FM 94/9 Recommended

June 2012-Metric -"Synthetica"

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 16:28:00 GMT

Biography

"I'm just as f&$# up as they say," Emily Haines sings at the start of Metric's new album, Synthetica (due out on June 12). Maybe, but elegantly so, to judge by the Canadian new-wave rockers' full 11-track effort, the follow-up to 2009's Fantasies. We've already heard the pounding generational complaint "Youth Without Youth" and atmospherically brooding "Speed the Collapse"; now, stream the whole LP below. (Speaking of elegant fucked-upness, it's worth listening all the way to penultimate track "The Wanderlust" for a guest vocal by Lou Reed!)

What's more, Metric have unveiled a set of three fans-only shows for the days after Synthetica hits shelves. Information on how to get tickets is set to appear later this week on ilovemetric.com, and they will not be sold to the public. The shows will take place June 13 at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in New York, June 19 at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, and June 20 at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles.

Metric will make only a couple of other U.S. appearances prior to the band's fall tour, otherwise spending the summer playing abroad. On June 21, Haines and Co. will make a televised appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live's outdoor stage. Their only other U.S. date prior to the full tour kickoff will be August 3 at Lollapalooza in Chicago. Each ticket for the fall tour (available here) comes with an instant download of "Youth Without Youth," plus five bonus Synthetica

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June 2012-Oberhofer-"Time Capsules II"

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 21:29:00 GMT

Biography

You have to wonder: Had Brad Oberhofer been born with a different last name, would the songs he wrote turn out differently? Presumably, a lifetime of saying the name "Oberhofer" has made him particularly fond of the sound of the letter "O": Not a song goes by on his eponymous band's debut album without him embellishing a chorus with an "oh oh oh," massaging a jaunty piano line with an "oooh oooh oooh," or adding extra syllables to words like "know" and "gold." He even pays tribute to the letter and its sonorous tones with a centerpiece track titled "oOoO" that, true to its alternating capitalization, pits the "oh oh ohs" against the "oooh oooh oohs" to determine which makes the ultimate "O" sound. (It ends in a draw.) For Oberhofer, these O-gasms are like a facial tic or a very twee form of Tourette's-- something he seemingly just can't help. But in traversing Time Capsules II's 10 tales of lost love and the struggle to win it back, it becomes increasingly apparent that Oberhofer isn't prone to these utterances because all this inner turmoil has left him at a loss for words. Rather, they sound more like crafty attempts to invest basic sentiment with forced, festival crowd-baiting grandeur.

You can't blame Oberhofer for trying: After releasing two promising singles last year, the 21-year old Brooklyn-via-Tacoma songwriter has already scored a deal with Glassnote, and had his debut album produced by U2 go-to guy Steve Lillywhite. That would make Time Capsules II the umpteenth example of a once-modest indie band swinging for the fences in hopes of cracking the big leagues. Lead-off track "Heart" proves to be a textbook case of overreaching, introducing an oppressively serious, Supertramp-worthy piano motif before piling on all manner of Epic Statement signifiers (marching-band drums, melodramatic pauses, wordless choral crescendos) to convey the sensation of emotion being felt very deeply.

But the album's undoing isn't its ostentatious dressing; for all the gratuitous glockenspiel, strings, and candelabra-lit piano flourishes at work here, Oberhofer the band retains a refreshingly raucous presence. (Drummer Pete Sustarsic in particular sounds like he's waging war against the ornate instrumentation with his urgent, smash-and-bash style.) No, the real culprit is an unflattering mix that pushes Brad Oberhofer's over-excited voice too far in front of the music, to the point where he often sounds like the sore thumb in his own band. When he exclaims "I know you! I know you!" on "I Could Go", it sounds less like an intimate exchange between two soulmates than Christopher Guest coaching Harry Shearer and Martin Short in that old "SNL" synchronized-swimmers sketch.

Oberhofer's calling-card singles "Gotta Go" and "Away Frm U" (re-recorded for the album) posited them as mildly flamboyant fops in the Drums mold, mixing 1950s-prom balladry and 1980s new-wave in a manner that drew out the playfulness in their lovelorn narratives. There are songs here that retain that spirit: "Cruisin' FDR" possesses a winsome "Crocodile Rock" quality; "Landline" is Pulp's "Babies" given an Arcade Fire makeover. But compared to the wool-sweater warmth of those early recordings, Oberhofer's sad-sack persona and yelping vocal ad libs come off here as less endearing and more desperate, like someone trying to oversell simple songs with eccentric affectation. We all want to root for the lovable loser, but Time Capsules II takes the Lloyd Dobler act too far: Instead of trying to win the girl back with a boomboxed window serenade, it crates a grand piano right onto the f@&K lawn.

