The Melodic Monkey Awards: Our Top Music of 2009

Posted by Paul Little | Sunday, January 31, 2010 @ 11:22pm

Tonight, the music world celebrated the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, which we covered on our site. But as we did last year, we're pairing up our annual awards for the best in music along with the industry's awards. Last year, we just gave you a list of our favourite albums, but from this year onward, we're breaking things down into categories, complete with our nominees and winners, much like the awards shows themselves.

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Beyoncé and Taylor Swift clean up at Grammys; performances the real highlight of the show

Posted by Paul Little | Sunday, January 31, 2010 @ 10:30pm

The 52nd Annual Grammy Awards as a television show weren't really much about the awards themselves, but rather the performances, which I suppose is how it should be. Unlike the Oscars and Emmys, the ceberation of the best in music can actually SHOW everyone the best in music without having to rely on brief clips and a hope that the audience has already seen the movies and shows.

Sure, Beyoncé won a female-record 6 Grammys this year, and Taylor Swift won 4 of her own (including the "big one": Album of the Year). And there were a host of other multiple winners on the night, including Kings of Leon, The Black Eyed Peas, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Jason Mraz, and the great Béla Fleck (a personal favourite). All wonderful news. But since most of those awards were handed out off-camera and not on the televised show itself, it was the performances that made this year's Grammys worth watching (for any pop music fan, anyway).

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Interview: Canadian folk duo Dala (Sheila Carabine & Amanda Walther)

Posted by Paul Little | Thursday, January 21, 2010 @ 1:10pm

Dala had quite the year in 2009! Besides playing the Winnipeg Folk Festival (where ShowbizMonkeys.com got the chance to talk with them), they played seemingly ever other folk and bluegrass festival in Canada and the United States last year, steadily growing their fanbase on the way. But while live shows are certainly Dala's bread and butter -- besides the amazingly tight harmonies and solid musicianship, you also get the bonus of seeing a hilarious bantering comedy act in between songs -- the year also garnered them attention for their recorded music.

Dala's song "Horses", off of 2009's Everyone is Someone, was named the #7 song of the year by NPR's "Folk Alley", appearing on the list alongside music legends Levon Helm of The Band and Elvis Costello. They were also acknowledged back home in Canada, receiving Canadian Folk Music Award nominations for "Vocal Group of the Year" and "Producer of the Year". And just last week, their song "Levi Blues" was nominated in the "Mainstream AC" category for this year's Canadian Radio Music Awards.

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Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief – Live This Friday

Posted by Paul Little | Thursday, January 21, 2010 @ 3:45am

NEW YORK, NY; LOS ANGELES, CA; and LONDON, ENGLAND (JANUARY 19, 2010) – “Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief,” today announced its lineup of superstar musical performances. The global telethon will feature performances by Wyclef Jean, Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Hudson, Mary J. Blige, Shakira, and Sting in New York City; Alicia Keys, Christina Aguilera, Dave Matthews, John Legend, Justin Timberlake, Stevie Wonder, Taylor Swift and a group performance by Keith Urban, Kid Rock, and Sheryl Crow in Los Angeles; and Coldplay, and a group performance by Bono, The Edge, Jay-Z, and Rihanna in a newly added London location. All musical performances will be available for purchase for $.99 per song through the Apple® iTunes® Store beginning Saturday, January 23, with all proceeds benefiting Haiti relief funds managed by “Hope for Haiti Now” charities.

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New Music Releases: January 19th, 2010

Posted by Sarah Miller | Tuesday, January 19, 2010 @ 6:31pm

Spoon Transference (Amazon)

When a band puts out a great album like Spoon did in 2007 with Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, following it up can be tricky because the bar has been set so high. On first listen, Transference sounds a little bit more raw and less polished than its predecessor—the band produced this one themselves and chose to go with the original demo versions of some of the tracks. One of my favorite things about Spoon is the way they work with layers in their music, adding elements and subtracting them in a subtle way so that each time you listen to one of their tracks you discover something new. Transference promises more of this, plus Britt Daniels unique voice and more of the same fun and simple grooves that we’ve come to know and love from Spoon. You can stream the album from the band’s official website. May I also recommending checking out what the experts at Pitchfork have to say?

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New Music Releases: January 12th, 2010

Posted by Sarah Miller | Wednesday, January 13, 2010 @ 1:49pm

With all the late night goings on, you may have forgotten that I promised you some good new music releases this month. But I did promise, and this week Ok Go, Ringo Starr and Vampire Weekend are here to deliver. So here they are, with no references to late night television whatsoever (ok, maybe one):

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New Music Releases: January 5th, 2010

Posted by Sarah Miller | Tuesday, January 5, 2010 @ 2:53pm

Well folks, 2010 is coming in with a whimper in terms of new music releases this week. But there’s lots of good things on the horizon in January including new albums from Spoon, Vampire Weekend, OK Go, Cold War Kids and Ringo Starr. For now we’ll have to be content with:

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Album Review: Emme Packer - Earlier, Later

Posted by Ariana | Sunday, November 22, 2009 @ 1:56am

When I first sat down to listen to Emme Packer’s double album, Earlier, Later, I was feeling very much in the mood to listen to Bon Iver—you know, it was a typical rainy, grey November day in Vancouver, and I wanted something gentle and melancholy—and before I was halfway through the opening track, Save Me From That Cage, I’d decided that it was perfect: Emme Packer is a female version of Bon Iver. And she’s been in rotation on my iPod ever since.

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New Music Releases: November 17th, 2009

Posted by Sarah Miller | Wednesday, November 18, 2009 @ 3:13pm

John Mayer Battle Studies (Amazon)

Those of you who may have accidentally downloaded the leaked version of John Mayer’s newest album will know that it is more musically diverse than any of his previous releases. Battle Studies— not to be confused with the book of the same name by French Colonel Ardant du Picq who died during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870— includes the first single, ‘Who Says’ which was released for preview back in September. The next single ‘Heartbreak Warfare’ should hit airwaves this week. Mayer gets back to his bluesy roots on this album with a sweet cover of Cream’s cover of Robert Johnson’s blues anthem ‘Crossroads’.

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New Music Releases: November 10th, 2009

Posted by Sarah Miller | Tuesday, November 10, 2009 @ 6:13pm

Switchfoot Hello Hurricane (Amazon)

It’s taken Switchfoot a little over three years to put together their seventh studio album, but it was definitely worth the wait. After the release of Oh! Gravity. back in 2006, the band announced that it was parting ways with their Major label, Columbia/SonyBMG and would release their next album independently. Since then, the band has been busy building their own recording studio and founding an independent label, lowercase people records. Frontman Jon Foreman has also released a series of solo EP’s and worked with Nickel Creek guitarist Sean Watkins on a side project, Fiction Family.

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