Soft and Music

pThe Jacksons followed up the hugely successful Destiny (1978) with their first album of the #39;80s, Triumph. Powered by Michael Jackson#39;s phenomenally lucrative solo career that began the year before with Off the Wall, Triumph outsold its predecessor and contained several hit singles. Epic/Legacy has recently reissued the album on CD, featuring excellent remastered audio. This remains a very good party album to this day, albeit a bit dated by the disco grooves that were still in vogue at the time of its 1980 release. Fans of Michael Jackson, who handles the majority of the lead singing, will be thrilled to revisit this album./p pThis was released at a bit of an odd time for The Jacksons. Michael had stunned music fans the previous year with his first adult solo release, but Thriller was still two years away when Triumph first hit stores. At this point in his career, he didn#39;t really need to carry on as part of the group. He was about to become the biggest star on the planet. In retrospect it#39;s a little surprising that he continued recording with his brothers (minus Jermaine, who didn#39;t rejoin the group until 1984). But Michael sounds very committed to the project, which comes across as even more of an ensemble effort than Destiny. Jackie, Tito, Marlon, and Randy all contributed significantly - though the results are somewhat less impressive than the previous album./p pThe primary shortcoming of Triumph is the sameness of many of the tracks. Of the nine songs, too many of them are very similar mid-tempo dance tunes. The general indistinctness of much of the album makes it hard to remember songs individually. That#39;s not to say there aren#39;t some great tracks. quot;Can You Feel Itquot; opens the album with an irresistible stomping beat. Michael and Randy share lead vocals on this epic anthem. quot;Lovely Onequot; and quot;This Place Hotel,quot; both of which were hit singles, are also memorable due to their strong hooks. /p pquot;Give It Upquot; features Marlon on co-lead vocals, while Jackie handles the lead on quot;Wondering Who.quot; While these songs demonstrate the vocal diversity within the group, they are among the blandest songs on the album. Released as the album#39;s final single, but failing to become a hit, quot;Walk Right Nowquot; is a driving dance number that deserved more recognition./p pDespite being somewhat of a mixed bag, fans of disco-flavored Ramp;B shouldn#39;t pass it up. A few bonus tracks have been thrown in: the single version of quot;This Place Hotelquot; and a pair of dance remixes of quot;Walk Right Now.quot; They aren#39;t anything special, but are nice to have - especially for big fans of the group. The new liner notes and remastered audio are excellent, making this release of Triumph a worthwhile purchase./p br

pBorn in Mexico City, this multi-talented artist currently makes his home in Los Angeles, California. Creative and always cutting edge, Beto Hale is an artist but he is more than that. He#39;s a writer, producer, and father trying to make a living in a field we creative types dream about. His songwriting is excellent and the guy is a monster on the drums. Here is what Beto had to say:/p pWe#39;ve played in several bands together a few years back in Colorado, how did you get started playing music? /p pYes! I had a lot of fun playing with you!/p pIn terms of my beginnings: I listened to the Beatles when I was eight and that was it! I started learning all their songs on the drums and then on guitar and piano. I took classical guitar lessons at 10; then was self taught for quite few years… then went into serious musical study around 18!/p pYou#39;ve played/collaborated with some pretty big names. Can you give us a few examples and what you did? /p pTony Levin (bassist for Peter Gabriel) played on my first CD, Sube. I met him after a show he did in Boulder, and just asked him straight out if he would do it! He was so cool about it and recorded some amazing tracks. /p pHere in LA I#39;ve written songs with some great Latin American songwriters, among them Alejandro Lerner, who is a huge star in Argentina and other countries./p pWhat projects are you currently involved in?/p pI am writing the Spanish lyrics for Santino#39;s album; he is a very well known indie artist in the L.A. scene; he is originally from Peru. /p pI am also co-writing and playing drums with Devlin Murphy, an amazingly talented young artist from L.A../p pI am writing new songs all the time for a future album of my own. Not sure when it will come out yet!/p p What are your plans for the future musically? /p pTo write, produce and play for other people#39;s projects, collaborate with diverse writers, write musci for film and TV, and release many new albums (or whatever they will be called) of my own!/p pIs there a particular adjective or two you would use to describe the LA music scene? /p pCompetitive. Inspiring. /p pWhat is the highlight for you so far, in your music career? /p pHonestly, I have had many. I was very fortunate to attend and graduate from Berklee Collego of Music; there, I was able to meet and collaborate with some amazing people. I also did a Masters in Composition at Denver University where I heard two of my pieces played by a full Symphony Orchestra!/p br

