I’ve been following That Noise for a few years now (living in Los Angeles makes it easy to literally follow the band), and I’m always impressed with their ability to grow while simultaneously staying true to their signature sound. Their self-titled debut EP, released in 2008, gave us a taste of this sound — a blend of alternative rock with melodic riffs in the shape of synths and vocal melodies — and the track “No Words” illustrated their ability to beautifully integrate electronica into their music. Their next EP, the more upbeat and heart-pounding Derivatives (2009), furthered That Noise’s vision of combining rock and electronica with a little dose of vulnerability. The track “Balance” would get you dancing, and their rendition of Kings of Leon’s “Sex on Fire” is simply fantastic.
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I think it’s finally time to state the obvious: Damon Albarn is a one-man music-making machine, and there’s no stopping him. His brit-rock band Blur and his pseudo-hip-hop group Gorillaz continue to dominate Billboard charts and music headlines even after their announced hiatuses, and his work as a producer and collaborator on various side projects has turned him into the early 21st-century’s greatest multi-tasker. So having filled his last twenty years with contemporary and popular music, what’s a guy like Albarn to do with so many different projects at his beck and call? You guessed it: make an opera.
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Before last week I’d never been to a Springsteen show, and quite frankly I didn’t know what the big deal was. Yes, I grew up hearing his songs “Born in the USA” and “Dancing in the Dark” on the radio, but I was never really a big fan. I was in luck, though, because my date has apparently seen him in concert about 50 times over a span of 30 years. He wasn’t a fan, he was THE fan. “He is the rock god,” my date emphatically tells me, “And you’ll understand after you see the show.”
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“Well it’s 2012 / Think we’re going to hell” sings Ke$ha on the opening track to The Flaming Lips’ Record Store Day exclusive double-vinyl, The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends. Now I know exactly what you’re thinking: this is the truest and most on-point statement from any artist in the history of rock and roll and not just because, for all we know, the Mayan calendar has predicted this year to be the last year of human existence (or something along those lines). With all of their sporadic musical happenings in 2011 and leading up to Record Store Day, it’s almost fitting that The Flaming Lips would release a new record as one last psychedelic “Hurrah!” to celebrate the sheer mystery and terror of the upcoming end of humanity.
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About this time last year, I was hanging out in Copacabana beach (that’s Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) where I heard Céu’s music playing from a taxi cab whizzing by. Needless to say, the artist’s music brings me only happy memories, so I was eagerly anticipating her third studio album, Caravana Sereia Bloom. The release has a 1960s tropical music feel to it, and I can almost imagine myself as a pin-up girl with cat-eye sunglasses lounging on Ipanema Beach while listening to it. Not a bad place to be.
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Hearing the notorious criminal mastermind Charles Manson say “The game is mine, I deal the cards” on the opening track to Death Grips’ 2011 masterful underground mixtape Exmilitary pretty much set the stage for how to perceive the industrial hip-hop/rap group as a rising musical entity. Their loud, hostile, elemental suspense and propensity for experimental beats and noises resulted in the kind of varietal intrigue I couldn’t quite put my finger on. The tracks made me want to keep going back to listen again in an attempt to fully consume what was there even though I knew that going back meant facing the unknown.

The most intriguing thing, though, is that there is really nothing we can do about the situation; Death Grips knows they’re prodding hip-hop and rap, bringing the genres to the outermost tier. The game is theirs, and they‘re dealing the cards.
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