That’s just music

The re-released version of The Rolling Stones 1972 album “Exile On Main Street” was not able to win over the American hits chart. This legendary album was stopped by the recently released soundtrack from the “Glee”, which is broadcasted by the Fox channel. “Glee - The Music Volume 3: Showstoppers” was able to sell 136 thousand copies in only one week, so even The Rolling Stones had to back up. In contrast, the rock n’ roll legends were able to sell 76 thousand copies, thus showing that time is not staying still, and even some soundtrack from some modern series can stand on the way. At the same time in Britain “Exile On Main Street” went up to number one, and also according to the Rolling Stone magazine was put on the seventh place among the best albums that were ever produced. Well, this magazine is surely about to give any prize or award to it’s twin brother in name, but of course it can’t be otherwise in this case because “Exile On Main Street” is definitely one of the greatest. The last time when The Rolling Stones’ album went number one in Britain was way back in 1994 with it’s “Voodoo Lounge”; pretty cool record by the way. Currently, music analysts are predicting that the next week’s leader of the American hits chart will be the Stone Temple Pilots album - the first in nine years.

Canadian indie-rock band Arcade Fire had announced the release of it’s third studio album. This band is definitely trying to impress the music world with it’s creativity, and “indie-talent” which is so important in our time. As the New Musical Express notes, the new album will be called “The Suburbs” and it should be in stores starting from August 2; the band’s official website is allowing to make pre-orders. Previously, Arcade Fire had presented it’s first single which consists of two songs, “The Suburbs” and “Month of May”, the first song is obviously the name of the album, however, only independent music stores were able to receive this single, so their indie philosophy is still moving on. Their third album took some time to get recorded, totally they’ve spent two years by sitting in Montreal and New York studios to finally get it finished. Infamous producer Marcus Dravs turned to be it’s co-producer, he is also well known for working with Coldplay, James and Bjork. Arcade Fire was quite lucky to find him and of course he was lucky too find them because currently there are not a lot of bands which sound as them or can produce better music. Right before the release Arcade Fire will start touring activities and should present itself on many rock festivals such as Rock Werchter in Belgium (July 4), Oxegen in Ireland (July 9), Osheaga in Canada (July 31), and Lollapalooza in US (August 8). Their previous album “Neon Bible” came out in March, 2007. 

Infamous U2 had decided not to participate at the Glastonbury-2010 music festival in England, said BBC News. This band was supposed to be one of the headliners, but now fans and just ordinary listeners will not be able to see them on that grandiose show. The reason for it is Bono’s back injury, which took place during the last week, he simply can’t perform and the whole recovery process may take a lot of time. A singer got hurt while getting prepared for the second half of his band’s world tour in support of “No Line On The Horizon” album, so now both events shall go into nowhere. U2’s performance at the Glastonbury festival on June 25 (40th anniversary of the festival by the way) had to be incorporated into “No Line On The Horizon” tour. Bono was hospitalized into one of the Germany’s hospitals where he has undergone the major spinal surgery, which turned out to be very successful. Currently, a legendary singer is recovering at home, but unluckily doctors believe that he cannot sing on the stage; walking is more important than singing. After all music can wait, and fans should wait too because without him being able to move around, there will be no music.

Legendary British band The Faces is going to return to the stage activities, said New Musical Express. Musicians are planning to perform at the Vintage At Goodwood festival, which will take place in Sussex, England (13-15 of August). Original band’s vocalist Rod Stewart had decided not to participate in the reunion, so they’ve chose a singer from Simply Red, Mick Hucknall. Besides that, the dead bassist Ronnie Lane shall be replaced by Glen Matlock from Sex Pistols. The rest of the lineup remains the same, Ian McLagan, drummer Kenney Jones and guitarist Ronnie Wood (also The Rolling Stones) keep on staying in the band. A lot of critics believed that they will never return, but surely their prognosis turned to be absolutely false. Even though Rod Stewart went into denial, and wants to stay away, Mr. Hucknall will hopefully do a good job, not worse than the one done by his predecessor. The Faces was formed in 1969 by the Small Faces and The Jeff Beck Group, it lasted until 1975 releasing four studio and one concert album. In October 2009 musicians have reunited in London to perform only at one concert, but without Rod Stewart’s presence. After all, it’s always very cool to see the old bands coming back, especially if they’ve disappeared many years ago, now it’s possible to see them rocking on once again.

Ex-Genesis vocalist Peter Gabriel had recently dedicated his live performance to support the campaign which is aimed to save the original landscape of the Woolley Valley and Solsbury Hill (near Bath) in the Somersetshire, England, said The Guardian. Musician had lived in the area for more than ten years and even wrote a song which is praising it - “Solsbury Hill”; it was released in 1977 and became Gabriel’s first single after leaving Genesis, and his first solo success. A song went up to number 13 on the British hits chart, so Peter’s fight for the landscape and nature began a long time ago. Currently, the problem dwells in the fact that the Golden Valley Paddocks company is planning to start some strange construction process right on the Solsbury Hill, particularly it would be a farm and the new road. Protest organizers are insisting that such things will also include the destruction of the region’s natural beauty, the most stunning picturesque in the Western England. However, the construction company says that they’re not destroying anything, and all they do correlates with the nature itself all the way through.  Peter Gabriel had specifically arrived from Los Angeles to support the protesters because according to his opinion this situation is totally getting out of control; he was also very shattered by the indifference shown on the side of the Somersetshire county authorities.

