ELASTICA - WAKING UP

I work very hard
But I'm lazy
I've got a lot of songs but they're all in my head
I'll get a guitar
And a lover who pays me
If I can't be a star I won't get out of bed

Some (careless) people have reduced this authentic 90's moment down to an ordinary old rip of The Stranglers sound when it was in fact co written by Elastica with definitely real Stranglers Hugh Cornwell and Jean Jacques Burnel. Haters gonna' hate?

RUSS CHIMES - INTERVIEW

Ring, ring, ring. Buzz, buzz, buzz. Delivery! IT'S RUSS CHIMES FROM LONDON! What's he doing in New York? He's bringing you his remarkably stylish post modern lust funk. You like it with a little noise on top. He knows. This pop is very hot. Now put your pants on and get to the door, he hasn't got all week. VALERIE is in the house!

Why does everything sound so good when you hear it on the radio?
Because it's been past the expert ears of a mastering engineer... probably.

Tell us about your car. Does it have the round radio knobs or is it a digital tuner?
It's a 1978 MGB GT and it's blue. It's got a roof that folds back for sunny days. My radio is digital. It has red flashy lights.

What if they made a car stereo interface with extra knobs for filter and such?
I'd probably crash into a tree.

How many times is it acceptable to use the word knobs in a single interview?
Entirely depends on the context. Actually no it doesn't, you have 2 left.


Right. We’re all adults here. Your music always makes me feel really drunk even if I’m only a little drunk. How is that achieved?
Sorry about that. I don't make it when drunk.

What is your personal favorite Stuart Price pseudonym? Including Zoot Woman.
Jaques Lu Cont.

If you were at a party that wasn’t playing big room synthpop,what’s the best you could hope for?
Some nice French house. Or progressive house.

What’s the best commercial or theatrical use of pop in recent memory?
That happy Alphabeat track in the latest Diet Coke ads.

What don’t your fans know about you?
I can totally kickflip.

Thank you, RUSS CHIMES.

*RUSS CHIMES does not have one of those copyright deals where you must type his name in all caps. I did a lot of research for this interview and I have confirmed with his father and mother that RUSS CHIMES was in fact born in all caps just as Ultravox began using hot pink font in the style of florescent tubes. Here’s a really adorable photo of RUSS CHIMES being born.



I am exceptional at research. Thank you.

SOMEONE FINALLY, PREDICTABLY RIPPED OFF THAT SHANNON SONG

In keeping with the biggest pop music trend of 2009, Jordin Sparks is re-using an 80s electro hook for her latest single. The original song, Let The Music Play, was popularized by Shannon in 1983. It was also recorded 5 years before Jordin Sparks was born. The classic record is still in heavy rotation on any given night at any given club in any given borough of New York City. It has sold over 8 million copies, redefined electro and helped 3874899 people go home together.

THE SOUND OF ARROWS - INTO THE CLOUDS

Now available on Neon Shop Gold in the US

NEW BRITNEY SINGLE ABOUT HAVING A THREESOME

This is '3', the latest Britney Spears single and the track launching her new hits collection. The radio edit used above does not contain the original "living in sin is the new thing" lyric, sadly.

NICOLE RAY - IF I WAS YOUR GIRLFRIEND

Remember Nicole Wray from the 90s? Ok, probably not. Unless you were really into 90s R&B and why would you want to admit such personal information to a complete stranger? Well, Nicole was one of Missy Elliot's protégés back when Missy was still fat from smoking blunts, back when she was still experimenting with protégés. Gina Thompson, Tweet, Ms Jade, Mocha and Nicole Wray were all Missy’s projects until she got with Ciara around the turn of the millennium. It's safe to say Ciara (in the absence of Aaliyah) won the spotlight but I always wondered what ever came of Nicole Wray after her only hit single, Make It Hot, back in 1998. I guess this is it. Her voice is rich and soulful and all that but it's also quite pop. The standard things-you-do-to-me lyrics are performed with a little sassy adorableness that makes you feel a little sad for her. Her image was much freakier than her competitors too. Sigh. I love a good freak.

Thanks to DJ AM for bringing this track to our attention today. AM probably liked the Shaft style soul samples and jacksonesque woooh-weees. He was into that sort of thing. I heard it first on an old club Concorde mix of his from 2004, which I downloaded just this week. I guess his legendary sets will continue to deliver compelling pop classics to lucky listeners forever.

P.M. DAWN - LOOKING THROUGH PATIENT EYES

From their 1993 LP The Bliss Album...? Cathy Dennis on backup vocals!

CHROMEO - NIGHT BY NIGHT MP3

New single from their upcoming third album entitled Night By Night.

"This is our first original song in two years. It’s both more disco and more classic rock than our previous stuff. It’s also the first time we try singing falsetto. We wanted a powerful, heroic track designed to provoke pelvic thrusting, coupled with sensitive lyrics about the fragility of relationships. Oh, and we had to get some talkbox in there, too. This was produced using nothing but analog gear in our new Montreal studio, and mixed in Paris by our cohort Philippe Zdar over the summer. With love, always."

FIRSTLOOK - BURBERRY SS2010

LACOSTE - SS2010

Let’s face it: New York Spring Fashion Week is boring. Everyone knows the fall collections are the shows worth watching. It’s not just the average Middle American who wouldn’t know their Gucci from their Prada, Spring Fashion Week in New York usually doesn’t have much of an effect on anyone. It isn’t very dramatic, there won’t be any major breakthroughs, and well, Madonna wouldn’t have even showed up at Marc’s show this week if she wasn’t already in town for her slice of the I-loved-Michael-Jackson-therefore-I-am-pie she scarfed down poignantly at the VMAs last weekend. This is probably why American Vogue has joined with NYC & Company, the City of New York, and the Council of Fashion Designers of America to corp-up the glam factor with Fashion Night Out and loads of commercial social gatherings intended to create interest where there wasn't any before.