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June 2012-Best Coast -"The Only Place"

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 20:53:00 GMT

Biography

by Marc Hogan

Bethany Cosentino lowers her shades at a few crucial spots on Best Coast's sparkling sophomore album, The Only Place, and one of them is the languidly waltzing ballad "No One Like You." With a simplicity, over-the-top sentiment, and sugary melody in the tradition of such girl group classics as Rosie & the Originals' gently swaying "Angel Baby" (which John Lennon called "one of my all-time favorite songs"), the track leaves Cosentino's voice and old-fashioned sensibilities vulnerably exposed. "If I sleep on the floor / Would it make you love me more?" she implores, in one of those head-smacking opening couplets that feels like it should have always existed.

Cosentino and bandmate Bobb Bruno recently laid the song even more bare in an unplugged video for Rhapsody (via Crazy for Best Coast). Cosentino leaves her actual shades on for this one, but her increasingly powerful, alt-country voice rings out all the more clearly, over little more than acoustic guitar strums and Bruno's splashes of tambourine. Although the language she uses to address her lover here is no more hyperbolic than the ways she describes her native Southern California on other songs, the sunshine falling over the video underscores that this song, at least, is no Hollywood postcard.

Spin.

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June 2012-Father John Misty "-Fear Fun"

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 20:23:00 GMT

Biography

Even before he joined Fleet Foxes in 2008, Josh Tillman had established a sound that made virtues of austerity and quiet, pitching his songs at a slow pace that at best bristled with prickly intensity or at worst lulled nearly into nonexistence. His albums suffered when the melodies and arrangements were precise and exactingly purposeful, leading Paul Thompson to decry 2009's Year in the Kingdom for its "lonesome, somber tone, one Tillman-- a funny, amicable dude, if you've ever heard him clowning on himself at a Fleet Foxes gig-- would do well to shake on occasion." Whether intentionally or not, Tillman has responded to this kind of criticism with his eighth album and his first under the name Father John Misty. Perhaps freed by the new pseudonym or emboldened by his nearly four-year tenure as a Fleet Fox, Tillman varies things up on Fear Fun, reveals an adventurous palette, and makes what may be his best album to date. He's finally shaken that lonesome, somber tone, and these songs sound all the better for it: gregarious, engaging, even funny.

It can't hurt that he ditched Seattle for warmer, stranger climes. After a period of deep depression, he loaded up his van with shrooms and drove down the coast, finally settling in what he describes as a "spider-shack" in Laurel Canyon. Of course, Tillman is aware of that locale's revered place in pop history and of Greater Los Angeles' less reputable place in pop culture, and he lets them inform Fear Fun musically, lyrically, and conceptually. Even that new moniker, Father John Misty, sounds like a cult leader, keeping his flock sequestered in an old movie set up in the hills. And the lyrics suggest a Hollywood breakdown of epic proportions, loosely recounting his own walkabout with the sort of mischief and humor largely missing from his previous albums. He opens "I'm Writing a Novel" with a great first sentence: "I ran down the road, pants down to my knees, screaming,/ 'Please come help me, that Canadian shaman gave a little to much to me!'" It bodes well for his novel.

Fear Fun isn't merely a step forward lyrically; it also reveals new musical ambitions. Compared to his previous albums, it's positively kaleidoscopic: less content to be moody and pretty and more intent on getting up in your face. Tillman's warped interpretations and strange combinations of SoCal pop history seem to mirror his own narcotized state: With its billowy strings and triangle beat, "Nancy From Now On" could be Laurel Canyon disco, a mad-scientist hybrid that proves a perfect setting for his careening falsetto. "Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings" is a Sunset Strip stomp slowed down to a near idle, and the countrified "Well, You Can Do It Without Me" finds Gram Parsons' headstone somewhere in Bakersfield. Every song has its own identity, and the album's slightly fractured vibe speaks volumes about the place that inspired it.

