The sophomore CD from The Human Value ( http://www.thehumanvalue.com/) hits the streets next week and we thought we’d give you a sneak peek of the band with a few links to a live video shot last month @ the Viper Room in LA, an MP3 for “Pretty Mouth” off their latest CD Push and Pull as well as 300 DPI photos and more. The song title is also the bands label under the Big Deal Records banner – a little trivia for you.
In 2006, The Human Value garnered some pretty great press on their eponymous record debut from the likes of NME, Artrocker, Fuse, Diva, The Fly and more in the UK. In fact, the band moved to England for the better part of 10 months when the record came out and toured the country in support of the album and 7”. This time around, the band is back in LA and have quite a few shows in October including:
10/03 @ Spaceland, Los Angeles, CA (Shiloe Rec. Rel. Party)
10/04 @ Eagle Rock Music Festival, Los Angeles, CA (5pm, Kingsize Soundlabs Stage)
10/24 @ Viper Room, Los Angeles, CA
You Tube of live video from The Viper Room:
MP3 for the track “Pretty Mouth” (right click, save as)
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WatchMojo NewsletterInterscope Records artist James Morrison will be releasing his new album Songs for You, Truths for Me on September 30th. This album is the follow up to James’s debut album Undiscovered, which sold more than two million albums worldwide and became the biggest selling British male solo artist of 2006.
A testimony to the strength of the songs on James Morrison’s debut album Undiscovered is that it yielded no fewer than five singles – You Give Me Something, Wonderful World, The Pieces Don’t Fit Anymore, Undiscovered and One Last Chance. The songs were simple yet beautifully written, each giving James’s raw, bluesy voice a platform to work its powerful magic. There was no bullshit, no clichés, no schmaltz. And a lot of people liked that.
Undiscovered went to No 1 in Britain, Top 20 in America and won him the 2007 Brit Award for Best Male (he was also nominated for Best Single and Best Newcomer). James’s debut sold over two million copies worldwide and he became the biggest selling British male solo artist of 2006. He was just 21 – but had already accumulated enough life experience to give his candid folk-soul songs genuine emotional content. By many people’s standards he’d had a tough, itinerant childhood, a broken family and endless house moves – although he’d be the first to shrug and say it was no big deal. But he’d also admit that most of the emotion in his singing has come from his upbringing.
James’s reputation as a must-see live performer soared. Following his jaw dropping, first ever TV performance on Later With Jools Holland he went on to play amazing shows to adoring crowds: including the V festival twice in one day – in 2006 so many people came to see him in one of the smaller tents that he was invited to give an impromptu performance on the main stage; last year he played a full set on the main stage. Then there was the Royal Variety Performance, the Concert for Diana and the more traditional 3 sold-out UK tours. He did the Peace One Day concert at the Royal Albert Hall – and had one of those moments where he suddenly realized that his life had changed forever. “Just before I went on I was watching Yusuf Islam and I thought, I’m on after Cat Stevens! I remember being at home with my dad listening to his albums during the darkest times, the best of times…” James has subsequently provided vocals on Yusuf’s new album.
He toured Europe, Australia and Japan, did three separate tours of America, gigging coast to coast. He also supported John Mayer on his large outdoor ‘sheds’ tour in the US. He gave an acoustic rendition of You Give Me Something on national TV on NBC today as well as Jimmy Kimmel and performed on Jay Leno’s show twice at the host’s invitation. James loved the musical appreciation in the American South, in particular. “People were awesome in Alabama – really friendly, loud and lairy. Even if you play a quiet song, afterwards they just go YEAH!!!”
It was an amazing time. But sometimes, when he wasn’t onstage, or with the band, he’d feel an acute sense of being increasingly cut off from the people who mattered: his friends and family back in Cornwall – where his mother had finally settled with James, his brother Laurie and sister Hayley when James was 11, and where James had refined his self-taught singing and guitar-playing by busking in Newquay. Most importantly of all, he missed his long-term girlfriend Gill, who had inspired You Give Me Something and, during a rocky patch in their relationship, The Pieces Don’t Fit.
The further James Morrison travelled, both physically and career-wise, the more he craved the people he loved. “Everything I’d felt close to just disappeared,” he says. “You do lose your mind a bit; you haven’t got any routines. And sometimes all I’d think about on the road would be Gill – but we’d lose contact. So when I got home it’d feel like we were starting again.”
He finally stopped in August 2007. For two weeks. And then he sat down to write and record the Notoriously Difficult Second Album. And at first it did prove difficult. He tried to write rockier, harder tunes – as glimpsed on Undiscovered’s Call The Police, which touched on the subject of domestic violence. “I went for something with a bit more electric guitar but in the end it just sounded contrived.”
The pressure was on and it was making him try too hard, too self-consciously. “As soon as I’d get something good I’d think about it and screw it up.” And then the penny dropped: “Just go for what you’re feeling at the time. That’s how I worked on the first album, and in a way I think that’s some of the reason why people liked it. It wasn’t trying too hard.”
And so the people who really made him feel, the ones who became the subjects of his songs on Undiscovered – his family and friends – his relationship with each of them, and the new chapters in all their lives, became central to the new album. James went with whatever and whoever was on his mind, and took it from there. The songs began to flow.
“I’ve called the album Songs for You, Truths for Me because that’s what I feel it is. It’s songs for Gill and everyone else. But for me they’re truths. They’re how I feel. I’ve got a song called Love is Hard. In fact, there are three songs with ‘love’ in the title – and I never thought I’d do that, but that’s the way it went. Love is Hard is about when you’re deep in it and it hurts a lot of the time. You’re fighting, or not always agreeing, you might be away from each other and you’ve still got to be strong. So the album’s a collection of truths I’d learnt in the previous year. It just turned out that way: I knew I didn’t want to write about being on the road. I can only write about what I feel.”