It sort of worked though, no? This season we have been dragged out to more fashion parties in a week than ever before. You might even find yourself visiting Style.com daily for the latest coverage instead of the usual sarcastic tune-in to Video Fashion Daily sometime after midnight to fall asleep laughing at the designers audacity to send that uninspired, understyled, overused pattern down the runway again. You might find yourself paying attention because, after all, fashion moves pretty fast. If we don’t stop and look around once in a while we could miss it.

Lacoste Artistic Director, Christophe Lemaire, hit the ball out of the park this season paying homage to the late Jean René Lacoste and his family. Lemaire crafted the look of 1930’s beach life through Lacoste’s eyes beautifully. Models made their way down a painted white boardwalk wearing updated classics inspired by the French Riviera’s leisurely high society. And for the finale? An all yellow tribute to monochromatic legend, Jean René Lacoste, who basically invented “tennis white” back in the 1930s. It seems Lemaire appreciates the old simplicity and the fact that for the first 20 years as a brand Lacoste was successful manufacturing little more than solid white shirts for tennis, golfing, and sailing.

Christophe Lemaire is a visionary. He has single handedly placed Lacoste back at the top of the high-end sportswear pyramid for the 21st century by referencing everything we ever loved about the label in the first place and reserving a first class seat for their timeless basics in the modern landscape of trend-diven fashion. The sportos, the tech-heads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads - they all adore him. Christophe Lemaire, you're my hero. Shit, I hope he doesn't die. I can't handle summer fashion.

THE BIG PINK - DOMINOS

From their upcoming album A Brief History Of Love to be released 9.14.09 on 4AD.

REAL TALK WITH THE XX

After a week long streak of non-stop NYC shows which began on Mark Ronson's East Village Radio program last Monday we expect you already know something about The xx and their impeccable timing. Their bare bones alternative pop sound seems to have emerged just as radio rock was truly about to dive off the Williamsburg Bridge and drown in a sea of coldplayesque sound.

It was only their second day in the United States ever. British band mates Oliver Slim and Romy Madley-Croft leaned casually on the bar at Bruer Falls in Brooklyn last Saturday where technically, at only 19 years old, they are not allowed to drink. "Williamsburg is so central!" Oliver exclaimed soberly. "We're staying just around the corner." Instantly charmed, I struck up a conversation about their debut album and, more specifically, the possibility of American distribution. The consensus is: to be determined. "We're hoping to see something happen by October," Oliver added. Hope is the key word here. I explained, "even Mark Ronson isn't played on American radio stations." He understood, "in England, Mark Ronson would be mobbed DJing in a street window." Then I told him not many Americans really know of (British pop stars du jour) Frankmusik or La Roux. "Maybe that's for the best," he replied. The xx are currently gearing up for a Fall US tour with Friendly Fires. Their debut full length album xx is already out on Rough Trade in UK.

ULTRAVOX - VIENNA

Lovely orchestral British electro-pop circa 1980. Ultravox never saw much success in the US although vocalist Midge Ure co-wrote and helped produce the 1984 Band Aid single "Do They Know It's Christmas?".

TRACKLIST/FIRST LISTEN: MADONNA - CELEBRATION

"You look familiar. Do you wanna dance?" Yeah, it's one of those. Perhaps not the most inventive dance song of all time but it's way better than any of the material on Hard Candy. Madonna's new single, Celebration, is one of two brand new tracks that will appear on her third upcoming collection of greatest hits. A true banger, Celebration is one of those songs that will make you feel drunker upon hearing it out on the floor. The album version was co-produced by Madonna and Paul Oakenfold and will be released for radio August 3rd. From what we've heard, Celebration has also inspired some of the best remixes ever done for the queen of pop.

Here's a short official taste: mmmmmmm

Here's a long unofficial taste: (will be removed from Youtube in 3 minutes)

The new album, also called Celebration, is an energetic compilation of former hit singles which starts off like a disco and ends like a rave. Disc 2 is a total dance work out. Still not interested? Supposedly Lil Wayne is on it. Yea, that's what I thought. Check it:

01. Vogue
02. Express Yourself
03. Into the Groove
04. Papa Don't Preach
05. La Isla Bonita
06. Everybody
07. Lucky Star
08. Holiday
09. Like a Virgin
10. Borderline
11. Material Girl
12. Crazy For You
13. Open Your Heart
14. Cherish
15. Like a Prayer
16. Justify My Love
17. Deeper and Deeper
18. Erotica
19. Rain

CD2

01. Celebration
02. Music
03. Get Together
04. Frozen
05. Hung Up
06. Ray of Light
07. Beautiful Stranger
08. Don't Tell Me
09. Hollywood
10. Human Nature
11. Secret
12. Take a Bow
13. American Life
14. Die Another Day
15. Sorry
16. 4 Minutes
17. Give It 2 Me
18. Revolver

TRUJIZIMS

Being cool will ruin your career.

Internet "TV" is now hiring.

Everyone wants to be Daisy Fuentes.

Computer knows when you’re spelling Oprah wrong.

Computer makes you dumb/smart.

I love pencils.

It is possible to transform the definition of art.

When looking for inspiration it’s best to Ask The Goddess.

I used to go see bands I'd never heard of in my life and it was lovely.

Nothing is as promising as a Teengirl Fantasy.

I’m sincerely questioning your sincerity.

The camera doesn’t lie.