St. Vincent & Opinions on Maxwell

Jim and Greg welcome one of music's rising stars: Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent. Later they review the new album from soul singer Maxwell and Greg drops a quarter into the Desert Island Jukebox.

St. Vincent
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After a two-year battle, a web royalty agreement has been reached that won't put webcasters out of business. In 2007 the copyright royalty board ruled that webcasters needed to pay a fee of 0.08 cents each time a listener streamed wa song which would increase annually to 0.19 cents in 2015. That would've bankrupted many web music services like Pandora Radio. Now, large webcasters must pay 25 percent of total revenue.

Michael Jackson's death is still making big news this week. Friends and family hosted a memorial tribute to the late "King of Pop" on Tuesday. And Jackson's music continued to dominate the charts. In fact sales went up 90% with 800,000 albums sold. As Jim and Greg explain, this will go down as the last great week of physical album sales. And the good news continues for music retailers– a CD and DVD of both the memorial show and his tour rehearsals will be released this year.

A few weeks ago Jim and Greg talked about Trent Reznor's involvement with heart patient Eric De La Cruz. Reznor asked Nine Inch Nails fans to donate money toward a heart transplant in exchange for VIP access, special tickets and more. Unfortunately De La Cruz died last week before a transplant could take place.

In other Nine Inch Nails news, final tour dates have been announced for Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. As Reznor explained to Jim and Greg during their recent interview, this will be the last go-around for Nine Inch Nails, but certainly not the last of his music.

St. Vincent

This week Jim and Greg welcome singer and musician Annie Clark, otherwise known as St. Vincent. After making a name for herself by touring and recording with Sufjan Stevens and The Polyphonic Spree, she recently released a second solo album called Actor. St. Vincent blew our hosts away at this year's SXSW festival, and Greg is already calling Actor one of the best albums of the year. They were excited to have St. Vincent along with her band into the studio for a live performance and conversation about dirty tour buses, digital oboes and Disney cartoons.

00:40:22 Review: Maxwell

BLACKsummers'night (Deluxe Version)

After breaking out of the neo-soul movement along side Lauryn Hill and D’Angelo, singer Maxwell took an almost decade-long hiatus. Now he is back with BLACKsummers’night. Greg likes that he doesn't hear anything trendy on this record. It reminds him of artier soul albums from the late '70s. The hooks aren't in abundance, but it's got grit. Greg gives Maxwell a Buy It rating. Jim wishes he could be as enthusiastic. There are a couple of great songs, but for the most part he found the album sleepy. He wishes Maxwell threw a little more fire into BLACKsummers’night and gives it a Try It.

Greg

Maxwell got Greg in the mood for some of that great soul music from the late ‘70s era. For him the British group Hot Chocolate stands out from the rest. They had a big hit with "You Sexy Thing," but that track doesn't do them justice. Hot Chocolate came out of the ska and reggae tradition that emphasized great storytelling. You can hear this on the song "Emma," Greg's Desert Island Jukebox addition for this week.

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