Years ago, I had the chance to write a song on an album that went platinum. The excellence of the artist, the magnificients songs (the others, mine wasn't. Hum, we composers we're all the same, aren't we ? ;), the marketing campaign of that album, everything made that album a gigantic hit in France and french speaking territories. It gave me the possibility to renegociate my publishing contract and get real money. I used all that money to put together a (rather comfy home) studio in my lovely attic. It costs me a (small) fortune also: some state of the art expensive synths, a big Akai sampler, a good digital desk, some patchbay, a brand new computer, a (by then) huge 21" screen that was as big as it was large, some expensive softwares that seemed so fast but couldn't really even handle 4 audio tracks at the same time if i put too many plug ins in the chain...

Today, i only have left a dusted patchbay and a sampler I don't use anymore. Everything else has been sold or given, updated to newer and better equipment that has cost me literally 10% of what I paid 15 years ago. I have a great Imac that never fails, as many external 1 Tb HD I want, two screens that are as large...

Sometimes, you're just a lost sailor on a demented sea and you just don't see the what's and the why's of what's happening to you And sometimes you do. You have a very, very clear view of what you want, you're no longer battling desesperately, you know what you're aiming. Just like when I wanted to play with Frank Tovey, more known as Fad Gadget, cos it felt so damn right.

I met Frank thru Daniel Miller, early 80's. I was feeling trapped in Belgium and wanted to move to London where things seemed to really happening musically. I asked Daniel if he knew anyone wanting a musician and he told me he was now working with this guy, Frank, who wanted to go out and play some gigs. We immediately got on great with Frank cos he was such a cool guy but above all we could really cement on our bad, cynical, dead cold, terrible sense of deadly humor. And on our love for electronic music which, in these days, was in its infancy...

I had sold my ARP 2600 to buy a Yamaha CS 40 M to play live with Frank and, with Phil Wauquaire on bass, we were ready to take the world...aboard an old bashed-up Honda Civic. We had rehearsed in my attic and the first gig we played was in Brussels,...

Drugs are a bloody waste of times and if one doesn't realize it soon enough, (bad) chances are drugs will win and kill him or, probably worst, leave only an empty shell of a man.

No one else better than survivor Keith Richards knows that. As he's saying it himself in that good BBC video interview, he was at the top of the bill for years and sure thing magazines had his orbituary ready to be printed. But somehow, he escaped tens of time and is now proudly standing at the age of 70 years old (he will be in december of this year), still playing, still recording and having a great look at his life and his path as one of the most prestigious rock guitarist ever.

So, did he snort his dad's ashes ? Of course not, but we won't throw a stone to Mr Richards for telling the joke nor to the journalist who made an headline about it. And there's more than meet the music and hear the legends about him: Keith Richards has written a great biography and everyone is surprised but the man can write incredibly well. No ghost writers were used here, this is the work of Mr Richards and he sure stands out as one of the most articulate musician which is not exactly what was expected from...

I guess starting to become aware of the music surrounding you in the early seventies could somehow make of you a lover of guitars or a hater of thy instrument. I did become allergic to it as it seemed most songs on the radio back then were just gearing to THAT moment: the guitar solo. And to me, that hideous whaling sound of tortured strings was met with unhappiness: the spandex brigade hadn't me as a fan, all the contrary.

But things got better when i started to reevalutate my stance on the instrument when confronted to wall of sounds like The Stooges or The Velvet Underground: there the six string instrument had a goal and a purpose and thru the soundscape it was creating I could hear and see a meaning. And no solos :) Later on, how couldn't you get in love with such artists as Robert Fripp, making the guitar a n audio controller/generator: sound was at the center of the equation and not an excuse to propel a testosterone solo attack on my senses. All this jabba jabba to get to the point of: when it's about guitars, i'm touchy :)

So, when i hear about Patrick Grant Tilted Axes, it's all big smiles as there is a project that develops something interesting: a...

Depeche Mode isn't stranger to charity causes as they already teamed up with the very top-of-the-line swiss watches maker Hublot in 2010. At the time, they organized a concert at the London Royal Albert Hall and all monies from that concert and the auction of 12 very prestigious watches went to the Teenage Cancer Trust. The event and watches sales generated more than 600.000 £ !

Now, as we're seeing the Delta Machine your and promotion accelerating, Depeche reunites with Hublot for another cause: charity-water is a NGO determined to give access to clean waters to people who usually don't. Hublot has designed a rather dark Depeche Mode watch serie (only 250 watches will be build and sold) and will organize special events at specific points during the Delta Machine tour to create awareness to the essential water supply problems.

I guess this is how things are done now: sponsoring creates awareness to a problem, a cause, a feeling and the name of the very wealthy companies behind it will be seen with a 'White Knight" eclairage: just like Red Bull gave the world a fantastic moment doubled with an amazing marketing campaign where their name and logo weren't on the...

...Not to mentionned the saxophone !

Well, the world knows about songwriter Jacques Brel who penned incredibly emotive songs that have been covered by Bowie, Nina Simone, Edith Piaf, Sting and zillions others. People know also about Front 242, a band that generated a new sound nearly entirely by itself (with a BIG helping hand from DAF) as Electronic Body Music (EBM) launched a thousand bands.

