The New Now
  • One could say that there's a fine tradition of young blonde females emerging from the California pop music landscape--must be something in the air, no?--and if one did, one could place Sara Haze in the epicenter of that fine tradition.

    Haze, whose new album My Personal Sky hit the streets last month, is also a participant in yet another tradition: Establishing a career partly due to strategic placements of her music in films and TV shows. At last count, Sara's seen over 30 of them!

    Most notable of those placements may have been that of  her song "My Own Hands To Hold," which after a particularly wrenching scene in reality show The Hills drove over 300,000 plays on her MySpace page.

    Thus, Y! Music was delighted a few weeks back when Sara and her crew stopped by our office to deliver an informal rendition of "Beautiful Day"-a soulful track that's just a hint of Haze's songwriting talents.

    Want more info? Check out the Sara Haze site here and you'll get the full scoop! 

    Get Sarah's album

    Read More »from Sara Haze: ‘The Hills’ Draws Eyes
  • PriscillaRenea's funky pop track "Dollhouse" has the attitude, empowering message andenergy of a Katy Perry anthem. There's good reason for that. The 21-year-old Vero Beach, Floridanative was signed by Capitol Records pop A&R Chris Anokute, who also signedthe "I Kissed A Girl" singer.

    Anokute heard Priscilla's music when meeting with the lawyerfor her indie label Power Entertainment. The attorney's purpose was to sellsome of Priscilla's songs to the company, but Anokute liked Priscilla so muchthat he wanted to find out more about the singer behind the music.

     

    Anokute soon discovered that Priscilla had alreadyestablished a respectable web following. A YouTube clip of her singing "The Dictionary" over aninstrumental of Fergie's "Glamorous" has more than a million plays. She hadalso appeared on MTV's "Say What? Karaoke" and leveraged support on Fancast,and MySpace.

    One year later, Priscilla is releasing her debut

    Read More »from Priscilla Renea: Pop’s New Doll Face
  • Los Angeles-based, Ron Jeremy-resembling, pimpdaddy pop prince Har Mar Superstar has recorded many cult favorites over the last few years--like "DUI," his Jackson Five-ish ode to bootycalling (the "D" stood for "dialing"), and "Power Lunch," his Prince-ly salute to sexy career women. But with his buzzy "Tall Boy," Har Mar may almost be ready to go mainstream.

    Almost.

    "Tall Boy" was originally written by Har Mar and the Bird & The Bee's Greg Kurstin for the one and only Britney Spears. But when Britney unfathomably opted not to record the catchy, double-entendre-laden electro-popper, Har Mar (who's penned tracks for artists like the Cheetah Girls, Jennifer Lopez, and Kelly Osbourne) wisely decided to keep it for his own album, Dark Touches--lyrics unchanged, of course.

    Then Har Mar (real name: Sean Matthew Tillmann) made an outta-this-world video for the song featuring Eva Mendes, Arrested Development actress Alia Shawkat (who incidentally appeared with Har Mar in Whip It), Eric

    Read More »from Britney’s Loss Is Har Mar Superstar & Eva Mendes’ Gain
  • LIGHTS: Absolutely Incandescent!

    She has been called "every nerd's dream girl," and it's always meant as the highest praise imaginable.

    Indeed, LIGHTS--the Canadian singer/songwriter born Valerie Poxleitner--may be the most interesting female to set foot on our great planet!

    The attractive young singer/songwriter, who's already won Canada's esteemed Juno Award for her talents, came to visit Y! Music recently in conjunction with the release of her fabulous new album, The Listening, and knocked most of us out with her talent, geniality, and exhuberance.

    So what's the big deal about this "nerd's dream girl" stuff? LIGHTS is actively involved in many fields of entertainment aside from music, and most prominent among them may be videogaming-World Of Warcraft, anyone?-and comic books, of which she is both a conspicuous fangirl and participant. And do check out this link to find out more about Audio Quest: A Capt. Lights Adventure, which aired on MTV and, as animation goes, is hip stuff indeed.

