Tracklist:

1.Let It Rattle
2.Drumroll (We’re All Thirsty)
3.Savion Glover
4.Purexed
5.Graves (We Wrote the Book)
6.Goodbye
7.Get Smokes
8.Been Afraid
9.Low Light Low Life
10.The Basics (Alright)
11.Out of Category
12.Optimist (We Are Not For Them)
13.Terrorish
14.Never Better
15.The Brave and the Snake

Press Release:

P.O.S. returns with Never Better, February 3rd on Rhymesayers. It’s the follow-up to 2006’s critically acclaimed Audition. Most of P.O.S’ new album was written in a moving car. On it, he raps at full-clip to ride rolling drums and revving distortion. There’s an urgency that he keeps in careful check, and then unleashes for spring-loaded verses that represent his best work. P.O.S built his reputation as an innovator, with an unlikely punk rock past and expressive, honest content. He re-earns the accolades with every release. His records capture his charisma-they’re driving and sincere, the dark moments counterbalanced by some giggling banter with the engineer. On Never Better, the new disc, he conjures get-away cars, racing chariots, the pursuit of sirens, and the occasional rueful nighttime drive.

P.O.S. himself made more than half of the beats on Never Better, and the production bears his unmistakable signature.  The album enters a room like bombshell with a black eye-badass, noisy, impossible to ignore.  Feedback and relentless drum rolls are only occasionally tempered by sung choruses and clean, chiming guitar lines.  Some critics will be eager to categorize the album as a hybrid-some kind of crossover project. But it’s probably not. P.O.S is a rapper with range, he’s a real musician and an unstoppable performer. For him, genres are as they ever were: permeable.

The packaging for P.O.S’s new album Never Better is a one of a kind four panel transparent plastic Digipak that holds 16 solid and 6 Transparent inserts. The solid inserts have artwork on the front and lyrics/credits on the back. The Transparent inserts have artwork that when placed over the various solid cards, enhance and change the look of the art underneath, hundreds of combinations are possible. Look for P.O.S. to embark on a headlining tour for the month of February and he will stay on the road through the summer, where he’s confirmed for the entire Vans Warped Tour.

P.O.S.’s two plus years on the road in support of Audition proved that no genre can contain him. He’s just as comfortable performing in front of punk and rock crowds as he is with his ever growing loyal hip hop fan base. On different tours, he went out with Atmosphere, Minus the Bear, Gym Class Heroes and Underoath plus did 50+ dates on the Vans Warped Tour. Audition made it up to #13 on the CMJ Radio Top 200 and was #1 on the Hip Hop chart for three weeks. The video for his single “Bleeding Hearts Club (MPLS Chapter)” received heavy rotation on MTVu and also on MTV2’s Subterranean.

Rapper Remy Ma wants to be out of jail by Christmas. So after exhausting all appeals while serving her 8-year prison sentence, she’s now accusing the judge who presided over her trial of making mistakes.

Remy, real name Reminisce Smith, 26, was sentenced in May on charges of assault with a deadly weapon, weapon possession and attempted coercion for shooting Makeda Barnes Joseph in the abdomen in July after accusing her of stealing money out of her purse.

Now, in new documents filed on behalf of the star, her lawyers claim the trial was riddled with mistakes by the judge. They pinpoint four key indications of the judge’s alleged faults, including the claim Smith was “unfairly prejudiced” by the inclusion of details relating to an August 2007 attack on a male alleged to be Barnes Joseph’s boyfriend, which Smith is said to have instigated.

Her attorneys have also accused the judge of “wrongly instructing the jury” over Barnes Joseph’s testimony, after the jurors were told that if they believed it to be “truthful and accurate”, it would satisfy the proof “beyond a reasonable doubt”.
Smith’s legal team want the sentence overturned and the star released before the seasonal holidays.

Smith is currently serving time at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in New York as she awaits the appeal. Source

And Radiohead vocalist/spokesman Thom Yorke is so excited about the results of this contest (which, of course, was stamped with the band's official seal of approval) that he's going all Yoda on us: "The aniBoom video competition, totally blown me away it has," said Yorke in a statement released this morning.

So as much as it pains me to say it, keep your eyes and ears tuned in over at MySpace, and then let us know what you think of the new vid!

They’re Here!

Here’s one of ‘em, but you gotta go see Carrie for the rest:

And here’s the press release, which offers much more insightful commentary than I can give you right now. But there’s a Q&A between the two women over on our good friend Carrie’s NPR blog, Monitor Mix (take the above link).

November 20, 2008; Washington, D.C. – Carrie Brownstein, blogger for NPR Music’s “Monitor Mix” and former guitarist of the critically-acclaimed rock band Sleater-Kinney, is releasing four songs recorded with fellow musician Mary Timony today on NPR Music. Recorded as part of Brownstein and Timony’s side project The Spells in 2000, the previously unreleased songs are now available to hear exclusively at NPR Music, where two tracks are also available the next two weeks for free download: www.npr.org/blogs/monitormix/

As The Spells, Brownstein and Timony recorded eight songs – four that made it to an EP in 2000, and four previously unreleased that are now available on NPR Music: “Bat Vs. Bird,” “Viola,” “Champion Vampire” and “Antarctica.”

Brownstein blogs on “Monitor Mix” that while she and Timony had bigger plans for The Spells, both became busy with bands and tours. “We did, however, manage to start the process,” Brownstein writes “In the summer of 2000, we recorded four songs in a couple of hours, the same amount of time in which we’d written them a few months earlier. If nothing else, making these songs available now is The Spells’ way of finally acknowledging that we aren’t going to get around to finishing the album. “

“Monitor Mix” is one of two NPR Music blogs, and is where Brownstein introduces her favorite music and comments on developments in the industry. Her writing on music has also appeared in The New York Times, pitchforkmedia.com and various book anthologies on music and culture. She is also one-half of ThunderAnt, a comedy duo with Fred Armisen. Brownstein is currently working on her first book of non-fiction.

