Paranoid Android", which appeared on the tribute album, Exit Music: Songs with Radio Heads. It was used on an episode of teen drama The O.C..

Furler provided backing vocals on The Bird and the Bee's cover version of the Bee Gees's "How Deep Is Your Love", which appears on the soundtrack for the Sex and the City film (2008). The Bird and the Bee's Greg Kurstin produced Furler's 2010 album We Are Born; he also provided keyboards, guitar, bass guitar, drums and xylophone; and co-wrote five tracks. Kurstin's band mate, Inara George provided additional vocals. Furler collaborated with Lior on the song "I'll Forget You" for his album, Corner of an Endless Road (2008). In August, "Breathe Me" was licensed to Coles Supermarkets Australia and appeared in their commercial airing during coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In October, she performed two songs on the BBC2 TV show, Later... with Jools Holland – "Buttons" and "Soon We'll Be Found". Furler's song "Breathe Me" is used as the backing music for the Tokyo Game Show trailer of the video game Prince of Persia, published by Ubisoft in 2008, also for the trailer of the 2005 film Derailed, as well as the final sequence for the TV show Six Feet Under and the film The Ultimate Gift.

In 2009, Furler contributed backing vocals on "Carol Brown" and "You Don't Have to Be a Prostitute" for Flight of the Conchords' second album, I Told You I Was Freaky. She appeared on the Swedish singer Peter Jöback's album East Side Stories on the cover song duet "Wicked Game", written by Chris Isaak. She provides guest vocals on the song "Never So Big" on David Byrne and Fatboy Slim's concept album Here Lies Love released in 2010.

Her cover of The Church song "Under the Milky Way" was used in a Lincoln MKT car commercial, and in January 2010, was released to the iTunes Store. She has performed cover versions of Britney Spears's "Gimme More", Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time", Grease's "You're the One That I Want" – a duet with Beck, and the Madonna song "Oh Father". Also in 2010, Furler contributed "My Love" to the soundtrack of the third instalment of The Twilight Saga pentalogy. The soundtrack debuted at No. 2 on the US Billboard 200 albums chart.

In 2010, "Lullaby" was featured heavily in the trailers for the Clint Eastwood film Hereafter. The next year, it was played in the season finale of The Big C and in episode 1 of season 4 of Secret Diary of a Call Girl, while "Breathe Me" can be heard in the ABC film Cyberbully.

Furler co-wrote and sang "Titanium" for David Guetta's 2011 album, Nothing but the Beat by DJ David Guetta. According to Sia's official Twitter, she described "Titanium" in more vivid detail: "It's amazing that 40 minutes of my life and zero promo turned into my most successful song to date. "Titanium" has since reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart and is the most successful song of her prolific 15-year career. She collaborated with Guetta again in 2012 for his Nothing But the Beat 2.0 digital re-release on the song "She Wolf (Falling to Pieces)", which was released as the albums lead single on 21 August 2012 and peaked at No. 8 in the UK Singles Chart.

She also wrote a few songs for Madonna's 2012 album, MDNA. But on 21 December 2011, Furler reported on her Twitter that: "Sadly none of my submissions made the new Madonna record. 'trust' if it exists, was not written by me. Rumor!"

Furler also sings on Flo Rida's song "Wild Ones", which reached No. 4 on the UK Singles Chart, and also on the Adelaide-based band Hilltop Hoods' song "I Love It" which has reached No. 6 on the ARIA Singles Chart as of 27 February 2012.

Tegan Quin announced via Twitter in March 2012 that Sia had been into the studio and contributed vocals to Tegan and Sara's studio album, Heartthrob, released in January 2013.

She co-wrote the hit single "Let Me Love You (Until You Learn to Love Yourself)" by Ne-Yo off his fifth album R.E.D.

In August 2012, songwriter Claude Kelly revealed Sia was one of the many individuals working on Rihanna's seventh studio album Unapologetic. In September 2012, Sia announced via Facebook that she wrote the lyrics and melody for Diamonds, the first single from Rihanna's seventh studio album.

It has also been revealed that Ke$ha collaborated with Sia on the singer's second studio album. Furler worked on Christina Aguilera's fifth studio album Lotus, on a song titled "Blank Page". She also co-wrote the song "Radioactive" for Rita Ora in 2013, in addition to two songs from Jessie J's second studio album Alive. The songs are produced by the Norwegian production duo StarGate.

