Review: Bruno Mars – Unorthodox Jukebox

Bruno Mars career goes back many, many years all the way into his childhood as a kid performer doing Elvis impersonations in Hawaii for big tourist audiences. After high school, he headed to Los Angeles to start his musical endeavors which proved to be a rocky road. He landed a record deal with Motown, who then dropped him. Refusing to go back to Hawaii as a perceived failure, he went back at it and landed another deal with Atlantic in 2009 which struck gold with him and continues to do so with multiple chart toppers. Not to mention a string of production hits such as B.O.B.‘s Nothing On You, Billionaire with Travie McCoy among others.

Bruno Mars’ new album Unorthodox Jukebox is packed full of potential hits. The unusual opener Young Girls builds the listener into the feel for album’s upcoming out of the box classics. Bruno Mars states, “We took some master chefs into the kitchen with no master plan,” says Bruno Mars. “It was either going to be a disaster, or we were going to come out with something incredible. It turned into this soulful, experimental, electronic, hard-to-explain thing,..That’s the reason behind the album title.”

The second song on the album, Locked Out Of Heaven has already found a place on the charts and rightfully so with a mix of funky riffs, ambient bridges, and Jackson-esque ‘Ungh’s.

Romantic lingo and making girls swoon is what Bruno Mars does best and even though he states that he wouldn’t do any more ballads, he does bring out some horny, sex drenched tunes like Gorilla (“You and me baby, making love like gorillas” along with “give it to me mother f***er” – which is edited by the way). The closest song to a ballad on this album is a piano based song called When I Was Your Man which is a heartfelt song of lament for an ex-girlfriend that features lyrics that every woman wants to hear a man say after a relationship has ended badly (“all the things I should have done, when I was your man“).

The next hit of of this album will be Treasure which features disco thumping bass, NKOTB style background vocals, and even added early Prince sounding synthesizer riffs. This song has top 40 written all over it, so expect to hear it a million times on the airwaves in the coming months. You’ve been warned.

The rest of the album is built out with the various musical whims of Bruno Mars including the reggae Caribbean tune Show Me, the power pop song Natalie, the club thumper Money Make Her Smile, and the Motown sounding mid-tempo groove of If I Knew.

The album is littered with talent including production from Mark Ronson (Macy Gray, Christina Aguilera, Amy Winehouse), Jeff Bhasker (Fun.,Kanye West, Beyonce) , Emile Haynie (Eminem, Kanye West, Kid Cudi, Fun.), Diplo (MIA, Beyonce and solo work) and Bruno Mars’ own production company The Smeezington’s.

Needless to say, this album is an amazing collective of brave risks that all pay off in a symbiotic orgasm of pop and funk. Our only complaint is the shortness of the album at only 10 tracks, but it’s a great 10 tracks and we give it a 4 out of 5 afros.

 

 

 

Prince Launches Welcome 2 Chicago

Prince hits the road again and this time lands his show in the windy city of Chicago and aptly named Welcome 2 Chicago.  The site blasted up on Ticketmaster with only one date showing of September 24th at United Center. Tickets go on sale on Wednesday September 6 once again lending to that last minute announcement thing he loves.  In Atlanta, Lady Gaga sold tickets over a year in advance which was just a little crazy, but this is the exact opposite with under a 3 week notification.

While everyone can snag tickets on Sept. 6, the Ticketmaster page also shows a “pre-sale” date of September 4th for CitiCard members.  Got friends carrying CitiCards? Now’s the time to wine and dine them.

More shows will indeed be announced, so if you miss out, there should be more to follow. We assume nothing with Prince. Ticket prices start at $50 and go up to $150. After Ticketmaster fees, expect $60-$163.  Chicago is about to get funky.

 

Beastie Boys Sue Monster Energy Drink

Monster Energy Drink has been very busy on the advertising trail pushing out videos, commercials, clips and whatnot all containing clips from Beastie Boys music and even insinuataing their likeness. The videos make it look as if the Beastie Boys acknowledged and approved the Monster media blitz. They didn’t.

The Beastie Boys and the estate of Adam Yauch are now suing Monster for $150,000 for each occurrence and there are a lot. In one long 26 minute video there is a “mega mix” by DJ Z-Trip that featured songs So Whatcha Want, Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun, Paul Revere, Make Some Noise, Sabotage and others. A total of 26 others. That one video, which went up a mere 5 days after Adam Yauch‘s death, would cost them almost 4 million if the Beasties win their case.

