Tag Archives: Nas

Glastonbury 2013 Reveals Killer Line Up (But Did You Expect Anything Less?)

Glastonbury aka England’s contribution to kick ass festivals (of which they have many) have revealed parts of their 2013 line up. They took 2012 off (the damn year I lived there!) – did they return with a bang? Um, yes!

Glastonbury 2013

As heavily rumoured, I will not be headlining. However, the Rolling Stones will be. Other acts, and I could easily name 30 awesome ones, include Arctic Monkeys, Mumford & Sons, Vampire Weekend, Elvis Costello, The Vaccines, Kenny Rogers (ummm), First Aid Kit, Haim, The xx, Foals, Alt-J, Smashing Pumpkins, Tame Impala, The Hives, Django Django, Solange, Crystal Castles, Phoenix, Frightened Rabbit, Nas – HOLY FUCK THIS LINE UP IS STACKED – did I name 30? I’ll let you gawk at the poster instead and note all the awesome acts I left out of my random list.

It all goes down June 28-30. Check out the website for more details.

PeteHatesMusic’s Top Songs of 2012

2012 is almost done, and I’m still debating my song list from 2011. There are 2 problems – one is that it’s time for this year’s top songs list, and the other problem is there were a lot of bloody great tracks in 2012. Since there were so many great tracks, we decided to expand our list! Hooray for more work?

At PeteHatesMusic, we don’t have 20 people voting to come up with some list that mimics most of mainstream media – and we think this is a good thing. Songs you love will be missing, songs you’ve never heard will be on this list, and your new favourite tune might be discovered – that’s the beauty of lists! Just look how radically different the lists are between Rich and Pete.

2 of the PeteHatesMusic contributors, Rich and Pete, have compiled their top 10 songs from 2012, plus 15 others that are awesome (but not top 10 awesome). Everyone wins! (except those not listed). We’ve made a Songza playlist that will shuffle randomly through most of our 50 compiled songs – for free! There’s also an embedded YouTube playlist that has some random order to the songs, which you can check out (and skip the songs you hate) below.

TOMORROW – The top albums of the year, as judged by PeteHatesMusic. And then – copious amounts of beer, turkey, and sausage rolls, and (most likely) no more posts until 2013.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments (so that we can ignore them or laugh at you).

Click to read the PeteHatesMusic list of the Top Songs of 2012

Watch! Nas featuring Amy Winehouse (and her video image) – Cherry Wine

Nas has found a classy way to feature the late Amy Winehouse in his new video for Cherry Wine – he brought her back from the dead! uses a projection of her on a wall. The song features unreleased vocals from Amy Winehouse, and the track is found on Nas’ Life is Good album. Amy Winehouse has always been said to have a lounge bar kind of voice, and Nas takes this idea and places Amy’s image and sound as the music for the bar in which Nas oddly works as a bartender. I guess no one makes money in music after all. Check it out below.

Nas featuring Amy Winehouse – Cherry Wine

Virgin Mobile FreeFest Gives You Jack White and Skrillex – For Free

In the UK, music festivals have seen poor attendance and the “economy” cancel a few fan favourites. In the USA, lucky fans not only get Virgin Festival, but they get free admission once again (via Consequence of Sound). And this isn’t some shitty festival rounding up the likes of Creed or Maroon 5 – the line up is solid.

The October 6 festival will see acts such as Jack White, Skrillex, M83, Nas, Ben Folds Five, Santigold, and Alabama Shakes, plus others in too lazy to type out or copy. Special mention goes to ZZ Top, who most people know for their beards and their appearance on the Simpsons, and not much else.

The aptly named Virgin Mobile FreeFest takes place once again at the place Animal Collective named their album after – DISNEYLAND Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD. Tickets to the festival will be available at Noon EDT on August 24th. You can also grab a limited number of cleverly named FreeFest “FREEMIUM PACKAGES,” which gets you a charitable donation to Virgin Mobile USA’s youth homelessness initiatives, a FreeFest T-shirt, a souvenir cup that comes with free fountain drinks throughout the festival (what, no free beer?!), and early admission to the grounds. Has anyone ever noted that the best things in life are free*?

