Donald Trump loves him some Guns N’ Roses. In fact, not only does Trump think “November Rain” is the “greatest music video of all time,” he’s made his staffers watch the video to prove his point. As Newsweek reports, Trump’s love of GNR’s “November Rain” video was revealed by Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The former White House Press Secretary mentioned the tidbit in her new book, Speaking for Myself, recounting the time Trump made her and White House Communications Director Hope Hicks watch the video in the Oval Office: “The president told Hope and me in the Oval he wanted the classic Guns N’ Roses song ‘November Rain’ added to his rally playlist. He told us it was the ‘greatest music video of all time,’ and made us watch it to prove his point, even though neither of us had disagreed.” Eventual...
Yusuf / Cat Stevens is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Tea for the Tillerman with a new version of the classic album. Titled simply Tea for the Tillerman², it consists of re-recordings of all 11 of the original songs. Some of the updates are more straightforward, while others, such as today’s rendition of “Father and Son”, have been completely reimagined for 2020. The narrative of this reworking of “Father and Son” remains the same, recounting the strain and discord that often exist in families as a result of a stark generational gap. What makes this version stand apart, however, is that it features Yusuf’s original 1970 vocals alongside voice arrangements recorded in 2020 — in effect allowing for the songwriting legend to “duet” with himself as both father and son. Neat trick, huh? “‘...
Chicago’s own Growing Concerns Poetry Collective have announced their new album, BIG DARK BRIGHT FUTURES. Due out October 16th, the followup to 2017’s We Here: Thank You for Noticing once again reunites filmmaker, poet, and actor McKenzie Chinn; actor and DIY hip-hop prodigy Mykele Deville; and multidisciplinary visual artist/musical composer Jeffrey Michael Austin. In anticipation, they’ve shared a music video for their latest single “Shout Across Mountains”. Written and composed between 2017 and 2019, the new album offers “an emotional, expansive, no-holds-barred journey through both the shadowed valleys and hopeful peaks of our current moment,” a press release notes. The Collective cites influences of Afrofuturism, Solange, and Frank Ocean, insisting that it “finds the common place...
Emerging singer/rapper Audrey Nuna has uncorked her new song “damn right”. This satirical stunt track is the first single from her forthcoming debut EP. Nuna grew up in New Jersey, releasing Instagram covers that eventually attracted the attention of manager/producer Anwar Sawyer. After high school, she split time writing with Sawyer and attending the prestigious Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at NYU. But soon, her studies had to give way to the real thing. Now 21 years old and signed to Arista Records, Nuna has released a string of buzzworthy singles, of which “damn right” just might be the best. Producer Nate Donmoyer has built a thumper of a beat, but with delicate synth touches which keep the track from sounding overly serious. Nuna kicks off with a slurred, chest-banging flow...
Amigo the Devil has been making waves as a unique troubadour who appeals to fans of both folk and metal. While his music is acoustic-based, his lyrics are decidedly macabre. In the midst of a new “living” album project titled Covers, Demos, Live Versions, B-Sides, Amigo teams up with Heavy Consequence to premiere a stripped-down version of his song “Stronger Than Dead”. As he continues work on a proper follow up to Everything Is Fine, which made our list of the Top Hard Rock + Metal Albums of 2018, Amigo is rolling out rarities and alternate song renditions to create the ever-growing collection Covers, Demos, Live Versions, B-Sides. “Stronger Than Dead”, which originally appeared on Everything Is Fine, is stripped down to its bare bones in this version, simply featuring Amigo and his acous...
Shortly after the breakup of their band Calpurnia late last year, singer-guitarist Finn Wolfhard and drummer Malcolm Craig decided to team back up to form The Aubreys, a new indie rock band that’s more influenced by Jay Reatard than The Strokes. Today, the duo is back with a brand new song under that moniker called “Smoke Bomb”, and it comes with an excellent on-brand music video, too. This is the second track we’ve heard from The Aubreys so far following “Getting Better (otherwise)”, their debut single. It doubled as a contribution to the soundtrack for thriller The Turning, too. Whereas that track was meant to be an angst-filled burst of fuzz, though, “Smoke Bomb” is full guitar-pop bliss, complete with scruffy feedback tones. In the music video for “Smoke Bomb”, Wolfhard and Craig photo...
Hip-hop supergroup Spillage Village have reunited after four years for the release of a new album called Spilligion. As a preview, the Atlanta artists have shared the first single, “Baptize”, featuring group members EarthGang and J.I.D. Spilligion is the collective’s fourth album overall, following on the ursine trilogy Bears Like This (2014), Bears Like This Too (2015), and Bears Like This Too Much (2016). By the time the latter record was released, the Village had grown to include EarthGang, J.I.D., 6LACK, Mereba, JurdanBryant, Hollywood JB, and Benji. They were bearly barely getting started when, in late 2016, 6LACK broke out with the single “Prblms”, followed by EarthGang and J.I.D. signing to J. Cole’s Dreamville label the next year. The gr...
Although the pandemic continues to keep us apart, and political tactics seek to divide us, we’re all inherently connected as one human race. That’s the message British art-rock outfit Django Django want to remind us of on “Spirals”, their first single in almost two years. The track follows the group’s pair of 2018 releases, Winter’s Beach EP and full-length album Marble Skies, and picks up musically where those projects left off. With frontman Vincent Neff leading the way with a spell-like cadence, “Spirals” chugs along with propulsive energy until its guitars and drums lock into a looping groove. Its accompanying video, directed by Maxim Kelly, continues this spinning theme. Imagining Neff as something of a hybrid human and double helix, the clip “uses the image of DNA to muse on how...
On September 25th, electropop duo Sylvan Esso will let loose their third studio album, Free Love. The follow-up to 2017’s What Now is being teased today with a new single dubbed “Frequency”, as well as its video directed by friend and fellow musician Moses Sumney. Here, Amelia Meath’s vocals roll gingerly over the track’s glitchy blips and beeps, rising and falling like a frequency wave. She sings about being irresistibly drawn to someone’s energy field, to the point that she’d like to be a part of it, too. This abstract idea is visualized pretty literally in Sumney’s corresponding clip. In it, a soaked Meath is seen dancing alone outside on a suburban lawn. Slowly but surely, though, more and more people — a delivery person, golfer, neighbor, etc. — are pulled into her orbit and join her ...