On This Day…
1959 – The winners of the first Grammy Awards were announced. Domenico Modugno’s ‘Volare’ was Record of the Year; Henry Mancini’s ‘Peter Gunn’ was Album of the Year and The Champs ‘Tequila’ won best R&B performance.
1966 – John Lennon’s statement that The Beatles were ‘more popular than Jesus Christ’ was published in The London Evening Standard. “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. We’re more popular then Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first, rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was alright, but his disciples were thick and ordinary.” Christian groups in the US were outraged resulting in some states burning Beatles records. Lennon later apologized.
1994 – Kurt Cobain was rushed to hospital after overdosing on alcohol and drugs in a Rome hotel during a Nirvana European tour. Cobain had taken 50-60 pills of Rohypnol mixed with champagne; rumours on the internet claimed that Kurt was dead.
2012 – According to Nielsen SoundScan in the US, vinyl sales increased 36 percent in 2011 compared to the previous year, concluding that vinyl records where making a big comeback for music fans.
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Brand New Music
Kendrick Lamar | untitled, unmastered
A compilation of unreleased tracks from the last 2 years, although they were mostly all debuted on various late night programs. Even if this wasn’t a pile of leftovers from the cutting room floor it would still be a great record.
Låpsley | Long Way Home
Lush and full of potential, Låpsley has a way with melancholy songs on Long Way Home. Veering on the edge of being a little too much like Adele she locks herself into her own minor-key and superb electronic music.
M. Ward | More Rain
M. Ward has a really bad reputation of not really exploring much in terms of new music, which really turns any new listeners off to new LPs. Unfortunately, for M. Ward, while he does seem a little more willing to embrace a more electronic influence into his thoughtful folk music, M. Ward still relies on too many of his old staples to really say that this is anything more than “just another M. Ward record”. For those who love him, they will love this record. But those who are not really into M. Ward won’t even give More Rain a chance, either rightly or wrongly.