What is less known, and still in debate actually, is how Flamenco, the famous spanish music and dance, some would even add attitude, is probably called so because of ...the Flemings (inhabitants of the northern part of Belgium). Let's dive a bit into History....

Flamenco (VXIII century) is a cultural melting-pot from Andalusia(Spain): it were originally chants, hand claps/feet stomping and later on was driven by guitar. The influences are numerous as one can see spanish tradition but also romani (gypsies) and arab folklore. But what has flamenco to do with the Flemings you're asking me ?

We're coming to that: people say the word "flamenco" descends from catalan writers and means "knife". Others mentionned the animal as the pose of the dancer does makes one...

For a man everyone thought was dying, David Bowie is doing rather well.

First, there was the pristine black-out observed to the second by everyone involved in the recording of "The Next Day", Bowie's new album that will grace the shelves of this earth's remaining record shops on March 12. The world grasped in admiration (most people did) when discovering the perfect return single from David Bowie on his birthday: "Where Are We Now" is a delighful sad track, deeply immersed in the Berlin Trilogy's era that many people see as Bowie's most amazing moments in music history. A moment stuck in space and time. An image immobilized on the screen in a world that goes faster than ever.

Secondly, there's the way Bowie communicated about it: he didn't. His friends did, his producer did, his musicians did, but not a word from Bowie himself. It went as far as having a quite extraordinary article in The Guardian where people close, and less close, to Bowie are being interviewed about him...Same goes with NME who features a masked pic of The Man and a 6 page review on him without a single word from Bowie himself...Are we witnessing the Perfect PR campaign ? It succeeds in...

The music industry is blessed with a few tools that can help amateurs and pro alike to fine tune their campaigns and adjust their efforts to have people interested in their music.

Kollector is one of them: it helps all to know exactly where, when and by whom their music is being played on radio. Worldwide. And in real time...It will help estimate royalties, know the markets of a specific artist, help putting together PR and tours. And also get a feel for what's cooking out there, what artists enjoy airplay and what the tendencies are...You should try it...

One of the most famous app there is, Shazam, is pretty useful too. Basically it will tell you what's the name of a song and what's the name of the artist based on a melody you will whistle, or a few fragments of the song itself. It works rather well...

Shazam can also "feel" the markets and tell you what artists and songs are hot, based on the tags most frequently used. They were able to sniff Lana Del Rey and Frank Ocean for 2012. Here are a few names they've been dropping as attracting the masses' attention for 2013:

Aluna Georges
Becky G
Angel Haze
Baaeur
Rhye.

...

There's quite an article in Coilhouse about misoginy in Industrial music and it really does call your attention as we take too many things for granted and while some attitudes from bands can be taken for simple provocation, the article points out most of what was once a scene build on boldness and adventurous thinking is now very much only a pile up of dangerous cliches and aggressive sexism.

As said in the article "The giants of industrial used subversive tactics to challenge audiences and create new awareness" has now turn to be "a disturbing trend of sexism, racism and anti-intellectualism". Bands like Combichrist or Nachtmahr seem to carry high the torch of violence lyrics against women and their aggressive videos display the band's dangerous stance for displaying women being nothing but objects of lust prone to betray the Alpha Male.

Men do tend to see the world thru a tainted illusion that women want them badly, whatever they do or say, and that women do feel the same way and while rock music has always been macho and superficial, it has most often exagerates the male message in a rather glamourous and silly way, not in what now seems to validate...

The very famous Dewaele brothers, more known as Two Many Dj's, present an hour long movie dedicated to David Bowie and soberly called Dave.

This movie is their hommage to David Bowie seen thru three different era and faces with a preference to the period most see as Bowie's best: mid70's to early eighties. That's of course is left to discuss.

The soundtrack is of course filled with Bowie's music and a few remixes done by the brothers, including some versions of Heroes which will make holes in your socks. The music/film can also be enjoyed 24/7 on the very remarquable http://www.2manydjs.com/?page=radiosoulwax. This streamed radio is exceptionally rich and a real wiki for the people still looking for great music and a real aural emotion, not just a quickie in the backroom of some autotuned producer.

Now, it's interesting to notice Bowie's legend is shaping more and more like Marlene Dietrich's and I'm sure David loves the irony, stuck in his NY appartement and repeatinly saying NO to all demands and bribes to return to the world of Music. This said, what would he join in today's poor parade of fake...

We've been told Skyfall, this year's Bond, isn't bad at all as far as the movie goes but the title song is here sung by Adele and it definitively won't leave any memories...

There are very few music themes as remarquable as the Monty Norman's immortal James Bond theme and, with the help of Vic Flick and that incredible guitar riff, is no doubts one of the best lmusic theme ever bar Morricon's Good, Bad And The Ugly, Hitchcocks' The Birds, Jaws, Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

This strange mixture of bombastic brass, major seven intertwining with minor notes and diminished fifths who give that incredible suave melange of tension, drama, excitement and expectation. Truly a wonderful piece of timeless music. Let's look at some of Bond's finest musical moments...

