Lee Field and the Expressions are a soul-lover’s complete package. A tight band, velvet crooning, and great songs are the best way to start out a weekend of partying in the park.

MAKU Sound System, from Queens, blends Colombian rhythms with a spectrum of U.S. party music creating a young, global sound for fans of ska, punk, and cumbia alike.

Jovanotti is Italy’s hip-hop icon with a string of hits in the 90s and a recent rebirth at Bonnaroo where he won over U.S. fans. Now he lives in Gotham and he’s the only artist playing Googa both days, joining an Eataly pop-up Sunday.

Pearl and the Beard is a personal favorite, a trio that plays Americana laced with soulful harmonies and marching drums.

Red Baraat brings traditional Indian drums, vocals and clarinet to the New Orleans second line, an idea that keeps the crowd moving with an eastern twist.

Last year’s Hall & Oates are a tough act to follow but Kool & the explitive-ing Gang are sure to bring it. Disco classics include easy-listening ballads like “Cherish” and show stoppers like “Celebration” and “Ladies Night.” Kool & the Gang have all the makings of Great Googa-ism.

Credit: Googa Mooga

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Earl Sweatshirt

With a name inspired by Blanket Jackson, Odd Future’s Earl Sweatshirt is street credible to the level of sewers. Videos have the feel of Old Dirty Bastard as a Gummo character. Test him and he may ollie right up on you. Like the rest of the Odd Future family, Earl is a young beast on a skateboard infecting the crowd with a silly blend of humor, decrepit gore and violence and adolescent machismo. His show will be a (lowlife) highlight of DT:NYC.

Ratking

When Ratking played an in-store performance last fall, frontman Wiki was all New York street kid, missing front teeth in a ragged, dirty T-shirt, dogfighting with the microphone. His energy was massive and his spitfire flow delivered what the crowd expected — a raw, exposed street kid on the verge of disaster, if not already swimming in it. With heady lyrics coming out of a body that looks about 15, Wiki and the rest of Ratking are the future, through an Armageddon lens.

Trash Talk

The band Trash Talk is skate punk thrash in the vein of Black Flag and Bad Brains. Sweat and bass and pounding riffs with a crowd that brawl-moshes through their set and stays hungry for more Trash. From backyard parties in Los Angeles the boys bring their brand of street grime under palm trees to Gotham.

Kilo Kish

Like posh street wear, Kilo Kish manages to be fashion friendly and street credible all at once. See Metro’s Kilo Kish: Downtown pretty.

Sky Ferreira

Sky Ferreira has a lot of pop in her sound but there’s a serious element of concrete jungle in her eyes while she melodically laments a broken heart. Maybe it’s the black lace and bleach job but there’s something lowbrow about her glazed-over, jaded expression that screams street savvy. With sticky hooks and a tight band she plays DT on Friday night.

Visit thedowntownfestival.com for tickets and schedule

Odd Future’s Earl Sweatshirt is street credible to the level of sewers. Credit: Odd Future

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Every summer New Yorkers look forward to the mostly free Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival.

The concert series held annually in Prospect Park’s bandshell highlights a variety of artists to please the taste of all music lovers.

This year, Celebrate Brooklyn! is bringing some of us back to high school by showcasing the Barenaked Ladies, Ben Folds Five and Guster on July 30. This is one of the shows that will require a ticket.

For those nostalgic of the early 2000s, Shaggy, of “It Wasn’t Me” fame, will perform on August 9.

Other performances to look forward to include Belle and Sebastian on July 11, Beck on Aug 4 and the live score of to Oscar-nominated Beasts of the Southern Wild by Dan Romer, Benh Zeitlin, & The Wordless Music Orchestra on August 8.

They Might Be Giants will bring Celebrate Brooklyn! to an end on August 10.

For the full summer lineup click here.

See you all in Brooklyn this summer.

Follow Mary Ann Georgantopoulos on Twitter @marygeorgant

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In homage to Ireland’s foremost 20th-century painter, Louis le Brocquy, Arcane Collective brings the canvas to the stage in a mesmerizing celebration that transforms the artist’s imagery into music and dance.

Irish broadcaster John Kelly moderates a discussion with director and choreographer Morleigh Steinberg, choreographer Oguri, and composers Paul Chavez and The Edge of U2. The work is concerned less with animating figures and physical shapes in le Brocquy’s mysterious paintings than it is with finding the meanings and energy within them.

With mesmerizing concentration and urgent dexterity the dance hints at a poetic narrative with an intensely seductive and gestural movement style.  The distinctive guitar techniques of The Edge set a compelling yet subtly textured tone for the work.  The spirit of the paintings come to life as the company performs excerpts from their latest production Cold Dream Colour.

