Music & More

Born To Sing: No Plan B We Love the Title: Van Morrison will release Born To Sing: No Plan B on October 2nd. It's his first new studio album since Magic Time (2008). Blue Note has released the first track from it, check it out. Listen to "Open The Door (To Your Heart)" Tracklist for Born To Sing: No Plan B : 1. Open The Door (To Your Heart) 2. Going Down To Monte Carlo 3. Born To Sing 4. End Of The Rainbow 5. Close Enough For Jazz 6. Mystic Of The East 7. Retreat And View 8. If In Money We Trust 9. Pagan Heart 10. Educating Archie Van Morrison 's Website Van Morrison 's Facebook

Photo by Mark Maglio Rumer Has It : Live From Daryl's House last night debuted their 57th episode, featuring Rumer. It was a soulful, magical set. Rumer has a well known obsession with covering great songs from the sixties and seventies. Her gorgeous voice that is reminiscent of Karen Carpenter's is just perfect for the type of songs that Daryl Hall built his career on. And the audience aren't the only ones thinking that their voices work so well together that they should team up. Rumer was clearly moved to be singing with someone she idolizes for his body of work, "Daryl Hall is a genius, a living legend who continues to write and record amazing music". And for his part, Daryl says at the end of the show that they are making plans to work together. It's not just the amazing collaboration of talent that makes this session special. The song selection was brilliant, the arrangements were perfect, and the musicians were spectacular. The set (setlist below) inc...

All Systems Go: Our favorite Brit singer on the verge, Jessie Ware, is set to deliver her debut album, Devotion, next Tuesday. This week Jessie released "Sweet Talk", the fifth single from the album. Mark Richardson in Pitchfork said this, about the single: "Every once in a while, a song comes along that is the perfect mix of production, theme, and content-- a song like Jessie Ware's "Sweet Talk"...It's Sade, it's Marvin Gaye; it's unbelievably sexy but also thoughtful; it's sad and wistful and, ultimately, grounded. It pulls me in and it works for me, so I never leave." Listen to "Sweet Talk" (this is a Youtube audio track) Jessie Ware - Devotion Devotion will be simultaneously released next Tuesday in both the U.S. and the U.K. In Britain it's on CD and MP3. Here in the states it's MP3 only; if you want a CD you'll have to spring for the import. Maybe to deflate high expectations for this long aw...

The Scissor Sisters (Photo by Holly Kapral) You Can't Sit Down: I have been to the frontier of modern dance/rock, I've been Kiki-ed, and I liked it. The Scissor Sisters, for the previously uninitiated (me), are the party band for the new millennium, with a huge worldwide following, they play original music that sounds like Elton John crossed with disco-era Bee Gees on steroids. The whole thing is steeped in the campy New York style transvestite cabaret tradition. The songs are loaded with sexual references and innuendo. I may have been the only person on the planet who didn't know that the group's name is a sexual reference. They make eighties style club anthems that make you move your body; this isn't sit-down concert hall music. But we're getting ahead of ourselves Long time M&M favorite Chrissi Poland joined the Scissor Sisters in 2010 as a backing vocalist (she had sung with them at SXSW earlier that year). She immediately jetted off for some major le...

That's Why God Made the Radio Based on the consistently disappointing new material by the Beach Boys over the last forty years since Holland, the long suffering Beach Boys faithful had no good reason to expect any different when, at the end of last year, it was announced that the surviving members had set aside their differences and that they would celebrate the 50th anniversary of the band in 2012 with a new album and a tour. Here's the pitch: The fact of the matter is that the new album is not only good, but it's a thoroughly enjoyable listen; yes, all 38 minutes of it. There's not a bum track on the record. The Beach Boys were never this consistent even back when they were good. The album opens with "Think About The Days", a pastoral blend of voices accompanied by a nicely understated piano, forming a beautiful lead-in to the title track, and if there's a better summer single this year, I've yet to hear it. Listen to "Think About The Days"...