Born Tulsan, Annie Clark’s third record is alluring and fearless.
Indie Matt Carney
Right away, “Chloe in the Afternoon,” the first track on St. Vincent’s
new album, distinguishes itself as superior to both the band’s previous
LPs, 2007’s “Marry Me” and 2009’s “Actor.”
Norman guitar loudsmiths engineer an awesome sonic nightmare.
Rock Matt Carney
I always enjoy conversations — be they digital or in-person — with Hook
Echo Sound and Nice People Records owner/engineer/operator Chris Harris, mainly as he’s one of the Oklahoma
music community’s few remaining people who speaks his mind forcefully
and directly.
Samantha Crain — “It’s Simple” Saucy Oklahoma singer Sam Crain gets a little help from Penny Hill and an elevator shaft on her excellent, true-to-title pop song “It’s Simple.” Love the handclaps and cooing, guys. It’s another quality installment in the above-par Be Nice To Your Kids series by Delo Creative.
Brother Gruesome — “Cut it Out” Norman's Brother Gruesome live up to their name with a gnarly sound and live performances. Here they spend a whole music video making graffiti that fits right in.
Dr. Dog — “Be the Void” And speaking of Delo Creative, they got tapped by Philadelphia indie-pop dudes Dr. Dog to shoot the lead single for their forthcoming album, which you can stream over at Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco website, of all places. This video’s definitely one of the more ambitious things I’ve seen from these dudes (the videographers) and it looks like they had a ton of fun shooting it.
Madonna, featuring M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj — “Give Me All Your Luvin’” What starts out like an episode of “Glee” starring the Material Girl almost gets hijacked by a typically robotic Nicki Minaj. I wonder how much it cost for M.I.A. not only to dress up like a cheerleader, but actually learn a traditional, American dance routine? Glad to see she’s still poppin’ fake guns, though.
M.I.A. — “Bad Girls” As if that weren't enough M.I.A. for you, Miss Arulpragasam's (My first attempt to spell her her last name, unaided by Wikipedia, resulted in 'Arumplagasm') got a Middle Eastern banger promoting her fourth, currently untitled album. I imagine the only other way they could've cobbled together a video like this was if somebody gave Crime Mob a crew of stunt drivers, a flight to Syria, half a million dollars, and all the gaudy, leopard-print crap in Prince's closet. Watch:
Don’t be fooled by the title. This punk gem harkens back to days of plenty.
Rock Matt Carney
It’s pretty tempting to call “Attack on Memory,” the latest album by
Cleveland punks Cloud Nothings the work of a punkist, that being its
obviously talented front man Dylan Baldi. That’s a compliment, I
promise.