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» Radiohead: The Best Of' To Be Released On June 3, 2008
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 Capitol/EMI announces the June 3 U.S. release of Radiohead: The Best Of. The band's first ever career retrospective, to be made available both physically and digitally, Radiohead: The Best Of brings together the singles, key album tracks and live favorites spanning the band's entire Parlophone Records and Capitol Records career.Radiohead has sold in excess of 25 million records worldwide, has achieved platinum status in 17 countries and multi-platinum in nine, and has won two Grammy Awards. The band has also become one of the most iconic and critically acclaimed groups ever, with their seminal albums OK Computer and The Bends hailed as masterpieces and being consistently voted in Top 5 All Time Albums polls.
Radiohead: The Best Of will be available in the following formats and configurations:
- a 1CD collection featuring 17 tracks
- a Special Edition 2CD, adding 13 tracks
- a 4-piece vinyl set with 29 tracks
- a 30-track digital download
- a DVD featuring all the classic promo videos A separate announcement with additional DVD details will follow. Audio format tracklistings as follows:.....read full story below
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» Madonna New Album Hard Candy
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 Madonna’s 11th studio album for Warner Brothers Records ‘Hard Candy’ will be released April 28th. ‘Hard Candy’ (the follow-up to Madonna’s ‘Confessions On A Dance Floor’ which debuted at No.1 in 30 countries and sold over 8 million copies), has been described as a brilliant up-tempo collection of 12 songs in which Madonna remains ensconced in club mode but this time adds an urban hip hop beat in collaboration with musical partners Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Pharrell Williams of the Neptunes and Nate ‘Danja’ Hills.
The debut single, the pulsating ‘4 Minutes’, will be released digitally on March 25th and physically on April 21st.
“The album title is a juxtaposition of tough and sweetness…kind of like I’m gonna kick your ass but it’s going to make you feel good. And of course, I love candy” laughed the material girl.Madonna is the biggest selling female solo artist ever. A multi-Grammy-award-winning singer, songwriter, producer, stage performer, children’s book author, director and documentary film maker, she has sold over 200 million albums in the course of her unprecedented two decade plus career and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 10th. Source:femalefirst.co.uk
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» Duffy, Rockferry
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 She's a kohl-eyed siren from the vicinity of the geographical elbow formed by Merseyside and north Wales. She's spent a few years getting to the point where her retro-fresh 'pop noir' got noticed. Now experienced hands are helping shape her staggering but perhaps inchoate talents. Tomorrow, surely, belongs to her.But that's enough about Candie Payne. Say hello to Duffy, the 23-year-old singer born Aimee-Ann Duffy who is, as countless pundits have declared, the Sound of 2008, the New Amy Winehouse, or simply the Welsh Adele.
Timing is everything in pop. Last spring, Liverpudlian Payne released I Wish I Could Have Loved You More. It bristled with great tunes and Payne's cool, smoky voice, the whole thing swaddled in Dusty in Memphis-meets-Merseybeat atmos. Blimey, it even featured Mark Ronson's production. But all those (eight) months ago, La Winehouse hadn't yet gone up in a puff of crack smoke, so we didn't need a new one. Plus, spring isn't January, so no one was writing new year/new musical broom features. Payne's album did OK but little more.
But Duffy, mining the same rich seam of musical history, is rocket-powered already. And propitious alignment of the media stars aside, it's not hard to hear why: Rockferry is a fantastic album of burning blue soul. In particular, 'Mercy' is a big, booming, finger-wagging sashay worthy of the Supremes. 'Syrup and Honey', with its monochrome echoes of 'I Can't Help Falling in Love With You', is a ballad you can imagine Elvis singing. 'Hanging on Too Long' is a melodramatic belter easily the equal of anything on Back to Black
The magical aura is reinforced by bafflement: how did this shy and fluttery woman-girl, from a remote, Welsh-speaking part of the country, arrive so fully formed, channelling the sounds of far-off Memphis and decades-gone Detroit? Well, it's not quite been a natural-born breeze: Duffy has been working on Rockferry for almost four years. She's co-written with producer Bernard Butler (Sixties-obsessed ex-Suede guitarist), Jimmy Hogarth (a KT Tunstall collaborator), Eg White (Ivor Novello-winning scribe for Will Young) and Steve Booker (who's written for everyone from Natalie Imbruglia to Marti Pellow; Lindsay Lohan to the Bratz dolls). And before she arrived at this retro-chic sound, Duffy was a contestant on the Welsh incarnation of X Factor, resulting in her releasing an album and an EP. On the latter (released under the name Aimee Duffy and available from iTunes), she's a mix between Evanescence and Clannad. She had a yellow-blonde feather-cut then, not a peroxide-white beehive. Her official biog - and most of her interviews - don't mention this step along the way.Brilliantly, though, on Rockferry you can't hear the joins. The closing track, 'Distant Dreamer', is an epic, orchestral stab of longing. A young Welsh woman channelling the Walker Brothers? Now that's clever. Download: 'Hanging On Too Long'; 'Warwick Avenue'; 'Distant Dreamer' This report is provided by guardian.co.uk
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» Kid Rock keeps the faith on new album
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 Since "Devil Without a Cause" propelled him out of Detroit clubs and into the national consciousness, Kid Rock has churned out a series of what you might call dust discs: albums colorful and lively enough to stir fans' interest, but not remarkable enough to earn longtime listening. They got bought, they got played ... then wound up gathering dust on a shelf.