* flaming axes excluded

Morning Music Notes – The Jessie J Olympics

Closing Ceremonies Were What Brits Feared Opening Ceremonies Would Be

I’ll admit – the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremonies were pretty good, especially considering they had to follow up Beijing’s insane opener. Danny Boyle did a good job of mixing the humour, music, and history of Great Britain, with a few cool surprises. Who knew Mr. Bean was still alive? I feared the worst for the Opening Ceremonies, but these fears came to life in last night’s pretty average Closing Ceremonies.

For those who missed it, there were no big surprises, few stand out moments, and WAY too much of mediocre pop act Jessie J. We had recordings of Kate Bush, Blur, John Lennon (and a creepy wall built that resembled Lennon), as well as a loop of already played songs by Pet Shop Boys and Madness. Also performing were Emeli Sandé (twice), George Michael (who did Freedom, and an an awful new song that lost the crowd), Elbow, the Kaiser Chiefs, that Ron Weasley twin Ed Sheeran playing a cover of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here (with Nick Mason on drums), Ray Davies from the Kinks, Queen with that awful Jessie J singing, Fatboy Slim DJ’ing in an octopus, a Spice Girls reunion, Beady Eye covering the Noel Gallagher penned Oasis tune Wonderwall, Muse doing Olympic anthem Survival, and everything closed out with The Who. They couldn’t get David Bowie to play during the musical tribute to British fashion (ya, I didn’t get it either) which featured David Bowie’s Fashion. We did get boy (now man) band Take That, minus Robbie Williams. If we could’ve minused the other 4 members, we would’ve been alright.

I lied – there was one stand out moment. Monty Python alumni Eric Idle sung Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, complete with the “life’s a piece of shit” line. He didn’t get the laughs that Mr. Bean did, and I would’ve preferred a Monty Python reunion over a Spice Girls one, but I’ll take it. Now – withdrawal time. I want to watch random sports that I can only watch every 4 years. There just instead enough dressage with moonwalking horses on daytime television to satisfy my cravings.

The Flaming Lips Are Doing a Musical – Of Course They Are!

One of my favourite albums, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, is being turned into a musical by its creators, The Flaming Lips (via NME). The musical will play at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, California from November 6 to December 16, and if it’s anything like a Flaming Lips concert, it will be fuckin’ WEIRD great. Producers have said, “Yoshimi is a young Japanese artist facing the battle of her life: the battle for her life. Adrift from her family and lover, Yoshimi journeys alone into a fantastical robot-world where she wages a war with fate. Will her will to survive be powerful enough to master the evil forces that threaten to destroy her?”

So basically, a thrown together plot, ala American Idiot by Green Day, using the band’s appeal to attempt to milk another audience for some more money, amiright? The musical will have music from the Yoshimi album, as well as Soft Bulletin and At War With The Mystics.

Click for more Morning Music Notes, including Beastie Boys, the Vaccines, and Drake

Morning Music Notes – He’s On Fire!

Jay-Z Adds Big Names to Made in America Festival, Becomes Executive Producer of NBA 2K13

Jay-Z’s new Made in America festival already boasted a pretty good line up. Joining Jay-Z, Pearl Jam, Passion Pit and others at the September 1/2 festival in Philadelphia are Drake, Chris Cornell, The Hives, DJ Shadow, and Run-DMC (via Consequence of Sound). There’s still tickets on sale, so go grab one – it’s a killer line up.

You would think that being a new father, owning an NBA team, and running a festival would keep most people more than busy enough. Jay-Z isn’t most men, and won’t stop until he gets zero hours of sleep. Adding to his list of tasks – a new reality show with Carrot Top executive producing the NBA video game NBA 2K13. Couldn’t he have worked on NBA Jam instead? I’d LOVE to hear Hova say “Boom shakalaka!” And no, this doesn’t mean you’ll see Beyonce as a cheerleader (damn!) or Jay-Z appearing as the new point guard for the New Jersey Brooklyn Nets.

Jay-Z will be picking the soundtrack for the video game (via Consequence of Sound). Oddly, the soundtrack consists of 95% Jay-Z songs, 4% Beyonce songs, and 1% Kanye West songs. Actually, that doesn’t sound too bad. In reality, it does feature a lot of Jay-Z and Kanye West songs, as well as Coldplay, U2, Nas, Daft Punk, Santigold, Puff “Where have you been” Daddy, and Dirty Projectors. The game is out October 2, and check out the full tracklist below.