If there's a criticism to be made about the music, it's that it sounds a bit too composed and too contained to really sell the drug-fueled anarchy and municipal depravity. The arrangements entertain a rhythmic stiffness that sticks strictly to the beat, without any syncopation to suggest the messy experiences Tillman's lyrics evoke. He really only cuts loose on the rambling "I'm Writing a Novel" and the psych-absurdist "Tee Pees 1-12", which are the album's clear highlights. He's never sounded looser, weirder, or funnier than when he's recovering from a bad, pantsless trip or when he's reading Richard Brautigan to impress a woman. "If I make it out alive from Hollywood and Vine/ I'll build a cabin up in the Northwest," he sings on "Tee Pees 1-12", but hopefully it's an empty threat: By relocating to the land of Kardashians and Orange Housewives, Tillman has discovered his truest subject.

by Pitchfork reviews

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May 2012-Jack White-"Blunderbus"

Tue, 01 May 2012 12:00:00 GMT

Biography

Jack white

One of the most admired guitarists of the early 21st century, Jack White helped restore the popularity of punk-blues as the frontman of the White Stripes. Meanwhile, he widened his reach by participating in a range of other projects, including the Raconteurs, the Dead Weather, the Cold Mountain soundtrack, and Loretta Lynn's comeback vehicle Van Lear Rose. Although White's nasal voice and loose, fiery guitar delivery were mainstays of the White Stripes' early work, the group branched out as its reputation grew, building upon an initially minimalist sound with elements of metal, backwoods country, pop, and early rock & roll. White followed a similar evolution in his own career, and by the time the White Stripes celebrated the tenth anniversary of their debut album, the frontman had already issued two pop-oriented records with the Raconteurs, starred in several films, collaborated with Electric Six, dueted with Alicia Keys, and produced records for a number of artists.

John Anthony Gillis was born in Detroit on July 9, 1975. The youngest of ten siblings, he began playing drums at an early age and took inspiration from the world-weary blues of Son House and Blind Willie McTell. A fascination with guitar followed in his teenage years. After launching his own upholstery business in Detroit, White began to infiltrate the city's music scene as the drummer for Goober & the Peas, a local cowpunk band that split in 1995. While continuing to play drums for other groups, he crossed paths with a bartender named Meg White, and the two were married in 1996. Jack took Meg's surname, and the pair formed the White Stripes after a Bastille Day jam session showed promising results.

With their color-coded image and raw, punky sound, the White Stripes became a key component of the garage rock revival of the late '90s. In addition to their music, the bandmembers stirred public interest by claiming to be siblings, a declaration that seemed slightly less incestuous when Jack and Meg White divorced in 2000. Despite the split, the White Stripes only grew in popularity as the decade progressed, eventually winning three consecutive Grammy Awards and issuing several platinum-certified albums.

Following the release of Elephant in 2003, Jack White took a break from the group to produce Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose. A critical smash, the album helped endear Lynn to a new generation of fans, thanks in part to White's credibility as a rock artist. He then returned to the White Stripes for the release of Get Behind Me Satan, which saw him expanding his instrumental range with piano and marimba. Shortly thereafter, he launched a concurrent group, the Raconteurs, with friend Brendan Benson and two members of the Greenhornes (who, incidentally, had served as backing musicians for Van Lear Rose). The Raconteurs made their debut with 2006's Broken Boy Soldiers and toured in support of the album, while White publicly stressed that his work in the band should not be seen as a side project or a diversion from the White Stripes. Thus, he began juggling his responsibilities to both groups, partnering with Meg White once again for the White Stripes' 2007 release, Icky Thump, before returning to the Raconteurs for 2008's Consolers of the Lonely.

While touring in support of the latter album, White suffered from bronchitis and often lost his voice, prompting singer Alison Mosshart (from the Raconteurs' touring partners, the Kills) to climb on-stage and contribute her own vocals. The chemistry between Mosshart and the Raconteurs proved to be alluring, and the musicians opted to form a separate group named the Dead Weather. With Jack White now handling drums, the band retreated to the studio and recorded an energetic debut, Horehound, in a matter of weeks. Released in 2009, the album was well received on both sides of the Atlantic, cracking the Top Ten in America and peaking at number 14 in the U.K. Encouraged by such success, the Dead Weather began working on a second album during the fall, with the intention of previewing several new songs during an Australian tour in early 2010. In the meantime, White secured enough free time to appear in a movie — the guitar-themed It Might Get Loud — and produce an album for his wife, songwriter Karen Elson. The first solo outing from White, the bluesy, typically idiosyncratic Blunderbuss, named for a muzzle loading firearm that was a precursor of the shotgun, arrived on April 24, 2012.