To make matters worse for Monster, Adam Yauch was very specific in his will that he did not want his likeness or his artwork to be used in any advertising at all. You can probably imagine that if this goes to court in New York, that will most definitely be brought up.

Monster Energy will almost certainly allege that they were paying homage to the Beastie Boys, because we find it hard to believe that a company as big as Monster would make such a huge rookie mistake. We’ll see what happens.

You can read the entire lawsuit here.

 

Review: Big Ol' Dirty Bucket

It may seem unusual to attempt to lump a band like Black Eyed Peas into a funk genre. They’re certainly more funk than most bands out there in the pop world. But what would would happen if the Peas were stripped of their Top 40 personas and allowed only to do funk music? What would the result be? The answer is Big Ol’ Dirty Bucket.

Not to be confused with the Big Ol’ Nasty Getdown or Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band, Big Ol’ Dirty Bucket (BODB) took all of the fundamentals of what worked for the Black Eyed Peas and applied it to their own sound. Strong lead female vocalist? Check. Rapper who has good flows and humorous rhyming sensibilities? Check. Good beats with thumping dance hall bass booms? Check. About the only thing they don’t have is the promotional power which is a crying shame.

The album opens with Photonic Amplifier People which rings in introducing you to their strong female lead Sarah Seminski aka Lil’ Shrimp. Her vocals and strong and clear and an important part of what makes Big Ol’ Dirty Bucket marketable to most jazz funk audiences. Photonic is a classic upbeat funk shoutback that other acts like Brand New Heavies mastered so well and BODB seems to have pefected the formula.

What draws the Black Eyed Peas comparisons are songs like Mic Smoke that features in-house lyricist Big Daddy Disco who’s rhymes are accentuated by Lil’ Shrimp laid over simplified Top 40’ish keyboard riffs. And then the reverse on songs like Blue Dream where the focus is Lil’ Shrimp and then added rhymes are brought in from Big Daddy Disco. It’s as if Big Ol’ Dirty Bucket stole the Peas playbook and then perfected it.

The typical instrumentals and slow jams are notably absent which strays from the normal successful formula of their predecessors, but it doesn’t detract from the strength of the album collection. Every song has its strength and very few have weaknesses.

The main strengths of the album are the vocal efforts delivered by Sarah Seminski. Her style will draw comparisons to a young Teena Marie and that comparison will be very evident to critics in songs like You Make Me Feel and Sin Lamento. Her vibrato is smooth and tasteful without the need to scream or draw attention to itself. She does what she’s supposed to do and does it well.

The band makes no qualms about being pot-friendly with songs like Chuck Norris that speaks about packing bongs and Lite That Spliff that sings about legalizing it. And there are more mentions where those came from.

 

The most humorous track definitely goes to Emotional Rollercoaster that is the album’s only slow song, but almost doesn’t qualify because it’s a very tongue and cheek back and forth booty call sung conversation that ofers up some of the most ridiculous pick up lines you’ll ever hear.

The band itself is very tight and strong. The horns are polished and prominent. The drums are clean and in the pocket and the keyboards are perfectly infused. It’s rare to hear a band this size work so well together short of the famed Parliament.

All of the album’s tracks are strong and filled with funk front to back. Fans of the Brand New Heavies, Teena Marie, and even Black Eyed Peas will certainly appreciate this offering. Check out the tracks below for a small taste of what they offer and then head to their website to snag a copy for yourself at http://www.bigoldirtybucket.com.

Visit the full CDBaby site page here or check out the clips below.

 

Review: Big Ol’ Dirty Bucket

It may seem unusual to attempt to lump a band like Black Eyed Peas into a funk genre. They’re certainly more funk than most bands out there in the pop world. But what would would happen if the Peas were stripped of their Top 40 personas and allowed only to do funk music? What would the result be? The answer is Big Ol’ Dirty Bucket.

