Mick Jagger Releases Two New Singles - Proves He Still Matters

Yesterday, he celebrated his 74th birthday, today (7/27) Mike Jagger released two brand new singles repressing the changing political landscape. He again demonstrated that as an "old" man, he can still tell the youngsters how to react and put to music, an engaging form of criticism and be viable not only to contemporary politics but also music. In the year since Brexit and the half-year since the Orange Agent sits in the White House, we should have experienced a bigger criticism from artists abroad and statewide.

In "England Lost!" he takes a football loss of the English national team, which during the whole song evolves from England lost to England's lost. In a great black and white video, featuring Welsh actor Luke Evans, who fears to be followed and starts on a bizarre, running escape through London, the countryside and at the end reaching the ocean to be pulled back by bystanders and told by a little girl to "Pull Yourself Together."

★★★/★★★★★ (3 out of 5)


Jagger also mentioned that he wanted to use UK Rapper Skepta for a version of his "England Lost!" single - he did so, in the lyric video, where he added the moniker "Reimagined" to it

Right from the off when I started writing England Lost, I imagined having a British rapper on the track .. Skepta stepped in at a moments notice and I just loved what he did.



In the email, he mentioned that he started these songs recently and had an urge to publish them, while they still matter

I started writing these two songs a few weeks back and wanted to get them out to you straight away.

While not as poignant in "England Lost!" in "Gotta Get A Grip" he re-emerges as a protest singer, actually pulling himself together. He's lamenting the clowns in government, the constant lies we are fed, the ignorance of the electorate, the shunning of intellectuals, greed, and xenophobia. Sir Mick paints a dark, but a too real picture of the current state of affairs and proves at 74 that he still matters! 

But read for yourself: 

Gotta get a grip
Beat it with a stick
Gotta get a grip
She goin' for the hit
THe world is upside down
Everybody lunatics and clowns
No one speaks the truth
And madhouse runs the town
Well you gotta get a grip
Beat it with a stick
You gotta get a grip

Everybody's stuffing their pockets
Everybody's on the take
The news is all fake
Let 'em eat chicken and let 'em eat steak
Let 'em eat shit, let 'em eat cake
You gotta get a grip
You gotta get a grip
You gotta keep it zipped
And shoot 'em from the hip
Yeah, yeah, you gotta get a grip
Beat it with a stick

I tried diversion and I tried coercion
Mediation and medication
LA culture and aquapuncture
Overeating and sex in meetings
Induced insanity, Christianity
Long walks and fast drives
And wild clubs and low dives
I pushed and I strived
But I can't get you, can't get you
Can't get you out of my mind
Gotta get a grip

Oh you, oh you
Oh you, beat it with a stick
Immigrants are pouring in
Refugees under your skin
Keep 'em under, keep 'em out
Intellectual, shut your mouth
Beat 'em with a stick
Oh you
Gotta get a grip
Gotta get a grip
Chaos crisis instability, ISIS
Lies and scandals, wars and vandals
Metadata scams and policy shams
Put 'em in a slammer
Gotta get a grip
Gotta get a grip
Come on

The song features a heavy, great guitar riff that helps transpond the dark message into an almost positive fighting song. We "Gotta Get A Grip" and fight the demons that are here.

★★★★(★)/★★★★★ (4 ½ out of 5)


Sources: Universal Music, Twitter, YouTube

Moby - Lost In The World

An angry electronica artist Moby is back and just released his 14th studio album "These Systems Are Failing" on the 14th and is now doubling down with another (4th) single "Are You Lost In The World Like Me" from the LP. Even though still recording mostly by himself and only using the "choir" on two tracks, he calls his entity in reference to D.H. Lawrence, Moby & the Void Pacific Choir and names the new album a debut.

The outspoken environmentalist, vegan offers a eulogy to the present and paints a dark picture to the future, about our society, the way we are living and how we are abusing creation.

"These systems were supposed to protect us, to free us, but instead they've poisoned our air, killed the animals, butchered the land - and destroyed ourselves. We think we’ve conquered the problems of food production and wealth distribution, yet we’re more miserable than ever."
(from his YouTube manifesto for the release of "These Systems Are Failing.")

The album title is a recurring theme in his current single, "Are You Lost In The World Like Me?" which with its catchy chorus tries to unite all the lost souls out there, the ones who see that all "the systems are failing." A potent song of reflection and outcry especially considering the state of the election cycle this year in the USA.