by,Spin

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May 2012-Santigold-"Master Of My Make Believe"

Tue, 01 May 2012 12:00:00 GMT

Biography

by Jason Lymangrover

As a solo project with a revolving door of members, the heart and face of Santigold is vivacious frontwoman Santi White. White and John Hill, her former counterpart from ska-punk band Stiffed, use their common backgrounds as production-savvy musicians to make bombastic, bass-oriented songs that fuse punk, reggae, grime, and indie rock with electro. Tribal island rhythms merge with flavorful digital chirps and blips, culminating in an original sound that is comparable to M.I.A. but draws from too many other influences to be considered just another M.I.A. knockoff.

While showcasing her array of vocal styles at a Stiffed show, White was spotted by Martin Heath, who made her an offer to record a solo record on Lizard King, the label responsible for the successful promotion of the Killers. After failed attempts with a few mainstream pop producers, White and Hill (now calling the project Santogold) decided to pair up with a crew of like-minded musicians -- including Freq Nasty, Disco D, Switch, Spank Rock's Naeem, Xxxchange, Steel Pulse guitarist Clifford Moonie Pusey, and none other than M.I.A. herself.

In only three weeks, the full-length Creator was completed and scheduled for release in January of 2008, though it took until April for the album (retitled simply Santogold) to actually hit shelves. She spent time supporting headlining acts ranging from Coldplay to Jay-Z for the rest of the year. Then White decided to change the name of the project to Santigold in early 2009 for reasons related to an impending lawsuit from wrestler and "personality" Santo Gold. Although a follow-up under the new name was not immediately forthcoming, she kept busy featuring on tracks by N.A.S.A. (The Spirit of Apollo), Beastie Boys (Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2), and the Lonely Island (Turtleneck & Chain). She started recording solo again in January 2010. Once the dynamic sophomore follow-up was completed, the release date was delayed when she briefly joined and left Jay-Z's Roc-a-Fella Records, but eventually she signed with Atlantic Records, and Master of My Make-Believe was unveiled in April of 2012.

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May 2012-The Lumineers -"The Lumineers"

Tue, 01 May 2012 12:00:00 GMT

Biography: Steve Leggett

The Lumineers, a folk-rock trio out of Denver, Colorado, deliver an acoustic-based Americana sound that touches a lot of stylistic bases, from folk to gospel to heartland rock and the narrative end of country, all with interesting rhythmic twists and turns. The band had its beginnings in 2002 when Jeremiah Fraites lost his 19-year-old brother Josh to a drug overdose. Fraites and his brother's best friend, Wesley Schultz, turned to music to deal with the sorrow of it, and were soon writing songs and gigging together in the New York area as a duo. After relocating to Denver, the pair met classically trained multi-instrumentalist Neyla Pekarek after placing a Craigslist ad for a cellist, and things clicked for the trio, who began playing open mikes at the Meadowlark, a basement club where local songwriters gathered, developing a fresh sound that defies tight classification, although front porch Americana might cover it -- with a touch of gospel stomp tossed in. The Lumineers released a demo EP in 2009, following it with an eponymous EP in 2011. A proper first album, again simply called The Lumineers, appeared from Dualtone Records in 2012.

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May 2012-Silver Sun Pickups-"Neck Of The Woods"

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 17:06:00 GMT

Biography

By Steve Baltin

April 11, 2012 2:35 PM ET

Silversun Pickups frontman Brian Aubert began the band's new album Neck of the Woods, due May 8th, halfway around the world from his L.A. home. "These songs started to bounce around my head on this trip to Europe where I had some silence," he tells Rolling Stone. "I was in places like Iceland and north of Italy and Hungary, and four or five songs started to come."

While traveling, Aubert became intrigued with the romantic literary notion of being a stranger in a strange land. "That's where it all started – looking at these towns and trying to break in, knowing I can never break in because I'm not from here, really wondering about the people that were," he says.

Ironically, while the album originated thousands of miles away, the recording with producer Jacknife Lee (U2, R.E.M.) brought Aubert back to where it all began. "We ended up recording the whole album two minutes from where I was born, Topanga Canyon," says Aubert, which he knew all about. Or so he thought. Having long ago left behind the idyllic Southern California neighborhood that links the famed beaches of Malibu with the San Fernando Valley, Aubert found himself as removed as he was in Italy and Hungary.

