Lead singer Myles Kennedy discusses Alter Bridge’s latest album The Last Hero, his interest in writing about heroes in the first place, why exploring the theme of disillusionment is particularly relevant today, and his continuing evolution as a musician, including how he got his musical start.
Last week, Jason highlighted some of his favorite songs of 2016 in the wake of Chorus.fm’s Top 30 Albums of the Year list. This week, I’m taking the reigns to share my own favorite songs from last year.
On this week’s episode of Encore I am joined by special guest Jacob Tender. This week we discuss AbsolutePunk.net, SpinMedia, UnderTheGun and a lot of behind the scenes chaos that plagued the music web community over the past few years. Then we move into a discussion about creating things and the balance between hobbies, work, and everything between. We look at what it’s like to create things, when to know if they’ve failed, and why it is we both feel a need to create and put things out into the world. There’s also talk about the new MacBooks with Touchbar, some thoughts on AirPods, as well as collecting media and how we track what we listen to, read, and watch.
Read More “Hobbies, Work, and Everything Between (Encore Episode 141)”
This week we revealed the Chorus.fm staff and contributor top albums of 2016 feature. Along with that a bunch of us put together our own individual lists and I decided to take some of my favorite songs from my list and put them into a playlist. You can find that on Spotify and Apple Music.
I figured this would be a good way to quickly check out any of the artists you may not have heard yet before diving into the full albums. Also I want any excuse to share “Drive It Like You Stole It” with more people. If anyone else has playlists they made of songs from their favorite albums this year, I’d love to check them out — feel free to send over a link.
Well then. That was a weird year.
In many ways, 2016 was a whirlwind—a confusing and frustrating year that will probably always be defined by its political tension and long list of celebrity deaths. For our staff and community, 2016 was also marked by the end of AbsolutePunk.net and the birth of Chorus.fm, a major transition that brought some serious nostalgia about the place where many of us grew up online.
No matter where you were or what you were going through in 2016, though, you probably at least had a great soundtrack to keep you company. By almost every metric, 2016 was a remarkable year for albums. If you are a fan of pop music and superstar acts, there was certainly no shortage of marquee releases for you to sink your teeth into. Even beyond the blockbuster surprises and capital-I “Important” albums, though, the year was a goldmine. Rock music was vibrant, highlighting both new bands and longtime veterans. Country music continued a resurgence that even self-described country haters could get behind. Hell, even the movie musical came back in a big way.
In virtually every genre or category, 2016 provided a wealth of new musical treasures. It’s no wonder that our contributors placed votes for 267 different albums while compiling this list. Ultimately, though, it was the 30 records listed below that rose to the top.
On this week’s episode of Encore I am joined by special guest Deanna Chapman. The main topic this week is all about our most anticipated albums of 2017. What made the list and what did we decide to leave off? Do we really have to mention Brand New … again? We also talk about movies we are looking forward to, discuss music on TV shows, and nerd out about comic books a little bit.
This week’s super sized episode of Encore features a lengthy discussion about our favorite albums of 2016. We go through our top 10 and break down why those albums were important to us this year. The second half of the episode is all about Rogue One: A Star Wars Story — it is filled with spoilers so you can pause if you haven’t seen it yet and come back to it later. We wanted to give you a jam packed episode for the last two weeks of the year.
Hope you enjoy and have a great holiday!
Today we’re happy to help get you in the holiday spirit by bringing you a new Christmas song from America Hi-Fi. The band’s rendition of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” can be streamed below and contains an extra little gift … Mike Herrera of MxPx is guesting on it as well.
Read More “American Hi-Fi – “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” (Song Premiere)”
I’ve been listening to Jimmy Eat World for over half my lifetime. Crazy enough, the last (and only) time I attended a Jimmy Eat World show was in 2005 when they were opening for Green Day on the American Idiot tour. That’s pretty sad! Fortunately, I made some sort of amends this past Thursday when the Arizona quartet made their way through Indianapolis. Headlining one of those radio station holiday shows, the band played a 20+ song set that included a well balanced mixture of hits, deep cuts, fan favorites, and new songs.
Read More “Jimmy Eat World – Live in Indianapolis (12/01/2016)”
With the holidays rapidly approaching, I wanted to steal an idea I’ve seen on other websites and put together a few gift ideas that I think are pretty great to give and receive. Since I already have recommendation posts for albums, movies, tv shows, books, software, podcasts, blogs, audio-equipment, and random miscellaneous tech and around the house items, this list is focused mostly on things not included in those posts and more geared toward things I’ve come across in the past year or so that I think are worth checking out and that I think would make good gifts. As always, I only recommend things I’ve personally used and loved.
I used my Amazon affiliate link when the product showed up there, which gives our website a slight percentage back if you make a purchase, and therefore helps fund our continued existence. I hope you’ll find something cool, and feel free to drop your own recommendations in the comments.
This week’s episode of Encore has us making plans to see Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, talking a little bit about Thanksgiving, and then looking at A Day to Remember’s lawsuit, a screenplay based on The Menzingers, Brand New’s TDAG 10-year anniversary, and some listener questions about ticket scalping, Christmas/holiday music, and our favorite holiday cover songs.
This week’s episode of Encore looks at a variety of listener questions, things like: favorite music for road trips, recent albums we think may end up being classics, and music we turn to for the specific moods we may be in. We also talk about new music from Japandroids and The Menzingers and our desire to listen to something “new” versus falling back on old favorites. We’ve also got a contest to win the new book from Laura Jane Grace, and Thomas gives details on that in the middle of this episode.
Thanks for listening!
Brett Ayala Jones, the former guitarist for Fireworks, will be releasing his second solo EP on November 18th. Today we’ve got a premiere of the new song “Not One of You” — which you can stream below. This is the first release from Brett since the end of his former band and he was joined in the Detroit studio by Teddy Roberts (Fireworks) on drums and electric bass, Adam Mercer (Fireworks) on keys, and Sam Harris on upright bass.
You can pre-order the new EP, San Pedro, right now over via Save Your Generation Records.
Read More “Brett Ayala Jones – “Not One of You” (Song Premiere)”
All Get Out’s new album, Nobody Likes a Quitter, is now in stores. I recently had the chance to talk with frontman Nathan Hussey a little about the release. This interview is a little on the shorter side, as he and the band were readying themselves for their nationwide tour, but we talked about the writing of the album, some of the recurring themes, and the possibility of a solo album.
Frontman Deryck Whibley details his long and difficult road back contained in Sum 41’s new album 13 Voices, the return of original guitarist Dave Baksh, his feelings about the band’s older material, and why he doesn’t like modern pop music.