In 2013, Sia co-wrote the song "Perfume" for Britney Spears for her eighth studio album, Britney Jean. In the same year, Sia also co-wrote and featured on Eminem track "Beautiful Pain".

Furler's parents, Phil Colson and Loene Furler, were members of Adelaide-based rockabilly band, The Soda Jerx. Colson is a composer, playwright and band leader, Loene is an art lecturer, musician and songwriter. Furler described her boyfriend, Dan, as her "first true love". As mentioned above, the couple travelled together on a world trip, she stopped off in Thailand while he continued to London. There, Dan was killed in a traffic accident, a week before Furler was due to arrive.

In 2008, Furler discussed her bisexuality in interviews with Scotland on Sunday and AfterEllen.com. She was included on a list of gay entertainers in the June–July 2009 issue of The Advocate. In both 2009 and 2010, Furler was nominated by readers of SameSame.com.au as one of the 25 most influential lesbian and gay Australians, though she is bisexual. According to Furler, "I've always been honest if anyone ever asked me. Before I was actually successful I'd always said I've always dated boys and girls and anything in between. I don't care what gender you are, it's about people. I didn't just recently open up, I just recently got famous! I've always been… well, flexible is the word I would use." In June 2010, Furler expressed a wish to marry her then girlfriend JD Samson of electro-punk band Le Tigre. The couple has since broken up.

In June 2010, Furler's official website announced that all scheduled promotional events and shows had been cancelled due to her poor health. She cited extreme lethargy and panic attacks and considered retiring permanently from performing and touring. According to her Twitter account she was diagnosed with Graves' disease – an autoimmune disorder with an over-active thyroid. Four months later, in an ARIA Awards interview Furler said her health was improving after rest and thyroid hormone replacement therapy.

Furler, who is a vegetarian, participated in an advertisement for PETA Asia-Pacific, with her dog, Pantera, to encourage pet neutering. Furler has also joined other publicly known figures for the "Oscar's Law" campaign, in protest against the factory farming of companion animals. Other advocates include Jon Stevens (singer), Paul Dempsey (musician) and Missy Higgins (musician).

Healing Is Difficult Review
Aside from her only U.K. Top Ten hit, Australian chanteuse Sia's first major-label release, Healing Is Difficult, is perhaps the most under-appreciated and ignored of her critically acclaimed career, coming years before her Six Feet Under-assisted U.S. breakthrough, and just a little too early to capitalize on the word of mouth success of the Zero 7 debut she provided vocals for. It's a shame that more of her ever-growing fan base haven't been inspired to check the disc out; the New Jack Swing beats and tinny strings of the All Saints-esque "Get Me" and the meandering drum‘n'bass-tinged "Judge Me" haven't aged particularly well, so this is perhaps her most personal and emotional record to date. The clever sample of Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet" on the chiming trip-hop of "Taken for Granted" and the ambient fusion of haunting cellos, fluttering flutes, and slap basslines on the lilting dub-reggae of "Fear" offer early glimpses of the eclectic streak that has since pervaded her atmospheric brand of coffee house soul. Written while grieving the death of her boyfriend, Healing Is Difficult's 11 tracks understandably often allude to her personal tragedy ("My first love is already dead") but despite the difficult subject matter, the follow-up to the Aussie-only release Only See (of which one track, "Sober and Unkissed" appears here in remixed form, as does her former acid-jazz outfit Crisp's "I'm Not Important to You") is far from a depressing listen, as Sia's breathless, sensual vocals provide a wonderfully breezy accompaniment to Blair Mackichan's subtle, jazz-fused production, particularly on the saxophone-led "Drink to Get Drunk," the acoustic nu-soul of "Insidiously," and the seductive, string-soaked "Blow It All Away," the closest the album gets to Zero 7's blissful chill-out. Laying the foundations for her more celebrated future material, Healing Is Difficult is an achingly honest record which successfully pursues the retro jazz-soul sound half a decade before it became in vogue.


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Albums : Britney Spears : Britney Jean

Listen To Britney Spears : Britney Jean

Britney Spears dons a little black dress while celebrating the release of her Britney Jean album at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino on Tuesday (December 3) in Las Vegas.

