Mega Music Talent

After 7 weeks in the charts B.o.B have finally claimed the number one spot, have a look over at Amazon for reviews and other information.

18th July 2010

Review

Although he’s revelled in being divisive throughout his career, Eminem himself sided with the critics after the release of 2009’s Relapse. The rapper’s comeback LP, arriving five years after the so-so Encore preceded a brief musical hiatus, was a huge disappointment. It sounded as if Marshall Bruce Mathers III was acting through provocation rather than inspiration. He rallied against artists who dared to slide into his spotlight, reacting to those who had thought h (more…)

18th July 2010

Review

Kylie Minogue. You may have heard of her. You probably have a favourite era or phase: perhaps when she was Indie Kylie and hanging with Nick Cave and the Manics; or Dance Kylie, when she minxed up in the mid-90s. Maybe you like the tinny early SAW efforts that launched her from a soap being onto a trajectory of superstardom, and breathed a sigh of relief when she rediscovered her pop mojo in the early 00s. Whatever the time or place, there’s no denying that in the 23 y (more…)

11th July 2010

Straight in at number 1 with The Club is Alive are X Factor find JLS, have a look over at Amazon for reviews and other information.

11th July 2010

To create rap beats with today’s latest innovations in technology has been made less difficult and far more easily accessible for today’s aspiring beat makers, those who have little to no experience in audio production, and people who merely have the flair and interest in making music.

It used to just be about the juxtaposition of a multitude of sounds from various different musical instruments, thus entailing a huge chunk of your time and an investment of your hard-earned money. But now there are a lot of tools on the market that top hip hop producers use on their tracks and there are a ton of software products available online for making rap beats for those who are just starting out and making their way towards a career in the music industry.

Most of today’s songs are not boxed into one musical genre alone. The continuous evolution of music make it easier to create a diverse palette of sounds to mix and match with a variety of other genres from hip hop to pop to funk to metal. Nowadays, you can hear Dirty South elements fused with jazz or Crunk combined with soul and R&B in a wide range of music hybrid compositions. All you need to achieve this is a good ear for music and the right kind of equipment to create hip hop beats. Your creative imagination supported by your unique style will help in setting you apart from the crowd in defining your original sound and potentially innovative producing techniques.

The following are a few of the best tools and software that most producers are using these days for creating some of the music industries chart topping hits: Read the rest of this entry »

Until November 1969, Carole King was known only as a songwriter. She wrote 22 Top 40 hits for artists such as Aretha Franklin and The Monkees. She penned music to classics such as “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” a #1 hit sung by the Shirelles, and The Drifters’ “Up on the Roof.” Since that time, King has gone on to achieve huge success as a solo recording artist. She has sold multi-platinum albums, won several Grammy® Awards, and been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Over 1,000 artists have recorded her 400 compositions, resulting in 100 hit singles, many of which have reached the #1 spot on the charts. King is still regarded as the most successful songwriter in the history of popular music.

King became interested in music at the age of four, when she started playing the piano. She started her first band the Co-sines while in high school. She was known well enough at the time that Neil Sedaka had a hit song dedicated to her entitled “Oh! Carol.” King went on to co-write songs with her first husband Gerry Goffin. Their collaboration yielded hits like “Don’t Bring Me Down” sung by The Animals and “I’m Into Something Good” sung by Herman’s Hermits. In 1962, their song “Loco-Motion” went to #1.

Tomorrow Records was the name of King and Goffin’s first label. King went on to form a band called the City in 1968. The band included Danny Kortchmer who was formerly of Flying Machine, a group that featured James Taylor as its vocalist. The City recorded one album entitled Now That Everything’s Been Said. Some of the songs on this album were successfully re-recorded by other artists, including “You’ve Got a Friend” which was covered by Taylor. Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve spent countless hours writing and rehearsing Your songs. Another few hundred more in the studio recording them and just for good measure another hundred or so mixing it till it sounds just right. Now the album is soon to go for mastering and You’re putting the finishing touches on the way the album is going to play out. Here are a few tips I found helpful when putting the final play list together.

1) Put Your lead single in the first 3 songs.