    To find out what LIGHTS is all

    Read More »from LIGHTS: Absolutely Incandescent!
  • StephJones could host a workshop for artists looking to market themselvesonline.

    The R&B/pop singer and songwriter who has written forJordin Sparks, Blake Lewis and Jesse McCartney has created a solid web presencefor himself with coverage on numerous popular blogs, not to mention his own YouTube channel featuringseveral random moments.

     

    You're likely to find him leading a group of frands (a termhe coined for friends and fans) on a hike through Los Angeles' Runyon Canyon ona G.U.M.B.O.excursion; visiting a dentistoffice in Norway; or goofing around in the studio with R&B great Angie Stone.Blogs regularly run photos of him hanging out with this "American Idol"-winningfriend Jordin Sparks,who many rumor starters peg to be his girlfriend.

    The former Ford Models rep from Missouri City, Texashas appeared in videos for Destiny'sChild and FaithEvans. His MySpace pagehas received more than 2 million views.

    Steph is using the platform to

    Read More »from Web Star Steph Jones Talks Soulful ‘Gravity’ Lifetape
  • When I first heard "Turn Left" from Little Dragon's eponymous 2007 debut, I was entranced by the haunting MF DOOM-like beat. The strange, sad synths juxtaposed with snappy snares and quirky happy bloop-bleeps combined for a nice way to do a whole lot with a little. But I wasn't sure I was on to a new favorite band until I heard the soulful, vulnerable voice of what I assumed was the group's African-American lead singer. I was pretty sure this girl must have grown up in Philly down the block from Jill Scott, or that Erykah Badu used to come by to babysit her every time she was in town.

    But I came to find out that this playful fire-breather, Yukimi Nagano, is straight outta Gothenburg!! And of Swedish-Japanese ancestry!?!? Well, obviously I've got an ear for ethnicity, huh? But was I disappointed? Hardly. In fact, Yukimi became about 10 degrees cooler to me than the coldest Scandanavian winter when I found out that after high school, this crouching tiger was denied entrance to several

    Read More »from Little Dragon: A Real Big Deal
  • Hearing Leighton Meester rapthe first verse of her song "Somebody To Love" might seem odd for the debuttrack from an emerging pop princess who happens to be one of the stars from thesalacious television drama "Gossip Girl."

    But it makes sense whenconsidering Leighton's background in music.

    Upon a closer listen,Leighton's spoken words are actually more poetic, than hip-hop. The 23-year-oldactress/singer who portrays Blair Waldorf on the hit CW Network show, beganwriting as a child. Her first journal entries date back to when she was 8.

    By the time she was 16,those writings began to take poetic form. "I've written all my life, but when Iwas 16 years old, I started writing songs and poetry and it became a hugepassion of mine," Leighton said via phone.

    Neil Young is among herbiggest influences as a songwriter. "Ilove Neil Young, I love his lyrics," Leighton said. "I think, obviously, he isthe whole package. And I love the way he writes. It's just poetry. And the waythat I write, I like

    Read More »from ‘Gossip Girl’ Leighton Meester Talks Music Career
  • Much like Seattle in the '90s, the borough of Brooklyn is getting all the music buzz these days, thanks to bands as disparate as MGMT, A Place To Bury Strangers, Yeasayer, and TV On The Radio. White Rabbits--who in 2007 issued their critically heralded Fort Nightly debut, and this year garnered even more attention with their frighteningly good sophomore effort It's Frightening, produced by Britt Daniel of Spoon--are one of the latest bands to make that elite Brooklynite list. But their widescreen sound definitely has a wide appeal way beyond the city limits of Williamsburg.