Animation artist, London-based Steve Cutts, who like Moby condemns the excesses of our societies - watch his animation  "Man" - made a new, absolutely powerful animated video for "Are You Lost In The World Like Me?" Known for his colorful cartoons, he took a black and white approach, inspired by the early animation of the depression era, including to Max Fleischer's "Betty Boop" (even so blond and big chested), a bit "Metropolis" by Fritz Lang and some Robert Crumb and painted an utopian nightmare, where every human interaction is forbidden by fine and only allowed via smartphone.

Besides touching themes like bullying, over excessive police force, an overloaded penal system and our way of meat consumption, it also depicts smartphone software that "photoshops" your selfies to a better you, takes potshots at Tinder (App) and YouTube's Schadenfreude (Fail) section or our fascination with Kim Kardashian's lower back.
Grimmer is the "phone video taping" of a suizid and no one tries to stop it and this leads to the tragic end, where the metaphor of the lemming "suicide" is used. Oblivious people staring at their smartphones simply walk off the cliff.

★★★★(★)/★★★★★ (4½/5)


Magnificent video with tons of little details and references. I hope this video will still have some virality to be entered for the Grammy Awards in February of 2018. It just came in a tad late, for the 2017 Grammys. Yes it is that good and that unique. In two days it already accrued over 1.1 Million views and made me a Steve Cutts fan.

By the way, next Sunday, October 23 Moby will be headlining his own vegan charity event, Circle V at the Fonda Teatre in Los Angeles benefitting animal rights organisation "Mercy For Animals." It will be Moby's only live performance this year.



Sources: YouTube, circlev.com, http://moby.com/, www.stevecutts.com

Kenny Chesney's "Noise" debuts in Rolling Stone

Kenny Chesney - Live                                 © Jill Turnell (courtesy EBMedia)

For once it's not pina coladas, sandy beaches and cladly dressed dancer babes in bikinis. It's neither a jocose

singer reminiscing about the quietude at a lovely hidden oasis where he shares a longneck with his honey on the back of a pickup truck while strummin' on his guitar.



In his new video "Noise," the lead-off single of his new album "Some Town Somewhere" which ships July 8th, Kenny Chesney actually inculpates all the white noise, the cacophony, the constant sound bytes, the tech overload around us.



Wrecking balls, downtown construction

Bottles breaking, jukebox buzzing

Cardboard sign says ‘The Lord Is Coming’

Tick tick tock

Rumors turn the mills back home

Parking lot kids with the speakers blown

We didn’t turn it on

but we can’t turn it off, off, off …”



While this topic is quite popular in pop and rock music, it's rather rare in country music to sing songs being critical of society or at least critical of part of society. "Atomic Power" by the Louvin Brothers, "Okie From Muskogee" by Merle Haggard come to mind. In order to convey this new message to an audience who would listen, Chesney's team didn't select the regular outlets like CMT, Vevo or a country music magazine, but choose RollingStone.com to premiere his chaotic video.



“They have been the cultural and societal touchstone since I was a kid,” Chesney explains in his press release, why he choose the music magazine as an outlet “and that gives them the gravitas to reflect what [director] Shaun [Silva] and I were trying to capture in the song. This is not political, so much as social... if you want to get people to take it all in, to step back and really reflect, let’s put the video at the heart of where people who sort those things are.”



The visual manifestation of the song is clear: distorted images changing in a fast cut, timely mentioning in passing, not only the current US election cycle, but also the daily overload of sound or video bytes that is thrown at us, basically a wall of noise imprisoning us. And even though everybody seems to communicate, there are no messages reaching the listener:



Twenty-four hour television,

get so loud that no one listens

Sex and money and politicians talk, talk, talk

But there really ain't no conversation

Ain't nothing left to the imagination

Trapped in our phones and we can't make it stop, stop, stop

Watch Kenny Chesney's Chaotic 'Noise' Video

As Rolling Stone knows: "Kenny Chesney already had the first single from his upcoming "Some Town Somewhere" album picked out when a bunch of talking - make that, yelling - heads on television threw a curveball..."



He was on the phone with Nashville tunesmith Shane McAnally on a way to a marketing meeting with his manager, when the idea of "Noise" came up. Two days later he went into the studio and recorded the song, which besides McAnally was written by Ross Copperman and Jon Nite.



But Chesney doesn't see himself as a messenger, as he told RollingStone.com "We're not preaching to anyone, we’re just making a statement about the way we live. The message is to try to be mindful of it. If you love someone, tell them you love them. Don’t text it to them! There is so much life to be lived outside our phones.”