1962: the original theme, penned by Monty Norman and played by the John Barry Orchestra.
1964: the lavish Shirley Bassey in Goldfinger
1973: the very raw Paul McCartney/Georges Martin's Live And Let Die.
1985: Duran Duran sings a John Barry's impeccable A View To A Kill
1987: A-Ha does the same with The Living Daylight
1995 sees Bono and The Edge delivering "Golden Eye"...

Dancing has always been part of popular music and it seems the Olders were always afraid of these legs that move mysteriously in rythm and were blasphematory...This is surely because they had forgotten music and dance were primarely executed to praise the Gods way back when even vinyl didn't exist and piracy wasn't yet on the agenda of the Homo Sapiens.

But Rock and popular music has always been flirting with the edges of what the mainstream thought was "just too much": Elvis' pelvis wasn't shown on TV when performing in his early days, The Stones and The Doors were asked to change the lyrics of songs on live TV, Kylie Minogue had a global hit teaming with a steaming video (Can't Get You Out Of My Head), Madonna has based most of her career on sexuality and very recently the world was on fire when told that Lady Gaga was singing in studio naked. People seem surprised altho we're living in a society which has become over sexualized. And the more we've moved from the sixties, the more sex has been involved in lyrics and the videos have become raunchier and more explicit as the years were passing by.

But despite being flashed every two minutes by sexy adverts or...

Mojo, the influential UK music magazine, has teamed up with Electrospective to get some key people inside Abbey Road studios to answer a few questions about electronic music.

Each panelist had to answer a simple yet essential questions:

Daniel Miller Big Honcho of Mute Records explains how Depeche Mode broke on the US market and why it's still quite a mystery
Martyn Ware from The Human League/Heaven 17: How was it to make electronic music in the early days ?
The amazing sound alchemist Matthew Herbert explains how DJ culture impacted with electronic music
Bill Brewster, the author: what about Futurism ?

Other panelists include Andy McCluskey from Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Trevor Jackson and Mark Jones.

It's very interesting to hear and see how things that are now casted in concrete and seem obvious weren't back then: Human League had decided (and wrote it down to be sure it wouldn't be broken) of a few rules like: NEVER USE A GUITAR and they had a list of words they couldn't use, like...LOVE :)

Very interesting indeed, and rather moving too: here we can see why music is so deeply connected to the people doing it...

Matt Johnson, also known as The The, is a great character and a brilliant songwriter.

Very few like him can compose a catchy song that you will enjoy and probably whistle all day long and at the same have strong lyrics that actually mean something far above your typical boy-meets-girl 4 mins song format. Matt always succeeded in painting songs that are filled with great hooks and an always gotcha chorus while writing words that would live by themselves. And he always had a great sense for backing singers (he made duets with Neneh Cherry and Sinead O' Connor well before they were known).

But there's one facet of Matt that earns him even more the qualificative of "songwriter": just like previous politically engaged musicians like Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan (in his early years) and Billy Bragg, Matt knows politics and life are deeply intertwined and not wanting the see the big picture by ignoring the small ones isn't what he does: Matt has always been involved in writing about politics, how Britain has lost all its excentricity and some of its very peculiar heritage to become USA's 51st state and how everything has now become leaded by global corporates. Poilitics...

Ivan Novak from Laibach depaints the beginning of Laibach in an excellent video (see link at the bottom) emanating from the John Peel Center For Creative Arts and seeing that from a distance, the angle taken by them (to create something that had no direct routing to american culture/blues) was indeed an interesting way.

The same basic idea was also at the center of the creation of bands like Kraftwerk or DAF and this "Gesamkunstwerk" ("total work of art", an attitude on art started by german philosopher Trahndorf early 1800 which somehow implies a knee down from individualism for the good of a common cause) worked great: Laibach came with a sound but also with an image, a powerful twist on early national-social images which gave them troubles but successfully deployed their artistic vision above the simple pop band with songs made in a formulated way.

The imagery used by Laibach was of course profoundely disturbing/totally hilarious for a reason: one cannot exactly make sense between the naivety of 4 guys walking in the nature and pretending to go invade Germany but it worked and this mixture of profane wagnerian opera meet early electronics/industrial was a good...

It's not the first time a movie on Jimi Hendrix is being derailed by the Hendrix Experience Estate as they seem to dislike any initiative: they already turned down a movie script with Lenny Kravitz to act as the legendary guitar player (!).

But this time, John Ridley ( a novelist/movie director) will tell the story from a totally different angle one can expect as this movie will be the (true) story of a woman named Linda Keith, then Keith Richards' girlfriend, who discover a musician called Jimmy James and convince him to turn himself into Jimi Hendrix and will, despite the initial closed doors she encounters, get the left-handed genius to truly believe in himself. Far above another boring story about a musician and drugs/rock n'roll, this biopic might very well turn into a masterpiece and show how this very hard working musician bursted into the scene (the years are 66 and 67) and took music to an all different level.

Interesting enough, we found a 2 years old text from the director himself who talks about Linda Keith (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129855398 but...

Just like Trevor Horn owned the world of pop with Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Prince owned the world of pop for a few years and left a trace that will never vanish.