Click to read the rest of the Morning Music Notes

Morning Music Notes – Coachella Will Not Be Relocating to Rich’s Backyard

Coachella Ain’t Going Anywhere

Remember that Coachella scare about them moving locations and shutting down in 2014? It isn’t happeneing – Indio city councilman Sam Torres took Goldenvoice president Paul Tollett’s threat seriously and took back his proposal (via Consequence of Sound).

Torres had proposed a 5-10% tax on live events with more than 2,500 people (read: Coachella), and Tollett said they would take 2014 off and move in 2015. Pretty sure Indio needs Coachella more than Coachella needs Indio – hello tourist dollars (I know I hit up the restaurants and grocery stores when there). A press statement yesterday from Torres said: “I cannot in good conscience allow this to happen no matter how dire the city’s circumstance. My sincere hope is that we can now move past this episode and I personally look forward to working to enhance relationships.”

New Kanye West Album To Be Released Shortly After G.O.O.D. Music’s Cruel Summer?

Nothing like having someone else spoil your upcoming album release news, by having them talk about it first. It’s like when someone tells you they are getting married, and you post it on their Facebook page for all to see, before they have told anyone about it. No I.D. (Def Jam VP and producer) has spoken up about Kanye West, and has said to MTV that “I’m not working on that [Cruel Summer] album, I’m working on his album,” while adding “He’s coming right after that.” Okay, so it was all kind of vague, but anything new from Kanye is pretty much good news in this camp.

Click for Friday’s Morning Music Notes

Morning Music Notes – Laura Jane Grace Enters The Music World

Klaxons’ James Righton Engaged to Keira Knightley

The weekend brought so many stories, I don’t know where to begin! How about I start with the most disappointing news story – love of my life (one of many) Kiera Knightley has foolishly decided to get engaged to Klaxons’ James Righton (via Gigwise). An official statement did not reveal much more than that, but an unofficial statement says that the Klaxons’ third album is delayed due to James running “tedious errands for the high maintenance princess.” Okay, I made that up, in hopes of winning her heart. It’s not over yet, James – she will be mine (bloggers > rock stars, right?).

Tom Gabel From Against Me! Plays As Laura Jane Grace for the First Time

Transgender Against Me! front man person, Tom Gabel, played her first gig as Laura Jane Grace in San Diego on Friday night (via NME). The band played a 40-minute set, and also debuted the song that heavily hinted Tom might’ve been transgender – Transgender Dysphoria Blues. That’s the mother of all hints, one might say. There are no reports of (drunken) idiots shouting out inappropriate comments at Laura, like “play one more song, bitch!”, but Laura chatted to Rolling Stone after the set and said “I was worried some people expected me to come out looking like Little Bo Peep or something.” Is it wrong that I assumed that’s how Laura was dressed up until this point?

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Morning Music Notes – Hitchhiking is a Great Way to Meet People, and To Have Sex

Rock the Bells Line Up Features Missy Elliott and Timbaland, Nas, Wiz Khalifa, and um, Salt-n-Pepa

Rock the Bells is hitting up 3 cities this year – San Bernardino (Aug 18 & 19) and Mountain View (Aug 26 & 27) in California, and Holmdel, New Jersey on September 1 & 2. Forgive me if I can that it would probably take me a few minutes to find some of these “cities” on a map – I’ve never even heard of Holmdel – I would’ve guessed it was in Sweden. The line up of the rap festival features the somewhat surprisingly headliners of Missy Elliott and Timbaland – can you say “new album”? They also nabbed the movie star Ice Cube, who is taking a break from his Disney career. Also on deck are Nas, A$AP Rocky, Lupe Fiasco, Kid Cudi, Wiz Khalifa, Method Man and Redman playing Blackout! from top to bottom, and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony playing E. 1999 Eternal all the way through. Hopefully you like those albums! Salt-n-Pepa, who are still apparently in the music industry, are also showing up. Don’t miss it!

The Pirate Bay Attacked – Perhaps By Anonymous?

Internet drama amongst illegal internet sites and activities! As we mentioned last week, the (illegal) torrent site, Pirate Bay, condemned the Internet hacking group, Anonymous’ attack on the Virgin Media website in the UK. Those of you who have had trouble getting the latest episode of Game of Thrones (or in my case, the finale of Desperate Housewives) from the Pirate Bay will now know why – they have been victim of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack (via Slash Gear). This DDoS attack has left the site mainly inaccessible for the past 24 hours. Obvious payback, or a coincidence? I’m a gambling man and I am NOT betting on coincidence. However, I did bet on

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