PANEL

Paul Chavez, composer

The Edge, composer

John Kelly, moderator

Oguri, choreographer

Morleigh Steinberg, director and choreographer

Event Venue : Peter B. Lewis Theater

Event Date : May 11 and 12

Event Time : 7:30PM

Event Price : $35, $30

Call : (212) 423-3587

For tickets click here

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This event is part of the River to River Festival

blessing the boats: the remix is a powerful re-imagining of one of Sekou Sundiata’s seminal plays. Originally presented as a solo performance, director Rhodessa Jones revisits Sundiata’s story of life-threatening illness and miraculous recovery as told through the unique interplay of three next-generation poet/performers: Will Power, Carl Hancock Rux, and Mike Ladd. These three compelling voices revive Sundiata’s incisive writing and explore Sundiata’s complexities and contradictions. This “remix” of Sundiata’s play encompasses language, music, and visual projections of healing and hope.

Blink Your Eyes: Sekou Sundiata Revisited celebrates Sekou Sundiata’s broad vision for bold, rigorous, multidisciplinary artistic expression that emerges from a love for one’s community, a passion for real democracy and social justice, and a vision for a better world. In venues across New York City from April to October 2013, we invite you to celebrate Sundiata’s legacy through live performances by the artists he inspired— in the places and communities that inspired him.

For more information about this retrospective: sekousundiata.org

Event Venue : Tribeca Performing Arts Center

Event Date : June 27-30

Event Time : June 27 – 29 8pm and June 30 3pm

Call : 212-220-1459

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Get pumped, Brooklyn music lovers: the lineup for Brooklyn’s Northside Festival has been announced.

The festival will go from June 13 to June 20 and feature 350 bands and over 40 films.

This year’s festival will kick off with an Entrepreneurship and Technology Expo (NExT) on June 13 and 14.

A free outdoor public innovation expo will take place in McCarren Park and will be open to the public free of charge, and then an entrepreneurship conference will be held at Brooklyn Bowl, Brooklyn Brewery, and the Wythe Hotel.

Speakers will include Charles Adler, the co-founder of Kickstarter, and Jason Goodman, the CEO and co-founder of 3rd Ward, among many others.

Word is also out about a mysterious demonstration that festival sponsor Jameson will be conducting, but specifics are hazy so far. It will involve the man responsible for Jameson Black Barrel’s flame-charred barrels, a fifth-generation Master Cooper named Ger uckley, flying in from Middleton Distillery in Ireland.

Two free, ticketed outdoor shows in McCarren Park on June 15 and 16 have been announced. The June 15 headliner will be The Walkmen. June 16′s main act is yet to be named.

Other musical acts appearing at the festival are Mac DeMarco, Black Flag, Har Mar Superstar, Lambchop, Lower, Lushlife, The Luyas, White Fence, Ava Luna, Chelsea Wolfe, Dead Stars, Destruction Unit, Kisses, The Karma Exchange, Rush Midnight, Swans, Twin Sister, The Veda Rays, The Void Union, Intronaut, Jonathan Toubin, Crazy Pills, Iceage, Drunken Rampage, The Courtesy Tier, The Casualties, and WHY? among many, many others.

Northside Film released its screening lineup, which includes a documentary about Le Tigre called “Who Took the Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour.” Kerthy Fix and Kathleen Hanna will be onsite for a Q&A after the screening.

Early bird badges can be purchased for $65 through April 30.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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An upcoming exhibit being planned for the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center in Washington, D.C. will honor the Bronx as a “Place of Invention,” the NY Daily News reported.

The homage recognizes the Bronx as a birthplace of hip-hop.

“We wanted to show that it’s not just a single inventor who creates something, but really a community that creates the right recipe for an invention,” said curator Laurel Fritzsch, who is responsible for for the Bronx portion of the exhibit.

Th exhibit, set to open in spring 2015 at the Lemeson Center at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. will feature relics like boomboxes, vinyl records, hip hop flyers and videos, as well as a turntable that belonged to Grandmaster Flash and a lamppost powering music systems as a throwback to an old practice of hotwiring streetlamps to power sound equipment.

Flash famously created his own crossfader using spare parts. Fritzsch cited this kind of ingenuity as part of the reason for featuring the Bronx in the exhibit.

“Modern mixers and a lot of the speakers and sound systems came out of what [early DJs] created,” she said.

Visitors will also be able to try their hand at scratching and mixing.

Grand Wizzard Theodore, credited with inventing scratching said, “I think it’s really cool that they’re doing something like this.”

“Scratching plays such a major part in DJing,” he said. “It gives you the chance to express yourself, the chance to get into mixing. It’s just so important no matter the genre of music you’re into.”

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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Fans of They Might Be Giants know to expect the unexpected. Over the course of a singular 31-year career, the Brooklyn-based duo of John Linnell and John Flansburgh have carved out a solid pop music niche as whip-smart geek-rockers and deft musical satirists, with a trademark sense of humor that’s equal parts existential dread and surreal silliness — often within the same song. In more recent years, they’ve been supplied music for films, TV and even children’s albums.

“We’re just as aware [as anyone else] of what an unlikely place we reside in, in the rock constellation,” Flansburgh says.