"I felt the same way – I am now a stranger because everything here I knew is gone, the people that I knew are gone. All that started to really attack the feeling of the record, especially lyrically," he says.

The result is a fascinating juxtaposition. Sonically, Neck of the Woods is a much more relaxed collection of songs, more open than the band's previous two albums, which Aubert described as "dominating all the soundscapes all the time." But lyrically, Aubert says, "It was more intense than anything I've ever done, especially emotionally," he says. "I opened up more than I've ever done before."

Looking for an artistic muse in the suburb where he spent his early life, Aubert was unaware of what he might be bringing on. "I didn't really realize what I was doing. I just thought, ‘Maybe I'll find some inspiration – there's a lamppost,'" he says. "It never really works, and I find it funny that when you play with things like that you're surprised when it comes at you in the way that you want it to. But when it does, it's crippling."

In opening up the floodgates Aubert found himself confronted with a lot of loss. "When my mom passed away a long time ago, everything changed. Topanga in particular, that's pretty much over," he says. "It was really difficult. I think the most difficult thing for me was the intense thought of the loss, because there are moments where you feel a blanket of safety that you haven't felt in a long time. It's completely gone, meaning the people that have given it to you aren't around. So that was a real tough one, and that is definitely in this record. There's a lot of wish fulfillment and conversations that can't happen anymore on this album."

Despite all of the emotions Aubert dealt with, he calls making the album a joy. "At the end of the night we shook it off and understood what this was. As equally as intense, it was quite a lovely experience," he says. And he had a chance to sit back recently and appreciate the accomplishment: "I did hear ‘Bloody Mary' on the radio recently and I kind of went, ‘Wow, that's nice.'"

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April 2012-The Shins "Port of Morrow"

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 17:26:00 GMT

Biography

The Shins

by Heather Phares

A classic guitar pop group almost nine years in the making, Albuquerque, New Mexico's the Shins began in 1997 as the side project of singer/songwriter and guitarist James Mercer's primary band, Flake. Mercer formed Flake in 1992 with drummer Jesse Sandoval, keyboardist Marty Crandall, and bassist Neal Langford; they eventually changed their name to Flake Music, releasing several singles, a well-received album, When You Land Here, It's Time to Return, and touring with friends like Modest Mouse and Califone.

Soon after the release of When You Land Here, Mercer and Sandoval formed the Shins as a change of pace, playing as a duo with Cibo Matto and the American Analog Set. With Mercer as the Shins' primary songwriter, the group developed a more focused, crafted sound than Flake Music's charming, if somewhat rambling, collaborative style. Crandall, as well as Scared of Chaka's Dave Hernandez and Ron Skrasek, filled out the Shins' lineup; however, Hernandez and Skrasek left after a short while, due to the success of their main project. By 1999, Flake Music essentially disbanded and Langford also joined the Shins.

With a couple of 7"s on Omnibus -- 1998's Nature Bears a Vacuum and 2000's When I Goose-Step -- under their belts, the Shins embarked on a tour with Modest Mouse. Sub Pop's Jonathan Poneman caught the San Francisco date of the tour and asked the Shins to contribute a single to the label's Single of the Month Club, which eventually became an offer to release their 2001 single New Slang and their debut album, Oh, Inverted World. The group spent the rest of the year touring with acts such as Preston School of Industry and Red House Painters. The release of singles such as "Know Yr Onion!" and "The Past and the Pending" kept the Shins' success going into 2002, cementing Oh, Inverted World as one of the definitive indie rock albums of the early 2000s and the Shins as one of the style's definitive bands.

By the time the band recorded their second album, Chutes Too Narrow, Langford was replaced on bass by Dave Hernandez (ex-Scared of Chaka). Chutes Too Narrow was released in fall 2003. The Shins' profile increased drastically the next year when actor Zach Braff included several of their songs in his 2004 movie Garden State with one of the main characters going so far as to proclaim that the song "New Slang" would "change your life." Its follow-up, Wincing the Night Away, appeared in January 2007 and sold over a staggering 100,000 copies in its first week. The Shins had never before hit higher than number 86 on the Billboard charts, but the album's sales snagged the guys a debut spot of number two. This was also a record for Sub Pop itself, as the label had only previously peaked at number 79 with the Afghan Whigs' 1996 album Black Love.

In 2008, the band announced that their contract with Sub Pop was up, and that their next album would be released through Mercer's own Aural Apothecary label. The resulting Port of Morrow, which featured an all new backing band that included fellow songwriters Jessica Dobson and Richard Swift, Modest Mouse drummer Joe Plummer, and Yuuki Matthews from the Crystal Skulls, arrived in March 2012.