“In Vegas! Celebrating #BritneyJean & #PieceOfMe with my new Vegas family. :),” the 32-year-old entertainer tweeted earlier in the day.

If you haven’t already, go buy Britney‘s new album Britney Jean now!

In case you didn’t know Britney‘s Vegas show Piece of Me will debut on Friday, December 27!

Britney Jean Review
It’s been 20 years since the pop supernova first came into our lives as a spunky Mousketeer. It’s been 15 since the pigtailed teen danced through the halls of a high school in a Catholic school uniform. And we still don’t know.

Spears’s latest album, Britney Jean, comes at a peculiar point in her career, when a feverishly anticipated Vegas residency and general “aw-we-love-her” goodwill cements the fact that we have deified her as one of the elite pop goddesses. But as we bow down to worship at the altar of BritBrit, we also recognize that Spears may be the last of those divine divas. We’re in an age now when we want to know our pop stars. We want to relate to their humanity rather than gape at their untouchable infallibility.

Britney Jean wisely winks to that desire, but in the end fails to deliver any meaningful insight into who this Britney Jean person is. But it does give us what we still want from Britney Spears, the Last of Our Pop Goddesses: nonsensical, addicting…and only vaguely revealing pop scripture.

Spears has built a career as the ultimate tease. She’s bared all, sure. At the same time, she’s bared nothing at all.

An emotionally insulated teenager, “Britney Spears” was long just a mouthpiece robotically reciting Jive Record’s idea of “pop star” to the press. She quickly took up permanent residence on tabloid covers—a personal life with all the turbulence of a JetBlue flight through a tornado helped with that—without having to even say anything. I mean she said things, sure. But even when, say, holding a press conference to announce that she intends to remain a virgin until marriage, Spears’s revelations had all the intimacy and emotional honesty as…revelations made during a rehearsed and staged press conference.

Now, Spears is 32 and still releasing music. The landscape has changed from when pop stars were treasured monuments safely separated from gawking public by gatekeepers and security tape, should anyone accidentally tarnish the singing artifacts by catching a glimpse of—and then telling the world about—their imperfections. Baring souls and exposing warts is no longer a cathartic exercise reserved solely for singer songwriters and soul chanteuses. The industry’s most commercial stars now market themselves in 140-character confessions, public displays of vulnerability, and tracks that are as emotionally naked as the women who perform them.

It’s no surprise that, cannily securing relevance decades after the pop movement she helped usher in was dismissed as disposable, Spears is responding to the industry shift by releasing what she calls her “most personal album ever :).” The result, though, is peek-a-boo music, 10 songs that gingerly peel back the curtain justthismuch to give the smallest insight into who Britney Spears is. But, really, by the time Britney Jean ends, the most intimate revelation is that Jean is Britney’s middle name. Because it says so in the title.

It shouldn’t be surprising that an album that counts a song titled “Work Bitch” as its leadoff single isn’t exactly a penetrating musical therapy session. It also doesn’t matter. “Work Bitch” is great! And so is the rest of Britney Jean, a top-to-bottom effortlessly listenable record with no Gaga-esque pretension to reinvent the concept of pop music, Cyrus-esque (foam) middle finger to the idea of pop music, or Perry-esque cartoonification of pop music.

It’s just straightforward pop music, and that’s just fine.

“Work Bitch” was, however, a bit of false advertising for the album that would follow. With its whirring bees nest production, jackhammer driving beat, campy lyrics, and Spears’s gloriously idiotic British accent, the song hinted at something more exciting than what Britney Jean ends up offering: a pop star who gets it, the idea that pop music can, and maybe should, be silly. It’s the way Miley Cyrus—stop clutching your pearls—gets it. It’s the way Lady Gaga practically parades around with a neon sign that flashes, “Hi everyone, I get it! See!!!???”

Weird, sexy, and aggressive as it is, “Work Bitch” is just a quirky one-off treat on Britney Jean. The album’s second single “Perfume,” a moody stalker fantasy, and the appealing folktronica opener “Alien” are far better representations of the tone of Britney Jean. Still, the former, about a love triangle so torturous Spears feels paranoid enough to mark her man with her own scent (presumably one of her own signature fragrances), and the latter, about how she “always felt like a stranger in a crowd,” are more personal in concept more than they are insights into Spears’s psyche.