What should we call the man who owned pop music between 1984 and 1989 ? Jamie Starr ? Christopher ? Alexander Nevermind, Joey Coco, The Artist Formely Known As Prince, The Artist or just Prince ?
Fact is, very few artists have had so much influence on pop music and the fair proof to that is how e-ve-ry-one was trying to have that Minneapolis sound back in the mid-eighties. Prince was then extremely productive, often working round the clock in the recording studio and rehearsing new songs with his band, The Revolution, and a new song would take him...one day to do from the moment he dreamt it to the moment he would finish recording the instruments (all of them, thanx to the Linn Drum and the Oberheim 8 voice synth) and mix it (often ending up not using one instrument or more in the final mix: songs like Dove don't have a bass, Kiss doesn't have reverb....).

If you can bear the bad synchro, the video (unauthorized by Prince but then he's putting a "cancel" on everything that doesn't come directly...

The crowd may only concentrate on the singer or the cutest band member, but one key to commercial (and artistic) success is often a great producer, someone (it can be a team sometimes) who takes a rough gem and tailor it to make it shine and rise. There always were such individuals that could take a song and make it sound crisp and tantalising and thru history we can pinpoint some names: Phil Spector, Benny Gordy, Georges Martin, Holland Dozier, Brian Eno, Butch Vig, Rick Rubin...

One of these producers who really owned his time in pop history was Trevor Horn. He came to the attention of the public early 80's as the Buggles bass player of an embarrassing and huge hit "Video Killed The Radio Stars" (actually, in the video of that song, you can see the ubiquitous movie soundtrack maestro Hans Zimmer and his gigantic Moog) and later on did set up a label that would become iconic of his sound and vision: ZTT.

One of his signing was Frankie Goes To Hollywood and their anthem called "Relax" was going to be the soundtrack of many, many clubs in 1984 despite being banned by the BBC: as a revenge it went to top the charts for five consecutive weeks and their following...

It starts out like yet another rock music documentary where the band obviously believes he's the greatest thing since The Beatles but you soon cannot help to feel something is about to burst open...

And it does. Rebel Scum is an extraordinary documentary that begins with a Bible Belt punk band called "The Dirty Works" performing and then, suddenly, out of nowhere, his singer Christopher Scum starts to violently hit himself on the forefront with the microphone and obviously starts to bleed intensively while continuing to sing...You know this is not going to be an average movie...

And from then on, it's a deep dive into an abyss of addiction, delusion, bad times and even worst times again and again. But you cannot stop watching it cos it's one side of reality few music documentaries show: there's the glitter and the strass with Pop Idol where everything is just about how well the singer re-sang that Wilson Pickett song and how it looked good with that Armani suit on and then you have the sad reality of people stuck in a system where drugs, alcohol, family disfunctions, religion and hopeless hope just drive people in the gutter...

I watched Rebel Scum with...

Graceland is the title of an grammy awarded multimillion selling 1986 album by Paul Simon. Up to here that phrase seems fine, no ?

Well, what about scraping it, revisit history a bit more and replace that phrase in its context: Graceland is the title of an grammy awarded multimillion selling 1986 album by Paul Simon, an american rockstar who's latest album was a flop, who ignored a UN embargo on South Africa, a country under a strict shameful apartheid regime and went to go to Le Cap to record it with south african musicians and was therefore very heavily criticized by critics and politicians as he had knowingly break the ban on that despictable regime.

There's a controversy that's been going on for 24 years about what is considered one of the best rock albums ever (altho the NME called it "the rotten fruit of apartheid") and a very interesting Joe Berlinger movie is concentrating on what exactly happened, the point of view of all involved (Paul Simon, the south african musicians but also the ANC who thought the embargo leak by Simon was quite a treason) and the reunion tour that took place a few months ago.

This movie also debates on then position...

William Orbit and Madonna wrote one of the best pop songs of the nineties with Ray Of Light (co-writing it with Clive Muldoon, Dave Curtiss et Christine Leachelle) and he's been important in giving back Madonna some musical credibility with the album of that name (containing the equally pristine Frozen). It's also the album that definitively launched Madonna in the UK and the lady herself tweeted to Kate Perry (gotta love the internet) it was her most fullfilling record. Nice.

MDNA, Madonna's latest album, did land as numero uno in many countries around the world but has also the sorry privilege to have one of the worst sales drop in history: no less than 86% on its second week in the US charts. Mind you, the first week was enough to secure her multi golden records around the globe.

WIlliam Orbit was one of the producers on this album which list up some of the more demanded producers in the world, altho William Orbit would be the one with the more credible and music oriented track record and he has, rather curiously, lashing out on the Madonna fan website most of the (bad) thing he feels about the record.

And everything goes: from the choice of the main...

There was a time long ago where mp3 didn't exist and one could still released an album and hoping people would buy it and make it possible for him to live from his music.
And the scariest thing wasn't that people would copy it on cassette but it was merely about the sound quality of the LP...

Paul McCartney doesn't need an introduction, even for people who have discover music with Daft Punk or MGMT, and he surely doesn't need the money, but he surely likes us to remember who he was/he is and no one can blame an artist for wanting to have a legacy about his work. This documentary is about "RAM", an album he did with his long-departed wife back in 1971. The album was a commercial succes but somehow critics thought at the time it was not interesting. Now, 40 years later, they do....

