There are four million people in New Zealand, but only one of them gets to be Brooke Fraser. Once named her country’s Best Female Solo Artist, Fraser is now gracing the entire world with her powerful, smoky tone and emotionally charged music.
“Flags” is her most recent project, released worldwide in October of last year, and it’s been a project of love and growth for Fraser, who says the album is a huge step forward for her and her career.
“I was very sober about releasing this album. I really didn’t know if I was about to have a massive gong show and ruin my career by putting this out, but I knew that I didn’t care,” Fraser said. “I believed in the songs and in the honest way we’d treated them, and I just crossed my fingers and hoped that people would get it.”
Turns out, people do get it. Not only that, but they love it, too.
“I’m very grateful for that,” Fraser added. “’Flags’ feels like a definite step forward for me as an artist, and not a tentative one, but a shoulders-back, chin-forward step. I know what the album is and what it isn’t. What is isn’t is perfect or completely cohesive. What it is, is a story.”
And that story is universal enough to be enjoyed by music fans from every walk of life. The beauty of Fraser’s music is that any lover of any genre of music can pop into onto an iPod and appreciate what she’s doing. Everybody relates to beautiful music, and thankfully, that’s exactly who Fraser has been able to reach.
“People everywhere are the same kaleidoscope of different tastes and wants and needs,” Fraser explained. “At my shows, we seem to have the same very vast cross section of people—everyone from 9 year old girls to senior citizens and everyone in between—college students, soccer moms, working professionals. It’s a great thrill to see so many different types of people connecting with the songs I’m writing.”
Fraser hopes those connections last for the rest of her life, as she feels her music career is only just now getting off the ground.
“I hope that I will have the opportunity to do this for a long time to come, but you never know what life could throw at you,” she said, adding, “Consequently, I try to retain a sense of wonder about this job and be grateful for every opportunity. There will definitely be more solo albums, but I also look forward to turning my attention to side projects and other collaborative fun stuff in the years to come. I do know, though, that I will always write songs, whether they are heard or not.”
We’re hoping that all of them get heard. So does everybody in New Zealand. And so should every other music-lover in the world.
Everybody loves free stuff because, ya know, it’s free. When I was a kid, I got this book (not free) that listed this whole slew of stuff that you could get just by asking for it. I wrote letters to all sorts of different companies and ended up free books, free samples, and free toys. It was my guidebook for the begging, basically, and it got me just about everything I could’ve ever wanted.
Except one thing. It never got me Free Energy.
That’s probably because the Philadelphia band wouldn’t even join forces and use their now-buzzworthy name until 2007. I was like 25 years old by that point and had lost my free crap handbook like a decade and a half previous. But now, at the ripe age of 28, Free Energy is finally mine (and yours, I suppose). It’s something I always wanted, even though it didn’t exist until recently.
I sound ridiculous, I know. Nothing I’m saying is making even an iota of sense, but try to understand what I mean—since sometime in the late 1980s, there hasn’t been a single day that I haven’t wanted for upbeat, light-hearted rock, and Free Energy encapsulates that better than any indie band out there. It’s not angry or over-the-top or abrasive—just happy and energetic. Free energetic…
Look, it’s on me to put you guys on stuff that you’re actually going to be interested in listening to, but there’s not a single CD out there right now that’s less offensive and more universally loveable than Free Energy’s “Stuck on Nothing,” featuring, among other smile-worthy tracks, “Bang Pop,” which has seen the most mainstream success of any track on the record.
Not everything in life is free, but this Energy is. I mean, not in the sense that you won’t have to pay for the album, because you will, but in the sense that it’s out there for everyone to enjoy. As part of everyone, you’d be remiss not to join in the festivities. That part won’t cost you a thing.
First and foremost, any time a band decides to take their name from a “Black Betty” lyric, your eyebrows should pique with interest. When one of those words is a swear word, it should become pretty clear pretty quickly that this is going to be a band with a strong propensity for badassery. Take all that and add to it the fact that The Damned Things is comprised of members from Fall Out Boy, Anthrax, and Every Time I Die, and the group’s debut album “Ironiclast” is a can’t-miss.