They do, however, feature Spears—wait for it—singing! Like for real for real singing, not speak-singing into an Auto-Tune machine that distorts her voice into an alarming, digital frog-sounding disaster. You can actually hear her voice and, with it, some actual emotion, particularly on the wistful closing track, “Don’t Cry.”

Britney Jean has more playful, and even skillful, vocal tricks and ticks than any of Spears’s post-meltdown albums, a welcome reminder of what Spears made her name on in the first place: a unique voice. (She really has one!) Thee was the Lolita sultriness in the vocal fry of the “oh bab-ay bab-ay” on “…Baby One More Time;” the growling sweetness of “Sometimes;” and the lilting carnality of her voice on “Oops!…I Did it Again” and “Slave 4 U.” The thinness of her voice on “Everytime” is what gives it its aching emotional resonance.

Spears was never a strong vocalist. But she was always an interesting one.

In fact, Britney Jean is least enjoyable when Spears, on occasion, reverts to the Auto-Tune crutch. The distorted vocals on “It Should Be Easy,” which features Will.i.am, sound about as dated as, well, a song that features Will.i.am. The dance-floor banger is a nondescript cacophony of beats dropping and crescendos and otherwise noisy production that distract from lyrics about why love has to be so complicated.

But “It’s Should Be Easy” does set off a run of three more club tracks that, though they have a tendency to meld together on a casual listen into one mutant megatrack, are all markedly stronger. “Tik Tik Boom” has Spears cooing provocatively—her sweet spot—about getting busy (“Not too slow and not too quick/ Baby make me tik tik”), though the production could use a more aggressive thrust. (Heh.) “Body Ache” continues the sex sprint, this time with a more energetic, stuttering beat and titillating guttural delivery from Spears.

“Til It’s Gone” is sweatier than the album’s other dance tracks, a power surge of raunch that explodes into an EDM-inspired dance-party finale. You’d half expect sparks to rain from the sky by the end of the endorphin-building bridge.

“Til It’s Gone” leads into “Passenger,” segueing into the wind-down portion of the album. Co-written by Katy Perry and Sia, it’s the most vulnerable of Britney Jean’s tracks: “It’s hard to jump with no net, but I’ve jumped and got no regrets.” It’s also the best of the album’s midtempo songs. The less said about “Chillin With You,” a duet with her sister that’s supposedly meant to drive home the “this is personal” message, the better. Britney discusses her preference for red wine. Jamie Lynn is more of a white wine girl. It’s more #confessional than “confessional.”

Let’s make that three things, then, that we now know about Britney Spears. Her middle name is Jean. She likes red wine. And she’s still capable of churning out a great, if not revolutionary, pop record. At 32 and after 20 years in the business, maybe that’s all we need to know about Britney Spears, our Last Goddess. Amen.


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Albums : One Direction : Midnight Memories (Deluxe)

Listen To One Direction : Midnight Memories (Deluxe)

My colleagues thought this would be funny. "Romano, I've got an idea for you," one of them said on a conference call. "You should review Midnight Memories, the new One Direction album." I could barely understand him because he was laughing so hard.

My colleague was laughing, I suppose, because I do not seem like the sort of person who would like One Direction. In fact, I'm pretty sure I seem like the sort of person who would hate One Direction. I'm 31 years old. I'm male. I once lived down the street from an artisanal mayonnaise shop in Brooklyn. My last music story was an admiring profile of Jake Bugg, the young, rootsy British singer-songwriter who recently said that One Direction "must know they're terrible" because they "sing meaningless tunes." I don't know what a Harry Styles is. And I don't think I've ever heard a single One Direction song in the wild.

If all of that doesn't qualify me to review One Direction's latest LP, I don't know what does. So here we are.

I took the assignment for two reasons. The first is that when people talk about One Direction, they tend to talk about everything but the music. Their Simon Cowell-X Factor genesis story. Their hormonal teen-girl fanbase. Their 16.5 million Twitter followers. Their stratospheric record sales (19 million singles and 10 million albums in about two years). And, of course, the tabloid exploits of resident ladies' man Styles, who is one of the 14,000 celebrities to have dated Taylor Swift (so far). I figured that a blind musical taste test—a review by someone who might as well be an alien from another galaxy as far as One Direction is concerned—could yield some interesting results.

