Shamir: Unplugged On NPR

For the latest installment of NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series, dance sensation Shamir performed three tracks from his critically-raved debut album. NPR's Bob Boilen writes:

When I first saw Shamir at NPR Music's SXSW showcase, the 20-year-old singer popped on stage with a Yo Gabba Gabba T-shirt and proceeded to light up the night with his disco-infused funk and joyful energy. Cut to this Tiny Desk Concert. Shamir Bailey is sitting alone on a stool with an acoustic guitar — hardly recognizable except perhaps for the green painted fingernails, until he began to sing. At that point, he put his fragile but confident countertenor to work in "Darker," from his debut album Ratchet, and I knew we were in for something special.

Last month I attended Shamir's riotous sold-out concert in Brooklyn, where young fanboys crowded the stage and sang along to every word. The tour returns to the US late next month and there will be another NYC date on November 16th.

New Order - Restless

Via Pop Matters:

“Restless” takes me back to Club Paradiso in Amsterdam, a church converted into a dance club. There is a reason why New Order never grow old or fade. Their sound has become archetypal of not only an era, but also of specific nighttime emotions. New Order has become synonymous with that eloquent longing that only comes at 3am after several glasses of champagne cognac and hours of dancing under the multicolored spotlights of a club. The world turns and we turn with it and in that dizzying waltz we grow reverent and speechless. “Restless” is the sound of sanctus bells calling the faithful to worship.

Other reviews at the link are less glowing.

Galantis - Peanut Butter Jelly

Music Times recaps:

Galantis has released the music video for its funky track "Peanut Butter Jelly." Taken from their debut album Pharmacy, Galantis takes you to a supermarket, "Galantis Pharms," where people are infected with the groove and have no choice but to strip and dance. Things start to get a little out of hand towards the end as people start getting physical, odd for a supermarket, but "Peanut Butter Jelly" is just too infectious. What seems to be even more impressive is that the seemingly complete strangers line up to do some choreographed dance moves with surprising dexterity. Beware this is slightly NSFW and as a precautionary tale, there are some things you just can't unsee.

Janet Jackson - No Sleeep

TIME recaps:

It’s been five years since Janet Jackson’s last album and four since her last tour, but 2015 is unquestionably the year of the Janet comeback. She’s already announced a world tour and a new studio album—her eleventh—and Friday morning she debuted the first video for a song off that album. The video for “No Sleeep” (spelled with an extra “e,” perhaps to emulate Jackson’s crooning voice), a sultry slow jam about nights put to good use, features Jackson holed up in a cozy chalet on a rainy night. Teaming up with the uber-relevant J. Cole—a smart choice for a comeback single—Jackson conjures the laid-back, sexy vibes of early ’90s singles like “That’s the Way Love Goes.”

IAMX - Happiness

Diffuser reports:

In some circles, British musician Chris Corner is best known as a founding member of ’90s trip-hop outfit Sneaker Pimps. But in more modern circles, he’s known as IAMX – his electro-pop alter ego with five albums to his name since emerging about a decade ago and a sixth – Metanoia – on the way. Corner told us the song was actually something of an “afterthought” during the recording process. “‘Happiness’ was the last song to be recorded,” he said. “The album was pretty much complete but I felt something simple and fundamental was missing. The irony being that the afterthought became the first single.”

IAMX launches a US tour in early October. Sneaker Pimps' 6 Underground is one of my favorite tracks from the 90s.

First Ladies of Disco - Show Some Love

Martha Wash, Linda Clifford, and Evelyn "Champaign" King.

(Via JMG reader Jonathan)

Robyn - Love Is Free

Pitchfork raves:

Pop has been playing house again for a couple of years now, but few acts have tapped the genre's origins in sexual, social liberation as well as Robyn, Jägerstedt, and Falk do here. In brisk, unrelenting rotation, every element of the track gets a moment in the spotlight and dictates its own individual physical response: the shimmy of the forks Falk tinged against glasses in the studio; the way a ravey siren wriggles like someone doing the worm; the sinewy, thrusting bass. It's completely irresistible—the sound of summer 2015, if there's any justice—and vindicates the maxim Funkadelic laid down almost 50 years ago: free your mind, and your ass will follow.

TRAILER: New Order's Music Complete

Rolling Stone reports:

New Order will release their first album in 10 years when the dance icons return with their new LP Music Complete on September 25th. The band's 10th studio album, their first since 2005's Waiting for the Sirens' Call, will also mark New Order's first full-length release without longtime bassist Peter Hook, who left the group in 2007. However, Music Complete will feature the studio return of keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, who last appeared on 2001's Get Ready. Music Complete – the band's first release on Mute – will be available on CD, digital download, black vinyl and a limited edition clear vinyl. New Order will also offer up an exclusive eight-piece deluxe vinyl collection that includes the album plus extended versions of all 11 tracks on colored vinyl.

Original bassist Peter Hook left the band in 2007.

Janet Jackson - No Sleeep

E! Online reports:

It's the moment we've all been waiting for! Janet Jackson debuted her highly anticipated new single "No Sleeep" to much fanfare Monday morning. The 49-year-old singer, who is recording her first album in seven years and will kick off a world tour later this year, worked with veteran producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis on the laid-back track. "I dedicate this to My Love," she tweeted, referring to husband, business magnate Wissam Al Mana. (Yes, she spelled the title with three e's.) Jackson's world tour begins Aug. 31 at the Pepsi Live at Rogers Arena in Vancouver.

This Is An Ad For Something

After a minute or so of all these buff dancing boys, you might not notice that this is an ad for one of Eliad Cohen's circuit parties. And an ad for Stoli and for the photo-sharing app Viber. The track is new from Sarit Hadad, who competed for Israel at Eurovision 2002.