As the first white rap group of any importance, the Beastie Boys received the scorn of critics and strident hip-hop musicians, both of whom accused them of cultural pirating, especially since they began as a hardcore punk group in 1981. But the Beasties weren't pirating -- instead, they treated rap as part of a post-punk musical underground, where the D.I.Y. aesthetics of hip-hop and punk weren't that far apart. Of course, the exaggerated b-boy and frat-boy parodies of their unexpected hit debut album, Licensed to Ill, didn't help their cause. For much of the mid-'80s, the Beastie Boys were considered macho clowns, and while they dismissed that theory with the ambitious, Dust Brothers-produced second album, Paul's Boutique, it was ignored by both the public and the press at the time. In retrospect, Paul's Boutique was one of the first albums to predict the genre-bending, self-referential pop kaleidoscope of '90s pop. The Beasties refined their eclectic approach with 1992's Check Your Head, where they played their own instruments. Check Your Head brought the Beasties back to the top of the charts, and within a few years, they were considered one of the most influential and ambitious groups of the '90s, cultivating a musical community not only through their music, but with their record label, Grand Royal, and their magazine of the same name.

It was a remarkable turn of events for a group whose members demonstrated no significant musical talent on their first records. All three members of the Beastie Boys -- Mike D (born Mike Diamond, November 20, 1966), MCA (born Adam Yauch, August 5, 1965), and Ad-Rock (born Adam Horovitz, October 31, 1967) -- came from wealthy middle-class Jewish families in New York and had become involved in the city's punk underground when they were teenagers in the early '80s. Diamond and Yauch formed the Beastie Boys with drummer Kate Schellenbach and guitarist John Berry in 1981, and the group began playing underground clubs around New York. The following year, the Beasties released the 7" EP Pollywog Stew on the indie label Rat Cage to little attention. That same year, the band met Horovitz, who had formed the hardcore group the Young and the Useless. By early 1983, Schellenbach and Berry had left the group -- they would later join Luscious Jackson and Thwig, respectively -- and Horovitz had joined the Beasties. The revamped group released the rap record "Cookie Puss" as a 12" single later in 1983. Based on a prank phone call the group made to Carvel Ice Cream, the single became an underground hit in New York. By early 1984, however, they had abandoned punk and turned their attention to rap.

In 1984, the Beasties joined forces with producer Rick Rubin, a heavy metal and hip-hop fan who had recently founded Def Jam Records with fellow New York University student Russell Simmons. Def Jam officially signed the Beastie Boys in 1985, and that year they had a hit single from the soundtrack to Krush Groove with "She's on It," a rap track that sampled AC/DC's "Back in Black" and suggested the approach of the group's forthcoming debut album. The Beasties received their first significant national exposure later in 1985, when they opened for Madonna on her Virgin tour. The Beasties taunted the audience with profanity and were generally poorly received. One other major tour, as the openers for Run-D.M.C.'s ill-fated Raisin' Hell trek, followed before Licensed to Ill was released late in 1986. An amalgam of street beats, metal riffs, b-boy jokes, and satire, Licensed to Ill was interpreted as a mindless, obnoxious party record by many critics and conservative action groups. That didn't stop the album from becoming the fastest-selling debut in Columbia Records' history, however, as it sold over 750,000 copies in its first six weeks.

Much of the album's success was due to "Fight for Your Right (To Party)," which became a massive crossover single. In fact, Licensed to Ill became the biggest-selling rap album of the '80s, which generated much criticism from certain hip-hop fans who believed that the Beasties were merely cultural pirates. On the other side of the coin, the group was being attacked from the right, who claimed the Beasties' lyrics were violent and sexist and that their concerts -- which featured female audience members dancing in go-go cages and a giant inflatable penis, similar to what the Stones used in their mid-'70s concerts -- caused even more outrage. Throughout their 1987 tour, they were plagued with arrests and lawsuits, and were accused of inciting crime.