Their most recent effort, “Nanobots,” seems to reflect all these trends, with subjects ranging from exploding heads (“You’re On Fire”) to the Oedipus complex (“Call You Mom”) to eccentric 20th century inventor Nicola Tesla (“Telsa”). Its most distinguishing feature, however, is a set of what Flansburgh describes as “miniature” songs, many less than 15 seconds long, interspersed among the longer tracks.

“They’re almost like jingles for insane ideas,” he says.

Madness, perhaps, but not without a method.

“As we were constructing the album,” Flansburgh says, “we were looking for a way to make it less predictable as a listening experience.”

Mission accomplished. Then again, according to Flansburgh, unpredictability is something of an M.O. for They Might Be Giants, and pop music clichés, in both style and substance, have always been fairly taboo for the duo.

“But starting from an ‘anything but clichéd love songs’ point of view is actually pretty liberating,” he says. “It’s going to make things bolder as you approach writing songs… Speaking as a listener myself, I know the experience of being affected by a song, and I know how tremendous that is, and a lot of times it does come from a song landing an idea that seems all its own.”

They Might Be eccentric
Where do They Might Be Giants’ unusual subjects come from? Occasionally, as in the case of the song “Tesla,” they can have a long and winding gestation. Flansburgh says “Tesla” was originally meant to be a scientific history lesson for kids, but as he researched the inventor further, it was the pathos of Tesla’s notorious ambition, occasionally bordering on delusion, that struck him more deeply.

“The core of the song is a meditation on the burden of having too much information or being too inspired,” he says.

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As Lady Gaga continues to recuperate from hip surgery, she is reportedly celebrating her 27th birthday today with a tea party of sorts. According to the Sun, she is hosting a “Mad Hatter Party,” because the star isn’t able to drink alcohol yet. She is still on painkillers though, which might explain the whole “Mad Hatter” thing. It would be so very Gaga if a caterpillar sitting on a giant mushroom administered her painkillers via hookah.

In honor of Gaga’s recuperation, we thought it would be fun to examine other musicians who have famously had to take a little time off.

Bob Dylan had a motorcycle accident in 1966. While he fixed up in West Saugerties, NY he explored a different side of his music and collaborated to great effect with The Band.  (PHOTO CREDIT: Douglas R. Gilbert/Redferns)

Weezer mastermind Rivers Cuomo was born with one of his legs almost two inches shorter than the other. After the success of his band’s debut in 1994, Cuomo underwent a procedure to correct the difference. While he recuperated he worked on the songs that would become what is arguably Weezer’s masterpiece, their second album, “Pinkerton.” (PHOTO CREDIT: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images)

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The Great GoogaMooga is back.

The much-maligned festival, which took place for the first time last summer in Prospect Park, is afloat again despite a flood of bad reviews. Tickets go on sale today.

Organizers promised that they learned lessons from last year, when festival goers complained of endless lines, not getting enough of the much-anticipated food and bathrooms without toilet paper.

The organizers, Superfly Presents, which also set up the Bonnaroo festival, seemed to be aware of dimmed expectations, promising “a new, improved recipe’s for this year’s event.”

Organizers have taken pains to ensure the festival has a different vibe – they are not offering the $250 GoogaMooga tickets, which they ultimately refunded after the complaints.

Instead, they are offering $79.50 tickets for a VIP Cocktail Experience, with a place by the main stage and five artisanal cocktails by mixologist Julie Reiner.

“It’s fair to say we learned a lot last year,” they said, vowing to “transform Prospect Park into an amusement park of food, drink and music all weekend long.”

The festivities will begin May 17 with a concert headlined by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, with The Flaming Lips and The Darkness.

Food from about 85 restaurants will include places like Momofuku Milk Bar, Red Hook Lobster Pound and Vinegar Hill House.

That will include vegetarian meals, after non-meat-eaters complained there were not enough options.

These restaurants will join more than 50 wineries and breweries.

Many Yelp reviews skewered the festival.

“The entire experience was horrendous,” a Queens attendee wrote, recounting a 20-minute line to enter the event, as well as an hour-plus line for a drink ticket and a two-hour wait for a beer.

Another reviewer wrote, “I actually started to tear up over how horribly executed this event was, I mean, I was enraged.”

But not all lamented the experience: a Brooklyn woman who said she arrived before the event opened encountered no lines.

“All in all a great day, and I can’t wait for the next one,” she wrote.

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The annual MTV Video Music Awards, one of the highlights of the pop music calendar, will head to Brooklyn this summer after a two-year stint in Los Angeles, the U.S. cable channel said Monday.

The Video Music Awards will be the first major annual awards show to take place in the New York borough, which has seen its cultural profile rise over the past decade as a fashionable spot for young musicians and filmmakers.

“From a vibrant musical scene for up-and-coming artists to epic concerts by today’s biggest stars and the triumphant return of pro sports to the borough after nearly 60 years, Brooklyn has re-emerged as a cultural capital where music, sports and entertainment history is made every day,” MTV President Stephen Friedman said in a statement.

The event will air live at the Barclays Center arena Aug. 25. A host has yet to be announced.

The awards show, which hands out Moonman statuettes of an astronaut planting an MTV flag, has taken place in Los Angeles for the past two years, often alternating runs with venues in Manhattan.