Summary: A great move for the fluffy 8-time entertainer of the year, away from "Bro" country to an actual meaningful song. The other songs on "Some Town Somewhere" will have to prove the new thoughtfulness of Kenny Chesney. An ethereal follow up will render "Noise" as meaning less.



Sources: RollingStone.com, Essential Broadcast Media,

Kenny Chesney's "Noise" debuts in Rolling Stone

Kenny Chesney - Live                                 © Jill Turnell (courtesy EBMedia)

For once it's not pina coladas, sandy beaches and cladly dressed dancer babes in bikinis. It's neither a jocose
singer reminiscing about the quietude at a lovely hidden oasis where he shares a longneck with his honey on the back of a pickup truck while strummin' on his guitar.

In his new video "Noise," the lead-off single of his new album "Some Town Somewhere" which ships July 8th, Kenny Chesney actually inculpates all the white noise, the cacophony, the constant sound bytes, the tech overload around us.

Wrecking balls, downtown construction
Bottles breaking, jukebox buzzing
Cardboard sign says ‘The Lord Is Coming’
Tick tick tock
Rumors turn the mills back home
Parking lot kids with the speakers blown
We didn’t turn it on
but we can’t turn it off, off, off …”

While this topic is quite popular in pop and rock music, it's rather rare in country music to sing songs being critical of society or at least critical of part of society. "Atomic Power" by the Louvin Brothers, "Okie From Muskogee" by Merle Haggard come to mind. In order to convey this new message to an audience who would listen, Chesney's team didn't select the regular outlets like CMT, Vevo or a country music magazine, but choose RollingStone.com to premiere his chaotic video.

“They have been the cultural and societal touchstone since I was a kid,” Chesney explains in his press release, why he choose the music magazine as an outlet “and that gives them the gravitas to reflect what [director] Shaun [Silva] and I were trying to capture in the song. This is not political, so much as social... if you want to get people to take it all in, to step back and really reflect, let’s put the video at the heart of where people who sort those things are.”

The visual manifestation of the song is clear: distorted images changing in a fast cut, timely mentioning in passing, not only the current US election cycle, but also the daily overload of sound or video bytes that is thrown at us, basically a wall of noise imprisoning us. And even though everybody seems to communicate, there are no messages reaching the listener:

Twenty-four hour television,
get so loud that no one listens
Sex and money and politicians talk, talk, talk
But there really ain't no conversation
Ain't nothing left to the imagination
Trapped in our phones and we can't make it stop, stop, stop

Watch Kenny Chesney's Chaotic 'Noise' Video

As Rolling Stone knows: "Kenny Chesney already had the first single from his upcoming "Some Town Somewhere" album picked out when a bunch of talking - make that, yelling - heads on television threw a curveball..."

He was on the phone with Nashville tunesmith Shane McAnally on a way to a marketing meeting with his manager, when the idea of "Noise" came up. Two days later he went into the studio and recorded the song, which besides McAnally was written by Ross Copperman and Jon Nite.

But Chesney doesn't see himself as a messenger, as he told RollingStone.com "We're not preaching to anyone, we’re just making a statement about the way we live. The message is to try to be mindful of it. If you love someone, tell them you love them. Don’t text it to them! There is so much life to be lived outside our phones.”

Summary: A great move for the fluffy 8-time entertainer of the year, away from "Bro" country to an actual meaningful song. The other songs on "Some Town Somewhere" will have to prove the new thoughtfulness of Kenny Chesney. An ethereal follow up will render "Noise" as meaning less.

Sources: RollingStone.com, Essential Broadcast Media,

Eric Church (Has A) Record Year - New Video

Screen Shot "Record Year" 

Eric Church debuted his new video "Record Year" today on CMT’s Hot 20 Countdown and it's up for viewing on Vevo, you'll find a link below.



The video and it's song, filmed in an old abonded school house in East Nashville, deals with a breakup and the consequent flight of the left one into listening to an old three foot stack of warm sounding vinyl records. Cleverly written by Church and his longtime banjo player and guitarist Jeff Hyde.