The reasoning behind this is that when people buy your album they will most probably buy it because they enjoy your lead single. This means that when they look at the playlist on the back of the Cd one of their first thoughts is ‘where’s the single?’ Now if they see it in the top three they would be more likely to listen to the two other songs in the top 3 as they’ll be thinking ‘well at least the lead single is only a song away so I might as well give this song a chance’.

Also if for example your lead single was song number 2 they will most likely end up listening to song number 3 because they are already in the ‘groove’ of your music and thus would let the songs run. Having another solid song in the top 3 is also a plus as You make a great impression early on.

Another small addition is to make the silence at the end of the lead single and the silence at the beginning of the song after it particularly short so that the break between the lead single and the song after it is quick.

If the lead single was in the center of the album the chances are that the listener will skip directly to it and then end up listening to the subsequent songs. This would mean a large chunk of material will be skipped in the first listen through.

2) Make the Song after Your lead Single a Solid Track.

After listening to Your first single your listener will be in the mood for some more of your best material and so serve them with it! If they listen to two solid songs in a row that’s when they will say ‘wow, these guys must have a pretty solid album’ and will be more open to listening to your more diverse songs.

Now when I write ‘a solid track’ I don’t mean that it has to have the same energy or emotion as your lead single but is should have another dose of the ‘you’ that is in the lead single that they’ve grown to love so much.

3) Put ‘Happier’ / High Energy Songs at the Beginning and End of the Album.

When listening to an album nobody wants to leave the experience feeling ‘bummed out’ or overly introspective, that would most probably result in them not listening to the album again for a while or when they do being pensive when it gets to the final few tracks or in the case of the more (negatively) emotionally charged songs being at the beginning they would probably skip them entirely.

If the album starts out with high energy songs and then slowly drifts into the more introspective, emotionally charged songs in the center it will be easier to handle as the residual ‘vibe’ from the first songs will still be lingering and ‘cushion’ the blow of the more emotionally charged, introspective songs.

4) ‘Trim The Fat’.

If You find two or more songs that sound alike quite simply keep the best of the two and get rid of the latter. I don’t mean completely scrap the song and destroy the final mix, simply save it for a later date.

When putting out a promo CD or a subsequent EP You could use the track that was left out of the full length album. The beauty of this is that when people are listening to the Promo or EP they would be reminded of the full length album so would link the good emotions they had listening to your full length album with the EP or promo.

5) Listen, Listen & Listen Again (after that?Listen Again).

The most important of all the tips would be to listen through the album as many times as possible. Get friends to listen to it, your producer to listen to it, ask your mastering engineers advice when they’re going through the mastering process.

After that listen to it again and if anything even remotely feels out of place then don’t get it pressed. Wait until You’ve got the playlist so perfect that You could listen to the album through and want to start it again right then, that’s when You know.

Lastly always remember that the buck stops with You. There is no one else in the world that can even begin to judge Your album but yourself. It’s Your Music, Your Passion, Your Experiences, Your Sweat, Your tears on that record and so the last say is Yours. It is Your Child.

Always remember that, always.

Author Bio: I’ve worked as an Independent Canadian Artist for a number of Years and some of my previous material can be found at http://www.delta14.com. Thank You for Your Time.

CD Description

Recovery is Eminem’s seventh album, the follow up to 2009′s Relapse and includes a wide range of collaborators–many of them artists the rapper is working with for the first time, like DJ Khalil, Just Blaze and Jim Jonsin. Features the single “Not Afraid”.

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27th June 2010

4th July 2010

Straight in at number 1 this week is California Gurls from California girl Katy Perry featuring Snoop Dogg. Have a look over at Amazon for reviews and other information.

27th June 2010

4th July 2010

Review

One has to feel sorry for a band that pushes itself to its artistic, physical and psychological limits and still only ends up being as good as Shed Seven or Razorlight. But at least they tried, right? On the other hand, one can and must reserve special criticism for the truly talented who choose commercial gain over artistic endeavour, when everyone from Prince to Johnny Cash and (yes, indeed) The Beatles realised that it was possible to combine both ventures.When Noel G (more…)

Straight in at number one this week is Time Flies by Oasis, a collection of all of the UK group’s singles.

20th June 2010