Tag Archives: album art

The Lonely Island’s ‘Turtleneck & Chain’ now available for hearing

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The Dudes are back. In anticipation of their second studio album (the followup to the incredible Incredibad), the Dudes of the Lonely Island (Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer) released wickedly hilarious SNL Digital Shorts like “Motherlover,” “Threw It On the Ground,” “I Just Had Sex,” “Shy Ronnie 2,” “The Creep,” “We’re Back,” and their most recent creation “Jack Sparrow.” You’ll find all of these tracks and more on Turtleneck and Chain, available in stores now. The guest list is insane: Justin Timberlake, Akon, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Michael Bolton, Beck, Snoop Dogg, and Santigold all make memorable appearances.

Two versions of the album exist. The standard version (iTunes) contains 19 tracks. The deluxe version (Amazon/iTunes) packs the 19 songs, adds the bonus track “Reba (Two Worlds Collide) featuring Kenan Thompson,” and nine videos. All but one of the included videos are Digital Short fare, a never-before-seen video for “We’ll Kill U.”

Oh, and there’s one more thing. Should you opt to purchase the album at a local Best Buy make sure you bring this coupon with you. With it for $15.99 you’ll get the CD/DVD package and a super cool and exclusive Lonely Island-branded t-shirt. Or you can use it to get the album itself for a low $7.99.

Now check out a bunch of the album photos in the gallery below, then jump after the break to sing about the adventures of Jack Sparrow with Michael Bolton! It doesn’t get any better than this.

Continue reading The Lonely Island’s ‘Turtleneck & Chain’ now available for hearing →

Matthew Morrison’s solo debut album out now

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Believe it or not, we’ve been following the release of this album since mid-January. And now it’s finally out on store shelves! Everyone’s favorite Spanish teacher has a freshly minted record to call his own. All kidding aside, Mr. Schuester’s Matthew Morrison’s pop-with-substance self-titled album is here and it includes three duets. Morrison collaborated with personal inspirations Elton John and Sting for the tracks “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters / Rocket Man” and “Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot” and Glee guest star Gwyneth Paltrow in “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Snag a copy of the 11-track Matthew Morrison at iTunes.

The Lonely Island reveals new album title, cover & release date, premieres “We’re Back!” music video

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I’ve got big news for all you Lonely Island fans out there. The Dudes (Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone) opened up about their followup album to 2009’s Grammy-nominated smash hit Incredibad last night during their guest stint on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. The record’s called Turtleneck & Chain and it drops May 10 on Universal Republic Records. The album cover features the Dudes, well, acting all cool in turtlenecks and chains (see it after the break). When asked why they chose this particular image for the new album Jorma admitted that “when we met each other in eighth grade that was pretty much the look that we all had.” In addition to spilling all this info, the Dudes used LNWJF as a platform to premiere the the first track off the album; it’s called “We’re Back!” and its embedded above waiting for you to hit play. You probably don’t have to be warned, but be mindful of the insane amount of profanity used in the video. The black-and-white vid is all about dicks. So, yeah. Jorma is the major player here, but Akiva and Andy spit nasty rhymes too. Jorma ends the song with this: “We started this fake rap sh–, the world needs us!” He’s right, we do.

So kick back and watch “We’re Back,” and while you’re in a Lonely Island mood rewatch “I Just Had Sex” and “The Creep” (two other confirmed tracks on the record) and start counting down the days til Turtleneck & Chain’s May 10 release.

Continue reading The Lonely Island reveals new album title, cover & release date, premieres “We’re Back!” music video →

Black Eyed Peas’ ‘The Beginning’ out now

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Support the Peas a pick up a copy of their latest album The Beginning.  iTunes offers three versions: the standard CD, a deluxe version that includes three bonus tracks, and that same deluxe version with five popular songs from The E.N.D. You can purchase a physical copy of the deluxe version at Amazon.  I can’t get over how cool that album art is!  All pixelated like that, the Peas never looked better.

T.I.’s new record renamed No Mercy, tracklist and album cover revealed

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T.I. just can’t catch a break these days.  Shortly after being released from prison on weapons charges, he was sent back to the doghouse for drug charges.  The King is not longer Uncaged, so the rapper decided to rename his seventh studio record No Mercy.  The tracklist includes some great featured artists including Kanye West & Kid Cudi on the opener “Welcome to the World”, Drake, Eminem, and Pharrell.