MTV, whose programming now focuses on reality series over its original music video format, will be celebrating the award show’s 30th anniversary.

The Video Music Awards began in 1984 and helped propel the young cable channel as a player in the entertainment industry. The annual awards ceremony is known for unscripted moments, such as in 2009 when rapper Kanye West crashed country-pop singer Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for Best Female Video to proclaim that singer Beyonce was more deserving of the trophy.

MTV is owned by Viacom Inc.

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The remaining members of Sigur Rós are, from left to right, Orri Páll Dýrason, Jón “Jónsi” Pór Birgisson and Georg Holm.
(PHOTO CREDIT: Lilja Birgisson)

At the top of the year, Icelandic post-rockers Sigur Rós announced that after 14 years, multi-instrumentalist Kjartan Sveinsson had left the band.

“I guess he’s tired of touring and wanted to do other stuff,” says bassist Georg Holm matter-of-factly. “It’s all on a very friendly note.”

Indeed, there seems to be no drama surrounding Sveinsson’s departure and the remaining trio: Holm, singer Jón Pór Birgisson (Jónsi) and drummer Orri Páll Dyrason have already recorded a new album, with a title of “Kveikur,” which Holm says is “as good as finished.

It comes less than a year after Sigur Rós released their sixth studio album “Valtari.”

“We’ve been very productive. We’ve been working quickly and having great fun. When you’re having fun it’s easy to go to work. If you enjoy what you do it’s all fun. We never really stop working.”

The word fun and Sigur Rós don’t exactly go hand-in-hand. Their emotionally engulfing and sometimes wrought music gives them a serious aura.

“I’m not quite sure why we have a serious image because we’re not. Obviously, we do take the music seriously. We treat it with respect. At the same time, we are absolutely not very serious people,” Holm says and confirms that with one of many affable chuckles.

For their spring tour, Sigur Rós’s core creative trio will be augmented with strings and brass, and number 13 musicians in all.

“We actually have two extra people to replace Kjaten,” says Holm. “One playing guitar and one playing piano. Yeah, it was big shoes to fill.”

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Bow down, folks, Queen Bey is back with new music. Not that she was ever gone considering she’s already had an extremely successful year and it’s only mid-March.

Beyonce released her first new track “Bow Down/I Been On” since her album “4″ was released in 2011.

The song sounds much different from the “Single Ladies” Beyonce we’ve come to love. This doesn’t mean it isn’t perfect.

“I took some time to live my life, but don’t think I’m just his little wife / Don’t get it twisted, get it twisted, this my s—, bow down, bitches,” she sings on the track, as if the world hasn’t bowed already.

The song has been streamed on SoundCloud more than 1 million times in about 24 hours.

It is not yet clear whether this new track is part of a new album or released as a bonus single.

Not only did Beyonce release a new song, she also posted a photo of herself as a young girl, dressed like a princess, surrounded by a slew of trophies. It’s so Beyonce, it’s perfect.

This is really shaping up to be Mrs. Carter’s year. She’s already sung the national anthem at President Barack Obama’s inauguration, killed it at the Super Bowl halftime show, released a biographical movie on HBO, and tickets for her upcoming summer tour are already selling like hotcakes.

Follow Mary Ann Georgantopoulos on Twitter @marygeorgant

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Movies have been kind to David Bowie. Where the tradition is for cinema to crush pop star hubris — just ask Madonna, Britney Spears and Mariah Carey — the one born David Jones has eked out a select but excellent filmic existence. He’s only had but a few leading roles — most notably 1976’s “The Man Who Fell to Earth” — but his CV teems with small and memorable supporting turns: a cucumber cool Pontius Pilate in “The Last Temptation of Christ,” a spot-on Andy Warhol in “Basquiat,” a movie-stealing Nikola Tesla in “The Prestige” and a deeply affecting performance as a dying vampire in the incoherent hot mess that is Tony Scott’s “The Hunger.” (He’s also very good as a co-lead in Nagisa Oshima’s Japanese POW saga, “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.”)

It’s too bad Bowie does not enjoy film acting; he’s admitted finding movie sets to be artistically fallow, consisting of so much waiting around that he finds himself uninspired. (He hasn’t acted since a small role in 2008’s “August.”)

But movies have also been great to his music. Yes, there are only about a thousand uses of “Under Pressure.” But others use him in creative ways. In honor of “The Next Day,” Bowie’s first album in over a decade — and his best in ages — here’s a smattering of Bowie’s aural contributions to cinema.

“Christiane F” (1981)
Christiane F (real name Vera Christine Felscherinow) achieved fame when her life as a teenage heroin addict in West Germany became the non-fiction bestseller “Christiane F — We Children of Bahnhof Zoo.” It then became a low-budget movie by Ulli Edel (“Last Exit to Brooklyn,” “The Baader Meinhof Complex”). A depressing film about teenage drug addiction might not have been a big draw, but it had an ace up its sleeve: David Bowie contributed songs and appeared as himself in gratuitous concert footage. Because the film was set in the late ‘70s, the music hails from his Berlin Era, and you get “Helden,” the German version of “Heroes.” Today the film is perhaps best known as a soundtrack in the David Bowie section of music stores.

