In early March (last month) they announced that they are working on a new album, and a couple of weeks later, it was all of a sudden released not only on digital format but on CDs and vinyl as well without any promotion. Jack White commented that they wanted to record the songs and immediately have it available for the fans. How cool is that. This song is cool as band members Jack White and Brendan Benson alternate verses.
On April 9th, American Idol broadcasted “Idol Gives Back” a charity show where bunch of famous people such as Brad Pitt, Bono and a few WWE wrestlers and NFL’s Manning brothers came on urging viewers to donate money for the good cause. The show was 2.5 hours long and managed to raise over 20 million dollars. There were several performances on the show by big name artists like Annie Lennox, Gloria Estefan, Mariah Carey and actress Teri Hatcher covering Carrie Underwood’s song, and Underwood doing a song of her own. Everyone did sort of inspirational songs that suited the show, but Miley Cyrus did two of her pop songs that didn’t really seem to fit the “let’s donate money for the people in Africa theme.” And to add, she sounded terrible. And who would’ve thought to see Snoop rapping for charity? He brought Charlie Wilson with him to sing “Can’t Say Goodbye” which is also on his latest album, Ego Trippin’. A lot of rappers don’t sound that great live, but Snoop is always so smooth. All the live performances from the night are available on iTunes with all the proceeds going to charity. I decided to put my 99 cents for this song.
Is it just me or does this song sound like ELO’s “Don’t Bring Me Down”? Either way, it’s catchy, fun, pop and British, just the way I like it. Their album was released in UK a year ago, but it is finally getting a US release. Their other song, “Lay Down the Law” was used in the film, Jumper (I never saw it though).
I saw them perform live a couple of months ago. I think a lot of people had never heard of them until they opened up for The Bravery during the tour. They are British band, but they were signed in the States. The vocalist Coyle Girelli’s high pitch part reminds me of Bono.
Annie Lennox recorded this song with help from female superstars from around the globe to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS. To list all of the participants - Madonna, Celine Dion, Pink, Shakira, KT Tunstall, Dido, Faith Hill, Fergie, Sugababes, Beth Orton, Bonnie Raitt, Martha Wainwright, Joss Stone, Melissa Etheridge, Angelique Kidjo, Beverley Knight, KD Lang, Shingai Shoniwa, Gladys Knight, Isobel Campbell, Sarah McLachlan, Anastacia. 
Similar to The White Stripes, The Black Keys only has two people; one playing the guitar and singing, and the other on the drums. Their sound is also similar to The White Stripes as well since they both have that bluesy rock feel. This song also has a bit of eerie feeling similar to Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy.”
iTunes gives out free single each week on their site – some are good, some are forgettable. But I have to give them credit for giving away UK’s biggest hits for free. Last year, Amy Winehouse, earlier this year, Adele and earlier this month, Duffy’s hit single was available for free! Similar to those two female artists I mentioned, she has a cool smoky voice. Could she be the next Amy Winehouse in the US?
I really dig Duffy’s vocal style. She was recently on UK’s popular radio show, Radio 1’s Live Lounge, which is an excellent show where the guest artist plays acoustic set of their hit and covers somebody else’s hit. Earlier this month, Duffy covered Hot Chip’s “Ready For The Floor”, which sounds more like reworked than covering it as the popular dance track turns into more sad soulful song. I really loved the arrangement.
Flo Rida tries to prove that he is not going to be a one hit wonder from his “Low” single. His album was finally released, and it has enough guest stars to fill up the entire Billboard top 10 (Sean Kingston, Yung Joc, will.i.am to name a few). On this track, he enlists Timbaland who sings, “eleh-eleh-vator” reminiscent of “umbrella-elah-elah.”
For this year’s Acamedy Award’s best song award (I’m still bummed that none of the songs from Walk Hard was nominated), three songs from Disney’s Enchanted were nominated as well as this song from the movie, Once, which I’ve seen ads on the music magazines, but have never really heard of. And to everyone’s surprise, this song won, so I had to check it out. It’s a decent duet, but I much preferred Hugh Grant and Haley Benett’s “Way Back Into Love” duet better.
Gnarls Barkley, who took their name from Charles Barkley (I didn’t know that), is back with their second album. After having a huge hit, “Crazy” two years ago, everyone’s expecting them to do something crazy (no pun intended). This song is pretty good, but it definitely doesn’t grab me like how “Crazy” did. I would be interested to see if their next single may be any better.
This song is actually a few months old, and I was aware of it, as it showed up on iTunes chart after it was played on Grey’s Anatomy. I haven’t watched that show since it went downhill after season 3, but after hearing her entire album, I can hear that her music suits that show very well. This song was also used for Old Navy’s sweater commercial (YouTube) last fall as the song contains the line, “if you are chilly, here take my sweater.”
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