Out of freaking NOWHERE! MayorMarwan FAVE Jai Paul , aka the dude who brought you BTSTU and Jasmine…. drops his full length album. Stream it here and go buy it there -> Jai Paul by Jai Paul
Since arriving seemingly out of nowhere at the tail-end of 2012 with the captivating "Hey Now" , UK three-piece London Grammar have only continued to forge ground as one of the the year's most promising new finds, strengthening their buzz further with the February release of their debut EP/ forthcoming LP teaser, Metal & Dust . During a visit to BBC Radio 1 last week, the band proved that they could be just as fantastic live-gifting listeners with some amazing live performances of both "Hey Now" and [...]
Sure, we need another dance-pop act in our personal playlists like we need a hole in the head but there is something refreshing about what newcomer York, UK pop duo PartyClub (Thomas Banks and Alex Belvoir) have been cooking up in their own particular brand of the culturally dominant form, folding many of the formulaic sonic traits that anyone who has turned on a Top 40 radio station in the past year or two have grown accustomed to with the softer, warmer and more intimate textures that fueled the genre in its 802s and 902s forms. [...]
Depending on who's asking, someone stepping to you with the line "I just want to compliment your soul" could either be hella sweet, hella creepy or hella corny. In the hands of British alt-pop singer-songwriter Dan Croll , desperately trying to right his past wrongs and convince an on-and-off girlfriend that he's now ready for them to do the couple thing for the long haul, the words thankfully hit the former vibe; but "Compliment Your Soul" has a lot more going for it beyond Croll's tender poet stab at lady re-wooing, producer Johan Hugo (one-third of [...]
After turning plenty of heads in the tail-end of 2012 with the yearning slow burn that was their transfixing debut "Hey Now" , mysterious English trio London Grammar have returned with another beguiling gem in the form of new release "Metal & Dust". Like "Hey Now", "Dust" centers on another depressingly dour scenario-this time a romance crumbling apart-slowly brought to life through snippet-like lyrical bits and pieces ("And all foundation that we made/ Built to last, they disintegrate/...We argue, we don't fight/ Stay awake til the middle of the night"), and also like its [...]
London-based duo Elephant (Amelia Rivas and Christian Pinchbeck) gorgeously melt the past into the present on new track "Skyscraper", a song infused with a haunting, parents' vinyl-fogged swirl and seasoned with old Hollywood musical choral blasts that makes it sound like something that was birthed many decades before and only recently uncovered from some long-locked vault. In a modern-day context, its hazy overcast and hint of mystery earns it the 'dream-pop' tag, but, to be honest, the vintage sensibility excellently mined here-in the arrangement's romantically lush Wall of Sound sway and the shimmering strains of doo-wop [...]
It took about a couple nano-seconds for 17-year-old Chlöe Howl to become the Internet's next hot pop darling, all thanks to her immediately catchy "No Strings" , a record that earned its hype thanks to an infectiously boppy "Pumped Up Kicks"-reminiscent rhythm and Howl's feisty songwriting and delivery. Amidst the driving synth-pop of her second cut "Rumour", Howl continues to impress, this time utilizing her canny lyric skills and effortless hook-crafting ability to explore a teenage culture fueled by enough drama and he-say, she-say gossip to fill a season's worth of the juiciest brand of [...]
With a string of amazing live performance YouTube R&B covers taking on names like The Weeknd , Frank Ocean and Beyonce and a one-off drop/ collaboration with producer Kwes that deserved the same kind of insta-Internet adulation that landed on refreshingly different female soul-pop-merging entries like Solange's "Losing You" and Sky Ferreira's "Everything Is Embarrassing" , English songbird Eliza Doolittle left our tongues wagging for a full-length platter before the year flip. Alas, that never came to be, but a consolation prize has been delivered with [...]
Is Dido our generation's Sade, in the sense that the British singer-songwriter can disappear for years at a time, come back with something new bearing little difference from her previous work, and yet always be welcome? That's the thought that entered our mind when planting our ears on her new single "Let Us Move On", the NPR-premiered first taste of her upcoming fourth studio effort Girl Who Got Away . Paired with slightly hip hop-hardened atmospheric production that nods to co-producer Jeff Bhasker's previous work with acts like Jay-Z, Kanye West, Drake, Fun. [...]
Sometimes all it takes is one neat-o line from a new artist's debut single to be instantly won over and feel like you must hear everything that act ever puts out... forever . "No Strings" from 17-year-old newcomer-to-watch Chlöe Howl features two: "Fuck your no strings" (complete with the delicious way Howl spits out that opening expletive) and the "Did she just say that!?!" double take money-maker "You don't even know if I'm the right sex, do ya?". The target of these two sharp-fanged displays of lyricism? A dude she meets out and shares an instant [...]