Artists are fragile creatures tortured by they need to be good and being heralded as being great, and most of the time they may do the total opposite of what's needed for their art in doing what's great for their career. But ultimately, what's left is music people can drown in and appreciate its richness and how it makes them feel.

That's the real succes of an artist: not...

As pointed out a few months ago, seems like the 80's are by now officially uncool and totally dried out of all its usable content and the 90's are officially and most definitively the decade to swear by these days, and it's not the Tupac hologram that will deny this :)

Garbage, the band which symbolizes the 90's with Nirvana, have a new record out and it's always a pleasure to listen to the Butch Vig guys and gal having a go at their rather specific mixture of radio friendly rock/pop formula. Shirley Manson has a great voice and she knows how to use it to devastative effect.

This new album, called Not Your Kind of People, seem to have been slow at coming out as it's been started in october 2010 but let's not forget Butch Vig is an uber-busy succesfull producer and he may have had little time for this new record. The album will be released on their own Stunvolume label on May 22 and a tour will soon follow.

The interesting thing, and we'll keep you posted, is that MTV will stream live their NYC concert. Seems like MTV is back with a vengeance too, with the short adverts that made them so famous, and so is Myspace. My my my, it really feels like the 90's...

Usually a band forms, rehearses, has a few bumps up and bumps down, makes some records, get some recognition (or not), flops or succeeds and, most of the times, its end is dirty and nasty, with members of said-band lashing out on the other members all their hatred and bad feelings and it's all over the papers. See with Oasis, or The Beatles, or even the band in your area: it seems like the split of a band needs to be ugly.

With James Murphy's LCD Soundsystem, nope. And the ending was so happy and climatic that they even did a documentary about it and it looks and sounds superb: "Shut Up And Play The Hits" shows the emotionnal last 48 hours of a band that will be remembered as one of the main bands from the last decades. Their mixture of rock, dance and punk even generated the music style known as "dance punk". One of their most famous song is the so-funnily called "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House" but other great moments are "All My Friends" or "Someone Great".

The reason for ending the band aren't all clear: it seems James was feeling his age was getting in the way (42 years old) in a business so devoted to youthful energy and strass.
I bet he will...

We too often picture musicians and composers as being totally self-centered and wanting nothing more than just money and fame and everything that comes with these two tips of the music iceberg ( damn this actually sums up most of them :)) and we tend to forget some are really multi talented artists in areas we don't expect them to be. Some are, for instances, very good writers and story-tellers and their biography can be very interesting as well as written with upmost bravado and form.

Take Keith Richards who appears to be nothing but a drug/alcohol casualty: he's an avid reader and his biography, Life, is witty and funny. And yes, he does say a few things about the size of Mick Jagger's pride.
Patti Smith, already a poet, has written a beautiful book called "Just Kids" and she deserves the National Book Award she got for it.
Pete Doherty, he of Libertines and drug addiction fame, has a very beautiful "Books of Albion" out and it's as fragile and tender as his songs.
Wolfgang Flür, ex-Kraftwerk percussion player, has a rather enigmatic book called "I Was A Robot" where he explains how...

Our article on Kraftwerk and their 8 Moma concerts did create quite a wave and lots of interest as there seem to be many people out there agreeing on the idea that maybe baby, Kraftwerk still playing live while no new songs have come out in decades was a bit on the exploitation side, while others claimed it's perfectly ok to do so, and many maney bands do it.

Our point was also about the idea that an artist needs to be creative or somehow he degrades its own work. But it isn't easy for an artist to be able to create years after years and still have relevant things to say, especially in pop music where things last for two seasons then go rotten...

Karl Bartos was responsible inside Kraftwerk for most of the now-classical melodies and since he left the famous Dusseldörf band, he hasn't really stopped, whether it's in releasing albums on his own, producing and working with Bernard Summers (New Order), teaching at the Berlin University Of The Arts, develop a free Iphone app, Karl has move on and keep working. In fact, a new album is due to be out later this year or early 2013...

Recently on tour in Sweden, StereoKlang has met the man and asked him a few...

Who would have think that Kraftwerk, the elegant german band initiated by the two rich kids Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider (soon join on percussion by the two middle class workers Wolfgang Flür and classically trained Karl Bartos) would have sold out 8 consecutive shows at the Moma museum in New York City in less than an hour ?

There's no doubt that Kraftwerk is one of the most important group in the history of music, period. But one can doubt about its real actual legacy when, 50 years after it's been created, Kraftwerk is now the sole lawyers-powered trademark of Ralf Hutter who shows himself on stage in his fluo pyjama and three rather anonymous musicians. We're a far cry from the uber creative nucleus that were Hutter-Schneider-Bartos-Flur between Radioactivity (1975) and Electric Cafe (1986) before Kraftwerk somehow began to slide down in a different mode punctuated by the immense love of cycling that was Hutter's addiction. Back then, a normal day at Kling-Klang studio (their Dusseldorf hide-out) would see them cycling during the afternoon, going to have an ice-cream at daybreak and start long, loooong nights in the studio. Somehow, this immensely slow...