Saint Lucia’s tourist officials have decided to return Amy Winehouse back to the island by offering the free drinks, said The Daily Star. The fact is that a retro-soul singer was on vacation a few months ago at the mentioned above island, and probably has turned to be very successful in terms of bringing lots of cash to the local liquor business. Saint Lucia’s tourist firms believe that Winehouse’s presence may raise such sales and more people will go to the island, bars and pubs should prosper with her existence in the area. Well, well,  this woman had definitely built some strong reputation if some authorities and businessmen think that her presence should influence the influx of drinkers to their island; Amy gets things going, that’s for sure. Some statistics say that in August 2009 alcohol sales went up at Saint Lucia due to the jazz festival, which was headlined by Winehouse. Before the concert she drank too much alcohol and behaved as someone who was pretty wild, she crawled and asked pedestrians to buy her a drink. Saint Lucia’s performance was a total failure, Winehouse was wasted and the crowd ‘had whistled her off’. However, with the help of Amy’s eccentric behavior, local bars were able to earn money as never before, and surely they would like to repeat it once again. At the same time she must think before going into this game at the island because free drinks is something quite powerful for someone like her, and the local population as well.

Members of the legendary American band The Doors, keyboardist Ray Manzarek and guitarist Robby Krieger have announced the US tour for specifically new vocalist, Miljenko Matijevic, said MusicRadar. This guy is a frontman of the glam-metal band Steelheart, he was born in Zagreb, Croatia and had moved to the United States with his parents in the yearly youth were he began to experiment with the music. Besides Steelheart, he is famous for trying to become the Velvet Revolver vocalist, but actually failed to do so. The new trio which consists of Manzarek, Krieger and Matijevic will not be able to use the title “The Doors” because previously another member of the band, John Densmore, had forbade them to use it through the court decision. Therefore, they will just call it “Manzarek-Krieger”, and surely the whole agenda may not change a lot, after all it’s not about names or titles, but merely about people’s talents. Previously, two musicians were performing under the name of The Doors Of The 21st Century, D21C and Riders On The Storm by replacing the long gone Jim Morrison with Ian Astbury of The Cult, and by a Fuel vocalist Brett Scallions. Densmore had decided not to participate in these reunions believing that they cannot replace Jim Morrison whatsoever. Of course, nobody can replace that genius, but after all why not trying to perform the music?

Martin Scorsese is planning to release a documentary movie about George Harrison in 2011, said The Hollywood Reporter. This decision is probably one of the best if choosing musicians from The Beatles because Harrison is the least known guy in that legendary band. Lennon or McCartney stand in front of the other two, Ringo Starr and George Harrison, young generations often don’t even know the guy, and surely it’s not something he deserves. Scorsese’s documentary will show his life before and after his presence in The Beatles, and should be called “Living in the Material World: George Harrison”. It looks as this title fits him very accurately, Harrison was quite spiritual, did not search for the great fame and simply seemed to be a guru of The Beatles. Scorsese is co-working with his widow Olivia who gave a lot of material from her personal archive; most of them were not publicized before, so viewers and the fans may find out a lot of new things about their hero. She allowed Scorsese to use videos that were prepared by Harrison himself because he was planning to make his own documentary about the band of his life, but unfortunately has died before it was ready. Martin Scorsese was not the first director to ask Olivia about Harrison’s material, but she kept on denying everyone, obviously she possesses a lot of respect toward him, and definitely not without a reason. Scorsese is one of the most prominent directors today, and it was very fair on her side to trust him.

A singer from Taiwan Lin Yu Chun who became famous with the help of YouTube had signed a contract with Sony Music record label, said The Guardian. This guy began to gain fame in Taiwan while participating in the local reality show called “Avenue to Stardom” were he had performed Dolly Parton’s song “I will Always Love You” which is more famous in Whitney Houston’s interpretation. The video had appeared on YouTube in the beginning of April and since then it was viewed by tens of millions of people. Almost immediately he was compared to another self made and unexpected singer from Scotland Susan Boyle who became well known in 2009 during the similar show “Britain’s Got Talent”. At the same time Boyle was spread all over the Internet as much as Lin Yu Chun; practically online is making things work out in an incredible way and life turns to be very surprising to some totally unknown performers. Surely, they are not becoming true musicians or at least the world did not have a chance to see them in ten or twenty years so far to tell whether they can become true professionals. Nevertheless, today the Internet is a powerful tool which can shift things on one hundred and sixty degrees for those who did not have a chance before.

The new Moby’s album which is called “Wait For Me. Remixes!” is going to be released on May 17. It’s name speaks for itself, it includes remixes based on songs that are considered to be the best in electronic music and constantly receive the highest scores. Moby had incorporated such talented names as Tiesto, Laidback Luke, Gui Boratto and Carl Cox. When talking about his remix, Tiesto had underlined that it’s absolutely stunning to produce remixes of tracks that were written by a man who was standing at the roots of the electronic music. Particularly, he talked about Moby’s “Shot In The Back Of The Head”, which he always liked more than any other one, it always gave him that very special inspiration and fulfilled with the deep feeling; Tiesto likes what came out of his remix. Carl Cox told that Moby is one of the best musicians to work with, specifically noting his human qualities and professionalism. Laidback Luke who has created the remix on “Wait For Me” had opened a little secret - in the new version this track will carry some techno melancholy in the style of “Shake It Down!” The album will include a new song called “Gone To Sleep” and an acoustic version of the previous single “One Time We Lived”. Basically, the whole record includes remixes from many more musicians such as Yousef, Paul Kalkbrenner, Jean Elan, Zodiac Cartel, Villa and Christoffer Berg (Fever Ray). Moby himself noted that his own inspiration to produce this record came from the first album of the punk band Black Flag - “Damaged”, were he was able to hear ‘hopeless and cruel notes’.