The second reason I took the assignment is that I'm not actually as offended by "manufactured pop music" as I'm supposed to be. In fact, I think that people who behave as if they're morally repulsed by it—such as the commenter on a recent One Direction piece in the Guardian who wrote "Do we really need reviews here of this tripe?," or the one who described the band's music as "a right bag of wank"—are either hypocritical or myopic.

Myopic because these also tend to be the sort of listeners who subscribe to the auteurist theory of popular music, in which an artist who writes his own songs and plays his own instruments is automatically better than an artist who sings someone else's songs and employs backing musicians—never mind the fact that this sort of collaboration was the norm until the Beatles and Bob Dylan came along and has recently become the norm again. By such standards, Frank Sinatra was "inauthentic." So is Beyoncé. That's a pretty shortsighted approach to music, historically speaking.

Chances are it's hypocritical as well. In my experience, listeners who mock contemporary acts such as One Direction are often very fond of older groups cut from the same cloth. For example, I adore the girl groups of the early 1960s: The Cookies, The Ronettes, The Shangri La's, and so on. I also love Motown. But there's no real structural difference between One Direction and, say, The Shirelles. Like One Direction, The Shirelles were groomed by an industry Svengali. They performed songs written by professionals. They let producers and session musicians assemble their records for them. They wore matching outfits and sported similar haircuts. Sure, boy-band songs all sort of sound the same: adrenalized tempos, computerized harmonies, exuberant choruses. But most girl-group songs sounded the same, too. They're just a few decades older at this point. Patinaed. Age makes everything seem a little more "authentic."

None of which means, of course, that One Direction's music is any good—just that there's no honest reason to think that it couldn't be. Which is what I wanted to find out by reviewing Midnight Memories. How are these songs? These performances? These recordings? Is One Direction today's version of The Shirelles, or The Monkees, or Boyz II Men? Or do they fall short of the best of their manufactured-pop predecessors?

On Saturday morning, I received an advance download of Midnight Memories. I had to drive from Los Angeles to Rancho Mirage that afternoon—a four-hour roundtrip. I listened to the LP all the way out to the desert and all the way back.

It's not a great album. Then again—in the finest pop tradition—it's not really supposed to be. Instead, Midnight Memories is more like a bunch of aspiring singles jumbled together, jostling for attention.

Some don't deserve much. The title track, a Def Leppardish stomper that's received a lot of pre-release publicity for supposedly showcasing 1D's new, rockier direction, is abysmal. An unconvincing riff-rock verse gives way to an ascending double-time bridge; the whole thing climaxes in a faux-"Pour Some Sugar on Me" chorus. It all sounds so cold and calculated—like a song assembled from spare parts left behind by Joe Elliot, Nikki Sixx, and Steven Tyler for an off-off-Broadway musical about The Age of Hair Metal—that it's impossible to get through, even though it's less than three minutes long.

"Happily," "Something Great," "Better Than Words," and "Through the Dark," are less irritating but no better, really. They're either bland, unmemorable pop (the first three) or bland, unsuccessful rip-offs of Mumford & Sons (the last one). It's been a day since my Midnight Memories road trip and I could barely remember enough about them to write the previous sentence.

That's the bad news. The good news is that One Direction are appealing singers and seamless harmonizers, and that the rest of the songs here—nine in all, the vast majority—are strong enough to be singles. A few, in fact, are pretty terrific.

One Direction's sudden Mumford fixation doesn't always disappoint. The current single "Story of My Life," for instance, strikes me as one of the best songs of the year—a gentle acoustic loper that starts out sounding a lot like Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer" before bursting into a big, simple, beautiful hook that gets stuck in your head the first time you hear it and refuses to leave for the next 48 hours (at least). "Diana" is just as addictive: marry a stuttering "Don't Stand So Close to Me" verse to a charging "Boys of Summer" chorus and you're bound to wind up with a very effective hunk of power pop. "You and I," meanwhile, is a lovely, asymmetrical little ballad that never indulges in the kind of soggy bombast that sinks so many boy-band love songs—perhaps because it was patterned on Peter Gabriel's immortal "In Your Eyes." (One Direction's core songwriting team—Jamie Scott, John Ryan, and Julian Bunetta—clearly subscribe to the "good artists copy; great artists steal" school of thought; the beginning of first single "Best Song Ever" is such a cheeky rip-off of The Who's "Baba O'Riley" that it's kind of endearing.)