    An unusually configured sextet featuring two frontmen (Greg Roberts and Stephen Patterson, interviewed below) and two drummers (a rock phenomenon rarely witnessed since the heyday of Adam & The Ants), White Rabbits stand apart from the indie-rock pack with their big, hooky, piano-driven sound. Their propulsive single "Percussion Gun" is already shooting up the alt-rock radio charts, no pun intended, and every other

    Read More »from White Rabbits: Frighteningly Good!
  • Michael Jackson's concert documentary This Is It made the King Of Pop the King Of The Box Office this week, as fans flocked to the theaters to catch a glimpse of what might have been, had the late superstar's London O2 Arena dates actually taken place. But the film also offered a glimpse of a young new talent whose career is just starting to explode: Jackson band member and guitar prodigy, Orianthi.

     

    This 24-year-old Australian guitar goddess first captured American audiences' attention at this year's Grammy Awards, when she blazingly accompanied (some might even say upstaged) Grammy performer Carrie Underwood, and she has also been quite vocally championed by six-string legends Steve Vai and Carlos Santana. ("If I was going to pass the baton to somebody, she would be my first choice," Carlos once said of Orianthi.) It was in fact Orianthi's buzzy Grammy performance that made Michael himself take notice, and he quickly hired her to be his guitarist for the This Is It concerts. In

    Read More »from Orianthi: Michael Jackson’s Guitar Thriller
  • Sometimes a really interesting band can just sort of sneak up on you.

    I may have been familiar with the Postmarks last year--I think I remember reading about them and noting they were from South Florida, where I grew up--but I never really gave them a listen until their latest album, Memoirs At The End Of The World showed up. With a cover any half-witted record collector would naturally assume to have been issued by Columbia Records in the mid-'60s, the new album--strictly speaking their second, not counting an EP and a collection of cover singles--is a treasure from start to finish.

    Coming together a few years back in South Florida, the band's core three members of Jonathan Wilkins, Christopher Moll and lead singer Tim Yehezkely created an intriguing mixture of music that is at times both lush and twee. With the new album Memoirs, lush may be the operative word: recurrent instrumental themes resurface throughout several of the tracks, one John Barry-ish instrumental suggests a quirky

    Read More »from The Postmarks: Signed, Sealed, And Delivering

Pagination

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News for You

  • NYers furious over photos taken through windows

    NEW YORK (AP) — In one photo, a woman is on all fours, presumably picking something up, her posterior pressed against a glass window. Another photo shows a couple in bathrobes, their feet touching beneath a table. And there is one of a man, in jeans and a T-shirt, lying on his side as he takes a nap.

  • Denmark favorite to win Eurovision Song Contest

    MALMO, Sweden (AP) — An ethno-inspired flute and drum tune from Denmark is the bookmakers' favorite to win this year's Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday, which also features a bizarre opera pop number from Romania and an Armenian rock song written by the guitarist of Black Sabbath.

  • Denmark's de Forest wins Eurovision song contest

    MALMO, Sweden (AP) — Denmark's Emmelie de Forest has won this year's Eurovision Song Contest with her ethno-inspired flute and drum tune "Only Teardrops," despite tough competition from spectacular stage shows by performers from Azerbaijan and Ukraine.

  • Native American actress proud to walk Cannes red carpet

    By Belinda Goldsmith CANNES (Reuters) - Native American actress Misty Upham never dreamt she would be walking the red carpet at Cannes to showcase a film shot on her reservation. Upham features in "Jimmy P. Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian", focused on the relationship between World War Two veteran Jimmy Picard, a Native American Blackfoot, and Georges Devereux, his psychoanalyst. Upham said like Picard, played by Puerto Rican actor Benicio Del Toro, she is Blackfeet, the largest tribe in Montana state. ...

  • NYC artist's secret photos raise privacy issues

    NEW YORK (AP) — In one photo, a woman is on all fours, presumably picking something up, her posterior pressed against a glass window. Another photo shows a couple in bathrobes, their feet touching beneath a table. And there is one of a man, in jeans and a T-shirt, lying on his side as he takes a nap.

  • Paul McCartney kicks off "Out There" tour in US

    ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Paul McCartney is kicking off the North American leg of his "Out There" tour in Orlando.

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