Madonna - Bitch I'm Madonna (Remix)

Via Billboard:

Billboard has the exclusive premiere of the Sick Individuals remix of Madonna's new single "Bitch I'm Madonna." Listen to the thumping reworking below. "Bitch I'm Madonna," which features Nicki Minaj, is the third single from Madonna's Rebel Heart album. "Bitch" follows "Living For Love" and "Ghosttown," which both reached No. 1 on Billboard's Dance Club Songs chart. Remixes for "Bitch I'm Madonna" will be commercially released on June 16, the same day that its music video is due to premiere.

Releasing this during Pride Month is not a coincidence.

Terror Pigeon - BYOYOLO

A chunky 80s pop/dance vibe, a little bit of drag, some bondage gear, and a chorus that insists you "go out and fuck the shit out of your dreams." What's not to like?

Funk Bassist Louis Johnson Dies At Age 60

Via the New York Times:

Louis Johnson, a bassist who had a string of funk hits with the Brothers Johnson and worked as a session musician for Quincy Jones, notably on the Michael Jackson albums “Off the Wall” and “Thriller,” was found dead on May 21 at his home in Las Vegas. He was 60. His death was confirmed by Jeff Mullen, the Brothers Johnson’s manager, who said the cause had not been determined. Mr. Johnson, who also sang, and his brother George, who played guitar and sang, began working with Mr. Jones in the mid-1970s. Mr. Jones mentored the brothers, and they collaborated for many years. “I considered Louis a core member of my production team,” Mr. Jones wrote in a tribute on his website. Nicknamed Thunder Thumbs (George was known as Lightning Licks), Mr. Johnson created a driving sound with his percussive, string-slapping technique. He was an early popularizer of the electric slap-bass style in funk, along with Larry Graham of Sly and the Family Stone. The Brothers Johnson had a number of platinum albums in the 1970s and ’80s. Their singles “I’ll Be Good to You,” “Stomp!” and “Strawberry Letter 23” all reached No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart and made the pop Top 10.

It was Louis Johnson's memorable bassline that propelled Billie Jean into a global smash and helped make Thriller the best-selling album of all time. Below are my two favorite Brothers Johnson hits, the first of which I owned on a 45 that came with a strawberry-scented sleeve.


(Tipped by JMG reader Mark)

Giorgio Moroder - Deja Vu (Megamix)

Via Stereogum:

Next month, the Italo-disco genius Giorgio Moroder will release Déjà Vu, his first album in many years, and he’s found an innovative way to tell us how the album will sound. In a new five-minute video, we hear short clips of every track on the album, set to an effects-heavy video of a couple dancing. It’s not an earthshaking music video or anything, but it’s enough to keep your attention while you absorb the music. And that music sounds good, like top-shelf cheesed-out dance-pop.

Icona Pop - Emergency

TIME Magazine reviews:

The song moves with a sense of urgency, its cadence reminiscent of Pharrell’s “Come Get It Bae.” But it swaps out that track’s funky beat for a backbone of marching piano and trumpet solos worthy of the Gatsby era. Had it been released a couple of years earlier, it would have been a shoo-in for the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby adaptation. Icona Pop’s “I Love It,” a collaboration with Charlie XCX released in 2012, was a top-ten song of that summer. While “Emergency” doesn’t have quite the same undeniable song-of-summer quality as their breakout stateside hit, it may well be a close second.

I Love It was utterly inescapable that summer at Bear Week in Provincetown. As in ten times a day. This latest single reminds me of the UK's entry at Eurovision.

Madonna Sets Billboard Chart Record

Via Billboard:

The Queen of Pop is now unequaled chart royalty. Madonna makes momentous Billboard chart history, as she now has the most No. 1s ever, 45, by an act on a singular Billboard chart. She earns her 45th No. 1 on Dance Club Songs, where "Ghosttown" lifts 3-1. With the coronation, Madonna passes another icon, George Strait, who's logged 44 No. 1s on Hot Country Songs. "Thanks to all my fans on and off the dancefloor," Madonna said in an exclusive statement to Billboard. "I'll (always) be your partner." With her 45th leader on Dance Club Songs, which measures reports submitted by a national sample of club DJs, Madonna pulls further ahead of runners-up Beyonce and Rihanna. In fact, Madonna has tallied more No. 1s as they have combined: 22 each. (The chart launched as a national survey in the Billboard issue dated Aug. 28, 1976.)

RELATED: The first-ever #1 single on Billboard's dance chart, which launched as National Disco Action, was You Should Be Dancing by the Bee Gees. Wikipedia maintains a list of all #1 dance singles by year.

The Avener - Fade Out Lines

This mellow dance track from French house producer Tristan Casara has been a huge hit all over Europe in recent months and is starting to land on summer playlists in the US. I'm getting a kind of Everything But The Girl vibe.

Bright Light & Ana Matronic - Good Luck

Welsh cutie Bright Light (Rod Thomas) teams up with former Scissor Sisters vocalist Ana Matronic with this track from the coming Life Is Easy remix album. The pair recently covered the Pet Shop Boys classic West End Girls in a charity single for NYC's Hetrick-Martin Institute, which serves at-risk LGBT youth.

(Tipped by JMG reader Chris)

Brandon Flowers - I Can Change

I recently posted a message from Pet Shop Boys vocalist Neil Tennant, who had alerted his fans that he'd contributed to a coming Brandon Flowers track that samples the 1984 Bronski Beat gay classic, Smalltown Boy. The track appeared on YouTube this week and you'll have to listen closely for Tennant's spoken line. I quite like this.

(Tipped by JMG reader Blobby)

Giorgio Moroder & Sia - Deja Vu

Last week we got the audio, here's the production clip. This is the title track from Giorgio Moroder's first album in 30 years, due on June 16th.