One of the best innovations of the past decade for music lovers - only second to the IPod - is no doubt Internet Radio.
Some of you may have no idea what I'm talking about, but if you were a child of the 1980's when leg warmers, Cabbage Patch Kids, and Pac Man Fever ruled the earth, you had a boom box - you know the kind you could either carry around as one unit or use as a stereo when you detached the speakers, and waited desperately to hit play and record on your tape deck when a great song came on the top 40 stations. Lot's of times you were pissed because the DJ would talk over the music.
Then Internet Radio comes along in the mid 90's and all of a sudden you start listening to radio stations from cities across the world from Budapest to Dublin to Fresno. And when you listen to the commericals and the DJ's, they talk about local happenings, advertising local TV and local businesses, as if you lived there. Not sure about you but when I hooked onto this, I stopped listening to local radio all together. But through all the stations that became known through the internet, the undisputed heavyweight champion that has set the standard in internet radio becoming the world's most listened to station, is no doubt, VIRGIN RADIO UK. Yeah, the company that Richard Branson owns. In the words of Kelly LeBrock, don't hate him because he's beautiful!
Listening to this station has meant many things for me. It's meant a whole new level of great rock and pop music that you almost never hear in the US. It's meant revisiting all those bands from my childhood, who made it here for 15 minutes in the early 80's but continued on to great things in the UK. It's meant a whole new fresh perspective on music not readily available on local top 40 hit stations that have libraries the size of my hand. It's meant realizing just how many points the UK is above us on the hip and happening scale (A recent article in New York magazine totally supports this point).
Most of all it's meant a large expansion of my music horizon - which consisted of top 40 until the arrival of the world radio superpower that is Virgin Radio UK.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
A LILY IN THE FIELD
I'm a big fan of Saturday Night Live and have been for years. But I hate to say that my love for SNL has diminished a good amount because let's face it, the writing just sucks. Tina Fey leaves and the writing goes to garbage.
I've therefore concetrated my viewership of each show to the musical guest. I've found that SNL's musical guests are mainly in sync with that of the British Music Scene and what you can hear on Virgin Radio UK - http://www.virginradio.co.uk.
Some bands that have been on both include Franz Ferdinand, The Scissor Sisters, Keane, and Snow Patrol. But the one act I recently caught on the episode with Drew Barrymore (which was hilarious by the way), was a very fresh and original sound by the name of Lily Allen. She performed her pop hit "Smile" and I did one of those "Oh that's who sings this?" when she started playing. How to characterize her?
Think Nora Jones meets Sid Vicious.
After seeing her, I went to ITunes the next day and sampled her music. I loved it so much that I downloaded the album. I look for original sounding stuff all the time and lemme tell you, if you're into off the wall and out of the ordinary, Lily Allen is a great alternative. Her voice is sweet but she herself is anything but. She's kind of strange looking and has that ska Sex Pistols underground Bri-ish way about her and also sings with a British accent. She doesn't hide it like many other rock stars. The beats are original and even though the songs are fun sounding, the words are completely depressing. NO WEDDING SONGS HERE!
The bottom line about Lily Allen is, she's found a way to take many approaches to music and create one sound. She's also probably very self accomplished, unlike the American Idolers who are told what to sing and when. If you listen to songs like LDN and Take What You Take, you'll know right off that these songs were not created by record execs.
I just hope she's not a one album wonder. I'd love to see her around for years to come.
I've therefore concetrated my viewership of each show to the musical guest. I've found that SNL's musical guests are mainly in sync with that of the British Music Scene and what you can hear on Virgin Radio UK - http://www.virginradio.co.uk.
Some bands that have been on both include Franz Ferdinand, The Scissor Sisters, Keane, and Snow Patrol. But the one act I recently caught on the episode with Drew Barrymore (which was hilarious by the way), was a very fresh and original sound by the name of Lily Allen. She performed her pop hit "Smile" and I did one of those "Oh that's who sings this?" when she started playing. How to characterize her?
Think Nora Jones meets Sid Vicious.
After seeing her, I went to ITunes the next day and sampled her music. I loved it so much that I downloaded the album. I look for original sounding stuff all the time and lemme tell you, if you're into off the wall and out of the ordinary, Lily Allen is a great alternative. Her voice is sweet but she herself is anything but. She's kind of strange looking and has that ska Sex Pistols underground Bri-ish way about her and also sings with a British accent. She doesn't hide it like many other rock stars. The beats are original and even though the songs are fun sounding, the words are completely depressing. NO WEDDING SONGS HERE!
The bottom line about Lily Allen is, she's found a way to take many approaches to music and create one sound. She's also probably very self accomplished, unlike the American Idolers who are told what to sing and when. If you listen to songs like LDN and Take What You Take, you'll know right off that these songs were not created by record execs.
I just hope she's not a one album wonder. I'd love to see her around for years to come.
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