One of the hardest-working R&B stars to come out of the New Orleans area during the Oldies era would have to be Lloyd Price, who even today — after more than fifty years of performing — still has a few irons in the fire. Growing up in nearby Kenner, young Lloyd's education in the music of New Orleans included everything from singing in his church choir to hanging around the jukebox in his mother's small restaurant. While still in his teens, he joined with his brother Leo to form a local musical group that eventually began to draw wider attention, leading to a 1952 recording session — one of historical significance. With a moonlighting Fats Domino handling the piano, Lloyd sang what would become one of the all-time classics of New Orleans R&B music, "Lawdy Miss Clawdy." It made the young singer a star, and when he followed up with several other good songs, including "Tell Me Pretty Baby" and "Ain't It a Shame," he appeared to be on his way to a long career. Unfortunately, the Korean War — and the draft — was next for Lloyd, and when he finally got back to music in 1954 he found that the ever-fickle public had moved on to singers like Little Richard and others. But Lloyd began rebuilding his career and making recordings, first for his own newly-formed company and later through a tie-in with ABC-Paramount. By 1958, he'd generated a huge Number One hit with "Stagger Lee," an updated version of the old song "Stack-A-Lee" made more appealing to mainstream audiences. As the years passed, Price continued to veer toward a more pop-oriented sound, selling a lot of records with songs such as "I'm Gonna Get Married," and one of his biggest, "Personality." (Video below.) He also continued to follow his business sense, re-forming his own recording company and finding success not only with his own music but also by promoting newcomer Wilson Pickett. But trouble was right around the corner. Price's longtime business partner Harold Logan met a violent death, and music began to seem less important. Over the last couple of decades, Price has still found the time to sing once in a while, but has become more and more involved in business investments and opportunities. For one thing, he's very involved in a specialty food company that might have its roots in a childhood spent at his momma's restaurant. In any case, he's still workin' hard.

The murmurs first started around 6 months back, and then in December last year Tiesto seemed to let the cat out of the bag with an email to his fan database, but still there had been no official word from game developers Activision. Would the hotly anticipated DJ Hero title actually hit stores anytime soon? Yes, it would seem, with Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick confirming in an interview with CNBC that the game will see the light of day later in 2009. “We have this product called DJ Hero coming out later this year, which is a turntable that you actually can play competitively and spin discs and mix songs,” he remarked. There’s no release date slated just yet, although it’s reported that Tiesto has since squashed rumours that he was been involved with the game’s development.

I am convinced that artists in the UK are in cahoots with each other to keep the art of the great pop album from their American counterparts. In the US, pop continues to be a four-letter word for the self-respecting audiophile, while bands like The Whip continue to make catchy, progressive, and most importantly, listenable pop albums on the other side of the Atlantic. Maybe if I lived in the UK, I’d actually listen to the radio again. You remember the radio, right? It’s the thing sitting on your nightstand that used to play good music. On The Whip’s soon to be released album, X Marks Destination, the boys in the band (Danny Saville, Lil Fee, Nathan Sudders and Bruce Carter) bounce through ten tracks (plus another four bonus remixes). It’s their amalgam of indie rock, electro, dance, and pop that make it an interesting listen. The tracks are worthy of the club, but could easily find a place on the iPod of the girl who listens to Death Cab for Cutie and Bright Eyes. In short, the album should appeal to a fairly large demographic, and yet, X Marks Destination doesn’t make any large compromises in style. For instance, most of the songs clock in around five minutes — an unfriendly length to the radio — and the opener, “Trash,” is well past six minutes. Refreshingly, the songs aren’t overproduced. Invention seems to take the place of good sense among many in the electronic music profession these days. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. The beats employed on X Marks Destination are fairly simple and allow for textured overlays of guitar and synthesizer. Only a couple of the tracks suffer from their simple arrangements. Specifically, “Sirens” sounds dated, a reject from a bygone era. It’s a small quibble that doesn’t really mar the overall effect of the album. The best surprises of the album, however, are the remixes nestled at its tail end. Normally remixes are simply filler and add little value to a “bonus tracks” album, but here, some even surpass the originals. “Trash (Crooker’s Remix)” is so much better than the original I’m seriously considering swapping the track order with its namesake. “Muzzle #1,” one of the weakest tracks on the album, benefits greatly from remix (though it’s still not a frontrunner on the album). The Whip may not be reinventing the disco ball, but X Marks Destination is a good pop record. So few can claim such a distinction this century. For that, at least, The Whip deserves your ears. In fact, after listening to the album, mail it to your most loathed, no-talent pop artist that is topping the charts these days and hope for the best. It couldn’t hurt. X Marks Destination will be released on March 3rd.