“Cat People” (1982)
Paul Schrader’s remake of Val Lewton’s no-budget chiller about a woman who thinks she’ll turn into a killer panther when sexually aroused is heavy and awesomely insane. It saves its most poetically ridiculous moment for the very ending, which employs the slower, moodier version of Bowie’ “Cat People” — also used to great effect in “Inglourious Basterds” — over a freeze frame of a sad panther face. This holds for an entire verse before Schrader unpauses it for the song’s chorus, then freeze frames it again (!!). (Note to “Cat People” neophytes: This clip is the ending of the film and is, sort of, a spoiler. Although if you know nothing of the film the scene won’t spoil anything and will probably seem simply weird and inexplicable. Anyway, trust us: it’s a dark, messed-up ending.)

“Labyrinth” (1985)
The movie where Bowie, made up to look like a leopard in big ‘80s hair, plays a puppet king who wishes to marry a 15 year old Jennifer Connelly. When she refuses, he does the next logical thing: kidnaps her baby brother and forces her to trawl through a puppet-laden maze. It’s also a part-time musical. Screenplay by Terry Jones!

“Boy Meets Girl” (1984)
Filmmaker Leos Carax is big again thanks to “Holy Motors,” but once upon a time he was the enfant terrible of French cinema, and one of the major practitioners of the music video-heavy “cinema du look.” He was a lot brainier than other “cinema du look” people, like Luc Besson, and he also had a big thing for David Bowie. In his feature debut, Carax went to some of Bowie’s earliest, back when he was an incorrigible unknown cranking out whimsical Anthony Newley-esque songs (like this one and this one). The result, a sequence set to the languid “When I Live My Dream,” is a lovely, lyrical moment capturing (among other things) the pleasure of walking around Paris with Bowie booming in one’s ears.

“Mauvais Sang” (1986)
Carax reached for his Bowie stack again for his sophomore effort — an arty neo-noir in which philosophical crook Denis Lavant (the shape-shifting star of “Holy Motors”) is in love with moll Juliette Binoche. His passions manifest itself in a scene where, upon hearing Bowie’ “Modern Love” on the radio, he runs top speed down a deserted city street at night, the song booming at 11. It’s the most accurate portrayal of unbridled happiness caught on film and, like most moments of unbridled happiness, it’s much too short.

“Lost Highway” (1997)
Bowie’s 1995 album “Outside” is one of his better latter day works, and two of its songs were put to excellent use in two excellent movies. “Seven” got “Heart’s Filthy Lesson,” while David Lynch’s comeback film — after the disastrous, and unfairly maligned, “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me,” which featured a bizarre cameo from Bowie — opened with the (literally) driving “I’m Deranged.”

“Dogville” (2004)
Lars Von Trier’s twisted homage to “Our Town” aims to be an indictment of America, in which strangers are first welcomed and then exploited by a cruel society. To drive this point home, he ends the film with a montage of photos of American devastation and blight set to “Young Americans.” Von Trier did the same thing with the Nicole Kidman-less sequel, “Manderlay,” which concerned slavery and racism.

“The Runaways” (2010)
In which Dakota Fanning’s Cherie Currie first exhibits her rock star prowess by lip synching and gyrating to “Lady Grinning Soul” while decked out in “Aladdin Sane” gear. That doesn’t sound amazing when typed out, but it is. (Note: Relevant section of the above clip doesn’t begin in earnest till around the 2:30 mark.)

“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” (2012)
Once upon a time, children, when you heard a song and you didn’t know what it was, you might spend years, decades even, trying to hunt it down. Set in the distant past of the early-to-mid 1990s, this much liked YA picture handily depicts an era of irritating ignorance: our heroes hear Bowie’s “Heroes” — the Wallflowers cover, from the soundtrack to 1998’s “Godzilla,” had not yet emerged — are immediately blown away (because it’s Bowie’s “Heroes”), but don’t figure out what it is until much later in the movie. Good times.

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No, this is not a crowd shot of the Vatican, but for many, Sixth Street in Austin, Texas is a religious landmark.
(CREDIT: Andy Sheppard/Redferns/Getty Images)

The freaks and the fashionable parade the streets from noon until morning, making people-watching alone worth the price of the plane ticket. I joined the masses on Tuesday looking for something new, and I quickly found it. Making my way to the Paste Magazine/Newport Folk Festival’s showcase, I arrived just in time to see the start of Hurray for the Riff Raff’s set. The female duo from New Orleans played a riveting stripped down set of country-tinged blues combining cover songs by Billie Holiday and Fred Neil as well as a slew of originals. Alternating between acoustic guitar and banjo, backed by a fiddle and the occasional toy piano, their set seemed perfectly at home on the front patio of the rickety old house now known as the Blackheart Bar. Not only will Hooray for Riff Raff make their debut at the Newport Folk Festival this year, but they found out just hours before their set they will be the opening act for the Alabama Shakes upcoming tour.