The Michigan star may escape that fate with "Rock N Roll Jesus," his first studio effort since 2003 and his stickiest collection of songs in nearly a decade. That doesn't mean the album is some transcendent creative masterpiece, despite what Rock himself appears to believe, given the album's occasionally earnest tone. But within the Kid Rock universe, amid the expectations and standards that operate there, "Rock N Roll Jesus" is a standout record.The album, a celebration of classic rock and of Rock's own distinct redneck-fab world, is the most soundly designed, thought-out record since "Devil" in 1998. If nothing else, the album's early stretch -- led by the funk-touched title track and the message song "Amen" -- reveals work as tuneful as anything he's ever put to tape.This is Kid Rock on a classic-rock bender. Robust drums and brown-toned guitar leads chug along like an afternoon at WCSX. The shredded vocal that Rock has steadily mastered since he morphed from suburban rapper into hard-rock singer is more finely tuned, the full-throttle shouts giving way to more mobile melodies.More than anything, it all sounds familiar -- brimming with the sorts of catchy hooks and concert-ready choruses that have long appealed to classic-rock listeners. And while that accessibility is the album's biggest strength, it's also the greatest vulnerability. In summoning a vintage vibe, Rock risks accusations that he's committed an easy cut-and-paste act.
Nowhere is that more glaring than the beach-bummy "All Summer Long," a writing collaboration with old friend Uncle Kracker, which sits atop the well-worn piano riff of Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" and laces itself up with a Lynyrd Skynyrd guitar lick. Sympathetic listeners might say Rock is simply applying hip-hop's sampling culture to a rock 'n' roll format; the less forgiving will charge him with taking shortcuts.Besides some lyrical lifting on "Don't Tell Me U Love Me" (from Steve Miller and Jim Croce, among others), the borrowing is more subtle elsewhere. Produced with a hand from Green Day maestro Rob Cavallo, the album plays up standard Rock themes -- women, whiskey, wild times -- through a batch of fun, rollicking songs. As always, it's about escaping the hard life to find the good life through music that's larger than life.There are dismissable moments: "Sugar," the album's lone old-school rap tune, is a throwaway cut; "Blue Jeans and a Rosary" is a clumsy take on Seger-style redemption; "So Hott," the sex-drenched lead single, isn't just the worst song on the album, it's possibly the worst song of Rock's two-decade career. The chintzy "Half Your Age," presumably a jab at ex-gal Pamela Anderson, is wisely positioned in an easily skippable spot: at the end of the disc.
But "Rock N Roll Jesus" is an otherwise solid effort -- and an album that will come as welcome relief for fans who'd like to get some long-term mileage out of their Kid Rock records. This report is provided by freep.com
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» Amy Winehouse To Release Live DVD
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 Amy Winehouse is set to continue her rehabilitation by releasing a Live DVD this autumn.Aptly entitled ‘I Told You I Was Trouble’ the release features footage from a pefromance by Winehouse at London’s Shepherd Bush Empire.
It will also include a 50 minute documentary about the chanteuses rollercoaster like career. The DVD will be released in the UK on November 5.
