You could point out that Ty Segall is loud. You could point out that he somehow manages to make music that sounds like the Beatles met Black Sabbath and birthed a musical love child. Or you could just note that he seems to have a veritable Midas touch when it comes to making bands really, really good. Despite only being in his mid-twenties, Segall has already released five solo albums and is currently a member of seven different bands, including Sic Alps.
Courtesy vice.com
Though he’s made a name for himself as a lo-fi, garage rock revivalist with a penchant for the lush, psychedelic guitar work of surf rock, Segall’s sound continues to evolve, as evidenced by his frequent collaborations with other musicians like White Fence and Mikal Cronin. Heck, he released three completely disparate albums last year alone. The singer cum guitarist cum drummer has built a formidable cult following, to the point where it’s frankly impressive that he’s not better known. Nevertheless, there’s little doubt that fame will come soon. His reputation as a torrent of musical energy, and for just being a generally amiable person, precedes him.
That said, it’s more than slightly awesome that there is a link to “book” Ty Segall on his website. As in, he’s still smallish enough and self-contained enough that booking him for a show would theoretically be possible. Finally, as if that wasn’t enough, Segall was (or maybe still is?) a professional surfer. That probably explains why he takes such stellar underwater pictures:
Courtesy Ty Segall's Facebook page
Check out Ty Segall’s collaboration with Mikal Cronin to get a better feel. Though “Reverse Shark Attack” is a solid album all around (and features cover artwork of Segall and Cronin looking sharp as business sharks), its strongest track is arguably the 10-minute, surf rock opera title track that closes it out:
On Feb. 16, 2011, The Daily ran a piece about Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (OFWGKTA) the 11-member hip-hop/R&B/production/performance/video/skater/etc. crew out of California that’s currently busy completely killing it and totally blowing up.
The night that the piece ran, members Tyler, the Creator and Hodgy Beats made their broadcast television debut with a performance on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” performing an edited version of their song “Sandwiches.” They tore the stage up, ran amuck and completely lived up to all of the hype. In short, they killed it. Check out the video and more thoughts after the jump:
It’s been half a decade since The Strokes released “First Impressions of Earth,” a somewhat lackluster departure from the sound that originally put the New York rockers on the map, and blazed the trail for the myriad garage rock/alternative rock/post-punk revival acts of the past ten years or so.
A couple of days ago the band teased the Internet with a 30-second snippet of “Under Cover of Darkness,” the first single off of their upcoming album, “Angles,” due out next month (March 22).
Today the single debuted. And it is, in a word, great. Take a listen:
It’s The Strokes at their hazy, hard-rocking, nostalgic best. It has Julian Casablancas yelping like he used to (before he cleaned up — and lost some of that charm — for “First Impressions”), Albert Hammond, Jr. shredding (listen for his brief, but thrilling solo) and everything else you expect when you think of The Strokes.
If “Under the Cover of Darkness” is at all representative of the rest of “Angles,” the boys are most definitely back.
After a horrendous Super Bowl halftime show performance, the Black Eyed Peas need an adjustment. Perhaps this country cover of their smash hit, “I Gotta Feeling”, can do the trick.
The internet is a delivery system for five main things:
useless information
cute animals
cute children
catchy songs
porn
So in light of numbers 3 and 4, it’s no surprise that, in the past couple weeks, the Blog Collective (not “blogosphere,” never “blogosphere”) has seized on the debut single from Willow Smith, the 9-year-old daughter of Will and Jada and the youngest-ever artist signed by Jay-Z’s Roc Nation Records.
The song is called “Whip My Hair,” which doesn’t make any sense and, also, in my day it was called “headbanging.” It sounds like it was produced by all the robots from I, Robot (2004) fighting over one Pro-Tools file. It’s hard to tell whether young Willow can actually sing or if it’s actually just a computer program. And the part where she/it says “I whip my hair back and forth” over and over is undeniably the worst thing in the world.
Usually, with a guilty pleasure song, I say that I hate it while secretly really appreciating it for what it is. But I’m literally of two minds about “Whip My Hair.” One mind knows it’s terrible and manipulative and derivative, and it wants Willow Smith to get off its lawn. And the other mind totally rocked out to it while emptying the dishwasher.
Somewhere, amid all the beats and other confusing robot noises, there’s a really earwormy melody that Willow may or may not be singing with her actual human voice. And I feel fairly confident that, if this song became a radio hit, I would not change the station for at least the first couple months of its ubiquity.
Besides, even if we call little Willow’s career, success, and vocal talents into question, this new video leaves no doubt that she is very good at headbanging.
