This week in music, Kurt Cobain would have celebrated his 45th birthday. What’s your favorite Nirvana song? Mine is “Heart-Shaped Box“.
Metric Are On Their Way
Your favorite Canadian outfit (no, the other one) have finally revealed details about the highly anticipated follow-up to 2009’s Fantasies. The full-length record will be titled Synthetica and it’s set to drop on June 12. That’s in approximately 109 days. You should probably add the date to your calendar right now. If you don’t own a calendar then you won’t find a better reason to buy one.
So do you wanna know what Synthetica is all about? Emily Haines has your answer:
“Synthetica is about staying home and wanting to crawl out of your skin from the lack of external stimulation. Synthetica is about forcing yourself to confront what you see in the mirror when you finally stand still long enough to catch a reflection. Synthetica is about being able to identify the original in a long line of reproductions. It’s about what is real vs what is artificial. Synthetica is about insomnia, fucking up, fashion, all the devices and gadgets attached to our brains, getting wasted, watching people die in other countries, watching people die in your own country, dancing your ass off, questioning the cops, poetic justice, standing up for yourself, sex, the apocalypse, doing some stupid shit and totally regretting it but then telling everyone it made you stronger, leaving town as a solution to unsolvable problems, owning your actions and owning your time.” Read the full letter.
Fiona Apple Announces US Tour Dates
So it turns out that the cryptic date posted on Fiona Apple‘s facebook page earlier this month (“Tuesday, February 21, 2012”) that whipped fans into a frenzy was not the date that she would release her new album, but rather the date that she would announce a tour to select cities in the United States. Do you live in one of those cities? You lucky thing, you.
tUnE-yArDs Announce US and Canadian Tour Dates
As a result of widespread demand / global domination, tUnE-yArDs has announced a string of new summer tour dates across the United States and Canada. Read this PSA by Marni and see if the show’s coming to your town.
Photograph by Ashley Jordan Gordon, copyrighted
Sia Denounces Pop Stardom
You know who really doesn’t like fame? Aussie singer slash songwriter slash genius Sia. She has (re)announced on twitter that while she will continue to make music, she will no longer tour or promote it. Her plan is to stay behind the scenes and “make bank writing pop songs for pop starz”.
When the announcement made headlines this week I was super confused because it already made headlines two years ago. I’m just repeating it for those of you who weren’t on the internet in 2010.
The Metric release is definitely calendar-worthy!
I am so excited for Metric. Ohhh Emily.
I’m pretty sure I yelled “marry me in Canada” to Emily at a Metric concert. It was a while back. I still mean it.
Jealous. Never seen them live so I just settle for talking directly to the pic of Emily that I’m currently using as my desktop wallpaper.
metric is my desktop, too! ugh. i love them so much.
I love love love LOVE Metric! My sole dream is to see them in concert before I die.
Everytime Metric releases a new album it makes me want to dance around Toronto to it.
anything metric does is awesome.
+1 “for those of you who weren’t on the internet in 2010”
I bought tickets to Fiona Apple this morning! I live in Philly but I bought tickets for the 2nd NY date. I’ve been waiting years for this…
JEALOUS
HDGoh;sao;htgrea
I am so inappropriately obsessed with Emily Haines. I’ve seen her in play 4 different cities (all requiring airplanes to get there….), met her 3 times, I know where James and Joules live in Toronto because I’m sortof a creepy stalker, I’m going to stop now…..
(I’m really excited)
ps Metric and Fiona Apple are BOTH playing at SXSW you guyssssssss
Yay, so excited for the Metric release!
This one time I saw Emily Haines do an unplugged show at the Sydney Opera House. It was just her and a piano and a string quartet, playing Metric songs, and it was one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced. I really really hope that the concert was recorded and will be released in the future because it feels a little sad knowing that so many Metric fans may never be able to see and hear what I saw and heard that night.
oh my goodness that sounds beautiful.
Excited for a new Metric album!
Also: glad this weekly music thread has been revived! It may not get a lot of comments, but I hope you’ll continue to preview what’s going on in music for us.
thanks Jules!
+1 – really glad you’re writing regularly again Crystal.
metriiiccc ahhhhh
last novemeber, when broken social scene played here in buenos aires she jumped on stage and i nearly fainted. i was singing along 1 metre away from her…
top concert experience
Am I the only person who’s a little iffy about this new Metric album? Fantasies kind of made me want to die. I saw them in Columbus a couple years ago and Joules and James both seemed super fucking bored with Emily Haines being a bitch. But she was still absolutely perfect.
Oh god, I love Fantasies. But I didn’t know them all that well beforehand, to be fair. Didn’t have cable or internet until almost college, sooo, I missed out on a lot of things.
I probably like Old World Underground a little bit better (incidentally, a flipping great album to exercise to).
I can never decide if I like Old World Underground or Live It Out better, such a dilemma!
FIONA APPLE!!! I so don’t have the $45 to spend on her, but I might just have to watch the criminal music video again… I remember being obsessed with it when it first came out and now I look back and think “i should’ve realized the gay thing sooner”
Ahhh, new Metric is very exciting! I’m hopefully optimistic (or at least trying to be). I will always love Emily Haines. I saw her play with Broken Social Scene, and with Metric a few times. So great. Also, about the Sia thing…I feel like she released that two years ago and never really quit touring…I saw her live twice since then…maybe she really is this time?
Seeing Fiona in Brooklyn March 23! Breaking my no “standing room only” rule for this one.
I didn’t like Fantasies as much as I liked Metric’s earlier stuff, but I will be looking forward to the new album.
I thought part of the reason Sia wasn’t going to tour was because she was going to devote herself to raising a family. But since her and JD split (2011 wasn’t kind to my favourite music couples), I was hoping she’d be touring again. Still, it’s her prerogative even though I wish I could see her after missing her the last time around.