Guests for this album include: Snoop Dogg, Kano, Bobby Womack, Mos Def, Gruff Rhys, De La Soul, Little Dragon, Lou Reed, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and the Lebanese National Orchestra for Oriental Arabic Music.  It sounds crazy, but that is what makes this amazing.

The album is a big environmental statement about the times, but it feels like those cartoon monkeys escaped the volcanic eruption of the previous album and have been lounging on a beach since 2005. Snoop’s opening raps on “Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach” are pretty inviting, and it doesn’t stop after that.  Songs like “Stylo”, “Sweepstakes”, “Superfast Jellyfish”, and “White Flag” will get you moving.  Slower songs like “Broken”, “Plastic Beach”, “Cloud of Unknowing” and “Rhinestone Eyes” are also thought provoking.

This album isn’t upbeat and happy, oh no, it still has sad themes all over the place, but the way Damon Albarn and company mix it all up is fantastic.  This record is just as ambitious as Demon Days, but it might be more playful.  If the Gorillaz were not on your radar previously, book a flight to the beach.

Speaking of “Daughters”, I was very happy to find that John Mayer did not include this song in his concert in Boston on February 24th. Instead, he incorporated it into a funny little story in which he told his audience about how he likes to book his own shows. What happens is that when he tells the venue that they are talking to John Mayer himself and they seem skeptical and ask him to prove it he whips out “I know a girl. She puts the color inside of my world…” Once he told that story he had the whole audience laughing.

His show was phenomenal! He intro’d songs so that you did not really know what he was about to play until the moment the actual song started, he teased us by mixing in “Message in a Bottle” (Yeah! Message in a Bottle!) with “Why Georgia”, lead into “Neon” by using “Who Did You Think I Was?”, and more. With a packed and sold out TD Garden,  this show was exciting, vibrant, and alive and John Mayer amplified this fantastic atmosphere.

If you have the chance to see John Mayer, you really should. He does not usually go on Winter Tours, but this year he did and I’m so glad that he did.  With Michael Franti with the Spearheads (their popular song is Say Hey (I Love You)) as the opening act and the following as the setlist, this was a great concert!

Setlist:

Heartbreak Warfare
Good Love is On the Way
No Such Thing
Vultures
Perfectly Lonely
Bigger Than My Body
Assassin
Who Did You Think I Was -> Neon
Waiting on the World to Change
Belief
Ain’t No Sunshine
Half of My Heart
Why Georgia (Message in a Bottle tease)

Who Says (encore)
Gravity (encore)

The band is a collaboration of members from Okkervil River and Kingfisher.  As the cover suggests, this album is about living on an island and struggling with limited surroundings, and an abundance of Nordic themes.  This is the soundtrack for a fight with Poseidon.

What pulled me to this album were Jonathan Meiburg’s vocals.  How they seem to swell as the music crashes on him for “Black Eyes”, the power he shows on “Corridors” and this great intensity on “Runners of the Sun”.  You could picture him singing from the boat on the cover as he drifts out to sea tell you about his life.

Opener “Meridian” and closer “Missing Islands” mirror each other in their haunting swoops of raw emotion.  You don’t hear albums like this too often, where the music compliments the vocals so well that you want each song to keep going after it has ended.  Plus, the 70-page booklet acts like a travelogue of sorts on this journey.

I have been very impressed with the music I’ve discovered so far, I just hope I keep finding more interesting bands like this.  I’m happy bands like this have started to bubble over as of late and more people are taking notice.  If you haven’t, you really should.

I could not imagine the album being much good. I was only familiar with a few of her songs, the ones that get played (over and over and over again) on the radio, such as “Just Dance,” “LoveGame,” “Paparazzi,” and “Poker Face.” They all rely heavily on techno, and true vocals are minimal. (I mean, half the lyrics aren’t even real English words.) I doubted Lady Gaga actually could sing, figured it was all electronic; isn’t everything like that these days?

Turned out I was wrong. Lady Gaga has some serious vocals. Don’t believe me? Check out some of her acoustic performances on YouTube. Sure, she has some freaky outfits, there is no question about that, but there is also no question that she has musical talent and has gained my respect as a musician.

The Fame, her debut album, recieved some negative reviews, including those that emphasized the shallowness or vulgarity of the lyrics, claiming that it was the same standard pop drivel that seems to be spewing from artists these days. I disagree. The Fame is creative. As a dance album, it is what it is. You won’t find Mozart, and you certainly won’t find Lady Ella, so don’t buy the album looking for them. This is an entirely new artist: Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga herself commented on the album saying, “It’s about self-discovery and being creative,” and that certainly shines through.

Local Natives is a five piece that focuses on vocal harmonies and rhythm more so than guitar solos.  The closest this album comes to ‘rocking out’ is track three ‘Sun Hands’, but the rest of the album is melodic.  I think what drew me to this album was the fact that there were no guitar solos.

Another pull to this record is the cover of ‘Warning Sign’ by Talking Heads. Listening to the whole album you can hear how Talking Heads would influenced these guys: syncopated rhythms, world beat and general groovy feeling.  Opener ‘Wide Eyes’ sets the stage for a mellow start; you move to ‘Airplanes’ which is a child’s remembrance of a lost mother.  The theme of losing someone close is all over this record, not in a sad way: the band manages to offset a heavy topic by splashing in a vibrant harmony.

Of all the newer releases I’ve listened to that have come from this movement, I think this is my favorite.  Unlike Animal Collective these guys don’t over use synthesizers and unlike Grizzly Bear they don’t pile on harmony and leave the dead air to hang.  See for yourself: ‘Shape Shifter’, ‘World News’, ‘Cubism Dream’, ‘ Camera Talk’ or just pick up the album, you won’t be disappointed.  I’m interested to see how all of these bands will pan out over the course of time.  We saw what happened to The Strokes, The Hives, The Vines and many others; maybe this new breed can stick it out.