From there it was on to Viceland to catch the Skaters’ Austin debut. The buzz around them, combined sharing a bill with Waaves and Japandroids created a line of about 2,000 people snaked around the block — a line that would only be trumped later by Deadmau5. This was the first show I missed out on, and I hope it’s my last.

After watching a few songs from the street, I decided to make better use of my time and headed over to the Mohawk to hear the Danish band, Indians. A three-piece consisting of more keyboards than people, the band layers loops, Moog synthesizers and a brain-rattling drum pad to create dreamy, slightly dancey music. The Copenhagen croon of lead singer Soren Juul works well with Enya-like atmospherics.

Looking to for some more traditional rock ‘n’ roll, I drifted off to The North Door to catch Vietnam. After taking the past five years off, Michael Gerner is back with a new six-piece lineup and a recent record, but their sound remains the same. It is dark, lengthy and often druggy narratives, which are delivered without traditional verse/chorus structure and set against a heavy shimmer of blues guitar riffs.

After seeing the line for Jim James a couple blocks from the entrance. I decided to go home and rest up for Wednesday. It’s going to be a long week.

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Every year, thousands of musicians, record labels, fans and publicists from all ends of the earth make their way to Austin, Texas for the five-day sonic soiree and sensory overload known as South by Southwest, which for the rest of the week, you’ll see referred to as SXSW.
For the uninitiated, SXSW is, in theory, where bands go to make it, labels go to show off their talent and the rest of the industry goes to latch onto untouched potential. As for me, I’m there to take it all in, write it all down and tell you all about it. While there’s no possible way to see every act, here are a few I’m looking forward to.

Chelsea Light Moving
The band’s name may seem esoteric, but their leader is one of rock’s greatest guitarists. With Sonic Youth on indefinite hiatus, Thurston Moore’s latest outfit is far from the delicate stylings of his recent solo records. CLM combine Sonic Youth’s atmospheric guitar sounds with artistic abrasions most similar to Moore’s 1995 “Psychic Hearts” record. On CLM’s self-titled debut, released last week, Moore possesses a newfound angst and seems angrier than ever.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Ten years ago, Nick Cave may have seemed a bit out of place at SXSW. But after scoring three westerns, and providing the musc and a screenplay to the Southern bootlegging movie, “Lawless,” he now seems to embody the ideal of the dusty American outlaw (despite being from Australia and the U.K.). While his recent release seems more like a solo record than a Bad Seeds endeavor, his commanding presence in live shows is as powerful as a fire and brimstone preacher. SXSW is the first of his 20 sold out North American dates and one of the hottest tickets in town.

Generationals
An electro pop duo from New Orleans, Generationals combine guitar and electronics to create blissful textures and melodic hooks that overpower the inherent melancholia that lingers in the backdrop. Playing seven shows in four days at SXSW, the band will preview their third and best full-length, “Heza,” due out in April.

King Tuff
While the name may suggest some Studio One dub producer, only the weed smoke links Tuff with Jamaican styles. The pride of Brattleboro, Vermont and one of Sub Pop’s latest acquisitions, KT’s music is more akin to the haunting acoustic psych sound of Girls, but with a grunge-y energy.

Skaters
NYC by way of Boston and England, Skaters will be one of the newest and busiest bands in Austin. Consisting of members of Dead Trees and Dirty Pretty Things, Skaters are one of Warner Brothers’ hopes for a youthful rock ‘n’ roll revival. They’re headed straight from the studio after wrapping up their debut LP, slated for early summer release. There’s already a buzz around them, based on their free EP, and extensive European and U.S. tours are already booked for spring. Expect infectious guitar ballads that make you move, but also make you think.

Prince
Wait, what? Yes! In the past few years SXSW has become about established superstars staging their comeback into the public consciousness as much as it is about undiscovered talents. Now that Justin Timberlake has been co-opting Prince’s big band setup of the “Diamonds and Pearls” era, it’s time for his Royal Purpleness to show JT how it’s really done. Prince will reportedly stage an as yet not totally confirmed club show with a 22-piece band during the festival.

—Follow Nolan Gawron on Twitter this week at @metrousmusic. Check out this website all week for his updates on the best of SXSW. Check out our playlist below…

The post Foaming at the mouth for SXSW appeared first on Metro.us.

Now he’s coming after your headphones.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg who has previously banned smoking in public places, cracked down on noisy, limited soda sizes and aims to get rid of Styrofoam, has now turned his gaze or rather his ears towards getting people to crank down the volume on their headphones.
The city is planning a social media campaign blitz as well as conducting focus groups to warn young people about the dangers of loud music blasting through their headphones, the health department said yesterday.

With grant money from the Fund for Public Health in New York, the Hearing Loss Prevention Media Campaign will use social media such as Twitter and Facebook to alert users to the risks of hearing damage, including increased risk of injury.
The New York Post reported that the campaign would cost $250,000, although the health department said they were still unsure of the final cost.