NPR Music, marking its one year anniversary, features content from NPR and 12 NPR Member public radio stations, as well as original-to-NPR Music features such as live performances, studio sessions, exclusive first listens to forthcoming albums, interviews, reviews and blogs. The site’s continuously expanding sections are dedicated to rock/pop/folk, classical, jazz/blues, world and urban music. NPR Music culls from NPR’s and the stations’ extensive music archives to present thousands of features; more than 240 new features are added to the site every month.

This ain’t your daddies NPR!

Ok, that’s the cheesiest thing I’ve ever typed.

Did you learn anything in music school?  Or does the phrase “circle of fifths” mean nothing to you?

I learned much at the Paris Conservatoire: beyond the obvious technical competence which everyone must acquire in their own way, I was given the freedom and time to develop my fledgling ideas in the most extraordinarily fruitful and stimulating atmosphere..

What’s your favorite “bad” piece of music? And briefly justify your crappy taste.

I consider a lot  of the oboe repertoire I play to be bad music, for instance, Pasculli or Kalliwoda. Endless sequences, rather uninspired melodic content, and so on. Yet, despite the lack of intrinsic interest, the performance of this music perhaps can be justified by the fact that it is fun to play, and expanded the technical possibilities of the oboe. I also have a soft spot for Bow Wow Wow, which I refuse to justify.

Your five-composition-long playlist for Schoenberg would contain:

Five pieces for orchestra, Four Orchestral Songs, the Second Quartet, The first Kammersymphonie, and the String Trio.

Congress calls on you to draw up a bailout plan for contemporary music!  What do you do?

There are only temporary, provisional solutions to this ‘problem’, which I don’t believe really is a problem, except for certain composers who insist on living off their irrational compulsion to write music. However, the single most important area requiring development, especially in North America, is music education in public schools. Without that basic groundwork, it would be difficult to change the situation in any significant way.

The Nation Blue - ‘I See Colours’

For a while there, The Nation Blue were Australia’s premiere post-hardcore / rock’n'roll band, garnering some big-name supports and trekking across the globe, making it as far as Brazil. Their 2007 disc Protest Songs built them quite a fan base and a few friends (such as Dave Grohl, which publicists LOVE to include in their press releases). And then… they kinda fell off the radar.

‘I See Colours’ is the latest release from this Melbourne trio and it comes with a pretty harrowing backstory courtesy of vocalist/guitar Tom Lyncoln.

“‘I See Colours’ is about having my drink spiked on New Years 1999/2000 and falling down a flight of stairs onto a slate floor and then waking up during a CT scan and thinking I was dead… I ripped the tube outta my arm and bent the needle and destroyed my arm…took me three days to sit up in bed, four days to walk again and a week of phone calls to find out what happened to me.

“Still don’t really know but think it was a girl at party… toxicology report says I had 3 x the maximum dosage of MDMA in my system and this song is a description of what I saw when I first woke up. In contrast I wanted to write a really tweaked chord progression and pack the song full of ghost notes. Tick.”

The band are playing a couple of shows this week, and they’re on their MySpace page.

http://www.myspace.com/thenationblue

“Brought to you by Fruit of the Loom.”

How would you feel about your music being preceded by a brief recorded message from the underwear maker? Are fans just as willing to listen to audio advertising at the start of songs as they are willing to put up with seeing ads? If it means they get the song for free, apparently the answer is yes.

We’ve talked about bands and brands partnering up (like Throw Me The Statue in an Urban Outfitters commercial) and the trend is clearly not slowing down. In this new frontier, it’s becoming imperative to think outside the box and explore new media. Even CBS is doing it: OMG Boobies: Victoria’s Secret on Your Mobile. One of the most prevalent examples of band/brand partnerships that we’re seeing as of late is the ad-supported music model.

trueAnthem, which we first stumbled across because of their early work with Ultraviolet Sound, has been forging ahead and signing more and more bands. Led by Brad Barnes, they are pioneering a “new way for independent and undiscovered artists and bands to get paid while sharing their music with their fans for free - and without having to sign away their lives to a major music label”. Check out their widget (which you can grab and post wherever) - you can download the artists’ album for free. Free, as long as you don’t mind hearing and ad at the start of each song.

Personally, I don’t mind at all. The folks at trueAnthem (probably largely thanks to Emaleigh) have done a great job of pairing the right brand with each band and presenting the sponsor’s messaging in an appropriate way. If you browse through the various bands, you notice brands like Guitar Center, Steve Madden, and Baby Phat… and when you hear that band’s music you can’t help but nod and go “yep… that’s a fit”.

Another interesting example is the recently launched digital music service WE7, which has “all four majors and hundreds of independent labels via The Orchard on board.” Compensation is derived from ad revenues.

What seemed like a distant pipedream not too long ago is certainly becoming the new reality. The music industry simply must accept that the new generation of music consumers - you know, the ones who grew up with the internet and can’t imagine a world without it - expect to get their music for free (one way or another). And they want to consume it in their own way, on their own time, and in their preferred way. So, we might as well make that possible and find ways to still pay the artists. And that is exactly what WE7 has done.

A key ingredient in this equation is obviously appropriate pairing of bands and brands. The sites and services who do this best will likely come out on top. The advertisers need to reach their target demographics. And the music capturing that particular audience might be just the vehicle to get them there.