1. Welcome To The World (Feat. Kanye West & Kid Cudi)
2. How Life Changed (Feat. Mitchelle’l & Scarface)
3. Get Back Up (Feat. Chris Brown)
4. I Can’t Help It (Feat. Rocko)
5. That’s All She Wrote (Feat. Eminem)
6. No Mercy (Feat. The-Dream)
7. Big Picture
8. Strip (Feat. Young Dro & Trey Songz)
9. Salute
10. Amazing (Feat. Pharrell)
11. Everything On Me
12. Poppin Bottles (Feat. Drake)
13. Lay Me Down
14. Castle Walls (Feat. Christina Aguilera)

Though he’ll be behind bars when it drops, you can expect No Mercy to hit stores December 7.

[Via HipHipDX]

Kanye West reveals (interchangeable) album covers in Ustream chat

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Earlier today Kanye West hopped onto a Def Jam conference call and Ustream to talk about his upcoming album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

In regards to the album, ‘Ye dropped the following bits of info.  The album is about a “year and a half in the making” and he collaborated with RZA, Pete Rock, No I.D., Q-Tip, Rick Ross, Nicki Manaj, Rihanna, Fergie, and Elton John, among many other surprise guests.  He also confirmed that a new version of “See Me Now” features Big Sean, along with original guests Jay-Z, Beyonce, and Charlie Wilson.

While he was taking calls from the press, Kanye held up the physical album casing.  It’s a red three-fold case with a very interesting design.  In addition to the CD, the album comes with 5 interchageable covers.  You can swap them in and out of the front to give the case different looks.  We have already seen four of the five covers by artist George Condo; they include the two “Power” single artwork, the “Runaway” single artwork, and of course the “banned” album cover, still pixelated.

When asked about how the final tracks will differ from the leaked versions, Kanye responded, “I don’t want to give away exactly what I did differently, you know you just gotta hear it and feel the surprises.”  And then came the best quote of the call from Cyhi Da Prynce (who stood by on the call with Big Sean and Pusha T): Referring to the leaks he said, “What ya’ll got is uncooked meat.”

‘Ye also discussed the inspiration behind his short film Runaway: “the colors…fantasty/future mashup…express some of the feelings that I’ve had as a creative dealing with a culture that beats down on creativity and anything that’s different.”

He said that the “uphill challenge” of the past year pushed him to make better products (ie. G.O.O.D. Fridays, the new album).  Speaking of new product, he spilled that his collab album with Jay-Z is due out “early next year.”  Cheers to that!

Watch the entire Ustream conference call after the break. Continue reading Kanye West reveals (interchangeable) album covers in Ustream chat →

Rihanna is ready to get LOUD

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After dropping the single Only Girl (In the World) back in September, Rihanna is nearly ready to release her fifth studio album.  Album cover: check (see above).  Tracklist: check (see below).

  1. S&M
  2. What’s My Name (Featuring Drake)
  3. Cheers (Drink To That)
  4. Fading
  5. Only Girl In The World
  6. California King Bed
  7. Mad Down
  8. Raining Men (Featuring Nicki Minaj)
  9. Complicated
  10. Skin
  11. Love The Way You Lie Part II (Featuring Eminem)

That’s right–RiRi is hooking up with Drake, Nicki Minaj, and Eminem in her latest effort to deliver the pop sound that made her so successful.  After watching her new music video for Only Girl, it’s plain to see Rihanna is ready to walk away from the darkness and back to her fun, cut loose dance anthems.  Get Loud November 12.

[Via Rap-Up]

Single: A-Track – “Ray Ban Vision” (Featuring CyHi Da Prynce)

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I safely assume you know who A-Trak is.  He is a five time DMC World DJ champion, and the youngest (he won the award back in ’97 at the age of 15).  The dude can masterfully create and manipulate beats.  So let’s move on then to the featured artist.  Ever heard of CyHi Da Prynce?  Sure you did!  He recently signed to Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music label and was featured on West’s G.O.O.D. Friday track “So Appalled“; he later rapped with other G.O.O.D. artists at the BET Awards.  Today he released a mixtape called Royal Flush.  He’s quickly making his way to the top; being invited to rap over an A-Track beat is no small feat.  “Ray Ban Vision” packs scratched-in synths, atomic kick drums, and some slick rapping from Da Prynce.  Listen to it below, then snag yourself a free copy.

