February 2012 - Rdio Blog

This Week on Rdio

This Week on Rdio: February 13 - February 17, 2012

To keep up with the latest musical happenings, you can like Rdio on Facebook, subscribe to the Rdio blog feed, and follow @Rdio on Twitter and on Rdio. Or, for the sake of convenience, you can drop by every Friday for our weekly blog round-up.

Here’s what happened on Rdio this week:

New Music Tuesday, February 14, 2012 — New albums by indie faves Tennis, Islands and Young Magic, plus new singles from R&B royalty R. Kelly and Chris Brown.
Exclusive: Listen to fun.’s Some Nights Only on Rdio — The new album by fun., including members of The Format, Anathallo, and Steel Train, includes their single featuring Janelle Monae. This week it’s available only on Rdio.
Exclusive: Listen to Dirty Ghosts’ Debut Album and “Pre-Show Jams” — The San Francisco trio’s new album is available to stream now, as is their hand-picked playlist. Don’t forget to read our interview with singer Allyson Baker, either.
Listen to: Django Django — Album reviews by Rdio users like you! This week is about UK electro-rockers Django Django’s debut.
Do Valentine’s Day Your Way With A Well-Picked Playlist — What is Valentine’s, romantic or bitter, without a little music?

Follow this week’s newest Influencers:

The event Social Media Week Toronto
The label Arbutus Records

∞ February 17, 2012 — 12:00PM

Recommended By Rdio

Listen to: Django Django

“Listening to Django Django, I am taken back to when I first heard the Beta Band's The Three E.P.’s and Olivia Tremor Control's Dusk at Cubist Castle. Amazing, vaguely psychedelic pop, with a penchant for Beatle-isms, a pocket full of Pet Sounds and a pulsing minimalist disco beat.

Their name is a variation of Quando Quango, Factory Record's disco outfit from the early ‘80s. I'm hearing all sorts of odd references here: Arthur Russell, Flat Earth Society, Dick Dale, Radiophonic Workshop, DJ Rush, Bush Tetras, Elephant 6, and, yes, the aforementioned Beta Band. Best of all, these guys sound like they are having a blast making music: this record is resplendent with joyous, youthful sonic adventure.”

— Tod Nelson

∞ February 17, 2012 — 10:00AM

Artist Spotlights Exclusives

Exclusive: Listen to Dirty Ghosts’ Debut Album and “Pre-Show Jams”

San Francisco trio Dirty Ghosts make the kind of edgy, street-smart rock that conveys attitude in its dirty riffs and singer Allyson Baker’s aching vocals. Their debut album, Metal Moon, drops next week but you can hear it today, exclusively on Rdio.

Get to know Dirty Ghosts better by listening to Baker’s “Pre-Show Jams” — she also answers our 5 Questions below. Listen to Metal Moon and be the first to tell your friends about this excellent album.

Five Questions with Dirty Ghosts

Who do you think is an important musician that most people have never heard of before?
Singer-songwriter Allyson Baker: Damon Edge.
If you had access to any record in the world, what would you listen to right now?
AB: The first Mothmen record - Pay Attention.
Which album or artist do you most associate with your childhood?
AB: Duran Duran - Duran Duran and Platinum Blonde - Standing in the Dark.
We hope people are ______________ when they listen to our music.
AB: PUMPED.
We were thinking about ______________ when we wrote music for the new album.
AB: All musical phases I went through in my life, from when I was a kid up until right now.

∞ February 15, 2012 — 10:00AM

Exclusives

Exclusive: Listen to fun.’s Some Nights Only on Rdio

New York-based indie-pop trio fun. are the songwriting team of Nate Ruess, Andrew Dost, and Jack Antonoff — former and current members, respectively, of The Format, Anathallo, and Steel Train. The group earned kudos immediately following the release of their debut in 2009, touring with Paramore and playing Coachella. The band hinted that they were back in the studio with the release of the single “We Are Young,” featuring Janelle Monae, in 2011 and now, they’re ready to drop their sophomore full-length.

Some Nights is out next week, but for those who just can’t wait that long for more fun., we’ve got what you need: exclusive access to Some Nights. Listen to the entire album and share it with your fellow fun.-loving friends.

∞ February 15, 2012 — 9:00AM

Music New Music Weekly

New Music Tuesday - February 14, 2012

For some, the love espoused by Valentine’s Day pales in comparison to the love of music. In the spirit of both Valentine’s and New Music Tuesday, here’s a whole batch of new music for you to fall head over heels for: new albums by hip-hop producer extraordinaire Ski Beatz, punks The Heartless Bastards, and indie folk group Shearwater. Fans of now-defunct influential post-metal troupe Isis will find plenty to love in the band’s new live album, recorded in 2007.

Playlist Notes

Islands - A Sleep & A Forgetting
Relentlessly catchy Canadian pop troupe Islands release their fourth album today. According to frontman Nick Thorburn, it’s their most personal — it was written last Valentine’s Day, and released this one.
Tennis - Young & Old
Husband and wife duo Tennis’ sophomore release expands on the lo-fi sound of the debut album with bigger, bolder production to put the focus on their songwriting chops.
Young Magic - Melt
Brooklyn psych-pop outfit Young Magic weave a rich musical tapestry that includes threads of West African rhythm, psychedelia, soul, and ethereal beats — Melt is their debut album.
R. Kelly - “Share My Love”
The King of R&B will release his umpteenth full-length, Write Me Back. This first single is a slab of funked-up disco, complete with grooving bassline, plucky guitars and harmonized croons.
Chris Brown - “Turn Up The Music”
”Turn Up The Music” is the squelching electronic new single from Brown’s forthcoming album, Fortune.

