At 50,000+ streams across platforms and rising, breakthrough Toronto pop-soul and trap-R&B artist Olenka plucks at the petals of long-distance love in this, her new single, “Purple Rose” — available now.
“I recorded this single a while back, and it easily became my baby,” the Toronto-based singer/songwriter confides. “It was written about a relationship I had in the past; sometimes you meet someone who just inspires a sound…”
For “Purple Rose,” that’s an experimental word-play vibe and a lush video to match; there’s also a behind-the-scenes documentary detailing its making set for release this year.
The track eschews many of the traditional norms found in the pop genre — and quite deliberately, at that. “I have a very particular taste in music, but I’m also open minded,” Olenka explains. “I would say I’m influenced by all music — everything from radio hits, to rock and grunge. I listen to a lot of random music by underground artists, too, but I’ve always been determined to go down my own path.
“Ultimately, my music suits my soul and persona, and reflects who I am as a passionate, personal, and emotional person.”
While “Purple Rose” sets this tone for 2021, previous releases include last year’s offerings of “Break Yours” and “Worth It;” Olenka studied music at Fanshawe College and first broke onto the scene in 2019 with singles “No Game” and “Poppin’”
In preparation for the release of their upcoming debut album, Day, Now this May, Cigar Club — the Toronto-based rock band — have just released not one, but two brand-new singles: “…Aliens” and “Swimmin’ in Gold.”
“…Aliens” is an instant classic: a pummeling rock-meets-punk track driven by one of the tightest drum and bass duos of the year. Seriously, fills galore! Percussionist Tyler Booth and bassist Jeff LeFort really pack a punch together on this one.
Better yet, the pair’s backing gang vocals — along with those of lead guitarist Dan Amato-Gauci’s — complement frontman Dan Amato-Gauci’s own smashing vocal delivery.
“This song is so much fun to play,” said the enthusiastic “Trev.” “It’s fast and has gang vocals and a wicked drum intro that’s just like, ‘let’s go,’” he concluded.
Dan revealed that the three-minute, 45-second rager was written about the” perils of dealing with friends who have issues when you yourself, also, have some unrectified issues.”
In the fashion of good old punk rock, side B of Cigar Club’s double song, or “Swimmin’ in Gold,” is led by a raucous, yet awesome display of guitar riffage by twin-axe attack Trevon and Dan. The latter rips a face-melting solo towards the end, before being interrupted by Jeff’s very own precision bass solo. The result is magnificent and emotional chaos after hearing Trevor sing his heart out all throughout.
On his intense and gobsmacking bass solo, Jeff simply called “Swimmin’ in Gold,” “fast-paced, balls to the wall, heavy-hitting, hard rock n’ roll.”
Tyler, the drummer, said it’s “the most demanding track on the (soon-to-be-released) album” and highlighted that while it was inspired by Queens of the Stone Age’s world-renowned 2002 release, Songs for the Deaf, he feels it’s truly reminiscent of the intensity of Megadeth’s beloved thrash metal music.
Cigar Club kicked off their career in 2016 after bonding over their mutual love for John Mayer’s music. Though soft rock and blues (with a hint of soul) was once their game — and will forever be a part of their playing styles — it wasn’t until Dan, Trev and Jeff found Tyler that they mastered their iconic and alternative, punk rock sound that things really started to pick up for them.
After the release of their first-ever EP, Cigar Club, and a year of consistent touring across Ontario — pre-COVID-19 pandemic, of course — the four-piece began garnering a mass of positive attention and developed a gigantic local fanbase, along with the fierce demand for more original music.
To help support their two latest rapid-fire singles, Cigar Club even enlisted a producer to create a brand-new music video for them.
Before the highly-anticipated release of Day, Now, Cigar Club are set to release two other singles — “Like White Flats In Winter” and “From a South East Asian Two Bedroom Condo” this March 20th and April 20th, respectively.
As part of Sweet Relief Musicians Fund’s recent ‘For The Crew’ fundraising event, Hooky & his son Jack teamed up with Smashing Pumpkins guitarist Jeff Schroeder and drummer Shane Graham for a special lockdown live version of the New Order classic ‘Ceremony’.
All funds raised by this event went towards supporting out of work touring crews who have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.
Please consider making a donation if you are able to here.