When we thought it was all clear and simple: banks owned the world, the financial crisis is their fault, the music industry is hurt but not dead and a new business model is on its way...But no, nothing is sure no more as The Sex Pistols have signed a new record deal with Universal for the re-release (35 years after the original) of an expanded version of "Never Mind The Bollocks, Here Are The Sex Pistols".

John Lydon, a very clever and articulate man when he thinks it's worth it, has these great words about the new deal: "Music can be great, when done by the great. The Sex Pistols are the greatest. Universal now has a trophy room, music is the imitation of nature, the Sex Pistols are nature, so please give generously. Thank you."
To which the Universal PR replies: ""To be given the opportunity to re-evaluate the Sex Pistols catalogue is every music lover’s dream. We’re looking forward to working with the band and celebrating their impact on worldwide culture."

My oh my, no doubt this signature is going to be blessed with a few funny ups and downs as these two are made to get on well !

When Punk came about, music in Europe was all about progressive...

Where is David Jones ? Where is The Thin White Duke ? Where is Ziggy ? Decades of music fans can indeed wonder where their favorite workalcoholic singer is, and what he does these days...The thing is: David Bowie turned 65 yesterday and while even older stars like Keith Richards plan to go on tour yet again, the thin chameleon hasn't been seen or heard in ages. His last works were an album in 2003 and a song in 2005, a couple of commercials (one with...Snoop Dog), some apperances on stages with bands like Arcade Fire or Dave Grohl's Foo Fighters, some awards and discreet chanting here and there but nothing like the Bowie we're used too...

And it's missing. The Man had different periods (psychedelic folk/glam rock/white soul/Berlin/Mainstream Bowie/Tin Machine/electronics-bass and drums), he also had true visionnary moments and his music did capture most of the Zeitgeist indeed: no one can forget his Ziggy days nor his Berlin stance which probably launched a new musical genre by itself (New Wave is at least 5 pages off David Bowie's attitude and music/vocals cues). Now, in 2012, one wonder: what is Bowie doing ?

David Bowie also did something totally unique by...

Ok, this is the festive season and you try to emerge from the never ending party your live seems to have become....Here's some informative but fun articles we wrote since june 2011, launch of the Kollector Blog that will help you get thru the week :)
First, let's cover some of the artists we wrote about...

Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the Robin Hood of the Afro beat ! http://blog.kollector.com/?q=blog/fela-kuti-robin-hood-music
Amy Winehouse, the star that went dark too fast http://blog.kollector.com/?q=blog/amy-was-great-artist-she-really-really...
A documentary on the great Joe: http://blog.kollector.com/?q=blog/joe-strummer
Kollector loves Freddie Mercury: http://blog.kollector.com/?q=blog/kollector-loves-freddie
When underground music gets into the mainstream (Skrillex) http://blog....

We spoke briefly about Network Awesome a few weeks ago as they had a great Martin Rev's interview (http://blog.kollector.com/?q=blog/suicide-synths) and we can only thank them to do such a great job at exploring the archives of movies and videos related to Pop Culture and coming up with gems, things that have been forgotten but are important parts of what Popular Culture is.

Incidentally they are using curators which is far better method of recommandations than using algorithms at spotting up what you may like: specialists looking out for things that you may enjoy and be interested with are better than suites of ones and zeros telling you that if you loved "this", you surely will love "that".

Curators at "Network Awesome" put together videos spotted on Youtube, or else, and provide us with very valuables informations and documentaires, interviews and reportages on a large variety of subjects from Art to Music, Movies and Trailers and back again. These guys are doing society a service by curating what's been done and which shouldn't be diluted under tons of wannabee music videos that will soon be...

Freddie Mercury was larger than life, a genuine entertainer, a great singer, an exuberant baroquian character that came up with some pure gems of songs. He passed away twenty years ago but his way of doing things still resonates in many bands today, be them Mika or Lady Gaga. We included here a documentary about him as the man deserves attention, he was far more than just a singer fronting a band.

At Kollector, we've been tracking 10 Queen's songs, and collectively they have been broadcast more than 19.000 times ! "Bohemian Rhapsody" of course is at the front with 4115 trackings since june 2011 with most of the trackings from canadia rock classic Radio K97 but Australia is the country most addicted to Queen's airplay. The song has been played 183 times these last 24 hours. Impressive, non ?

"Dancing Queen", a disco hit dating back from august 1976 from superstar swedish band Abba, is still rising high on the radios playlists. We introduced the song in Kollector and let a few days pass, just to see how a 35 years old back catalogue song would do. And surprise, surprise, there's still life in the old dog ;)

In the last month, "Dancing Queen" has enjoyed no less than 1200 radio airplays and it still hold on very well on radios as its been favored especially in (by order of airplays received) Germany (158 trackings), United Kingdom (154 trackings) followed closely by France, Canada and The Netherlands. To give an idea of the performance, Swedish House Mafia's "Save The World" has enjoyed"only" 4 times more airplays during the same period, which shows how resilient and still royalties wise important "Dancing Queen" is !

Kollector can help all in the music community. You betcha it can!

(do look at this clip, it has Slash doing a most amazing solo...)

"Le Freak c'est chic" must be one of the biggest let's-go-dancing anthem ever: even tho it was written and released more than 30 years ago it always works... That's when you know you have a classic on your hands...