While much of the Beasties' exaggeratedly obnoxious behavior started out as a joke, it became a self-parody by the end of 1987, so it wasn't a surprise that the group decided to revamp its sound and image during the next two years. During 1988, the Beasties became involved in a bitter lawsuit with Def Jam and Rick Rubin, who claimed he was responsible for their success and threatened to release outtakes as their second album. The Beasties finally broke away by the end of the year and relocated to California, where they signed with Capitol Records. While in California, they met the production team the Dust Brothers, and they convinced the duo to use their prospective debut album as the basis for the Beasties' second album, Paul's Boutique. Densely layered with interweaving samples and pop culture references, the retro-funk-psychedelia of Paul's Boutique was entirely different than Licensed to Ill, and many observers weren't quite sure what to make of it. Several publications gave it rave reviews, but when it failed to produce a single bigger than the number 36 "Hey Ladies," it was quickly forgotten about.

Despite its poor commercial performance, Paul's Boutique gained a cult following, and its cut-and-paste sample techniques would later be hailed as visionary, especially after the Dust Brothers altered the approach for Beck's acclaimed 1996 album, Odelay. Still, the record was declared a disaster in the early '90s, but that didn't prevent the Beasties from building their own studio and founding their own record label, Grand Royal, for their next record, Check Your Head. Alternating between old-school hip-hop, raw amateurish funk, and hardcore punk, Check Your Head was less accomplished than Paul's Boutique, but equally diverse. Furthermore, the burgeoning cult around the Beasties made the album a surprise Top Ten hit upon its spring 1992 release. "Jimmy James," "Pass the Mic," and "So Whatcha Want" were bigger hits on college and alternative rock radio than they were on rap radio, and the group suddenly became hip again.

Early in 1994, they collected their early punk recordings on the compilation Some Old Bullshit, which was followed in June by their fourth album, Ill Communication. Essentially an extension of Check Your Head, the record debuted at number one upon its release, and the singles "Sabotage" and "Sure Shot" helped send it to double-platinum status. During the summer of 1994, they co-headlined the fourth Lollapalooza festival with the Smashing Pumpkins. That same year, Grand Royal became a full-fledged record label as it released Luscious Jackson's acclaimed debut album, Natural Ingredients. The Beasties' Grand Royal magazine was also launched that year.

Over the next few years, the Beasties remained quiet as they concentrated on political causes and the machinations of their record label. In 1996, they released the hardcore EP Aglio e Olio and the instrumental soul-jazz and funk collection The In Sound from Way Out! Also that year, Adam Yauch organized a two-day festival to raise awareness about the plight of Tibet, and the festival went on to become an annual event. The Beastie Boys' long-awaited fifth LP, Hello Nasty, finally appeared during the summer of 1998 and became their third chart-topping album. A longer wait preceded release of their next record, To the 5 Boroughs, which appeared in mid-2004. In 2005, Capitol issued Solid Gold Hits, a 15-track survey of the Beasties' lengthy career. One year later, the band released a concert film titled Awesome: I Fuckin' Shot That!, which had been pieced together from footage shot by 50 DV and Hi-8 cameras that had been distributed to fans. The DVD version appeared in July of that year.

An instrumental album, The Mix-Up, continued the band's prolific activity in 2007 and garnered a Grammy Award the following year. The Beastie Boys returned to rap with Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 1, parts of which were previewed during the band's performance at the 2009 Bonnaroo festival, but the album ended up unreleased in the wake of Yauch's announcement that he had cancer. He underwent successful surgery and radiation treatment, and the band announced late in 2010 that Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2 (including virtually all the material intended for the first volume) would be released in spring 2011. ~Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AllMusic.com

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April 2012-Fun "Some Nights"

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 17:21:00 GMT

Biography

Fun

by Tim Sendra

Fun.'s debut album Aim and Ignite was an interesting blend of seemingly divergent styles topped by a healthy dose of grandiose ambition and performed with a precise abandon. The trio made an album that was truly progressive and also super catchy and fun. The follow-up, Some Nights, ramps up the ambition and sonic bombast, but also manages to be even more powerful and impressive. While writing and planning the album, singer Nate Ruess, guitarist Jack Antonoff, and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Dost were heavily influenced by both the sound and scope of Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and made every attempt to achieve something similar, even to the point of hiring that album's co-producer Jeff Bhasker to produce and craft beats for them. (Also Emile Haynie, who has worked with Eminem among others) Though the album has more of a hip-hop influence than Aim and Ignite did, there are still large doses of Queen and ELO coursing through the band's blood, both in the machine-crafted vocal harmonies and the ornate bigness of the sound. The album is overloaded with strings and horns, backing vocals, keyboards, and programmed drums surrounding Ruess like a clamoring crowd, but … » Read more

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