In the end, James enlisted many of the same collaborators from Undiscovered to work with him on Songs for You, Truths For Me hooking up once more with co-writers Martin Brammer, Steve Robson and Eg White. He also added a new fan, One Republic’s Ryan Tedder to that list. The Nashville string quartet feature once again. “I know we work well together now – it’ll take a lot for me to work with someone new.”
There is also a notable collaboration on this record, one of the only things his debut album didn’t have, a fantastic duet with Nelly Furtado on the epic Broken Strings.
Songs for You, Truths For Me is a classic James Morrison record that once again showcases his distinctive, raw, soulful style – but takes it to the next level. “It’s less playful, more to the point,” he says. “But I haven’t consciously gone for a different sound. With me, it always comes down to the lyric, the melody, and the rest flows from that. But I’ve definitely tapped into my feelings about life more on this album, rather than writing about characters on the bus (Wonderful World), or whatever. I was just letting stuff flow through me.”
James Morrison’s big, unashamedly romantic heart and generous spirit shines through like a beacon. Songs For You, Truths For Me sees the wide eyed soul-boy become a wiser man. With this he shines once more on a brilliant new collection of songs and cathartic truths.
James Morrison official site:
http://www.interscope.com/jamesmorrison
and on Imeem:
http://www.imeem.com/jamesmorrisonmusic
and MySpace:
http://www.myspace.com/jamesmorrisonmusic
RIP Richard:
Pianist and keyboardist Richard Wright, one of the founding members of Pink Floyd, has died after a short battle with cancer. He was 65.
A family spokesman made the announcement on Monday. No other details were revealed.
“The family have asked that their privacy is respected at this difficult time,” the spokesman said.
The British musician and songwriter met his fellow band members Roger Waters and Nick Mason in college, where they formed a pre-Pink Floyd group called Sigma 6.
Though he was not prominent as a songwriter in the iconic group, Wright did pen and sing on some of its earlier works and also two popular tracks from the hit 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon: The Great Gig In The Sky and Us And Them. He was better known for helping the band create its iconic sound through the many instruments he played, specifically his contributions on electric organ, keyboard and synthesizer.
Though he left the group to form his own band in the early 1980s after a feud with Waters, by the end of the decade, Wright had rejoined Pink Floyd (by then sans Waters) for its album A Momentary Lapse of Reason.
At the Live 8 concert in London in July 2005, Waters reunited onstage with Wright, David Gilmour and Nick Mason for a short set. Fellow founding Pink Floyd member Syd Barrett died of pancreatic cancer in July 2006.
Britney has somehow come back from the brink of oblivion and is actually ready to release a new album before the end of the year?! Read more about this below:
New York, NY –Jive/Zomba recording artist Britney Spears announces her sixth studio album, Circus, set for release December 2nd. The first single from the album is titled “Womanizer” and was produced by the up-and-coming Atlanta production team The Outsyders. The album release date coincides with Spears’ birthday.
On the heels of an MTV VMA awards sweep, where Britney walked away with three Moonmen awards for “Video of the Year,” “Best Female” and “Best Pop Video” for “Piece of Me,” Jive Records is preparing her latest album, Circus, a follow-up to her critically well received album, Blackout. For her latest effort, Britney has enlisted a stellar group of established producers/writers that include Dr. Luke (who wrote and produced the album’s title track, “Circus”), Danja, Max Martin, Bloodshy & Avant and Guy Sigsworth (Madonna, Alanis Morissette, Bjork).
Britney Spears is one of the top-selling artists of the last decade and to date; she has sold in excess of 62 million albums worldwide, that include …Baby One More Time (1999), Oops!…I Did It Again (2000), Britney (2001), In The Zone (2003), and Blackout (2007), eight #1 worldwide singles and four consecutive #1 albums.
The Zomba Label Group consists of record labels Jive, LaFace, Volcano, Verity, GospoCentric and Fo Yo Soul. These labels represent a varied group of artists including Justin Timberlake, R. Kelly, Usher, Tool, Ciara, Chris Brown, Pink, Britney Spears, OutKast, Kirk Franklin, Three Days Grace, 311, Nick Lachey, T-Pain, Byron Cage, Bullet For My Valentine, Buddy Guy, Living Things, Anthony Hamilton, Donnie McClurkin, John P. Kee, Fred Hammond, Hezekiah Walker, Marvin Sapp, Kelly Price, J. Moss and Backstreet Boys.
Here’s her “comeback” performance at the 2008 VMA’s to get you in the mood for a “comeback” album:
I am just like you, I am Nobody Famous
Some people spend their entire life trying to be something they are not. Others were put here for a reason, but do not know what that reason is. But when a person finds themselves and knows their purpose, a beautiful thing takes place. Through the centuries, billions of people have graced the face of the earth, lived an everyday life and were just regular people or Nobody Famous. When you take certain traits from each of these individuals you get the blueprint of genius. When the blueprint is constructed into a tangible form, genius is conceived. In December of 1982, genius was conceived. This blueprint was constructed by God and placed on this earth to change the face of an element, which contrary to scientific belief is essential to our very existence. This element is music. The musical expressions that Nobody Famous composes are essential to the future of hip-hop, the future of music and the future of life. Some people may not understand the movement, but that is understandable, this is God’s plan. Some people may even attempt it diffuse the movement, but it will stand, because it is God’s plan. So ask yourself, will your stand for or against the movement? Will you try to stop God’s plan or will you help facilitate it? This is the movement of music; I am doing this for people just like you. I am just like you…
Check out Nobody Famous on FlowTV:
http://flow.tv/shows/14/episodes/385?season_id=32
http://flow.tv/shows/14/episodes/386?season_id=32
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