The story of his co-writer (Nile Rodgers wrote this song back in 1978 with the sadly departed Bernard Edwards) is one of these amazing rollercoaster stories: starting as a guitar player and session man, he played with various acts like Screaming Jay Hawkins (i puuuuuuut a spell on you), Parliament or Ben E. King, Rodgers met Edwards early seventies and some years later they would be one of disco's greatest assets with hits like 'Le Freak C'est Chic' and the absolutely gorgeous 'I Want Your Love". They also produced and penned songs for Sister Sledge. In a way, they were Disco. Later on they produced many acts, like for instance Diana Ross and her famous "Diana" album.

Nile Rodgers loves music and his history is one of love and care for artists and sounds, one that transcends music genres, races and creeds (he produced Duran Duran, Bowie and Madonna) but he's also a man who had to...

We often are talking about the 5th Beatles that never made it, the guy who was replaced the day prior to recording the songs that would put then english band so high in Pop Heaven, or we can talk about the french guitar player who was playing with The Police but left before Roxanne hit the charts, you know, the guy who was in a band before that band broke big and who's name is forgotten by us...

But in this case, we're talking about Syd Barrett, guitar player and songwriter within Pink Floyd with whom he collaborated on albums up to 1968's A Saucerful Of Secrets.
After that album, psychedelic drugs had taken the most of him and he was unable to perform live. Or to record. He would be defintively replaced by David Gilmour.
Syd, on his own, made two weird but splendid albums: The Madcap Laughs and Barrett. Syd was to die nearly anonymously in 2006.

Now, his estate have finally put together a superb book about Syd's writings, paintings and art. It's well worth looking at it.

more on the book: http://barrettbook.com/

If you want to talk music history, there are a three major towns who can't escape your savvy radar: London, Nashville and New York. Others do jump from time to time, and for specific genres, but these three towns are at the center of major musical earthquakes...

New-York gave birth to no less than THREE major music styles in the seventies: Punk (yes, Punk was infanted in the US, not in the UK), Disco and Hip-hop. One can't seem to make a connection at first glance, but these three majors music styles were all born from the streets, and from musicians/artists where some major styles before were more the fruits of the business itself: Motown, or Sun Records, or the Teen industry and alike. Here, you had musicians who, by mixing influences and shaking them hard, came to create totally new forms of musical expressions, would they be escapist like Disco, or violently rebellious like Punk, or strongly motivated by social inadequacy like Hip Hop.

This very interesting BBC reportage goes back where it all happened: the streets of New-York in the seventies...And this reportage starts with the sound of one of the best movie soundtrack ever: "Taxi Driver", by Bernard...

"Don't You Want Me", a seminal electropop track written by The Human League, was once more the result of test and trial, or "we're so damn glad it worked at the end of the day" syndrome.

It was a huge hit in the UK back iat Xmas1981, did very well abroad too, and has been since used quite a few times in commercials and movies (Ocean Thirteen jumps to mind).

Not many people know Phil Oakley, singer in Human League, hated the song so much it was relegated to be the last song on the LP. Lead vocals were recorded in the toilet of the producer's studio (Martin Rushent's Genetic studios) and the girl's voice had to be recorded 60 times before deemed good enough to be in the mix...

Sometimes accidents and a let-it-happen approach is the best thing that can happen to a band. Like most great tracks: a mixture of accidents, hazard and epiphany...

more on this song and how it was recorded: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul10/articles/classictracks_0710.htm

Merely novelty acts before the fifties, girls groups were huge in the early sixties as the growing industry started to work with teams of music composers/authors backboned to bold record companies like Tamla Motown, Red Bird or Philles Records. Production standards were very high and the public loved it, making huge stars from groups like The Supremes, The Ronettes or The Shirells.

When rock music started to happening and push pop music in a relative second role, groups like Labelle were soon marketed as slightly glam' (Lady Marmelade http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDlHaZz9PNo) and opened the door to disco with groups like Sister Sledge (We Are Family http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNAQ8LLptUo) or Silver Convention (Fly Robin Fly http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_77OclyEvo).
The eighties saw a different kind of group girls, moving from the relative naivety of the first ones to bands with (slightly deeper) lyrical content or blatant innuendos: from Bananarama (Cruel Summer...

This is what happens when you let soul music, jazz, R&B and psychedelics recreative drugs mix into a rhythmic, danceable form of music: you've got the FUNK.
Getting away from the usual soul formula (progressions of chords) to dive into a far more rythmical way (the emphasis is put on the first beat, melodies are build on fewer chords, the rythmical patterns are complex and intertwining), Funk was a tremendous new form of music which emerged in the USA mid-sixties. It would later explode into different new forms of music that would spread from afrobeat (Fela Anikulapo Kuti http://blog.kollector.com/?q=blog/fela-kuti-robin-hood-music) to disco to electrofunk or House, Hip Hop and even French Touch!

Let's not forget the important weight funk music had on the ghettos and the "Say it Loud..Im Black and I'm Proud" slogan helped many to get up and fight for their civil rights.
Take a dance lesson with Jaaaaaaaaaaaames Brooooooooooown: http://youtu.be/Zdz88MBWomo
100 Funk songs...