The track will be included on Fool’s Gold Vol. 1, a compilation LP featuring a whole slew of Fool’s Gold label artists ranging from Kid Sister to The Suzan.  Look after the break for the full track listing plus album art and expect its release on October the 23rd.

Download: A-Track – “Ray Ban Vision” (Featuring CyHi Da Prynce)

[audio: A-Trak – Ray Ban Vision (Featuring CyHi Da Prynce).mp3]

[Via HighSnobiety; Fool’s Gold Blog, here & here] Continue reading Single: A-Track — “Ray Ban Vision” (Featuring CyHi Da Prynce) →

Can you guess the title of Weezer’s next album?

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That’s right–it’s Hurley!  In an interview with Spinner Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo explained where the idea of having Lost‘s Jorge Garcia cover their next LP:

“We struggled super hard trying to come up with an album title, trying to find some kind of phrase that summed up the whole aesthetic behind the album: ‘Heavy Mental,’ ‘Smaller Than Life.’  I was coming up with all kinds of stuff, but ultimately, we just went with some random word that doesn’t really have anything to do with anything.  I just loved this photo of Jorge Garcia — it just had this amazing vibe.  We didn’t want to do a fourth self-titled record and we knew people would refer to it as ‘the Hurley record’ even if we left it without that title, so we just called it ‘Hurley.’  No words are on the cover because all we wanted was his amazing face.”

Although he “really like[s] the show” Cuomo confesses there’s no connection between Lost and the next collection of music from Weezer.  Oh well…the cover rocks!  Hurley releases September 14.

[Via Spinner; Pitchfork]

Mr Hudson’s debut album finally releases stateside

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It’s been a long time coming for British musician Mr Hudson.  Though you’ve probably heard of him from Jay-Z’s recent single “Young Forever”, Hudson has been in the music biz since 2007 when he dropped his first album A Tale of Two Cities.  Back then he was in a band called Mr Hudson & the Library.  Having listened to his debut album and working alongside him at his Glow in the Dark tour, rapper Kanye West fell in love with Hudson’s sound, and so he decided to sign him to his G.O.O.D. music label.  Hudson graciously accepted and started to work on his debut solo album Straight No Chaser, which would be executive produced by Kanye.  The 12-track album includes singles “There Will Be Tears“, “Supernova” (Featuring Kanye West), “White Lies“, “Everything Is Broken” (Featuring Kid Cudi), and “Anyone But Him” (Featuring Kanye West).  It released in the UK way back on October 19, 2009.  After numerous delays, it was finally made available to purchase and download in the U.S. on June 29, 2010.  The UK version contains two additional tracks (“Lift Your Head” & a Calvin Harris remix of “Supernova”).

The best way to describe Mr Hudson’s music is alternative hip hop/electro-pop, if that makes any sense.  Straight No Chaser is a breakup album, so naturally it features heavy bass thumping tracks with softer ones to balance it all out.  Hudson is a fan of auto-tune, and so a number of the tracks include him using it.  Interestingly, he eliminates the use of auto-tune when he’s touring; he finds it to be a fun and useful tool when working in the studio.  Having listened to the album only once all the way through, I am not ready to formally review it yet.  However I can say that Mr Hudson is going to be huge.  He is a gifted artist with a knack for writing and beatmaking.  I’d really like to see him perform live someday.  Just read these choice words from collaberator Kanye West: “I believe Mr Hudson has the potential to be bigger than me, to be one of the most important artists of his generation.”  Again, that comes from Kanye West!

Be sure to look after the break for some more Hudson content.  You’ll find music videos for “Instant Messenger” and “Central Park”, plus there’s a short trailer that celebrates the U.S. release of the record. Continue reading Mr Hudson’s debut album finally releases stateside →

Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon recreated IRL

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A bunch of dudes collectively known as Cake Group decided to recreate the album cover from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon atop Primrose Hill, in Regent’s Park, London using lasers, neons, and a smoke machine.  Pretty slick, huh?  Look after to break to see how they did it.

[Via Gizmodo; TheDailyWhat; Cake] Continue reading Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon recreated IRL →