Best of all, perhaps, is "Little Black Dress." Over a hot, slashing guitar riff that recalls Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen—or even Jimmy Page on one of his poppier days—the formerly PG-rated One Direction lads leer at a young lady who has "just walked into the room, makin' heads turn." "Did you come here alone?" they ask. "It's too late to go home," they explain. "I won't do you no harm," they promise. And then they sing "I wanna see the way you move for me, baby" a dozen times. "Little Black Dress" doesn't explode into massive chorus; it's not really danceable. Instead, it just grooves along, almost messily, sounding like what it's about: sex. You get the sense that this is the kind of music the boys of One Direction actually enjoy listening to—and making.

So am I going to listen to Midnight Memories every day? Probably not. For now I'm too busy spinning my Shirelles records, and I suspect I always will be. But when one of these songs comes on the radio, I'll happily turn up the volume and sing along.

Human beings—especially music fans over the age of, say, 25—usually assume that the present is worse than the past. That the culture has lost its way. That today's pop stars are uniquely plastic, uniquely talentless, uniquely reprehensible. That the nadir is now.

But pop music never really changes all that much. It's catchy and romantic and adolescent. Sometimes it's disposable. Sometimes it sticks with you. At its best, a pop song can give you three minutes of pure pleasure without asking all that much in return. Walling yourself off from the possibility of experiencing that kind of escape again and again, in real time, seems like a pretty boring way to live.

Midnight Memories Review
After two albums of flirting, hand-holding and coltish fumbling at parties, One Direction might just have finally gone all the way on their third album, Midnight Memories. Maybe.

There is a track on the deluxe edition – widely disseminated online – called Why Don't We Go There, in which Harry Styles propositions some nubile interlocutor. "We got all night," he reasons, "we're going nowhere/ Why don't you stay?/ Why don't we go… there?" he asks, eyebrow cocked. "If you give in tonight/ Just let me set you free." If you are a squeaky-clean boy band attempting to manage a transition into your 20s, naming your ever-so-slightly-more-grown-up album Midnight Memories, you are probably going to have to acknowledge, somehow, that things happen in the dark other than the nonstop japery of your first album, Up All Night, and all the "going crazy-crazy-crazy till we see the sun" of album number two, Take Me Home. This is not a bad way of going about it: parking a little lust on the deluxe edition.

Then there is the small matter of the vanilla leering, which takes place on the main album. On Little Black Dress, One Direction turn from excellent boyfriend material – caring, devoted, well turned out, easily hurt – to something more akin to one-night-standees. "I wanna see the way you move for me, baby," it goes, as goaty a lyric as these nice boys have ever essayed. Poodle-rock guitars complete the picture of band slipping their hands out of yours and into their trouser pockets. (And what does Louis Tomlinson actually mean when, on Happily, he asks his ex whether her new boyfriend "feels his traces" in her hair?)

Admitting the existence of sex is not the only overt sign of looming maturity on One Direction's third album in three heady years, one that looks certain to cement them as a global phenomenon. The band forecast that Midnight Memories would be "rockier" than their previous efforts, which have largely cleaved fairly close to the bright'n'breezy Swedish school of pop-plus-doe-eyed balladry. And yet that doesn't quite prepare you for the extended soft-rock passages, the Joan Jett-ish thrust of Zayn Malik's Does He Know? or the sheer Van Halen-like bombast of the title track, one of two touring-band anthems ("Way too many people in the Addison Lee!"). Its dynamics seem to be targeting some notional American heartland at least 30 years older than 1D's fanbase.

Lady Gaga struggled a bit to carry off such a major pop-to-rock volte-face on Born This Way, but one of the theories about why Katy Perry is doing so well has something to do with her propensity for guitars. Here, this new taste for Def Leppard comes tempered with some even more grown-up fare: a Mumfords nod, a Police tribute and a flaccid one co-written by Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody (Something Great). Most Directioners will already have heard the Mumfords-inspired Story of My Life, in which some sort of romantic contretemps finds the boys in a darkroom in the video, developing photographs (a mysterious practice that may have to be explained to their fanbase). The catchy Diana, meanwhile, is a naked rewrite of at least three songs of some vintage, not least Don't Stand So Close to Me.