∞ February 14, 2012 — 1:15PM

Events Music

Do Valentine’s Day Your Way With a Well-Picked Playlist

Another year, another Valentine’s Day, which means it’s time again to feel that rush of emotions — be they warm-and-fuzzy feelings of love, bitter heartbreak, romance, or a general antipathy towards the whole thing. What better way to express those feelings than through a grade-A playlist? Check out some of the finest below.

Valentine’s Day, in playlists

“Lovesick Dudes with Synths”
Digital Leather’s Shawn Foree, whose new album Modern Problems dropped last week, put together this tribute to lovelorn desperation expressed through new wave and Brit-pop.
“Valentine’s Day SUCKS!”
Alan Cross’ collaborative playlist is part of his ongoing Recommendation Project. The title says it all.
“Sensual Seduction”
Record Collecting for Girls author Courtney Smith assembled a “wanting craving needing love playlist” for Valentine’s Day.
Muscles Valentine's Day Playlist 2012
Rdio Australia Influencer and electronic party mastermind is perfect for the in-love and hip.
Punk rock Valentine’s compilation
Even punks fall in love — even if it doesn’t always end well.
“Valentine’s Day Love Songs”
You’ll find more conventional Valentine’s Day romance on Digster’s tribute to Love Songs.

How are you feeling today? Express it through a playlist, and be sure to share it — what’s your way of doing Valentine’s Day?

∞ February 14, 2012 — 9:00AM

This Week on Rdio

This Week on Rdio: February 6 - February 10, 2012

To keep up with all the latest musical goings-on, you can like Rdio on Facebook, subscribe to the Rdio blog feed, and follow @Rdio on Twitter and on Rdio. But for people with packed schedules, Rdio’s biggest news is all included in our Friday blog round-up.

Here’s what happened on Rdio this week:

New Music Tuesday, February 7, 2012 — This Tuesday brought new albums by Dierks Bentley, Sharon Van Etten, AIR, and Van Halen, not to mention Madonna’s super-bowl themed new single.
Rdio Recommends: January 2012 — All the great music that went under the radar this past month.
Unveiling the New Rdio for Android — If you can believe it, Rdio for Android just got even better.
Listen to the Paper Bag Records Sessions on Rdio — Hear intimate live tracks from the likes of Austra, The Rural Alberta Advantage, P.S. I Love You, and more.
Exclusive: Hear Three Anvil Album Reissues on Rdio — Influential Canuck metal-heads Anvil reissued three of their late-80s and early 90s classics this week. Hear them on Rdio now.

Follow this week’s newest Influencers:

The artist Con Bro Chill
The artist Liam Finn

∞ February 10, 2012 — 5:07PM

Exclusives

Listen to the Paper Bag Records Sessions on Rdio

Over the past year, Paper Bag Records recorded videos of their artists playing songs from their latest albums in unconventional locales such as churches, living rooms, and outdoors, on rooftops and under large sculptures. The sessions have now yielded different takes on ten songs by famous Paper Bag artists such as Austra, The Rural Alberta Advantage, PS I Love You, Elliott Brood, and Cuff the Duke, and they’ve been collected and simply titled The Paper Bag Sessions Vol. 1.

The compilation is available only at Rdio until the end of February. Listen to the Paper Bag Sessions Vol. 1 below, and share it with your friends.

∞ February 8, 2012 — 9:00AM

Music New Music Weekly

New Music Tuesday - February 7, 2012

This week is heavy on the heavy: A Place to Bury Strangers, Deer Tick, and a certain Canadian hardcore troupe all have new, distortion-laden EPs ready for your ears, if they can handle the noise. Those looking for something softer might find it in country crooner Dierks Bentley’s new album, in the emotional balladry of singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten’s third, or in the new singles compilation from techno-diva Goldfrapp. Or, for a little weirdness this week, try out-there South African hip-hoppers Die Antwoord’s new one. Listen to this new music and more in the New Music Tuesday playlist for the week of February 7, 2012.

Playlist Notes

AIR - Le voyage dans la lune
The French electronic duo’s new album is an original score for the restored version of the titular film. It features appearances by Au Revoir Simone and Beach House’s Victoria Legrand.
Van Halen - A Different Kind of Truth
The hard-rockers return this week with their twelfth studio album, and the first since 1984 to feature on-and-off vocalist David Lee Roth.
Santigold - “Big Mouth”
Santigold’s first album in four years is set to drop later this year, but for now, she’s content to offer up “Big Mouth,” an irreverent, percussive slice of bass-heavy pop.
Madonna - “Give Me All Your Luvin’” (feat. M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj)
Just in time for the Superbowl, Madonna put together a raucous, celebratory single that features guest spots by M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj. If the crowd sound effects and chanting don’t get you in a sporty mood, nothing will.

∞ February 7, 2012 — 2:09PM

Exclusives Music

Exclusive: Hear Three Anvil Album Reissues on Rdio

Since they were the subject of 2008 documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil, the titular Toronto metal outfit has been riding a wave of renewed interest. It’s well deserved — Anvil’s influence is cited by Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer, and they’re still releasing records.

Last year, the band released their fourteenth studio album, Juggernaut of Justice. Fans of the band’s hard-hitting sound have even more to be happy about: 1987’s Strength of Steel, 1988’s Pound for Pound, and 1992’s Worth the Weight all get a reissue this month, and they’re available a week early on Rdio.

Get your mobile or your computer rocking heavy as an Anvil — listen to all three reissues now, only on Rdio. Feeling really hard-core? Follow the band on Rdio.

∞ February 7, 2012 — 9:00AM