“Hey, wait! Weren’t you the one who wrote an article on Grooveshark, an online tool for listening to music, just a couple weeks ago?”

Guilty as charged. I often hesitate to buy CDs, especially when I’m just exploring new artists, because I don’t know if I’ll ever want to listen to the music again after making it through an album once. However, once I know that I’ll be listening to an album more than once, I think it’s only fair to pay credit where credit is due, and start spinning the real CD.

“But CDs are so expensive.” Well, compared to “free music,” it’s impossible to argue that CDs don’t cost the extra buck, they do. CDs are worth the extra buck. Nevertheless, it doesn’t mean you have to spend $13+ on a newly released album. There are all sorts of discount prices available if you take a couple minutes to search for the best deals. If you don’t have time to find the absolute lowest cost on a CD, I’ve found that YourMusic.com has been a very reliable and cheap Web site for buying CDs.

YourMusic is a branch of BMG Music, which my family has been using for years. They constantly offer great deals on CDs. For example, currently, every CD on the Web site is selling for $6.99. That’s with free shipping and handling, no strings attached (unless you count the fact that you have to subscribe, but it’s a free subscription). They have thousands of CDs including the Black Eyed Peas latest album The E. N. D. (Energy Never Dies), Owl City’s Ocean Eyes, John Fogerty’s The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again, and George Strait’s Twang. They carry just about every genre of music.

Like music? Get the real thing, and get it cheap at YourMusic.com.

Veckatimest has been stacked against Merriweather Post Pavillion, by Animal Collective, I don’t think that is fair.  This album is trying very hard to use space and be creative in ways that Brian Wilson brought out in the mid-60s. Trust me. Listen to Pet Sounds, and you can hear the direct influence.  The harmonies are there, but Grizzly Bear has a lot of open space that sort of hangs.  I can understand using reverb in a song because it sounds cool, you just have to offset that somehow.

If you’ve seen a Volkswagon commercial in the last few weeks then you know “Two Weeks” the best Brian Wilson song on the album.  Check out “Southern Point”, “Cheerleader”, “I Live With You” and “Dory” to get an interesting sampling.  Where Animal Collective poured on sounds to create a collage, Grizzly Bear strips a lot of that away to make a piece of art.  I would also listen to the Fleet Foxes, if you want to hear some good folk harmony.  Maybe I need to hear more of their material, but there was a lot of build up for this release, and I think I missed a lot of it.  Maybe I’m wrong, it happens.

Being sick of the same old stuff, I discovered thesixtyone and started on my musical adventure. The interface of the site just recently changed, so I still am getting used to it, but it is actually pretty fun to use. All you really need when you are using this website is the album or the band, and then you have a few menus that pull out when you hover over areas that allow you to navigate. These toolbars allow you to skip the song, save the song to a playlist, “heart” the song, and more. There are a few things about this interface that I do not enjoy, such as how last time you could simply “save” songs while now you have to save them to playlists that have a maximum capacity of 10 songs. Another odd thing about this interface is that you cannot look at a list of songs to chose from; while you can search for a particular artist, you cannot see a list of the top X songs or so and choose from there.

The cool thing about thesixtyone is that it is a place for new artists, and then it is the listeners who decide what’s good. The more hearts and saves a song gets, the more popular it becomes, and the more well known the artist becomes. They claim to be “nurturing a growing ecosystem where talented folks can sell songs and merchandise directly to their fans.” On thesixtyone artists can make at least $7 per album and are paid every 30 days– that’s  a lot of money in comparison to the standard $1-2 per album.

They’re named after Highway 61– “The road by which people left their homes to take their music to the world.”

First, your public library is a good start.  Going through their music to find new albums, or just stuff that is new to you, is a great place to discover things.  You can skim a few magazines like Rolling Stone or Spin, but if you can get a hold of Paste, or other independent magazines you’ll get a better sampling of music.

I mentioned radio, which isn’t always bad, they just frontload a lot of over-hyped junk at times.  Try NPR online. You may not like talk radio, however, they do showcase a lot of up and coming bands that would otherwise not get any other radio play.

Find a critic that shares the same taste in music as you and keep up with what they review.  Even music blogs aren’t bad, but you have to be careful of heavy bias.  I like using Allmusic.com to get information about a band and see what influenced them.  The site is pretty easy to navigate and easy to get lost in for hours.

Finally, a local record store is a good place also.  I always give album advice to people when I go out: yes, I am that guy.  While you’re there pick up a compilation to hear some new stuff you might not have found before.  I stay away from tribute albums, since I want original material.

I hope this helps, and if you have suggestions, let me know.

“Ten years ago I got a call from Roger Daltrey asking me to join him for the first ever concert for the charity. Since then I’ve been honoured to support this amazing charity. I’ve had some of the best nights I’ve ever had on a UK stage,” Gallagher said of the yearly charity concerts.

The Teenage Cancer Trust’s annual charity concerts will be Gallagher’s only shows this year, so it will be very special for him and for his fans. The patron of the charity, Roger Daltrey, the founder and lead singer of English rock band The Who said that he is very thrilled about having Gallagher in the March concerts. “It’s a blinder. I’m over the moon. It will be Noel’s only shows this year, so those nights will be special,” he said. Gallagher will be joining Arctic Monkeys, The Specials, The Who, Them Crooked Vultures, Suede and boy band JLS for the series of concerts. Depeche Mode will be opening the event on February 17th.

Will there be an album after this? Is there something in the works now? That remains to be seen, but it seems that it is unlikely that there will be an album from him this year.