It’s hard to explain how this record works stylistically other than the fact that it really is a perfect hybrid between hardcore ‘80s metal and modern-day alternative pop. Everything rocks, but everything is also commercially viable. It’s a legitimately odd sound that works on a level I’m not sure you can even begin to understand.
Scott Ian and Joe Trohman, the guitarists for the supergroup, said they were going for a sort of Led Zeppelinish classic rock vibe driven by hardcore riffs like what Anthrax and Every Time I Die traditionally use, as well as the catchy melody-driven hooks that made Fall Out Boy so popular. There’s a ton of instrumental improvisation during breakdowns, and songs like “We’ve Got A Situation Here” and “A Great Reckoning” show the versatility of the group.
Usually when we review a new album, we say something like, “Almost every song on the album is a winner,” but in this case we’re throwing out the “almost.” There’s no need for it. For fans of straight up rock, or pop-alt, or metal, there’s something for you on this album. It’s crazy good, folks. I mean, The Damned Things go wild on this project. What else would one expect them to do?
Redman has always been one of those rappers you just had to listen to. His bubbly and raucous vocal style combined with what have always been hard-hitting yet ridiculous lyrics have made him both extremely fun and extremely respectable as far as modern-day rappers are concerned.
But in “Reggie,” his seventh studio album, Redman takes a new approach to his music in an attempt to branch out a bit as an artist. Think Jim Carrey in “The Truman Show;” everybody expected comedy, but what they got was something completely different, yet still surprisingly watchable.
The new record is, as Redman puts it, written in the voice of Reggie Noble, the rapper’s real name. Oddly, he calls Reggie a pseudonym, even though, ya know, it’s not, but either way the gimmick breathes life into a Redman album that’s quite a bit different from his predecessors. I don’t want to call it more serious, necessarily, just less ridiculous.
Musically, it’s about 300% more pop-friendly than anything you’ve ever heard from Mr. Raunchy in a while. EPMD’s Erick Sermon didn’t produce a single track on this album—the first time that’s ever happened—and what’s left is a gaggle of tracks that could easily find their way to Top 40 radio. “Def Jammable,” “Lift It Up,” and “Lemme Get 2” are just a few of the songs with potential to hit, but the entire album has rife with tracks that give it a level of replayability I haven’t seen in many hip-hop albums this year.
And my favorite thing about the album—no skits—something I know a handful of hip-hop purists love but I loathe because it breaks up the flow of the music. It’s just one more indication that “Reggie” is a different kind of Redman album, one that closes out the 2010 music season with a vigor only Redman could manage.
The 88 – They Ought To See You Now
If you think these guys’ sound is a little familiar, cue up an episode of “Community” and enjoy the theme song. Does that settle your little earworm? Good. Now I can provide you with a brand new one with “They Ought To See You Know,” a crazy fun, upbeat rock track that sounds like something that could play alongside Smash Mouth and Fastball on a late ‘90s pop-rock mix. There’s no way to hate this song, even if you don’t love it. But I think you’re gonna love it. Love away:
Frankie J – I Need You
While I can’t deny the fact that occasionally there are club/dance tracks that I do thoroughly enjoy, it should be stated that they have to fit a certain number of criteria. For one, the beat has to be hot and grindy (“I Need You” is), the artist doing the vocals has to be legitimately talented (Frankie J is), and it has to be something that incites me to break out in a full-bodied dance, even while driving a car (check). If it can’t do all those things, I’m not interested, but I’m interested in this song because, ya know, it does do all those things.
Agnes Obel – Riverside
Do a Google image search on Danish singer Agnes Obel and what pops up are loads of picture that feature what seems to be a pretty cute blonde with gorgeous blue eyes dressed in the kind of gear you’d expect to be worn by the Little Women or the House on the Prairie girls. Maybe that’s her shtick. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter, because even if she draped herself in seaweed and stepped into steel-toed combat boots, “Riverside,” would still be a haunting and gorgeous song.