Given how Miley Cyrus has handled her transition from teen star to adult material, all eyes are on how these 20-nothing pop powerhouses manage their progression from pecks on the cheeks to kissing with tongues, from scallywaggery to manhood. Ultimately, the vast bulk of Midnight Memories remains emotionally charged rather than carnally inclined, with not a soupçon of R&B anywhere and love songs galore.

What's really significant, though, is that the band are now co-writing greater swaths of their material, and that Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne and Niall Horan are getting more time on the mic. A lack of democracy and asset-sharing has sunk many a band, never mind a boy band. This album does the job, in more ways than one.


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Albums : Katy Perry : Prism

Listen To Katy Perry : Prism

Singer Katy Perry has shed her cotton-candy pop image and reveals a vulnerability and maturity on her new album "Prism," which she said reflects changes in both her personal life and her music.

"Prism," released on Tuesday, is Perry's fourth studio album and the follow-up to 2010's phenomenally successful "Teenage Dream." It is also the first album since the 28-year-old singer split with her husband, British comedian Russell Brand, in December 2011.

"I went through a lot of experiences in my life that I think built more character. I had to find own self identity the hard way. But I did. I came out alive and stronger, a little bit stronger," Perry said in an interview.

From "By the Grace of God," the first and darkest song on the album, to the empowering lead single "Roar," or "Birthday," a rousing, catchy dance tune, Perry said each song tells a story.

"I think what 'Prism' is, is an evolution and a maturity," she said. "I think you can hear growth as a songwriter. I hope you can hear the growth as a person."

"Teenage Dream" produced five No. 1 singles, making it only the second album after Michael Jackson's "Bad" to achieve that milestone, and the first by a female artist. It also sold 5.7 million copies worldwide.

But Perry made it clear she was in a new place with "Prism," with early teasers showing her burning the blue wig she wore in the music video for her hit single "California Girls" and holding a mock funeral for her peppermint swirl outfit.

"I'm into different things," she said. "It is my most present album so far. I think I am living very consciously right now. I think I am very aware, more aware than I have ever been."

HAVING FUN, TAKING CHANCES

Perry reunited with music producers and songwriters Max Martin, Dr. Luke and Cirkut for "Prism." Most of the 13 tracks, all co-written by Perry, were recorded in San Diego, or with Martin and record producer and songwriter Klas Ahlund in Stockholm, where club anthem "Walking on Air" and the hip-hop tinged "This is How We Do" were both made.

The personal ballad "By the Grace of God," co-written with Greg Wells, reflects where Perry was emotionally late last year, the "stuff" she was working through and the blow to her self confidence.

"It had really gotten to me and I wrote this song out of a very sad place. I was hearing these negative thoughts and battling these negative thoughts," she said.

Since splitting with Brand, Perry has moved on in her personal life and is dating singer-songwriter John Mayer.

Although she had initially expected to make a darker, more acoustic record, Perry said the opposite happened and she became much more upbeat, which is reflected in the album's title.

"I let a lot of light in my life during the spring of this year, which is when I made most of the record and it influenced my songs in a very positive way," she said. "All these beautiful colors of light and love came out and hope and joy and even just fun party songs."

"Unconditionally," the second single and Perry's favorite song on the album, is a big, soaring ballad with a heavy drum tribal influence. Its lyrics speak about an all-accepting love.

Perry wrote "Roar," a thumping pop tune and her 10th No.1 Top 40 track, after becoming complacent in a relationship and not speaking up for herself.

"Double Rainbow," a collaboration with producer Greg Kurstin and songwriter Sia, is about finding someone and a rare, magical moment.

"You can tell I am having fun and taking chances, musically with the different textures that I am showing in the songs," said Perry. "I'm painting with more colors this time. I think people can adopt certain anthems for the messages or they can make them their own."

Prism Review
There are a lot of cynical things you could say about Katy Perry that wouldn’t be entirely inaccurate: that her biggest and best songs often succeed because of a steadfast refusal to cater to anyone other than the lowest common denominator; that she’s shown a bandwagoner’s approach to her musical career, chasing trends instead of establishing them; that her greatest successes have come from shouting what are essentially emotional platitudes from the highest of mountaintops. But, what that cynicism ignores is the most basic of things: Katy Perry singles are really, really good pop songs.

