I recently came across the following quote from Norman Smith (who was The Beatles recording engineer from Please Please Me through Rubber Soul) I don’t want to take anything away from anyone, but production of the Beatles was very simple, because it was ready-made. Paul was a very great influence in terms of the production, [...]

Continuing my series on “three great albums” that were released in any given year (I began in 2007 and am working my way back to 1964.) I’m at 1998 today. Neutral Milk Hotel – In The Aeroplane Over The Sea This album has become a true classic over the years. It seems to have influenced [...]

Joanna Newsom’s 3rd album is titled Have One On Me and it’s set to be released around the world on February 23rd. It will be a triple album (available as both a triple CD and a triple LP.) Her first two albums were 2004′s The Milk-Eyed Mender and 2006′s Ys.

The Hope For Haiti Now charity album debuted at #1 on the US album charts and made a bit of history by becoming the first digital download only album to make it to #1. The album sold 171,000 copies to get the top spot. This is most impressive when you consider that it only became [...]

The Magnetic Fields’ Realism is their first album since 2008′s Distortion which hit #77 on the US album charts. Four Tet’s There Is Love In You is Kieran Hebden’s first album in over four years (Four Tet is Kieren Hebden’s stage name.) His last full length album release was 2005′s Everything Ecstatic which charted at [...]

I’m just getting around to listening to Album by Girls (released on September 22, 2009) and I’ve been enjoying it a quite a bit on my first listens and in particular I’ve been loving “Hellhole Ratrace” which is track #6 and easily the longest song on Album (nearly 7 minutes long.) It’s a really beautiful [...]

Gorillaz fans should check out Gorillaz.com as there’s a lot of new stuff (including a stream of the new single “Stylo” featuring Bobby Womack & Mos Def) to check out over there with the group’s new album, Plastic Beach, coming out on March 9th in the US (the 8th in the UK.)

Some selected entries from this week’s billboard charts: #01 Vampire Weekend – Contra Is that a younger Britney Spears on the cover of this album? I haven’t heard this yet, so I can’t make any comments on the quality of the music. These days it’s quite unusual for someone other than a solo female act [...]

The line up for the three day Coachella music festival in Indio, California has been announced and it includes the following artists (and many more, go here for complete listings.) Jay-Z, Gorillaz, and Muse are the headliners for each of the respective days of the three day festival but there are quite a few artists [...]

On January 10th I did a post about US vinyl album sales in 2009 and how the 2.5 million vinyl LPs sold in 2009 was a new peak since Soundscan started keeping track in 1991. This climb in vinyl sales has been a sharp climb from just under one million in 2007 to 1.8 million [...]