It’s no surprise that Adele is rolling in accolades this year considering the triumphant success of her sophomore album 21. Last night, the British songbird was celebrated with her second-ever nomination for the prestigious Mercury Prize, which awards UK artists for best albums of the year. While the “Turning Tables” siren may have ultimately lost out to PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake, we highly doubt this will be the pop star’s last shot at taking home the crown. Check out the Vogue cover girl as she turns heads at the Grosvenor House in London. More »
Winners for the PJ Harvey / John Parish ticket giveaway have been contacted. Check your e-mail! (And if you won, get back to me so I can put your correct name on the guest list.) Congratulations to everyone who won, and thanks for entering! More »
Just a reminder that we’re giving away tickets to 11 upcoming shows on PJ Harvey & John Parish’s tour next month; the entry period ends tomorrow at noon ET, so if you want to go get your entries in now! To enter, just comment on the contest post with a note about which show you’d like to attend. (The full roster of available dates is at the link.) Good luck! [Enter now] More »
I’m thrilled to announce that Idolator will be giving away tickets to 11 upcoming PJ Harvey & John Parish shows that take place during their North American tour in June; the full itinerary of eligible shows is after the jump. To enter, simply leave a comment on this entry noting which show you’d like to attend; we’ll be giving away one pair of tickets per show. Winners will be announced and contacted via the e-mail address attached to their commenter account next Friday, May 22. Good luck! More »
Just wanted to chime in with my disappointment at the news of the departure of Mick Harvey from Nick Cave’s ace backing band, The Bad Seeds. It stung when Blixa Bargeld left in 2003, but this one really hurts.
I know, I know, I already gave my spiel about how there were lots of records to look forward to in 2009, but the new music I’ve heard since I penned (er, typed?) that piece—as well as the news that the eternally incredible PJ Harvey and John Parish will release a new album at the end of March—got me all excited all over again.
Today is the day to get all nutso about eights, or, maybe to just get nutso, if you have Olympic and/or Jonas Brothers and/or Boredoms-drum-extravaganza fever. (Woe to the person who’s suffering from all three.) All the eight-related hoopla got me to thinking about how the eighth track on many an album is a hit-or-miss proposition; particularly on longer albums in the CD era, it serves as something of a midpoint, and albums become unfocused and maybe stick their not-as-good tracks in there. For example: track eight on Appetite For Destruction, for example, is the OK-but-not-great “Think About You,” while track eight on Nevermind is the relatively irritating to my ears “Drain You.” And not to be all lazy-Google-research about this, but the phrase “track 8 is my favorite” only has 22 hits on the search engine; spell out the word “eight,” and you’re down to four.) Anyway, I decided to root through my collection and find some outstanding examples of an album’s eighth track–eight, in fact. They’re unordered, although the last one on the list is probably my favorite (and I found an amazing live version of it, to boot). Feel free to add your own!
From The Basement, the Nigel Godrich-produced music performance series that’s featured bands like the White Stripes, PJ Harvey, and Radiohead in the past, will become a cable-TV staple in September; IFC is adding the series to its new programming block Automat, which is apparently designed to… More »
Just wanted to chime in with my disappointment at the news of the