Pop-Culture | Posted by Nia T on 06/27/2010

Support Women Artists Sunday: Janelle Monae

Janelle Monae

Janelle Monae’s creativity knows no bounds. Her debut studio album The ArchAndroid (Suite II and III) is a 70-minute concept album where her alter-ego, Cindi Mayweather becomes a “messiah-esque figure to the android community of Metropolis”. She’s co-written seventeen out of the eighteen songs and they jump unabashedly from pop to jazz to punk. The video for her single Tightrope shows her shimmying in a tuxedo and bow tie doing the tightrope dance and she just looks effortlessly cool. Her album has received critical acclaim but it seems like there are lots of people who have no idea who she is despite the fact that, to me, everything about her screams superstar. Intelligent and imaginative, there’s a Janelle Monae song for everyone to love.

Tightrope

Many Moons

Janelle Monae on iTunes:

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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 06/20/2010

Support Women Artists Sunday: The Prids

The Prids

The Prids are a band from Portland, Oregon. The quartet’s music can be categorized as a blend of noise pop and post-punk, influenced by Sonic Youth, Built to Spill, The Smiths, Unrest, My Bloody Valentine and Wire. Founded in Saint Joseph, Missouri in 1995 by David Frederickson and Mistina Keith, they continued to develop in Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska. In Lincoln they befriended Harry Dingman III, guitarist of 1980s cult legendary post-punk band For Against. But the Prids has seen its share of tumult over the years. Its founding members, David Frederickson and Mistina Keith, married one another, then got divorced but continued their musical collaboration à la Fleetwood Mac. In 2008, everyone in the group was injured in a highway wreck that cost them their van and equipment…

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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 06/13/2010

Support Women Artists Sunday: Esperanza Spalding

Esperanza Spalding

Hailed as a prodigy on the acoustic double bass within months of first touching the instrument as a 15-year-old, Esperanza Spalding has emerged as a fine jazz bassist, but has also distinguished herself playing blues, funk, hip-hop, pop fusion, and Brazilian and Afro-Cuban styles as well. Born in Portland, OR in 1984, Spalding was not well served by the public school system and soon dropped out of classes to be home schooled. Returning to the public school system at 15, she encountered her first acoustic bass (she had already been playing violin for several years) and immediately took to the instrument. Dropping out of school again, Spalding enrolled in classes at Portland State University as a 16-year-old, and earned her B.A. in just three years and was immediately hired…

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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 04/20/2010

The Runaways (Filmed and Real)

The Runaways Movie

Yesterday, I went to see the movie The Runaways. I am simultaneously a huge fan of Dakota Fanning and Joan Jett herself while not such a huge fan of Kristen Stewart, and wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. And I must say, I was pleasantly surprised.

The movie itself is interesting. It’s not exactly plot driven, but rather a documentation of The Runaways – their success, their sex-drugs-rock and roll lifestyle and predominately both of these factors mixed with their very young ages (lead singer Currie was 15 and Jett was 17). Dakota Fanning, as always, gave a fantastic performance and I have to admit, despite my previous statements against Kristen Stewart’s acting and her inability to be a good role model, she was very good in this movie.

But…

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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 04/10/2010

Support Women Artists Sunday: Plastiscines

Plasticines

The Plastiscines, a garage rock revival group composed entirely of French females, formed in 2004 around teenage friends Katty Besnard (guitar/vocals), Marine Neuilly (guitar), Louise Basilien (bass guitar), and Zazie Tavitian (drums). Taking their name from a line in the Beatles’ classic “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” (”plasticine porters with looking glass ties”), the girls began carving out a swaggering, guitar-heavy sound while citing the Kinks, the White Stripes, the Strokes, Blondie, and the Libertines as influences. The Plastiscines were signed to EMI/Virgin France in 2006, and their major-label debut, LP1, arrived the following summer. For their next album, About Love, the group decamped to Los Angeles to work with producer Butch Walker. The resulting record was released in 2009 and, several months later, received a promotional boost when…

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