The rise of personal media players such as the iPod have increased cases of hearing loss, with a rise of more than 30 percent between 1988 and 2006, the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey reported.

“I’m seeing [hearing damage and loss] more and more in the 20s, 30s and 40s. Usually we see it in the 50s and 60s,” said Dr. Ana Kim, Director of Otologic Research at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary. She recommends keeping the volume lower than 50 percent and using headphones rather than earbuds.

However, headphones may be less satisfying to the user since earbuds physically block outside sounds and are louder than over-the-ear or on ear headsets, B&H communications director Henry Posner said.

But the ultimate hearing damage still depends on the music volume.

“Users who abuse them, playing music so loud folks standing nearby can hear what’s being played, are the problem. I’m all for safety but this is an instance where I don’t think we can necessarily blame one brand or design,” Posner said.

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Being female in NYC it’s natural to gravitate toward girl vocals and beats jumping off a city landscape. Being in the crowd at Maluca Mala shows with Das Racist or getting inspired by Santigold’s performance at Bowery Ballroom is a given. Sweating to MIA at Siren Fest in Coney Island or seeing Kudu play her weekly at Nublu. Natasha Diggs’ weekly crate-digging at Mobile Mondays on the Bowery. These are requisite city excursions.

So it’s no surprise a current favorite is Kilo Kish; cute-ing up the boy scene in the LES. Mashing a visual artist’s vision into her music career, Kish is this week’s Sauce.

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  View Video

  K+ by Kilo Kish

Kilo Kish is pronounced key low keesh, like quiche, as in a thousand pounds of buttery egg tart. She hails from Orlando and came to Gotham on an art scholarship to Pratt. More artist than musician (think Karen O and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), she easily connects to a larger audience via fashion and press.

Kish released her new mixtape, K+ this month. She collaborates with local talent Smash Simmons and Flatbush Zombies, and with national names like Childish Gambino and The Internet. K+ is spoken word more than singing. Kish’s bedroom-worthy vocals remind me of Lady T (Tigra from L’Trimm). She is the first to admit she can’t rap but there she is rapping along as the backdrop to runway shows at Milan Fashion Week.

At 22, Kilo Kish is getting nods from Vogue magazine and taking her downtown shine on tour to the UK. Artistic tendencies are showcased on the video K+, documenting an exhibit of the making of her mixtape. She is all subject, in charge of her image and enjoying the ride with her bff Kitty Cash, DJing. Upbeat and sonically smoothed out, these downtown It Girls are easy to get behind.

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Madonna was named the biggest money maker in music in 2012 on Friday, with a world tour helping her take home up to $34.6 million and highlighting the earning power of live performances as the industry increasingly goes digital.

The 54-year-old Material Girl topped Billboard Magazine’s annual list of 40 top money makers for the second time after earning an estimated $32 million – 93.5 percent of her revenue – from her 88-date “MDNA” tour, 2012′s biggest tour.

Madonna, who also led the list in 2008 due to tour income, was the only woman in the top 10 with last year’s winner, Taylor Swift, who fell to 15th place as she did not tour in 2012.

In second place in the music magazine’s list was Bruce Springsteen whose $33.4 million revenue was also primarily driven by touring, playing to sold-out stadiums and arenas.

Springsteen, who also released a No. 1 album, “Wrecking Ball,” last year, earned 92 percent of his revenue from live shows where strong merchandise sales also boosted takings.

Roger Waters, founder of Pink Floyd, came a distant third with earnings of $21 million largely from “The Wall Live” tour and Van Halen was fourth with $20 million after touring in support of their album “A Different Kind of Truth”.

“When it comes to making the biggest score, the most money always comes from high-paying live performances,” Billboard’s editorial analyst Glenn Peoples wrote in explaining the list.

“Ironically, the most popular touring artists are usually well past their peaks on the album sales charts.”

Country music veteran Kenny Chesney, the Dave Matthews Band, country’s Tim McGraw and Jason Aldean, and British band Coldplay came next on the list.

Canadian teen sensation Justin Bieber was 10th, earning almost $16 million of which about $10 million came from his sold-out “Believe” arena tour.

“The entire top 10 averaged 84.2 percent of their income from concerts, and the number would have been higher, if not for Justin Bieber’s mere 60.1 percent share at No. 10 dragging down the average,” said Billboard.

However touring was not vital for every act on the list such as Swift and Britain’s Adele.

Swift earned $12.7 million after selling the most digital tracks in 2012. She sold more than 3 million digital albums and 15.6 million digital tracks driven by her hit “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”.

Adele took the year out after having a baby but still earned nearly $14 million, putting her 11th in the rankings, due to continuing strong physical and digital sales for her album “21″.

Maroon 5, ranked 33rd in the list, took the highest share of streaming revenue which made 3.5 percent of its $7.2 million.

Billboard said streaming music online to paying customers has not caught on with older generations and was small in percentage terms but growing.

“Yet even in the coming years, as streaming services become a more important revenue source, possibly replacing digital downloads and CD sales, one thing is unlikely to change: concerts will have the greatest influence of top earners’ overall earnings,” said Peoples.