Not to be confused with the Big Ol’ Nasty Getdown or Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band, Big Ol’ Dirty Bucket (BODB) took all of the fundamentals of what worked for the Black Eyed Peas and applied it to their own sound. Strong lead female vocalist? Check. Rapper who has good flows and humorous rhyming sensibilities? Check. Good beats with thumping dance hall bass booms? Check. About the only thing they don’t have is the promotional power which is a crying shame.

The album opens with Photonic Amplifier People which rings in introducing you to their strong female lead Sarah Seminski aka Lil’ Shrimp. Her vocals and strong and clear and an important part of what makes Big Ol’ Dirty Bucket marketable to most jazz funk audiences. Photonic is a classic upbeat funk shoutback that other acts like Brand New Heavies mastered so well and BODB seems to have pefected the formula.

What draws the Black Eyed Peas comparisons are songs like Mic Smoke that features in-house lyricist Big Daddy Disco who’s rhymes are accentuated by Lil’ Shrimp laid over simplified Top 40’ish keyboard riffs. And then the reverse on songs like Blue Dream where the focus is Lil’ Shrimp and then added rhymes are brought in from Big Daddy Disco. It’s as if Big Ol’ Dirty Bucket stole the Peas playbook and then perfected it.

The typical instrumentals and slow jams are notably absent which strays from the normal successful formula of their predecessors, but it doesn’t detract from the strength of the album collection. Every song has its strength and very few have weaknesses.

The main strengths of the album are the vocal efforts delivered by Sarah Seminski. Her style will draw comparisons to a young Teena Marie and that comparison will be very evident to critics in songs like You Make Me Feel and Sin Lamento. Her vibrato is smooth and tasteful without the need to scream or draw attention to itself. She does what she’s supposed to do and does it well.

The band makes no qualms about being pot-friendly with songs like Chuck Norris that speaks about packing bongs and Lite That Spliff that sings about legalizing it. And there are more mentions where those came from.

 

The most humorous track definitely goes to Emotional Rollercoaster that is the album’s only slow song, but almost doesn’t qualify because it’s a very tongue and cheek back and forth booty call sung conversation that ofers up some of the most ridiculous pick up lines you’ll ever hear.

The band itself is very tight and strong. The horns are polished and prominent. The drums are clean and in the pocket and the keyboards are perfectly infused. It’s rare to hear a band this size work so well together short of the famed Parliament.

All of the album’s tracks are strong and filled with funk front to back. Fans of the Brand New Heavies, Teena Marie, and even Black Eyed Peas will certainly appreciate this offering. Check out the tracks below for a small taste of what they offer and then head to their website to snag a copy for yourself at http://www.bigoldirtybucket.com.

Visit the full CDBaby site page here or check out the clips below.

http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Fplaylists%2F2155224&show_artwork=true

 

George Clinton Fights For Parliament & Funkadelic

Funk pioneer George Clinton is on a mission to win back the rights to some of his best-known work from the 1970s and ’80s. It’s a situation many artists have found themselves in — partly because of the complicated copyright laws that govern their work.

In the late ’70s Clinton’s bands — Parliament and Funkadelic — racked up four No. 1 R&B hits, including the anthem “One Nation Under a Groove.” “Atomic Dog” topped the R&B charts for four weeks in 1982 and was released on an album Rolling Stone named one of the 100 greatest albums of the decade. In 1997 Clinton and his fellow band members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and his music has been sampled more than just about anyone’s — with the exception of the late James Brown.

But these days Clinton has had to turn to the Internet to raise money. “I thought that was a very good idea because lots of people are collecting the old records that we have,” he says. “And it’s a good way to get new records out.” He raised more than his $50,000 goal in a recent campaign at Indie Gogo, which he’ll use to restore and preserve his bands’ original recordings and rebuild his studio.

He says his next step is a legal defense fund. The fund isn’t just for his bills. “All the members of the band have music they are trying to get back, or copyright renewals,” he says. “They have to fight different publishing companies and different record companies for the royalties.”

Clinton himself has filed multiple lawsuits against Bridgeport Music Inc., a company that owns the rights to about 170 songs written by Clinton and other members of his bands. The company says Clinton signed over his rights to the music in 1982 and 1983. But Clinton disputes that, saying his signature was forged.

Richard Busch, an attorney for Bridgeport, told NPR, “Bridgeport has no comment as it relates to pending litigation. As it relates to past litigation, any challenges, to the best of my knowledge, Bridgeport has prevailed each time.”

