The state of new music

I love fishing for new music.  There are so many websites out there these days that have audiences capable of blowing up good acts quick.  Traslation: bored bloggers and readers are shaping the musical landscape of our times.  Check out hypem.com sometime and realize that the site is merely a collection of a million other sites/blogs that offer up all sorts of tunes that are then streamed through hypem.  And hypem is just one of the gazillion sites lurking out there in the interweb.

At the same time, there are more acts than ever and considering anyone can make a youtube video these days, it's nice to have some sort of moderation (other than the search term "good music"...hmmmmm) from the dudes who sort through all those gazillion sites.  God knows they go through way more bullshit than gold.

But hypem isn't even the reason I got on here tonight.  I got on here to thank all the bit torrent fiends in the world.  You make it possible for anyone with access to the internet to download entire discographies (thousands of dollars supposedly) of just about anything.  And leaks, and screeners, and all that jazz. Amazing really.  Today we have access to wayyyyyy more that we can possibly listen to and everyone and their brother's in a band so we got more tunes too.

That brings me to new music these days...

Here are some goodies I haven't been able to get enough of...

The March release of the Gorillaz new full length Plastic Beach is off the hook.  I'm a sucker for fat beats and Snoop Dogg, so the first track blew my mind.  But then to go through all the genres that they do on the album is unreal!  Symphonic tracks into heavy hip-hop, eastern beats, goofy shit, poppy shit.  Pretty much the radio heads will love this album as much as I do.  It's pretty unoffensive, well produced, and a nice look at what the future of music might be like.  Contributing artists include Snoop, Mos Def, Loud Reed (!!), Little Dragon, De La Soul!!!  And this isn't live some Santana duet album BS.  The featured artists rock!!  Bobby Womak makes the song Stylo along with Mos Def (he KILLS it!!)



I love the live/electronic combinations Gorillaz tosses up.  And the mixing hp-hop with electro with rock is not the easiest task.  Yet Gorillaz does it effortlessly, and with whoever the fuck they want!!  Always have...hope to hear more soon!!

Another release I got onto a bit late was that of legendary Seattle band Minus the Bear.  One of my favorite live acts for a few years now, these boys work hard and have earned every bit of their success.  Their latest disc, entitled OMNI, is a step in a logical direction for the guitar fueled group specializing in electronic mayhem.  For fans of electronic persuasion this album will be a definite win.  It's fast and dancy but still trippy with random breaks that take you into the song and then rock you the fuck out.

Here's an in-studio video of a track off OMNI called "Into the Mirror"...one of their more radio friendly.  Slower but still with a classic MtB hook.



It's not their strongest album ever (I'd reserve that for Menos el Oso :) but it's still nice to know they're crankin out tunes people can dance to.

Cause isn't that what music is really all about anyways?

Thanks for reading!!  Hope you love the tunesssssss!!

Sean

ps- WHISTLER OPENS TOMORROW!!  Big day, big pow.  Be safe out there guys, we got a longgggggggggggggggggggggg la niña to take care of this year..  Having said that, as always, SHRED HARD.