I bet you thought before you left

I'd just sit in silence by myself

Turn this house into a jail

Dyin' slow in a livin' hell

But love's got a funny way of keepin' score

And your leavin' lit up my scoreboard

I usually make it through side A sober

All bets are off when I flip her over

One bourbon, one scotch, one beer

I'm havin' a record year

"Record Year" Shoot - © Reid Long (used by permission)

The John Lee Hooker reference "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" - also known by a great version by George Thorogood - isn't the only name-dropping in the little epic, (George) Jones, (Waylon) Jennings are as well mentioned in the song as Hank (Williams) and Stevie Wonder's "Songs In The Key of Life." Willie Nelson lends comfort with "Red Headed Stranger", James Brown is mentioned and as a little great surprise the old quartet New Grass Revival, who started promoting progressive bluegrass in the early 80s. Even though it's uncertain if the vinyl session will help the hurt one to get over it or just inflect some more, this time physical pain by speakers being on ten, damaging his ears.



I'm either gonna get over you

Or I'm gonna blow out my ears

Yeah, you're out there now

Doin' God knows how, and I'm stuck here

Havin' a record year



Another "nice" reference, at least a great play on words, comes in the verse where he suggests that only a needle - not in his arm but on his vinyl - can save him:



Your leavin' left me goin' crazy

I'm countin' on a needle to save me

I drop it in the groove

And we go 'round and 'round

And down in a spiral



Eric also debuts his new Signature Gibson Guitar, Hummingbird Dark in the video.

To use the records to line up on an un-used weight lifting bench as a 3-D audio waveform reflecting the sonic intensity of the song is absolute clever (see picture on top of the blog) and Church's manager John Peets and video maker Reid Long, who directed "Record Year" deserves some great praise. Maybe the trio, Church, Peats and Reid can double down on winning video of the year, as they did with the ACM video of the year for the title track of Church's new album "Mr. Misunderstood."



Summary: Great song, outstanding video - musically a tad to contemporary for my taste, but still a favorite of country music videos released this year.

Record Year - Eric Church

Watch Record Year by Eric Church online at vevo.com. Discover the latest music videos by Eric Church on Vevo.

Sources: EBMedia, ACM

Eric Church (Has A) Record Year - New Video

Screen Shot "Record Year" 

Eric Church debuted his new video "Record Year" today on CMT’s Hot 20 Countdown and it's up for viewing on Vevo, you'll find a link below.

The video and its song, filmed in an old abandoned schoolhouse in East Nashville, deals with a breakup and the consequent flight of the left one into listening to an old three foot stack of warm sounding vinyl records. Cleverly written by Church and his longtime banjo player and guitarist Jeff Hyde.

I bet you thought before you left
I'd just sit in silence by myself
Turn this house into a jail
Dyin' slow in a livin' hell
But love's got a funny way of keepin' score
And your leavin' lit up my scoreboard
I usually make it through side A sober
All bets are off when I flip her over
One bourbon, one scotch, one beer
I'm havin' a record year

"Record Year" Shoot - © Reid Long (used by permission)

The John Lee Hooker reference "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" - also known by a great version by George Thorogood - isn't the only name-dropping in the little epic, (George) Jones, (Waylon) Jennings are as well mentioned in the song as Hank (Williams) and Stevie Wonder's "Songs In The Key of Life." Willie Nelson lends comfort with "Red Headed Stranger", James Brown is mentioned and as a little great surprise the old quartet New Grass Revival, who started promoting progressive bluegrass in the early 80s. Even though it's uncertain if the vinyl session will help the hurt one to get over it or just inflect some more, this time physical pain by speakers being on ten, damaging his ears.

I'm either gonna get over you
Or I'm gonna blow out my ears
Yeah, you're out there now
Doin' God knows how, and I'm stuck here
Havin' a record year

Another "nice" reference, at least a great play on words, comes in the verse where he suggests that only a needle - not in his arm but on vinyl - can save him:

Your leavin' left me goin' crazy
I'm countin' on a needle to save me
I drop it in the groove
And we go 'round and 'round
And down in a spiral

Eric also debuts his new Signature Gibson Guitar, Hummingbird Dark in the video.
To use the records to line up on an un-used weight lifting bench as a 3-D audio waveform reflecting the sonic intensity of the song is absolute clever (see picture on top of the blog) and Church's manager John Peets and video maker Reid Long, who directed "Record Year" deserves some great praise. Maybe the trio, Church, Peats and Reid can double down on winning video of the year, as they did with the ACM video of the year for the title track of Church's new album "Mr. Misunderstood."

Summary: Great song, outstanding video - musically a tad to contemporary for my taste, but still a favorite of country music videos released this year.

Record Year - Eric Church

Watch Record Year by Eric Church online at vevo.com. Discover the latest music videos by Eric Church on Vevo.

Sources: EBMedia, ACM