The track listing is: Addicted
Just Friends
Cherry
Back To Black
Wake Up Alone
Tears Dry On Their Own
He Can Only Hold Her
Fuck Me Pumps
Some Unholy War
Love Is A Losing Game
Valerie
Hey Little Rich Girl
Rehab
I'm No Good
Me and Mr Jones
Monkey Man
Outro Source: gigwise.com
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» Hard-Fi - Surburban Knights (Atlantic)
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 Few bands will be able to ape the meteoric rise of Hard-Fi, who seemed to effortlessly make the transition from recording a debut album (costing 300pounds) to selling out 5 nights at the Brixton Academy- and all in the time it takes to say 'critically acclaimed suburban rock'.Suburban Knights is the first single from their latest and hotly anticipated LP Once Upon A Time In The West. There are no indications of a massive shift in musical direction as the mix of inner city pride and angst are still worn proudly on their sleeves. This is another anthemic belter that's sure to please everybody.It's refreshing to see them return with a strong single and doing what they do best. 2007 has seen a mass sophomore slump with bands taking themselves far too seriously on their second outings - judging from this the signs are that Hard-Fi will be one of the few to successfully buck that trend. This report is provided by musicomh.com
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» Album Review: Ryan Adams, "Easy Tiger"
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 Having flitted from alt-country to alt-rock to Grateful Dead moves and a collaboration with Willie Nelson, Ryan Adams must have been ready for his country-rock album. "Easy Tiger" shades toward the commercial side of that genre: It has just enough roots to offset the production sheen, and the songs go down easy in the country-rock tradition. The result is tuneful, polished and somewhat dull.
"Easy Tiger" can be seen as a typical, stylistic exercise by a talent who can emulate his heroes but seems to lack his own identity. "I Taught Myself How to Grow Old " and "Off Broadway " are about the closest approximations to Neil Young's "Harvest" and "Harvest Moon" periods you're likely to find in 2007. But there's nothing on "Easy Tiger" that packs a tenth of the punch of "The Needle and the Damage Done."Perhaps that's an unfair comparison. It's no crime, you might say, to make catchy, listenable music. And you would be right. But those of us searching for more than an easy, good time might search elsewhere, whether it's within Adams' own catalog (start with "Heartbreaker") or even Neil Young's. Nine albums into his solo career, Ryan Adams has listeners asking exactly who Ryan Adams is. "Easy Tiger" doesn't provide an answer. Written by livedaily.com
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» Elizabeth Cook ''Balls'' cd review
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 The album title is a contraction -- in full, the relevant song is called "Sometimes It Takes Balls to Be a Woman." For this moonshiner's daughter (her bio says), having balls doesn't equal singing on steroids like Trace Adkins or LeAnn Rimes. Instead, Cook rides her Deep South twang so hard you'd never figure she knew what "vernacular" meant. Only she does, been to college, too, and she's not ashamed of it. Rodney Crowell produced her fourth album, and though she didn't write the best thing here, the Velvet Underground's "Sunday Morning," it's got competition. Title track is recommended to Gretchen Wilson, and the lead "Times Are Tough in Rock 'n Roll" is forgiven for disparaging this magazine because catchy cris de coeur needn't be PC by us. From "Down Girl" to "Gonna Be," Cook clearly knows a woman's downs and ups. And you won't catch her putting her man on a pedestal anymore, either. Source: rollingstone.com
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» The Academy Is. . . Santi
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 The Academy Is . . . are five suburban Chicago young’uns with excellent connections (they’re on Fall Out Boy’s label) and a major-label debut that offers big, not-exactly-emo songs with high hook quotient and a well-modulated guitar attack. When Santi is good (on “We’ve Got a Big Mess on Our Hands” and “Neighbors”), they’ve got a sugar-shot late-Eighties pop-rock appeal, but most of the album is forgettable, or worse: Songs like “You Might Have Noticed” are annoyingly dark and whiny, and a couple of cuts – including the T-Rex-y “Bulls in Brooklyn” – dip into classic rock but don’t give you much else of interest. Singer William Beckett’s swoops and swoons are part of the problem – anyone who moans about laying an “existential kiss upon your neck” has some ’splaining to do. Written by rollingstone.com
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» Hilary Duff, Dignity
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 It used to be the case that, when a teenpop starlet wanted to signify that she was all grown up, she would abandon frothy dance pop in favour of rocking out. That's not the case here. Hilary Duff made some of the best bubblegum pop songs, but Dignity sees her metamorphose into a moody electro princess, with a dark hairstyle to match. Her jump dancewards is curious commercially, but thoroughly worthwhile artistically: the best cuts here hold their own against Kylie, though the more apt comparison is Rachel Stevens' fantastic but underperforming solo album. Beats crunch, the bass purrs and ersatz eastern strings swoop. Duff, as ever, is charmingly chameleon-like, most triumphant on the impassioned groove of With Love, the Depeche Mode rip-off Dreamer, and the tabloid fodder of the title track - in which Duff turns her nose up at some of her contemporaries' more outrageous behaviour, and which could be taken as a catty swipe at Lindsay Lohan, with whom she has an ongoing feud. Written by guardian.co.uk