Clinton’s attorney, Jeff Thennisch, says his client did have a relationship with Bridgeport when the record label was the music publisher for a number of Clinton’s songs in the ’70s and ’80s. But, he says, “There was a falling out between George Clinton and Bridgeport Music which resulted in a number of different court cases and different actions in various parts of the country.”

One of them resulted in a 2001 ruling from a U.S. District Court in Tallahassee, Fla., saying that Clinton does not own any publishing rights to any of the music he wrote between 1976 and 1983. In 2005, a federal judge in Los Angeles returned the ownership of the master recordings of four Funkadelic albums from the 2001 case — including One Nation Under a Groove and Uncle Jam Wants You — to Clinton. Still, Bridgeport retains the publishing rights to the songs on them.

Last year Clinton filed another suit against Bridgeport, and others who have been selling CDs that include music from the master recordings on those albums.

Jodie Griffin, a staff attorney at the nonprofit Internet and copyright organization Public Knowledge, says if musicians lose their copyrights, it’s hard and costly to get them back. “It is a system designed to favor the more powerful, better informed, more lawyered party,” she says, “which is almost always the record label.”

Under the 1909 version of copyright law, there are two terms of protection for the copyright holder: an initial 28-year period, then a 28-year renewal period. The 1976 Copyright Act expanded the renewal term from 28 to 47 years, and Griffin says that renewal term was extended again in what’s known as the Sonny Bono Extension Act in 1998. Now, the renewal period is 67 years.

“If we’re giving those protections out, and the benefits aren’t going to artists,” says Griffin, “it kind of defeats the whole point of why we’re doing it.”

But Griffin says copyright assignments made on or after Jan. 1, 1978, can be terminated starting next year for some authors or their trustees. This means under certain conditions, a musician can reclaim a copyright now held by a record company. It will be interesting to see how music companies respond.

“Artists have started to file their notices of termination,” Griffin says. “So it looks like people are going to take advantage of this — but it remains to be seen which record labels or publishers will fight it.”

Griffin says people should remember that copyright law also affects side musicians and songwriters. She says it will become clearer over the next few years whether some of the ongoing music industry practices, such as record labels claiming authorship of their artists’ sound recordings, are legally accurate.

Clinton says he intends to use the Internet to get his new music out independently. For now he’s dealing with lawyers, and performing a lot — at the age of 70. Clinton says he hopes to see Congress step in and streamline the copyright law so it will be easier for artists to protect themselves.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

This article reposted from WBUR here.

 

Prince Bans Cell Phones From Concerts

While most artists love for people to record bits and pieces of their shows in order to draw fans to future events and boost album sales, Prince is the exact opposite.  The latest round of shows on his 2012 Australia tour have him attempting to squash would-be cell phone recorders and fans simply aren’t having it as seen here.

One fan was quoted as saying that there are security guards who are actively monitoring the situation and shining flashlights into the faces of people recording any footage with their cell phones.

There are also reports that there are multiple signs everywhere and big brother type announcements indicating that cell phones and recording devices would be confiscated if people were caught recording the show.

This is just the latest attempts of Prince to greatly control what is seen and heard. Only videos and photos that are “Prince-approved” can get distributed.  It began with the vicious Youtube attacks that moved to pull down all unauthorized footage which set off a bevy of complaints from fans. When the witch hunt moved to literally all photos online of the Artist, a lot of fans even chose to jump ship.

“It’s just ridiculous that he acts this way”, said one fan. “It’s our way to support him and help spread the word. We want to share photos and videos that haven’t already been seen a million times. His actions are very diva and make him look unrealistic and out of control.”

Meanwhile, people don’t seem to care about what signs or announcements are made at the concerts and are still recording the shows even amid the threats of confiscation. What do you think?  Is this a tad “out of control”?

 

R.I.P. – Beastie Boys MCA Dies at 47

If you were a teen in the 80’s, then today is a very sad day. The legendary Adam Yauch, aka MCA of the Beastie Boys has died today losing his battle with cancer at the age of 47.

Adam Yauch discovered a tumor in his salivary gland in 2009 and it was diagnosed as cancer. The treatments led to agitate the illness which caused the Beastie Boys to postpone their tour until Adam could come out the other side.  He didn’t.