The Texas Rangers paid tribute to late country legend Charley Pride — the baseball player-turned-trailblazing country singer who also held a part-ownership stake in the MLB team — by naming a field at their spring training complex after him.
The Rangers announced the dedication Sunday on Twitter with the unveiling of the “Charley Pride Field” signage at their Surprise, Arizona spring training site.
Pride died December 12th, 2020 from complications related to Covid-19. At the time of his death, Pride was part of the ownership group that purchased the Texas Rangers in 2010; in the decade that followed, Pride frequently visited the team, including annual stops at the spring training facility.
“Mr. Pride’s first love was baseball. He pitched professionally in the Negro and Minor Leagues throughout the 1950’s before embarking on his Hall of Fame singing career of more than 60 years,” the Rangers said in a statement following Pride’s death.
“Mr. Pride then became a regular participant at Texas Rangers spring training camps in Pompano Beach and Port Charlotte, Florida and Surprise, Arizona, working out with the team and staging an annual clubhouse concert for players and staff, a tradition that continued through this past spring.” Even before assuming part-ownership, Pride was a fixture at the team’s spring training.
“The Rangers have been honored to have Mr. Pride be a part of the team’s ownership group for the last ten years. A longtime resident of this area, he was a regular at home games when his schedule permitted… Mr. Pride was a true gentleman, and we will never forget the lasting contributions he has made to the Texas Rangers organization,” the team added in December.
Charley Pride celebrated more than 50 years as a recording artist. He enjoyed one of the most successful careers in the history of country music and is credited with helping to break color barriers by becoming the first black superstar within the genre. A true living legend, he sold tens of millions of records worldwide with his large repertoire of hits. A three-time GRAMMY award and Recording Academy “Lifetime Achievement Award” winner, Pride garnered no less than 36 chart-topping country hits, including “Kiss An Angel Good Morning,” a massive #1 crossover hit that sold over a million singles and helped Pride land the Country Music Association’s “Entertainer of the Year” award in 1971 and the “Top Male Vocalist” awards of 1971 and 1972. A proud member of the Grand Ole Opry, Pride performed concerts worldwide and has toured the United States, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand over the last several years. He received the Crossroads Of American Music Award At the 2019 GRAMMY Museum Mississippi Gala in November of 2019, and the Country Music Association’s Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award one year later in November 2020. On December 12, 2020, Pride died at the age of 86 from complications due to COVID-19. His memory and storied legacy will live on through his vast library of stories and songs, with forthcoming plans for a final album release, public celebration of life ceremony, tribute concert, and biopic film.
Today, Meow Mix dropped a limited-edition “Meow Mix ReMix LP” collector’s item featuring the most purred about songs of the year. Meow Mix – the only food cats ask for by name – celebrates its iconic jingle with a tail-swaying vinyl collection that cat lovers everywhere can display proudly on their mantels.
Album pre-sales are now available exclusively on Amazon.com for $9.99. Tracks from artists like “Hearts & Paws” and “Endless Hiss” span genres from tail-vibrating pop to back-rolling metal; from cool-cat jazz to Latin dance. Records will ship in April and are available while supplies last. Each purchase also includes a coupon for a FREE bag of brand-new Meow Mix Tasty Layers cat food.
“The Meow Mix LP celebrates the brand’s iconic jingle while also bringing a modern energy to the party,” said Ryan Thomas, VP of Brand Marketing. “Our Tasty Layers does the same kind of thing for mealtime – with exciting new layers of flavor to surprise and delight cats everywhere.”
Visit meowmix.com/remix to sample the Meow Mix ReMix songs and to learn more about our full collection of Meow Mix products.
Get to know the woman behind the name. TINA is a revealing and intimate look at the life and career of musical icon Tina Turner, charting her improbable rise to early fame, her personal and professional struggles throughout her life and her even more improbable resurgence as a global phenomenon in the 1980s.
In addition to a stunning amount of archival footage spanning 60 years, the documentary includes interviews with Angela Bassett; Oprah Winfrey; journalist Kurt Loder who co-authored “I, Tina,” which inspired the feature film; playwright Katori Hall, who scribed “Tina – The Tina Turner Musical”; and husband and former record executive Erwin Bach, among many others.
The Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame (CSHF) is pleased to announce the induction of Dan Hill, as one of Canada’s most successful songwriters. Hill catapulted to music fame in the 1970s with one of the biggest songs of the decade, Sometimes When We Touch, and continued to conquer the adult contemporary charts through the 1980s and 1990s with a devoted worldwide fan following. Behind the scenes, he penned hits for Celine Dion, Tina Turner, Britney Spears, 98 Degrees, and Alan Jackson to name a few; and recently stepped back into the spotlight in 2020 with his urgent and heartfelt single, What About Black Lives?, off his 15th studio album, “On The Other Side of Here.”
Hill will be inducted to the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame’s permanent home in the National Music Centre in Calgary, featuring interactive exhibits and memorabilia dedicated to Canada’s greatest songwriters and songs.
1977’s Sometimes When We Touch, and 1987’s Can’t We Try duet with American songstress Vonda Shepard, are among Hill’s most successful hits. Sometimes was co-written with New York songwriter Barry Mann, and reached No. 1 in Canada and No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. It garnered several SOCAN Awards as well as five JUNO Awards including Songwriter of the Year in 1979. Can’t We Try was Billboard’s No. 1 Adult Contemporary Song of the Year for 1987, among many chart-topping singles and successful albums that Hill would produce.
Between 1986 and 1989, a Dan Hill hit could be found on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart (and usually the Canadian national chart) every week for an unparalleled four years. His hits included the romantic ballads In Your Eyes, Hold Me Now (with Rique Franks), All I See Is Your Face, Carmelia, Unborn Heart, I Fall All Over Again, and Never Thought That I Could Love, which also shot to No. 1 in Canada.
The Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame is pleased to announce the song induction of It’s Raining Men, one of the most iconic dance tracks that defined the disco era and transcended boundaries. The song was co-penned in 1979 by Paul Shaffer and Paul Jabara, whose trademark disco musicality made him the go-to songwriter of 70s and 80s, and hitmaker for Donna Summer among others. The zany concept of a deluge of men raining down from the heavens, led to It’s Raining Men (despite being written from a woman’s point of view and sung by The Weather Girls) becoming a huge hit in the gay community, as Jabara had intended; and its tongue-in-cheek playfulness eventually unleashed a downpour of mainstream success for years to come.
“Of all the honours one can receive, recognition from one’s home country is the most meaningful. I know my late co-author, Paul Jabara, is proud of me as I thank the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame for auspiciously acknowledging our song, It’s Raining Men,” said Paul Shaffer.
Paul Jabara conceived the idea for It’s Raining Men in 1979 for disco queen Donna Summer, for whom he had written her other chart-topping hits, Last Dance and No More Tears. He called upon the affable keyboardist Paul Shaffer, who had done some arranging for him, and invited him to compose the music. As Shaffer told the CBC, Jabara said, “You worked so hard as an arranger; I want you to write this one with me.” Shaffer enthusiastically responded, “I’ll be right over!” — and the duo completed the song that afternoon.
Undeterred by the fact that true-believer Summer had turned down the song on the grounds of it being blasphemous, Jabara recorded it as an instrumental which he shopped to various high-profile singers until he found the perfect vocalists in Martha Wash and Izora Armstead, of the appropriately-named vocal duo Two Tons O’ Fun, who already had some disco hits under their belts. Wash’s voice was a tour de force, and her powerful bluesy-gospel delivery took the song to new heights beyond pop, dance, and disco, into the R&B genre.
Produced by Jabara and Bob Esty, the recording for It’s Raining Men was released in 1982 on the Columbia label, and was an instant dance hit. By December, the infectious song was No. 1 on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart, in addition to reaching No. 34 on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hiphop chart and No. 46 on its Hot 100 chart.
It was the song’s campy music video that propelled its success to the mainstream. Wash and Armstead had renamed themselves The Weather Girls, and the music video featured men in raincoats and skimpy briefs as they rained down during a weather forecast. The light-hearted video was perfectly suited for the new platform called MTV, which had just launched the previous year, to gain a whole new audience for the song.
