That’s just music

It became known that at the Eurovision-2012 contest Armenia may be represented by the infamous American band System of a Down due to it’s Armenian descent. This curious information just came from one of the local Armenian newspapers, and according to it’s staff very soon Armenian higher television officials shall approve this information to the wider public. However, there is no direct prove so far, nobody on the side of the band had confirmed such an interesting sensation, but the newspaper is sure of the fact that the “diplomatic” process was already unleashed. This year’s Eurovision contest was won by the duet from Azerbaijan, thus the next year’s event will take place in the latter country’s capital Baku. Right after the result was sounded before the whole world, some rumors began to deny Armenia’s presence at the next contest. Also, the same rumors were not commented by the Armenian officials, who direct radio and television broadcasts. The whole problem lies in the fact that both countries are not in the best political relations, and often can be considered as two worst enemies for each other. There is no question that System of a Down is the best choice, but their music and the actual level of professionalism can fit the Eurovision contest. They’re not acquired for any philharmonic venues, which are truly reflecting the whole musical agenda behind Eurovision. Simply, it would be totally awesome if System of a Down enters this contest and shows to everyone what kind of musical power can be shown by them. 

Infamous Pearl Jam had participated in the recording of the charity album, which should benefit various organizations that help homeless people, noted Undercover. The whole work is going to be called “Live From Nowhere Near You Vol II”, it’s already incorporating 210 minutes of music; Portland based label Greyday Records will release this album on three disks at a time and generally speaking the public may see it in stores on July 16, however, rumors keep on stating that the first country to hear it will be U.S. and Canada. The original first half of the album came out in 2003, and right since the beginning the basic goal of this release belongs to one simply thing, street musicians are recording together with those who are well known. Besides Pearl Jam such bands as The Strokes, The Decemberists, Ryan Adams and many others took their parts in the recording process, so the final result must appear as something quite good and talented. Basically, Pearl Jam is now trying to participate in all kinds of projects or recordings that seem to be a little bit different from what was going with their repertoire two decades ago. Nevertheless, whatever is going on with them, they still produce qualified music and what is the most important there is no participations in anything bad. At the same time this band’s music belongs to that legendary Seattle sound of the early 90’s and will always be there in the future.

French studio Ubisoft will release the video game created with the help of The Black Eyed Peas songs, noted ContactMusic; and amazingly the first trailer is already available on YouTube. So called The Black Eyed Peas Experience project should be built on unique qualities of the previously released electronic simulator ‘Just Dance’, which is going to enable numerous sound or graphic possibilities. It’s planned that the above mentioned game will be constructed only for Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360 platforms, others shall wait for a few more months. The number of hits that will be used in this game are “I Gotta Feeling” and “Rock The Party”, at the same time there is no exact information on when The Black Eyed Peas Experience will come out, usually such release dates are hidden from the public until the last moment; the reason for it is always a little bit miraculous. In November 2010 Ubisoft had released the same kind of project titled Michael Jackson: The Experience, it was not welcomed with enough warmth on the side of critics because the game didn’t include his real videos, but commercial success was obvious. Ubisoft is dealing with production and development of video games since 1986 and currently they incorporate various studios from more than twenty countries around the world. Their products include such infamous games as Assassin’s Creed, Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, Prince of Persia and many others. In other words this largest producer of video games is going to co-operate with musicians.

Evanescence and Paramore vocalists Amy Lee and Hayley Williams had participated in recording of the tribute album dedicated to muppets, noted New Musical Express. This release should incorporate songs that were previously aired during television shows and movies, which included muppets. Particularly, Williams used to co-work with Weezer by writing a song called “Rainbow Connection”. On the other hand Amy Lee had prepared a cover on “Halfway Down The Stairs”, and besides these two musicians work on the album used talents from such groups as OK Go, My Morning Jacket and others. The whole tribute will be titled “The Green Album” and it should come out on August 23 this year, but the first country to see it will be US. Here is the full track-list:

1. OK Go – “Muppet Show Theme”
2. Weezer and Hayley Williams – “Rainbow Connection”
3. The Fray – “Mahna Mahna”
4. Alkaline Trio – “Moving Right Along”
5. My Morning Jacket – “Our World”
6. Amy Lee – “Halfway Down The Stairs”
7. Sondre Lerche – “Mr Bassman”
8. The Airborne Toxic Event – “Wishing Song”
9. Brandon Saller and Billy Martin – “Night Life”
10. Andrew Bird – “Bein’ Green”
11. Matt Nathanson – “Hope That Something Better Comes Along”
12. Rachael Yamagata – “I’m Going To Go Back There Someday”

Muppet-dolls were invented by Jim Hanson way back in 1950’s, but the program itself began to air under the name “Muppet-show” only in 1976, totally six seasons were made while gaining a lot of popularity among numerous viewers. Such infamous people as Steve Martin, Elton John, Alice Cooper, Sylvester Stallone, Liza Minnelli used to visit the show. The original movie about muppets was released in 1979, and by the end of 2011 another similar film must be made up, so everything shall be linked to Hanson’s funny dolls. Amy Lee and Hayley Williams are surely used to enjoy this show for years, right since they were children.

