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By
Mary Chang on Wednesday, 7th November 2012 at 9:00 am
Guess all those rehab issues have been sorted. Kings of Leon have announced a series of English arena dates for summer 2013. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday (9 November) at 9 AM, but Gigs and Tours is running a presale starting tomorrow (Thursday 8 November) at 9 AM for their email subscribers.
All these dates are conveniently on weeknights, leading us to believe they will be a fixture on the summer festival circuit next year.
Wednesday 12th June 2013 – London O2 Arena
Thursday 13th June 2013 – London O2 Arena
Monday 24th June 2013 – Manchester Arena
Tuesday 25th June 2013 – Manchester Arena
Tuesday 9th July 2013 – Birmingham LG Arena
Wednesday 10th July 2013 – Birmingham LG Arena
By
Mary Chang on Monday, 1st October 2012 at 6:00 pm
Letchworth’s Blonde Louis have been hard at work behind the scenes on a four-part video series that I was informed about just days ago. The Cover Story series will consist of stripped down songs, some new by the band and and some incredible cover versions of other artists’ masterpieces.
First up is a gorgeously filmed cover version of Kings of Leon‘s ‘Pyro’. Watch it below.
By
Mary Chang on Wednesday, 9th May 2012 at 11:00 am
‘You Are the Quarry’ had been called Morrissey‘s comeback album in May 2004 after the much-maligned ‘Maladjusted’ released in 1997. Things were looking good for the Mozzer; the album was his highest charting album ever in America. Fast forward a couple months and I’m flipping through cable channels to find something interesting to watch and I hear a couple bars of something familiar. I look more closely at the television. It’s the new MTV teen reality show Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, and during what I’m guessing was supposed to be a tender moment, what do I hear in the background but ‘First of the Gang to Die’.
Sadly, I don’t have a YouTube video to go along with this; the video above is taken from the film for Who Put the M in Manchester?, filmed live at the MEN in 2004 (I’ve played my DVD of this so many times, my DVD skips, I think I broke it). But in my research for this piece, I also learned it was used in an episode of Date My Mom, such that a boy and the coed his mother chose as his date can disappear into the sunset. By limo. We have no way of knowing if Steven Patrick Morrissey himself approved the usage of this song, but it’s hard to believe he would allow the song, about a kid in a Latino gang who becomes a martyr by being the first in his group of friends to die, to be used in either context. While it is a pop song, it’s not really a song about sunny days and going out on dates.
It seems not surprising that the E4 reality drama Made in Chelsea, essentially the UK’s answer to Laguna Beach with well-heeled rich kids from a posh area of London, also uses current ‘hot’ songs in their shows. I won’t list every artist, but a quick glance at the tracklisting for the first episode of the first series for Made in Chelsea lists tunes form some pretty impressive stars that we’ve written about before: Adele, Dragonette, Morning Parade, Muse, the Script, Tinie Tempah (erroneously credited as ‘Tinie T’) and Two Door Cinema Club (twice!). Either the producers have been reading up on the music blogosphere or consulting with people in the know on ‘what’s hot’ (more likely the latter).
That said, what role – or what rights – do artists have in permitting (or not permitting) the use of their songs on television. The use of Noz’s ‘First of the Gang to Die’ and the Made in Chelsea soundtracks came into my mind when I read that Australian singer/songwriter Gotye, recent Saturday Night Live performer and pretty much world pop sensation, was complaining that his mega hit ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ was no longer his. Specifically, this had to do with its usage in the American pop tv sensation Glee. You know, that show where famous songs are redone by teen actors and generally speaking, the original versions of the song gain quite a lot of publicity, while the young people of the world get confused about music history. Goyte’s quandary? “I wasn’t sure whether something so mainstream was right for my music and whether it reflected on my music in my bad way. But I think I realised that the song’s so popular, it’s kind of out of my hands, so when something like Glee comes along, why would I say no?”