Heavily influenced by Korean Pop, Sierra Leone-born A*M*E has been making a splash on the internet with buzz tracks such as "City Lights" and "Ride or Die". Self-proclaimedly "fresh, fierce, and fabulous" this girl is set to be huge within a year. She has already supported acts such as JLS, Jessie J, The Wanted, and Little Mix - to name a few. She is also quite a savy songwriter, having written a No.1 song for Korean girlband f(x). [...]
English singer-songwriter Eliza Doolittle made a strong introductory impression on audiences and critics in the UK and beyond with her self-titled debut , a charming collection of sugar-coated, retro-flavored pop that, with deeper listens past their cutesy melodies and twee sunniness, revealed a striking center of lyrical wit and jazzy, beyond-her-years vocal sophistication. Match that premiere look with the sultry R&B-inspired songbird pulling off stunning YouTube covers of The Weeknd's "The Morning" (seen below), Beyonce's "Party" and Frank Ocean's "Swim Good" , and we were left convinced that with an effective blending of these [...]
Off the back of a string of blog-appreciated singles and collaboration, UK gloom-pop chanteuse Charli XCX has, in the past few years, slowly but steadily began climbing out of the vast sea of countless female newbies with strange voices and intriguing sub-genre alignments to become a true "one-to-watch"-hyped force all her own. New release "You're The One" lands as her latest tip-toe towards having a break-out 2012 beyond the on-line world, and, while it's not as immediately striking as early career stand-out "Art Bitch" , last year's 802s-hazed ballad "Stay Away" , or [...]
Because, apparently, the Prince-esque influence marinating in the funky groove and hook to In Our Heads lead single "Night and Day" just wasn't enough of a titillating blend of Hot Chip with His Purple Majesty, the UK electro-boogie faves took their fondness for the Purple Rain superstar to the next level during a recent stop at Zane Lowe's BBC Radio 1 program . Spending the first two-thirds of one of three performances highlighting future Heads smash-to-be "Look At Where [...]
The "conceptual" reasoning behind Marina and the Diamonds ' decision to go all BRIGHT AND DANCEY CHART POP for its alter-ego-themed sophomore project Electra Heart may still seem to be a little too long-winded of a way to basically say "I want to try and live out my blatantly commercial pop star dreams for a while", however, after a many-months-long pre-release promotion cycle (the album was first teased way back in August!!), it's hard to deny how much of a future mainstream airwaves-dominating sure shot the collection has in its grasp with "official" first single "Primadonna". [...]
Three years after proving he was more than just a "male Kate Nash" with his sonically ambitious, world-pop genre-hop fest sophomore set Everything Is New (which featured the still great '09 highlights "Tonight's Today" and "Pull My Heart Away" ), Jack Peñate creeps back from the edge of memory with new single/ video "No One Lied", a beautifully understated, reverb-drenched ballad that finds the London-born singer-songwriter still spending his days ruminating over the "big" things. "Heaven is a place/ No one lied/ It's rushing through your veins/ Flooding your [...]
As curious as we were to hear what would happen when fifteen-year-old English songbird Birdy applied her mature-beyond-her-years pipes and appealingly melodramatic, made for contemporary dance choreography piano-pop arrangements to more original material after leaving us mightily impressed with her covers of Bon Iver's "Skinny Love" and The xx's "Shelter" , we gotta admit, the fact that her self-titled debut is (save for one track) made up of all remakes just feels like a far more attractive package at this point in time, with us not willing to let go of the still enjoyable novelty [...]
An eighteen year old pop star wannabe who just so happened to pay more attention to the hip hop mixtape blogs than spend her days practicing old Mariah/ Whitney ballads in the mirror with a hairbrush? That was the pretty girl swag Cher Lloyd was serving during her viral-huge run as a contestant on last year's UK X-Factor , and while we couldn't completely co-sign all the hyperbole parade cries that seemed to tag her as the Most Original Artist That Ever Lived simply because she brought Swizz Beatz' "Vida La Vida" flip [...]
Over a year after first teasing their still-unreleased second album with the sleek '802s disco strut of "Hands" , English duo The Ting Tings have finally gotten around to producing a follow-up effort in the form of "Hang It Up", a return-to-cheerleader-hookery- form that should take them back to their advert-friendly heights where the band seemed to be heard basically everywhere. Recycling the same spirited rhythmic spice that made previous Ting entries "Shut Up and Let Me Go" or "That's Not My Name" brain-stapling highlights with it's Beastie Boys-ish recipe of funk-rock [...]
Yet another wondrously masterful display from James Blake in which he manages to say so much with the tiniest of lyrical fragments and sparsest of musical arrangement, "Not Long Now", from the dubstep deconstructionalist/ leftfield pop genius' new EP Enough Thunder , is anchored by only a handful of lines, but it captures so much emotional weight in it's occasional flickering of vocals and minimalist array of ambient-mechanical textures-though silence stands as the cut's key instrument-that one still comes away from the track feeling like they got a full-bodied experience. The [...]
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