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» Maximo Park - Our Earthly Pleasures
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 The second album from Newcastle's Maximo Park, Our Earthly Pleasures confirms its creators to be one of the UK's more idiosyncratic indie outfits – the sort of bookish, educated rockers for whom intelligence means something more than reading a book while you're having your photo taken. Not only does vocalist Paul Smith boast the sort of wit and wisdom to rhyme the words "hypothetical", "alphabetical", "theoretical" and "dialectical" (see 'A Fortnight's Time') without coming off as a pretentious try-hard, the songs Maximo pen zip along with a gleaming tunefulness and athletic agility that denies any obvious musical influence. Much here is concerned with collapsing relationships, although Smith takes a more circuitous route than most though the familiar territory of a love song: 'Our Velocity' treats male-female communication as a cipher to be cracked, while the chiming 'Books From Boxes' takes stock of a love affair of a relationship from its accumulated paper trail. Far from being introspective and self-absorbed, however, Our Earthly Pleasures is an energetic, vibrant affair, thanks in part to the work of Pixies producer Gil Norton, who thickens up Lukas Wooler's synth and hones the band dynamic to quiet/loud perfection. --Louis Pattison
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» Kasabian Empire
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 Overkill beats the sophomore slump. At least, that's what Kasabian seem to believe. For their second disc Empire, these Leicester lads up the ante by cramming more of everything into the mix.More arena-sized Oasis bombast and hooks. More Happy Mondays irreverence and trippiness. More Chemical Brothers electronica and squiggles. More smooth Beatle-pop melodies.And just to be sure they're outgunning the competition -- and their past -- they add some extra artillery: The androgynous platform-boot stomp of '70s glam-rockers like Sweet, T. Rex and Gary Glitter.Too much too soon? Maybe. Empire flits so quickly from style to style, it never lingers long enough for you to appreciate any of them.And it's so overstuffed it seems to last forever -- even though the 11-track affair takes up less than 40 minutes.
So maybe overkill isn't all it's cracked up to be after all.
Track Listing: 1. Empire
2. Shoot the Runner
3. Last Trip (In Flight)
4. Me Plus One
5. Sun Rise Light Flies
6. Aponea
7. By My Side
8. Stuntman
9. Seek & Destroy
10. British Legion
11. Doberman
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» Sugababes new album revealed
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 Sugababes have announced details of their new album.As revealed exclusively on NME.COM earlier this year, the three-piece will release 'The Singles Collection' on November 13.It will proceeded by new single, 'Easy', which will be available a week earlier on November 6. The album features another new track - 'Good To Be Gone'.
'Easy' was co-written with members of Orson. The tracklisting is: 'Freak Like Me'
'Round Round'
'Red Dress'
'In The Middle'
'Stronger'
'Shape'
'Overload'
'Good To Be Gone'
'Caught In A Moment'
'Ugly'
'Easy'
'Too Lost In You'
'Run For Cover'
'Hole In The Head'
'Push The Button' The band are set to play London's Dominion Theatre on October 29.
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» Elton John, The Captain and the Kid
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 Elton John, well known at this stage in his career for his flamboyance, has taken a back to basics approach on his 44th album The Captain and the Kid. With his long-time collaborator Bernie Taupin, Elton has re-approached his classic 1975 album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (the first album ever to debut at Number 1 on the Billboard chart). That album was an autobiographical document of two starving artists getting started in the music business, and their ambitions for the future. More than 30 years later, The Captain and the Kid tells a very different story, but it's no less personal or ambitious. Think of it as a sequel: where Captain Fantastic... was full of youthful optimism and big dreams, The Captain and the Kid catches up with those two characters to find that their dreams have come true in a big way, and the route that was taken to get there. It's therefore a more mature album, but not a more modern-sounding one, something that's very much to its credit. John and Taupin are a masterful songwriting duo, and they rely on the basics that brought them continued success: Elton's piano and voice at centre stage, delivering Taupin's lyrics (in fact, on "Blues Never Fade Away" and the heartfelt "The Bridge", it's nearly two minutes before any other instruments are heard). The Captain and the Kid is a rare and remarkable feat for a musician; it showcases Elton John at the height of his fame, not attempting to recapture his youth, but reexamining his career. It's an intelligent and thoughtful album, and Elton John's finest in many years.