Artist, designer and multimedia pioneer Roger Dean has announced his first NFT drop. The drop will include limited editions of three exclusive digital art pieces, each a component of his new “Allurium” series, in collaboration with NFT studio THE MTAPHR. “Floating Islands,” originally painted in 1993 and served as the cover of Yes’s offshoot band ABWH Live at the Shoreline album, will be exclusively available on the digital asset marketplace NiftyGateway this coming Tuesday, March 16.
“There has been a growing volume of hearsay and rumor about this technology (NFT’s). It sounded strange and interesting, so after a number of approaches from friends and colleagues, I decided to try it out. The best way to learn about it seemed to be, to have a go,” says Dean. “Fortunately, at about this time I was introduced to a brilliant team of people. They all had the same idea of coming together to produce something new and wonderful. This new and wonderful ‘thing’ would be born from a magic combination of talent, experience and a sense of adventure. Whilst it may not be fair to say that we intend to go where no man has gone before, that is our direction of travel.”
Roger Dean is internationally renowned for his album cover designs, posters, books, video games, and visual identity systems, including his timeless and iconic album art for multi-platinum selling bands Yes, Asia, and dozens of others. He is also famous for his eco architectural, furniture and stage designs, his legendary designs for the computer games company Psygnosis, as well as his logo work for Virgin Records and Tetris. His recent apparel design collaboration with Valentino for The Men’s Spring/Summer 2020 show, is the latest example of how Dean continuously pushes the envelope with his creative expression.
With more than 100 million copies of Dean’s images having been sold around the world, his work has been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide, including the Royal Academy of Arts, the Royal College of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the New York Culture Center and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London. In 2002 Dean was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and in 2009 Arts University Bournemouth made him an Honorary Fellow. He received a Gold Badge of Merit from BASCA (British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors) in 2013.
Imagine Dragons return with two new songs – “Follow You” and “Cutthroat” – and lyric videos to accompany each. Released today, the tracks mark the first new music from the GRAMMY-winning, multi-Platinum band since Origins, their 2018 album.
“Follow You,” which was produced by Joel Little, is a love song full of lysergic guitar and intricate arrangements. Vocalist Dan Reynolds wrote the track during a turning point in his marriage. He was on his way to sign divorce papers when he received a text from his wife so full of clarity that it shook him to his core. The couple postponed their split for the next week – and then forever.
“Cutthroat” is a propulsive, punk-leaning anthem about killing the critic inside of you. Imagine Dragons recorded the song with producer Rick Rubin at his Shangri-La studio in Malibu.
The last few years have been heavy for Imagine Dragons, and the world at large. As the band members grappled with the grief of losing close friends and family, alongside other deeply personal struggles, Reynolds announced in December 2019 that he was taking some time away to focus on family and personal growth. Then came the pandemic. Nonetheless, the break proved a source for creative renewal.
“It took walking away from everything to find a lot more clarity and happiness,” explains Dan Reynolds.
With 40 million albums and 50 million songs sold globally, as well as 60 billion combined streams, Imagine Dragons were the best-selling rock band of the 2010s, even as they were busy reinventing the genre. Billboard’s Top 3 rock songs of the decade belonged to the band – “Believer,” “Thunder” and “Radioactive.”
Formed in 2009, Imagine Dragons developed a grassroots following with a series of independently released EPs before making their major label debut on KIDinaKORNER/Interscope with the 2012 EP Continued Silence. Night Visions, their 2012 full-length debut, entered the Billboard 200 at No. 2 and the lead-off track “Radioactive” topped Billboard’s Hot Rock Songs chart, won a GRAMMY for Best Rock Performance, and achieved RIAA Diamond status. 2015’s Smoke + Mirrors debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. EVOLVE, which followed in 2017, earned a GRAMMY nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album and unleashed three No. 1 Alternative radio hits: “Believer,” the GRAMMY-nominated “Thunder” and “Whatever It Takes.” All three songs were also top 5 hits at Top 40 radio, with “Thunder” rising to the No. 1 spot. The band’s fourth album, ORIGINS, debuted atop Billboard’s Alternative Albums and Top Rock Albums charts and lead single “Natural” spent nine weeks at No. 1 at alternative radio and set the current record for all-time “most spins in a week” at the format.
While Imagine Dragons have become one the biggest acts in the world, they’ve kept intimacy and honesty at their core, maintaining a striking creative restlessness, as their newest songs – “Follow You” and “Cutthroat” – attest.
