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New Releases For The Week Of August 17, 2008
Edited by Jonathan Cohen
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Room To Grow
Staind guitarist Mike Mushok calls the forthcoming "The Illusion of Progress" "a very different record for us, but better different." The same can be said for the way Flip/Atlantic brought the rock quartet's sixth studio album to market in advance of street date this week.
While first single "Believe" is making an impact at active and alternative radio, the Massachusetts band's traditional base of support, the label is planning an intensive and ambitious viral campaign to launch and sustain the album via a broad array of Web sites and platforms.
Staind has created an exclusive edition of "Illusion" that contains three bonus tracks and a one-year membership to the group's fan club. Staind is also involved in a special mobile promotion with Amazon where fans can pre-order the album via their cell phones. "It's a first-of-its-kind thing," according to Atlantic senior VP of pop/rock marketing Dane Venable, who says users can text message a code to a particular number that will verify or establish their account with Amazon and let them order the exclusive edition.
There are also a number of new musical detours on "Ilusion." A gospel choir backs Aaron Lewis' soulful vocals on "The Corner," while Eastern guitar flavors and drum loops swirl through "Breakaway." "All I Want" and "Believe" are not only as poppy as Staind has ever gotten but are also among the most positive and optimistic lyrics Lewis has penned, while "Tangled Up in You" is an unapologetic love song built on acoustic guitar and strings.
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Dynamic Duo
Reuniting for their first album since 1981's "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts," David Byrne and Brian Eno this week are self-releasing "Everything That Happens Will Happen Today" in digital form via everythingthathappens.com.
The album was previewed with a free download, the uptempo, electronics-shaded "Strange Overtones," which finds Byrne waxing poetic about the art of songwriting: "your song still needs a chorus / I know you'll figure it out / the rising of the verses / a change of key will let you out."
Among the contributors are drummer Seb Rochford and multi-instrumentalist Leo Abrahams, a longtime Eno collaborator. Says Abrahams, "[David's] such an eccentric singer and the gaps between verses are often filled with joyful little 'whoop's and interjections, and sometimes the unmistakable honks of a New York taxi, which magically always seem to end just in time for when the singing starts."
Byrne is planning a six-month tour celebrating his work with the Talking Heads and in collaboration with Eno, beginning Sept. 16 in Bethlehem, Pa.
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Bigger Buzz
Hip-hop act Shwayze has exploded in popularity since the July 23 debut of its MTV reality show, "Buzzin'," but the duo of Shwayze (real name: Aaron Smith) and Cisco Adler hardly came out of nowhere. Rather, Suretone Records head Jordan Schur helped grow the act on the road and online during the past two years, teeing Shwayze up for bigger things.
Response to the show has been immediate; combined digital downloads for the title song and "Corona and Lime" have exceeded 537,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and that's before Shwayze's self-titled debut even hits stores this week via Interscope. "Now, we can go swing for the fences and bring this to top 40. We want to turn this act into a global thing," Schur says.
Shwayze had already been on the summer's Vans Warped Tour a couple of weeks before the show premiered, and Smith admits, "It was funny to see the change; what the TV show did for our fan base. We just played in Chicago and got pulled up to the main stage to play in front of 10,000 people. The whole entire Warped tour came to see us play."
"The good thing about the show is that our music is a direct representation of our lifestyle," he continues. "We only wanted to do the show if it wasn't fake or wack. Whoever likes the show will like our music."
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Mac Attack
Welcome to the story of a multiplatinum British singer/songwriter named Amy that doesn't include even the faintest whiff of tabloid scandal. Amy Macdonald, from the small Glasgow, Scotland, suburb of Bishopriggs, has just celebrated a year on the U.K. album chart with her debut set for Mercury/Universal, "This Is the Life."
It's now BPI-certified double-platinum (600,000 shipments) in her home market and has an IFPI Platinum Europe certification (1 million shipments)-despite taking five months to top the U.K. chart and not yet generating a top 10 hit there.
Now, the record with a tail so long it seems to come from an entirely different retail era marches boldly into its second year by taking on America this week via Decca. The album, released last August in the United Kingdom, rose to No. 1 there in January and in recent months has become a major European seller, notably in Holland, Switzerland, Belgium and now Germany.
Macdonald, who turns 21 next week, jokes, "Everyone's saying, 'In five years' time you'll have your best-of out, and it'll be the best of Amy Macdonald's first album,' because when are we going to have time to do anything new?"
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Additional titles hitting stores this week include:
Rapper Ice Cube's "Raw Footage" (Lench Mob).
New albums from veteran alternative rock acts Stereolab ("Chemical Chords," 4AD), Toadies ("No Deliverance," Kirtland), the Dandy Warhols ("Earth to the Dandy Warhols," World's Fair) and Juliana Hatfield ("Home To Walk Away," Ye Olde Records).
A host of previously unreleased duets from country legend George Jones, "Burn Your Playhouse Down" (Bandit).
Veteran singer/songwriter Loudon Wainwright III's "Recovery" (Yep Roc).
A new album from the Academy Is..., "Fast Times at Barrington High" (Atlantic).
Rock outfit the Walkmen's "You & Me" (Gigantic).
Swedish songwriter Lykke Li's "Youth Novels" (Atlantic).
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The Jonas Brothers were famously dropped by Columbia in 2007 after their debut, "It's About Time," sold just 65,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
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For soul survivor Irma Thomas, it's never too late to be recognized, as indicated by "Simply Grand," due this week via Rounder.
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On the back of "Sexy Can I," his top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hit with Ray J, Chicago rapper Yung Berg has a burgeoning single of his own, "The Business," and a new album, "Look What You Made Me," hitting stores this week.
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