British singer Morrissey had complained about the fact that he can’t find the right record label, which may release his new album, noted Pitchfork. It’s expected that the whole material is totally ready, and additionally it should include some new songs; the guy had recently presented them in public during his concerts in Britain. According to Morrissey’s opinion, record companies wish to sign up contracts merely with young musicians, it can be explained by producer’s strives to explore someone absolutely new, some kind of musician, who can “shoot” for the first time under the given producer. “Not many labels want bands who have already made their mark, because their success is usually attributed to some other label somewhere else at another time,” said Morrissey. His ninth and the most recent album “Years of Refusal” hit the stores in the middle of February 2009, eventually it was able to reach a third spot at the British hits chart and eleventh place on the Billboard 200 list. Basically, this musician is truly talented and shall find another label that should sign his new album once again. After all such singers as him are seriously large within the frames of the music business, and not a single youngster can rival with him. Practically, in this particular situation Morrissey must not worry at all regarding his future career.

Bluewater Production is going to release a cartoon about Madonna’s life within the frames of it’s Female Force series, noted the latter publisher in it’s official press release. Her life will be portrayed on the thirty two page standard booklet, which should come out in August this year, and should go for the price of 3.99$. Cartoon itself must be placed for sale in regular book stores and numerous Internet sites, thus the scale of the whole publishing is not small. As the Bluewater Production’s vice-president Jason Schultz had noted, they’re planning to highlight those moments of her life that are not very well known, but had influenced a singer’s artistic career. CW Cooke who was a major person behind the text of this cartoon had said that he wanted to tell people about Madonna’s ability to get out from nowhere into the greatness, and particular details of how it became possible for her. Bluewater Production is not doing something as this for the first time, Female Force series did previously include biographies of Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, princess Diana, and Joanne Rowling. Self made women are of particular interest to them, they wish to show others how they made it to the top, often without any real support from their relatives, merely talent and ability to strive forward. The real positive influence of such cartoons is surely obvious.

Lady Gaga had arrived in Tokyo in order to participate in the Video Music Aid Japan event, and noted that most of Japan is absolutely safe, also she encouraged tourists to visit it, said Gigwise. Above mentioned event was organized by MTV and will take place in Tokyo on June 25; besides Lady Gaga many Japanese pop artists shall participate, and eventually all financial gains should be given to the Red Cross. Previously, she used to participate in such charity events, notably, she had developed the number of bracelets, which were available for purchasing at her official website, every bracelet was worthy of five dollars and in that case all the money were also given to support Japanese tsunami victims. Literally, this singer is taking care of many good things, and as the result, all of them will be giving her more power because generosity can go only in the positive direction. This time she is really showing this kind of activity, and moreover disproves some rumors that people as her can’t be warm hearted. On the other hand her other activities didn’t go unnoticed, her dress made of meat, which she had presented during the MTV Video Music Awards in 2010 will be exposed at the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame museum, said Associated Press. Basically, this dress will be kept at the room which is dedicated to the role of women in the development of music industry.

Recently it became absolutely well known that Amy Winehouse is not going to continue her European tour planned for the summer of 2011, noted New Musical Express. The whole process began at the Fortress festival in Serbia on June 18, however, it all turned out to be very unsuccessful because she was not sober and simply couldn’t really perform the way she can, so eventually managers had cancelled two upcoming shows. Istanbul and Athens concerts planned for June 20 and June 22 were taken out of the whole plan just to make other venues become possible, and the next show was supposed to take place in Spain’s Bilbao, plus eight more had to follow it. Nevertheless, now it’s known that the whole tour went down, and as her representatives said, all people, who stand near hear will do all they can in order to make Winehouse get back into shape. The whole situation seems to be quite unpleasant because it all means that she is in the worst shape possible, two cancellations couldn’t help and now those who care shall deal with her health. For any musician any kind of cancellation is the tragedy, they truly hate when the show can’t take place for some reason, in this case the reason is extremely shameful, it’s obvious that Winehouse is continuing her totally wild lifestyle. Hopefully, she is going to manage it and later this year fans will see her at the stage.

Ex-Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant is going to receive the Spirit Award in Montreal; this particular prize is given by the authority of the International Jazz festival, which takes place in the mentioned above city. The whole thing will be carried out on June 24 during Plant’s and his band’s performance (Band of Joy). The festival itself will start the next day and shall last until July 4, so numerous people must be able to see everything what this event keeps for them. In previous years a lot more musicians had received the Spirit Award, and those were Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson, thus Plant is definitely standing on the same level with these guys. In July 2011 Robert Plant and the Band of Joy will visit continental Europe and the concert program is based on the material written for the “Band of Joy” album released in September last year. However, it’s well known that set-lists of the current tour should also include some repertoire which can be related to Led Zeppelin, and this is not strange because Plant without this legendary past of his simply can’t be imagined whatsoever. This great band is part of his life and the art of music, which now belongs to the world’s heritage of culture, and it’s obvious that any listener, who goes to see him shall feel some sort of longing for Led Zeppelin.

British singer Amy Winehouse had cancelled her upcoming shows in Turkey and Greece after pretty bad performance, which took place in Serbia on June 18, noted Agence France-Presse. During that particular concert she was in bad shape and simply couldn’t sing well. During one hour and a half time she left the stage twice, and twenty million listeners had to wait, plus the whole concert wasn’t good. Eventually managers had decided to wait and get rid of two planned venues due to the fact that she may not be able to do it properly. The other concert within the frames of her European tour is currently planned on July 8 in Bilbao, and as many people hope it will take place without any problems. At the same time, who knows what may happen in the nearest future with Amy’s career, she is surely not in the best shape, even though not so long ago many news agencies were saying that she can do it no matter what and there is no health problem. This is sad because she is definitely capable of producing way more, and her certain potential is getting nowhere because of this terrible lifestyle, surely every new album is capable of adding up to the previous two very successful works. Two albums released in 2003 and 2006 gave her an unprecedented fame, the whole talent of this great singer was shown in full force, however, now it seems that she is not very interested in repeating it.