This week David Guetta and Kelly Rowland’s ‘When Love Takes Over’ retains the top spot in the Shazam Tag Chart for a second week. Meanwhile, new releases come from Paloma Faith, The Noisettes, The Yeah You’s and Jack Peñate – whose second album looks to be a serious change in direction for the London born singer.
Despite being piped to the X Factor crown last year, it looks as though cheeky R&B boy band JLS could still be headed for pop stardom. Although the band couldn’t match the vocal gymnastics of eventual X-factor winner Alexandra Burke, the group’s youthful charm and colour coded outfits still managed to win them plenty of fans. In the early weeks Jack The Lad Swing, to give JLS their full name, found themselves in the bottom two of the competition but by the semi finals the group had turned it around, gaining the most votes in the penultimate week of the competition. Whilst Alexandra Burke will have to compete with a plethora of female acts to gain attention of the music buying public, Leona Lewis, Duffy, Adele and La Roux to name but a few – JLS are probably the only ‘proper’ boy band around at the moment. This is especially odd when you consider it was only a few years ago that boy bands were the dominant force in British pop and you can bet Simon Cowell has already spotted the potential for JLS to conquer the profitable teenage music market. With this in mind, JLS go for the pop jugular on their first single, ‘Beat Again’, which is reminiscent of a Blue single with touches of Lady Gaga-esque production. Fresh from a recent tour with Lemar and the X-Factor winners, expect JLS to launch a full on assault on the charts in the next few weeks.
This August see’s the return of Sheffield’s finest export, Arctic Monkey’s. Humbug, their third long player, has seen the boys enlist the production talent’s of Queen’s Of The Stone Age front man Josh Homme as well as usual collaborator, Simian Mobile Disco’s, James Ford. The album is one of the most highly anticipated releases of the year and seems likely to repeat the success of ‘Whatever People Say I’m Not’ and ‘Favourite Worst Nightmare’.
The album is released on 24th August and the track listing is as follows:
My Propeller
Crying Lightning
Dangerous Animals
Secret Door
Potion Approaching
Fire And The Thud
Cornerstone
Dance Little Liar
Pretty Visitors
The Jeweller’s Hands
Following the release of the album the band will be headlining the Reading & Leeds Festivals, as well as playing a plethora of other festivals across the globe throughout the summer.
Shazam’s Pre-release chart is rapidly proving to be one of the best indicators around at predicting what tracks will be hot months before they are released. The chart is made up of the most tagged tracks in the UK that are not currently available for download or have yet to be released as a single. Tracks that have reached the Shazam pre-release chart number one spot this year and gone on to have major success on download stores and on radio include of La Roux’s ‘In For The Kill’ , Flo Rida’s ‘Right Round’ and The Noisettes ‘Don’t Upset The Rhythm’
This week David Guetta and Kelly Rowland’s ’When Love Takes Over’ tops the Shazam Tag Chart – making a good start to the summer for Guetta who headlines dance tent at Glastonbutry in a few weeks time.
The DJ, responsible for some of the most leftfield and innovative records in recent times has been doing his research on Cumbia, the traditional Latin American folk genre, particularly strong in Colombia, that’s experiencing a XXI century electro-facelift, coming from diferent parts of the American continent from Buenos Aires to Brooklyn, and is tipped to be the next big thing in clubs around the world.
His set at last weekend Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona, was regarded by many as one of the highlights of the event. Other heavyweights who stormed the seaside Spanish city were Neil Young on a two and a half live set which covered most of his classics; My Bloody Valentine on a double treat playing both outdoors and indoors at the Auditori the next day; Sonic Youth introducing their new album “The Eternal” and Yo La Tengo.
Other standout moments were The Vaselines, Throwing Muses and Jayhawks reunion; Drone kings Sunn)))o and British fine popsters Saint Etienne playing respective classic albums. Jarvis Cocker; Aphex Twin; Lightning Bolt, Alela Diane, Deerhoof, The Pains Of being Pure at Heart and Shellac.
A first taster of DJ/Rupture’s Cumbia findings can be found in the following mix, done for Ghetto Palms.
While other UK festivals clutter their line ups with effeminate, skinny jeaned indie-kids; Download Festival continues to supply the best in proper balls to the wall rock and roll. Now in its fifth year, Download Festival specialises in assembling the great and the good from the worlds of metal, alternative rock and hardcore. Past headliners have included icons such as Kiss, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath but 2009’s line up appears to trump all previous years as Download continues its policy of placing stadium filling rock mainstays against current hot properties of the rock scene. Highlights of this year’s event will see legends of US rock such as Whitesnake, ZZ Top, Mötley Crüe rub up against rub up against youngish up-starts such as The Prodigy, Pendulum and Dragonforce. Usually that would be enough to send most rockers weak at the knees but add to that Marilyn Manson and Nu-metal kings Limp Bizkit into the mix, both of which have sold out the 200,000 capacity Milton Keynes bowl on their own, and you can see why Download sold out in record time this year.
Highlights of the event will be broadcast on BBC Radio 1, fortunate for those wishing to rock-out but without a ticket. Just remember that circle pits, stage dives and crowd surfing are neither wise nor safe to attempt in your front room.
Download Festival : 12 June – 14 June, Donington Park