Perry’s last album was Teenage Dream, which featured six tracks that charted in the Billboard Top 10, including five (five!) number ones: “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)”, “Teenage Dream”, “California Gurls”, “Firework”, and “E.T.”, all of which are songs you’ve cranked in your car and have sung along with at the top of your lungs. It was the kind of pop album that often defines a career and becomes a filter through which to view the rest of the artist’s work, like *NSYNC’s No Strings Attached or Britney Spears’ Blackout. It was enormous, with 3D IMAX-sized choruses that succeeded even when they failed (the hilariously awkward remix of “E.T.” still hit #1 on the charts).

Three years later, with the six-single success of Teenage Dream finally petering out, Perry returns with Prism, a record that translates the triumphant widescreen songwriting of Teenage Dream to the trends and sounds dominating pop radio at the moment, with results that are sometimes spectacular and sometimes, well, not.

The hits are, of course, major hits. Lead single “Roar” is streamlined Kiwi pop, with a bridge that sounds weirdly like Good News-era Modest Mouse, and a chorus that’s easy to shout joyfully in just about any available situation. Later, the irrepressible disco jam “Birthday” beats Carly Rae Jepsen’s Kiss at its own game. Pre-release non-single “Dark Horse”, despite the inclusion of southern rap legend Juicy J in a verse as token as Kanye’s on “E.T.”, still feels vital and forward-moving thanks to an aerated pencil sketch of a trap beat.

It’s not a coincidence that those songs show up on the record’s first half, which is uniformly more upbeat and likely to be the pool from which future singles are drawn. The record’s second half is filled with more mid-tempo tracks, ballads and pseudo-ballads, and the dramatic production speaks to the personal trials Perry has endured since Teenage Dream (notably, her failed marriage to comedian Russell Brand), even if the lyrics only speak to a general sense of overcoming something. In true Perry form, she is steadfast in her avoidance of specificity in her lyrics.

That back half messes up the pacing of the record, though, as many of the tracks don’t differentiate themselves from each other. “Ghost” and “Love Me” stand back-to-back with almost identical tones and tempos, turning into seven-plus minutes of listenable, but un-noteworthy ’80s synth pop muck. Closing tracks “Double Rainbow” — decent despite its cringe-worthy, meme-dropping title — and “By the Grace of God” would stand out more if they hadn’t been forced to rub elbows, thus stealing momentum and impact from each other.

Sometimes, Perry and her A-list producers (pop icons like Max Martin, Dr. Luke, Benny Blanco), in an attempt at making palatable many disparate characteristics in service of Perry’s everywoman charm, end up borrowing too liberally. While the groove on “Dark Horse” is strong, it’s still not wrong to call it a trap for soccer moms. “International Smile” is almost a straight rip of Daft Punk’s “Digital Love”, right down to the wild, pitch-shifted keytar solo. “This Is How We Do” features a lot of sing-talking, including a “This goes out to the [blank]” coda that only hammers home how much better Ke$ha is at this stuff. “Double Rainbow” and “Walking On Air” actually sound like vanilla re-interpretations of Valusia-era Zola Jesus (!) and Hercules And Love Affair (!!), respectively.

But, while those criticisms are valid, almost any criticism for a pop song can be annihilated via the hook, and Perry is a champion of choruses. Slower tracks “Ghost” and “Unconditionally” explode the moment Perry lets loose; “Roar” has already become the teenage anthem of choice, thanks to its almost unparalleled possible applications for affirmational YouTube videos; “This Moment” rides U2 guitars to a climax that aims to soundtrack every prom night for the next few years.

Moving the goalposts of pop music is not Katy Perry’s aim. She leaves that to artists like Lady Gaga or (though less often, lately) Britney Spears. Instead, Perry makes her name by crushing the established sounds of pop radio. Prism lacks the pop smash depth of Teenage Dream; it’s unlikely we’ll get six radio staples out of Prism. But, a solid three or four stereo-rattlers is not out of the question. While neither Perry nor Prism push any boundaries for pop music, they certainly raise bars.


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