He co-founded the legendary hip hop group with Mike “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “Ad-Rock” Horowitz back in 1979 where they began as a punk rock band. The trio then moved their focus to rap a few years later which was blossoming at the time, but in the black music realm in the form of Run DMC, LL Cool J, and others.

White guys doing rap was pretty much unheard of as they released their debut album in 1986 entitled Licensed To Ill which gave them instant notoriety and what seemed to be a neverending string of hits including Fight For Your Right, Brass Money, No Sleep Till Brooklyn, and others.

They were quickly labeled as a “marketing stunt” that would be nothing more than a flash in the pan. How wrong they were. The band continued to release groundbreaking albums that all have cult levels of rabid fans including Paul’s Boutique, Check Your Head, Ill Communication and the well received recently released Hot Sauce Committee Part 1.

Adam was also involved in making a lot of the Beastie Boys videos under the name Nathaniel Hornblower and owns a production company called Oscilloscope Laboratories.

Outside of the Beastie Boys, Adam was very involved in the Free Tibet movement as the co-organizer of the Tibetan Freedom Concerts back in the late 90’s and actively spoke at conferences and events to raise awareness of the movement.

His activism, his contributions to music and especially hip hop will forever be missed, but never ever forgotten. Rest in Peace, MCA.

“Now I got the gun you got the brew
You got two choices of what you can do
It’s not a tough decision as you can see
I can blow you away or you can ride with me”

 

D'Angelo Announces First U.S. Show In Over a Decade

The news for D’Angelo just keeps on coming and it’s very exciting. On top of receiving news of D’Angelo working on a brand new album thanks to our good friend The Roots drummer Questlove (via tweet), D’Angelo decided to take some of the new songs and also past material on the road for some European dates.  Now D’Angelo has added his name to the lineup at the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans on July 6th which will be his first U.S. show in over a decade.

D’Angelo decided that the time was finally right to release the hounds stateside and adds his name to an amazing billing which already includes Trey Songz, Pointer Sisters, Keyshia Cole, Charlie Wilson, just on that Friday night when D’Angelo is performing. The festival runs July 6th through July 8th.

There was also some excitement some months back when he added Jesse Johnson to his European lineup (Morris Day and The Time‘s guitarist) after Jesse walked out on The Time due to their refusal to hit the road and support The Time reunion. So a question on everyone’s mind is whether Jesse Johnson will be a part of the mix at the U.S. appearance.

The other question would be whether or not this signals a U.S. tour for D’Angelo to support the upcoming new album and exactly when that album will see the light of day.

So the only thing left to do is enjoy some of D’Angelo‘s 2012 Eurpoean performance below. Because as far as getting answer to those questions, we’re pretty sure that people have learned by now that it will be on his own schedule. Who’s excited?! If you need tickets, this is where you go.

 

D’Angelo Announces First U.S. Show In Over a Decade

The news for D’Angelo just keeps on coming and it’s very exciting. On top of receiving news of D’Angelo working on a brand new album thanks to our good friend The Roots drummer Questlove (via tweet), D’Angelo decided to take some of the new songs and also past material on the road for some European dates.  Now D’Angelo has added his name to the lineup at the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans on July 6th which will be his first U.S. show in over a decade.

D’Angelo decided that the time was finally right to release the hounds stateside and adds his name to an amazing billing which already includes Trey Songz, Pointer Sisters, Keyshia Cole, Charlie Wilson, just on that Friday night when D’Angelo is performing. The festival runs July 6th through July 8th.

There was also some excitement some months back when he added Jesse Johnson to his European lineup (Morris Day and The Time‘s guitarist) after Jesse walked out on The Time due to their refusal to hit the road and support The Time reunion. So a question on everyone’s mind is whether Jesse Johnson will be a part of the mix at the U.S. appearance.

The other question would be whether or not this signals a U.S. tour for D’Angelo to support the upcoming new album and exactly when that album will see the light of day.

So the only thing left to do is enjoy some of D’Angelo‘s 2012 Eurpoean performance below. Because as far as getting answer to those questions, we’re pretty sure that people have learned by now that it will be on his own schedule. Who’s excited?! If you need tickets, this is where you go.

http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Fplaylists%2F1580857&show_artwork=true