8 months 1 week ago
For this second instalment of the Netflix TV series ‘Queer Eye’, Australia-born and Los Angeles-based pop star Betty Who revamped the original theme song. Her version clocks in at 1’44. It doesn’t happen often I wished a song lasted double its time. bit.ly/CBMbettywho
8 months 1 week ago
One of the most important success stories in this week's European Border Breakers Charts comes from Albin Lee Meldau (pictured). Not only is his song Try one of the 8 first-timers, he also sees 2 of his tracks re-enter the chart.
For the full Top 100, check http://bit.ly/CBMebbc
Nicole Atkins melts crooner music, Americana, blues, country, pop noir and soul into her own distinguished sound. In a righteous world, she would have been as popular as Lana Del Rey (who must be one of Atkins’s biggest fans).
Her latest album Goodnight Rhonda Lee, that already spawned the great single Sleepwalking, features the track Brokedown Luck. Atkins arranged the horns and co-wrote the song with Jim Sclavunos of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, and it has now been chosen as the album’s new single. It comes with a video complete with Elvis impersonators, nuns, ‘shred bull’ and lots of puppetry. The singer even turns into a puppet herself. So, why haven’t you hit ‘play’ yet? ?
For more great new music follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
pop | soulWhat were the musical highlights in a week where I added new tracks by the likes of The Aces, Mamas Gun, Meshell Ndegeocello, Our Lady Peace, and Pale Waves to my 2018 container playlist Carte Blanche Music?
Below you’ll find a new edition of Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters:
Listen to all the tracks via the Werner’s Weekly player in the sidebar and check the stories behind the music via the links above.
For more great new music follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
dance | folk | pop | rock | soul | trip hopLondon-based vocalist Jareth, who has quite a few collaborations to her name, finally drops her debut single as a lead artist. An impressive debut, I might add, and one that’s not easy to pigeonhole.
Kaleidoscope sits somewhere between analogue and digital; between soul and trip hop. It has a dreamy atmosphere, created by stripped back percussion, soft spiralling keys and especially a warm and intense vocal performance. Imagine Massive Attack covering Riders On The Storm with Dua Lipa on guest vocals.
An intriguing first glimpse at Jareth’s forthcoming EP Moonchild.
For more great new music follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
pop | soul | trip hopLast year, I wrote about Kat Eaton’s first single The Joker, a track from the Sheffield singer’s debut EP When You’re Not Around. Another track off that EP is now out as her new single, albeit in remixed form.
Eaton has been playing Robbing You Blind since 2015 and three years later, this four to the floor soul stomper is likely to propel her to a larger audience. Go Kat, go!
For more great new music follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
pop | soulAfter a week full of new music in all the genres you can think of, it’s time to draw some conclusions and decide which songs will and will not make it onto Werner’s Weekly. And here it is, your compass to the music that matters. In other words: the best tracks from the past week:
You can listen to each of the songs via the Werner’s Weekly player in the sidebar and read about them by clicking the links above.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist, with recent additions by Albert Hammond Jr., Blue October, Kate Nash, The Mowgli’s, Pale Waves, Paramore, Stereophonics, Vance Joy and many more.
disco | electronic | gospel | jazz | pop | rock | soulIn 2012, after enjoying a budding career in musical theatre back home in the UK, Desi Valentine decided to try and break into the music scene and moved from London to Los Angeles. He cites Adele’s 21 as the album that motivated him to move forward as a soul singer. Nina Simone and Amy Winehouse influenced him as well.
Valentine gives retro soul a modern twist, but still describes himself as an old school soul singer. His music is both emotionally impassioned and irresistibly danceable, and characterized by his powerful vocal delivery. Higher Heart is his new single!
For more great new music follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
pop | soulNashville may be known as the country capital, but the music scene is so much more diverse there… It is also the place Anderson East calls home, an artist who is more into soul and jazz.
His latest album Encore features a song that he wrote with Avicii. At first sight, this may appear to be an odd combination, but their ten-hour-long writing session ended up in a great track. Girlfriend is a horn-heavy blaster about falling in love with another guy’s girl. Is it about his own girlfriend then, country music superstar Miranda Lambert, whom he started dating after she broke up with her husband Blake Shelton? Nope, it’s not, East claims. Just so you know…
jazz | pop | soulSince 1990, Glen Hansard is the frontman of Irish rock band The Frames. But he also released three solo albums to date, Between Two Shores being the most recent one. Roll On Slow is the new single off that record. It features a great horn arrangement.
Hansard says about the track: “Roll On Slow was written while I was living in a former women’s refuge called the Florence Mission on Bleecker Street in New York City. My girlfriend was away in Europe and I was drinking too much. I was walking home from a bar at dawn, which was happening a few too many mornings in a row. The song is simply about missing your girl and being unable to take care of yourself.”
In support of his new album, Glen Hansard and his band will play twelve gigs in Europe this February.
pop | rock | soulWerner’s Weekly, a.k.a. ‘the best of the Carte Blanche Music blog’, is your compass to the music that matters. It features a wide variety of genres, even though it only holds five tracks this week:
Click on the links to read the original recommendations and listen to the tracks via the Werner’s Weekly player in the sidebar.
If this made you hungry for more, please subscribe to my container playlist Carte Blanche Music, a.k.a. ‘the best of 2018’. Only last week, I added Belle & Sebastian, Fall Out Boy, Franz Ferdinand, Hailee Steinfeld, The Hunna, Kakkmaddafakka and many other top tracks to it. Only two weeks into the new year, the list is already over two and a half hours of great new music long. A promising start!
dance | electronic | gospel | pop | rock | soulSinger-songwriter and producer Andy Platts is both the front man of Mamas Gun and the ‘young gun’ in Young Gun Silver Fox. On Mamas Gun’s fourth album Golden Days (out on 23 February), the sound of the two projects connects better than ever before, undoubtedly appealing to both bands’ audiences. Throughout the record (yes, it’ll also be released on vinyl), Mamas Gun’s funky soul sound merges seamlessly with the west coast influences in Young Gun Silver Fox’s music.
One of the reasons may be, that ‘silver fox’ Shawn Lee lends a helping hand, alongside Andy Ross and Dominic Glover of horn section the Dap-Kings and songwriters Connor Reeves (Tina Turner, Joss Stone, Joe Cocker) and Christopher Braide (Sia, Lana Del Rey, Paloma Faith).
The whole album is an analog recording, and sounds like a classic soul/R&B album with a strong Motown feel to it. I Need A Win is the set’s first single.
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