It's funny how the eighties is the only decade that seems to make it comeback every year and no one shouts ENOUGH ? All decades have their glossy appeal and a few words can describe them (the fifties are early rock n'roll and rythmn&blues, sixties are psychedelia music, seventies long hair bands or punks, etc...) but the eighties seem to shine so much for some, like if it was the decade that musically couldn't go wrong.

But it did :)

Rolling Stone has made a poll about the 80's worst songs...And yes, Rick Astley is in it...
Find out here http://www.rollingstone.com/music/photos/readers-poll-the-10-worst-songs... what are the 80's musical worst moments.

"The Ghosts, they are everywhere, everywhere, in the lobby, in the elevator ! They want so much attention!" so said the Chelsea's hotel biograph, Sherill Tippins, who's been told by a medium friend .

When does a building acquire a different status than just stones mixed with cement ? When do walls start to talk ? When do a place start to have a life of his own and become haunted by its inhabitants ? Can a simple hotel be more than just rooms to rent and a lobby for a 20$ breakfast ? The 1880 NYC hotel has surely obtain his extraordinary status if only by the quality of his tenants: from Tennessee Williams to Marylin Monroe, Sid Vicious, the beat poets or Bob Dylan, the list never ends.

The Chelsea has just been bought by Joseph Chetrit, a mysterious and rarely-to-be-seen real estate tycoon who's architect promess the hotel will remain as such, with his history and feel.
I'm sure 100 ghosts will see that it does.

the inspiration article : http://www.npr.org/2011/10/03/140294070/at-nycs-chelsea-hotel-the-end-of...

...or was it recession and poverty in a city, Detroit (USA), a town condemned to fade away ? In either case, Detroit, the center of the US auto industry, has seen, and probably been part of the creative incentive, the birth of Iggy Pop and the Stooges but also the birth of a vital electronic music movement: Techno.

One of the striking aspect of techno is how this underground dance music came from the input of afro-american musicians, more often associated with funk bands and gospel songs while early techno was offering a totally different sonic reward: cold electronic futuristic noises mixed with dance beats...

This interesting documentary replaces Detroit Techno into its context. Don't expect tips on how to make your grandma get up and dance but learn how it all came together: a shambolic flux of events that gave birth to a great music movement. With interviews from Richie Hawtin, Jeff Mills, Carl Craig, Eddie Fowlkes, Derrick May, etc...

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There are few artists who have really change the way music is perceived and played, and even fewer who have been so radical in their stand that they totally infather a new musical genre. Iggy Pop is one of them.
Probably born from an overdose of The Doors meets MC5, Iggy Pop and his Detroit band The Stooges have been so radical in their way to play rock music that we can safely bet it has been instrumental to the birth of at least 2 music genres: heavy metal and punk.

Iggy's sheer determination to make the audience react and stand up has tag him as an icon of live performer of the extreme, and he does in fact hurt himself often (as we speak, he's off for 6 weeks as he broke his foot on stage...). His career has been a rollercoaster of great reviews and bad sales, drugs addiction and redemption, but his association with David Bowie has seen two albums that will stay for ever as two absolutely great monuments of music: "Lust For Life" and "The Idiot". GET THEM NOW!

If Iggy comes by your town and you have never seen him playing live, get a ticket now. If you have seen him live before, chances are you already have a ticket :)

Iggy playing Lust For Life...

Stevie Wonder is a musical monument (and a very funny man too) who's career started way back in 1961 when he was signed bu Benny Gordy on Tamla Motown. He soon had a major hit with "Fingertips" in 1963 and enjoys massive recognition and success since then.
He teamed up with Malcom Cecil and Robert Margouleff for 3 records that definitively put him on a global status with songs as vital and cult as "Superstition" or "Living For The City". he was also among the major artists to use this new invention, the synthesizer. His co-producers had a gigantic beast called TONTO (The Original New Timbral Orchestra) consisting of huge Moog synthesizers all combined in strangely shaped wooden cabinets.
The video illustrates how one of the most soulful musician alive teamed up with two guys and a Godzilla-like synthesizer..

more on TONTO: http://youtu.be/nGfR3G6si_M
Stevie and his ARP 2600: http://youtu.be/Hzp6ly1mOIE

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If there's one musician who has paid a high price for his political actions and social stands, it surely is Nigeria's child Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Beaten in his flesh by soldiers, harrassed by Police forces, his family and friends subjects of pressure and physical violence (his mother was thrown out the second floor by the Army when they raided Fela's Kalakuti Republic in Lagos!), Fela paid in cash his strong, proud and vital comments about Africa, Colonialism, Panafricanism, Music, Weed, Women, Politics. He was an educated and witty man. And an astounding musician who has inspired many, many musicians.

Born from an educated Yorouba middle-class parents (sugar on the cake: Fela's grand-father was the first ever African musician to record - it was for EMI in the 1920s), Fela Ransome Kuti was always involved in politics and his journeys to Europe and the USA gave him a unique perspective on an Africa he dreamed being strong, independant and proud of its roots. Not a Muslim nor a Christian, Fela was seen as a rebel and a iconoclast: he was a free spirit always fighting for his ideas and, man, were they offensive for the Nigerian governements, too hastily ready to bend over...