The man subsequently whinged on the success of the song, saying, “sometimes I feel like I’m a bit sick of it. My inbox, on any given day, has at least five covers or parodies or remixes of it and there’s only so many times you can listen to the one song.” I don’t know about you, but I can’t even begin to count on both hands how many bands I’ve met over the last 3 years that would love to be a similar position of ‘discomfort’. I guess success – and the happiness you get from success – is a fickle thing; maybe when you have it and realise it’s not so great, you want to bash it and everything that comes with it. Careful though: Goyte had to give his permission to the producers of Glee to use ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ in one of their episodes. He could have easily put the kibosh on the matter entirely by blocking its use on the popular American tv show; there are probably others, but most notably Kings of Leon and Foo Fighters have refused the Fox tv programme permission. Dave Grohl’s response to the invitation: “It’s every band’s right, you shouldn’t have to do fucking Glee. And then the guy who created Glee is so offended that we’re not, like, begging to be on his f**king show… f**k that guy for thinking anybody and everybody should want to do Glee.”
While I agree with Grohl on this – I personally can’t stand the show and how it repurposes already great music, only to redo them in charmless, overblown, unworthy imitations – there seems to be no right or wrong answer for an artist or band considering allowing commercial use of their songs. Some bands still and will always feel that allowing such permission debases the artistic value of their hard work and inspiration. However, maybe the gold standard yet groan worthy rule of PR applies here: “there is no such thing as bad publicity.” As much as Goyte might complain that the song he wrote no longer belongs to him, ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ is still #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the third week running. Suffering for one’s art? Maybe not so much.
By
Mary Chang on Tuesday, 1st February 2011 at 11:00 am
MTV launches a brand new television channel today, “solely focused on JUST music. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.” Sounds good to me! Called MTV Music, the new station will feature the latest music videos, live performances, intimate acoustic sessions, behind-the-scenes specials and exclusive A-list interviews.
For its first week of programming, there are already some pretty exciting programmes lined up. Tonight (1st of February), Jessie J‘s performance from last week’s MTV Brand New in 2011 show at London’s Koko will be broadcast at 9 PM on the show ‘MTV Live’. The programme with exclusive footage will include her single ‘Do It Like A Dude’ and more. At 9:30 PM, ‘Bruno Mars: mtv.co.uk Live Session’ featuring the American r&b star will premiere. At 10 PM, ‘Nicky Minaj: My Time is Now’ offers an exclusive insider’s look into the ‘Your Love’ star’s professional and personal life, from travelling to her native Trinidad to her performance at the MTV VMAs and includes exclusive interviews.
On Friday (4th of February), comedian / actor / DJ Mathew Horne hosts his ultimate countdown of Top 50 BRIT award winners at 8 PM. If you’re still up in the wee hours of Friday night into Saturday morning, MTV Music has ‘Kings of Leon Worldstage’, following the Nashville stadium rockers (pictured above) on tour in Hamburg, Germany. Of course, there’ll be live concert footage. (The programme repeats on Sunday 6 February at 10 PM.) And on Sunday, the 6th of February at 9 PM, is the premiere of ‘On Set with Nicole Scherzinger‘, where the Pussycat Dolls singer invites viewers to Los Angeles to get an inside glimpse of the making of the video for her second solo single, ‘Don’t Hold Your Breath’.
By
Mary Chang on Friday, 28th January 2011 at 11:00 am
Coachella, America’s second music festival of the year (after Ultra in Miami in March), will be taking place 15-17 April 2011 this year in its usual spot in Indio, California. The line-up was announced last week, with mixed reactions from fans and music reviewers alike. The headliners will be Kings of Leon (Friday the 15th of April), Arcade Fire (Saturday the 16th, pictured above), and Kanye West and the Strokes (Sunday the 17th).
Far more interesting are some of the bands in smaller type. Take for example the reunited Suede (well, the second incarnation of the Britpop group, anyway) and the return of Duran Duran, minus Andy Taylor. Then consider the acts that are well known in the UK but will be debuting (if I’m not mistaken) in the States, at most definitely in front of their largest American audiences to date: Magnetic Man and Beardyman on Friday; Scissor Sisters and the Joy Formidable on Saturday; and Tinie Tempah, Plan B on Sunday.
Tickets for the 3-day event cost $281 (approximately £178 at the time of this writing) before shipping and handling, and includes a $3 charity fee and a $9 facility fee. For more information on tickets, visit the official Coachella Web site. For the complete line-up, you can read the official Coachella line-up poster.
I’m of two minds about the video for ‘Pyro,’ the new single by Kings of Leon. On one hand, the video is gorgeous and perfectly displays the deeper meaning of the song in a very artistic way. On the other hand, it’s a bit slow and there is not nearly enough of the band in it. Watch the video below and let us know what you think of it!