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» Jet Album Blunder
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 'Shine On', the second album from Australian retro-rockers Jet was accidentally made available to purchase on iTunes over the weekend.The record isn't due to be released until 2nd October, but fans were able to buy it via the download store on Saturday.Lead single 'Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is' is released this week.Written by thisisfakediy.co.uk
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» The Zutons: Oh Stacey (Look What You've Done)
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 The Zutons, for me at least, have always been one of the few respectable bands in a genre that, increasingly over-saturated and over-hyped, is quite frankly bland. They've always managed to keep some energy and exuberance and have consistently released singles which, try though you might, were impossible to dislike.So they've slowed it down for the new album - fine, slow is good. It's just a shame, then, that 'Oh Stacey (Look What You've Done)' sounds, quite simply, like a rather mediocre reworking of last single 'Valerie'.It's got all the hallmarks of a typical Zutons single - the bluegrass sax, the clap-happy beat and the arpeggio-laden vocal lines - but what lacks is the killer chorus, the dynamics and the force. They've been peddling the same formula for long time - perhaps it was inevitable that soon they'd run out of momentum.A wishy-washy, diluted, afternoon kip version of their former selves - surely, two albums in, they can come up with a more inspiring single to release than this? Written by drownedinsound.com
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» Damien Rice Announces New Album
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 Damien Rice will release a new album called 9 later this year.Over 4 years have passed since the Irish man released he’s critically acclaimed debut O and a message on his official website states: “Damien's new album, entitled 9 will be released later this year. Confirmed release dates to follow in the next few days.”Written by albumvote.co.uk
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» Magic Numbers new album details
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 The Magic Numbers say their new album - Those The Brokes - will be released on November 6.
The album was produced by band members Romeo Stodart and Michele Stodart, reports NME.com.
The record was partly recorded at New York's Alaire studios.Percussionist and vocalist Angela Gannon said: "I think the pressure was on us to make a better record, and I think we did. If this record tanks we know that we've made a better record than our first one."
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» Early Bee Gees Albums Expanded For Reissue
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 The first three Bee Gees albums to enjoy international release have been expanded and grouped for the six-disc boxed set "The Studio Albums 1967-1968," due Nov. 7 via Reprise. The release is the first in an ongoing catalog upgrade as part of a recent deal with Rhino; each album has been remastered and paired with a second disc of rare and unreleased tracks.
"Bee Gees 1st," released in 1967, revealed the sibling group to a worldwide audience thanks to hit singles such as "Holiday," "To Love Somebody" and "New York Mining Disaster 1941," which was inspired by an Oct. 1966 incident in Wales that killed 144 people, 116 of them children."Our lyrics were entirely fictitious, but that was our real inspiration," Robin Gibb told Billboard in a 2001 interview. "We were very affected by it, the news of that terrible disaster, but we didn't want to say that directly at the time, out of respect for the dead and their families."The bonus disc includes 14 previously unreleased tracks, including alternate versions of album material and the outtakes "Gilbert Green," "House of Lords," "I've Got To Learn," "All Around My Clock" and "Mr. Wallor's Wailing Wall."The Bee Gees increased their star power with January 1968's "Horizontal," which includes the hit "Massachusetts." The bonus disc sports four non-album tracks, including the hit "Words," plus nine unreleased songs, including "Out Of Line," "Ring My Bell," "Deeply, Deeply Me" and "Mrs. Gillespie's Refrigerator."In August of that year, the Bee Gees returned with the album "Idea," which featured their first top 10 hits on Billboard's pop singles chart: "I've Gotta Get a Message to You," and "I Started a Joke." On the extra disc are several alternate mixes, the previously unreleased "Bridges Crossing Rivers" and two songs written for films, "Chocolate Symphony" and "Gena's Theme."Written by billboard.com
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» Placebo Reveal Next Single Details
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 Before they round-up a successful year with a planned tour, Placebo will also be releasing a new single in the Autumn.Taken from their latest full-length record Meds, the three-piece band have decided to release the album's title track as the follow-up single to June's Infra-Red.A release date of October 9th has been given. Two weeks prior to Meds, Placebo will also be re-issuing their self-titled debut album on September 25th to mark it's 10th anniversary.Then in December, Placebo will play four arena shows in the UK.This report is provided by angryape.com
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