Posts Tagged ‘Mark ronson’

VAMPIRE WEEKEND – ” Father of the Bride ” Best Albums Of 2019

Posted: December 7, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Father of the Bride is Vampire Weekend’s fourth album, It’s the long-awaited follow-up to 2013’s Modern Vampires of the City. Since then founding member/producer Rostam Batmanglij left the band as a full-time member.

It’s been almost six years since we last heard from New York’s Ezra Koenig and co. Here they have gone deep into the address book and called upon a wide array of collaborators from Danielle Haim to Hans Zimmer to Mark Ronson. It all comes together thanks to careful indie-pop curation from Koenig.

Previously Vampire Weekend shared two songs from Father of the Bride: “Harmony Hall” and “2021,” as well as a video for “Harmony Hall.” Then they shared two more songs: “Sunflower” (which features Steve Lacy of The Internet and “Big Blue.”Then they shared a video for “Sunflower” directed by actor Jonah Hill and featuring comedy legend Jerry Seinfeld and rapper/visual artist Fab 5 Freddy. Then they shared another two songs: “This Life”and“Unbearably White.”

“This Life,” which features backing vocals from Danielle Haim of the band HAIM, “We Belong Together,” a duet with Haim, .

This year Vampire Weekend released a new album, Father of the Bride, today via Columbia. The band already shared six songs prior to the album’s release, but the album features 18 tracks so there are 12 other songs . Three of those songs are duets with Danielle Haim of HAIM, including album opener “Hold You Now.” Our favorite of the non-singles is probably another duet with Haim, “We Belong Together.” In it the band’s Ezra Koenig and Haim sing about all the ways they belong together, but also admit that it might not be enough to actually keep them together.

There is a simple rule in pop music: if you find yourself with a double album to fill, make a bloody mess out of it. You can eventually locate unity or conceptualism à la The Who or The Kinks—but for god’s sake, have a mad blast either way. For their first album in six years, Vampire Weekend and singer-songwriter Ezra Koenig sailed beyond the alterna-nerd pop Graceland cover act usual. Here, Koenig and VW jump through piano-rich ballads, bachelor pad lounge music, jam sounds, outlaw country, samba, emo, and cinematic atmospheres, making it all sound unified and blissfully cascading in a fashion you’ve never heard from them before. The not-so-haunted proceedings of Father of the Bride are more theatrical and orchestrated—but with just a smidgen less quirk and busywork—than their music of the past. We knew that Vampire Weekend was charmed, but on Bride, they’ve actually become charming.

Father of the Bride feels like Vampire Weekend has grown up emotionally, and their music is richer for it. It’s an ambitious double album, sweeping through the joy, the pain, the success and the failure of young adult life.

The catchy hooks and sing-a-long lyrics are still there in tracks like ‘Harmony Hall’, ‘Bambina’ and ‘This Life’, and there’s some impressive collabs with Danielle Haim, Mark Ronson, and The Internet’s Steve Lacy.

Father of the Bride is the band’s fourth album. The band’s last album was 2013’s Modern Vampires of the City.

This record is an incredible listen , yes. It is also more than that. It is an artistic touchstone. It stands as an example of how great art should make you feel, of the line between accessibility and profundity, A forward-facing album with a focus on the theme of rebirth, it does, at times, look over its shoulder, taking inspiration from classic country.

Father of the Bride released 3rd May 2019:

QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE – ” The Way You Used to Do “

Posted: July 24, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Matador Records

It’s been four years since Queens Of The Stone Age’s last album, “Like Clockwork”, wonderfully rewrote the rules on what a QOTSA album could and should be.

Now the band is back with a new record, “Villians”  produced by Mark Ronson , Its full of synths, big rock beats and Josh Homme’s heavy-sweet vocals, Villains is not what you expect, which is what you should expect from them by now. The album is not released until August. 25th, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a taste of what it’s all about right now.

The First Single Is About Josh Homme’s Rocker Wife “The Way You Used to Do,” which roared out to announce Villains in June, kicks off with Homme’s honeyed vocal crooning, “When I first met her she was 17,” which would certainly be creepy coming from a 44-year-old Homme if it weren’t for the fact that he’s referring to the story of how he met his future wife. The story goes that 17-year-old Brody Dalle, then the front woman of an Aussie punk band, met 22-year-old Josh at Lollapalooza in 1996 where he was the touring guitarist for Screaming Trees . They wouldn’t meet again for seven years, but she clearly left an impression. He, of course, went on to form Queens, and she would go on to the Distillers, and some really good solo work. They married in 2007 and have three kids.

 

 

MARK RONSON – ” Daffodils ” feat Kevin Parker

Posted: December 19, 2015 in MUSIC
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhT1DluDTqI

Mark Ronson brought along Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker and local legend Kirin J Callinan to perform ‘Daffodils’ live in the triple j studio for “Like A Version”.

Taken from what sounds like the best album Steely Dan have made in years. I’m being facetious, but Fagen and Becker are at least as big an influence on this album as the 70s and 80s R&B shining through on blockbuster single ‘Uptown Funk’. A travelogue through the US, musically and geographically, Ronson and co-producer Jeff Bhasker traverse the nation, discovering and changing the life of their ‘new Chaka Khan’, Keyone Starr (‘I Can’t Lose’), team up with novelist Michael Chabon for seedy tales of hipsters and overextended nightlife (‘Leaving Los Feliz’, ‘Daffodils’), ropes in Mystikal for a hip-hop shaker glancing at James Brown (‘Feel Right’) and two of the best upper-register voices in pop today – Kevin Parker and Andrew Wyatt, not to mention co-producer Bhasker on a joyous Stevie Wonder esque tune (‘In Case of Fire’) and Wonder himself to drop in on harp (‘Uptown’s First Finale’).

Mark Ronson’s approach as an artist is still defined by the area of music he first mastered – DJing. The joy and energy of slamming songs and styles against each other and bringing together unlikely pairings of musicians, almost like an organic version of sampling. It’s an admirable and generous approach to creativity, and you sometimes get the sense that life for Ronson is a perpetual jam filtered by his own impeccable taste and fuelled by the energy of his good-natured collaborators – not a fuckwit amongst them.

MARK RONSON and KEVIN PARKER – ” Daffodils “

Posted: January 9, 2015 in MUSIC
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Mark Ronson and his follow up release with the psych-disco jams of co-conspirator Kevin Parker ‘Daffodils’, so we can’t wait to hear what else Mark Ronson has in store for us when this lands on January 16th 2015.
That includes a few more cuts featuring the Tame Impala wizard, but he’s one of many, many special guests, as the super-producer  bring in other musical mates for the follow-up to 2010’s “Record Collection” include Kirin J. Callinan, Mystikal, Hudson Mohawke, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Miike Snow‘s Andrew Wyatt, and Stevie Wonder!