The list was compiled by Billboard editors using data for Boxscore archives of U.S. concert gross figures, Nielsen SoundScan data for sales, YouTube, and Nielsen BDS data.

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In honor of the former fact, which obviously merits more celebration than the latter one, we decided to get you linked up with some of our favorite pieces we’ve done on Kurt over the years.

Oh, and for perspective, peep this photo from the folks at Phojoe.com, put together three years ago, to mark what would have been Cobain’s 43rd birthday. Maybe of all the difficult-to-believe things, this photo is the hardest. When an icon dies young and leaves a good-looking corpse, it’s hard to imagine him or her going through a phase that bears any resemblance to Elvis’ later years.

Visit www.phojoe.com for all your picture doctoring needs. They did this mock-up of what Kurt Cobain would look like now a few years back.

And now a look back…

A series where we dig deeply into the Getty archives to find Cobain hanging with an unlikely friend

Cobain’s former Nirvana bandmate Dave Grohl is seen rocking out like a true rock fan

A bizarre dream that this author had, where the late Nirvana singer was hosting “Saturday Night Live”

And below, check out the Metro Monthly Music Podcast where we celebrated the 20th anniversary of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and got valuable insight from the likes of Jonah Hill, Matt Pinfield, Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes and Stephen Malkmus. Or you can download it on iTunes by clicking here.

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Snowden mastermind Jordan Jeffares is emerging after more than six years off the scene with a new album.

After his 2006 release “Anti-Anti,” which was roundly praised by critics, Jeffares disappeared altogether, because of a conflict with his record label.

Known for introspective, echoing songs, loaded with the prettiest brand of longing and despair this side of The Cure, Snowden is now receiving advance praise for sophomore release, “No One In Control” which comes out in May.

Jeffares says he never gave up making music. He just couldn’t find a way to put it out.

“If you put it out naked, there’s a good chance that no one will ever hear it,” he says from his Austin, Texas, home. “It’s very hard to get a record out properly anymore. Anyone can release a record — I could’ve put it out at any time — but without a push behind it, i.e. some finances, it can be hard.”

METRO: Do you find that the longer you’ve worked on a song, the better it is?

JEFFARES: I hope it is. I have a group of peers that I pass things around to and I’ll keep changing things until they smile.

But this new album feels like the followup to “Anti-Anti” even though it’s been more than six years.

I still think in the same rhythms. I still think in the same way because I work alone. Even though I try really hard just to step outside of my own head, there’s only so much I can do and I find myself returning to similar themes over and over again. Even with this much time and this much work on this record, I have strong themes that I’m drawn to, sonically and that’s how the record gets to sounding like it sounds now. That’s why it sounds like a followup, because it really is.

Do you think being in Austin will help you write different kinds of material?

Well, when I got here and I was trying to understand where my head was at as far as my writing goes, I read this Steve Earle quote about Austin. He said, “the weather was great, the women were beautiful and the drugs were too cheap and I wouldn’t get anything done in a town like that.” It explains why nothing good comes out of beach towns, including L.A., arguably. When life is so good, it’s hard to find flux to create new moods. I’ve been trying to learn how to rethink here, to write without flux in my life.

You’ve been described as enjoying a sort of cold, snowy ambience in your songwriting. What songs or artists evoke that for you?

I’ve always been a big fan of The Cure’s early to mid career, and of course My Bloody Valentine. I’m a huge Yo La Tengo fan. One of the bands that I’m constantly throwing out to my friends, trying to get them to pick up on is The Clientele. I don’t understand how they’re not one of the biggest bands in the world.

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Sure, that would be a fun and flippant way to say “hell to the Chief,” but we really wanted to honor the men who have held the highest office in the country, if not just for the fact that today is a day off. Think about it: No president = no Presidents Day = no day off today.

So as we were poking around on Spotify, we found a wealth of historic presidential speeches. You can find everything from Nixon performing his “I Am Not a Crook” march to Kennedy doing the “Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You” waltz. Oh, wait, these aren’t actually songs about the speeches on Spotify, these are the actual speeches. For songs about the speeches, you need to listen to this.

The “Ask Not Waltz” was recorded without irony!

Yes, this song was recorded in seriousness. Hey, it was Camelot, people were so optimistic that they would just open themselves up to ridicule without even thinking about it, in a way that seems hard to understand now.

So, in putting together this playlist of speeches, we figured it would be best to focus on this type of optimism, but not really the whole ridicule part. And there really isn’t much more optimistic than a president’s inaugural speech. It’s that moment where they look out on the horizon they see as a future for the country, and put forth all of these grandiose plans.

It’s fascinating to listen to these leaders speak, most of them actual recordings. Of course, the Jefferson and Lincoln speeches are read by actors, but starting with FDR, these are real audio snippets of the men in their moment in history that they helped define.

It’s also fascinating to hear in Lincoln’s first inaugural address that he had no plans to do anything about slavery. But luckily, he was just participating in the time-honored inaugural address tradition of totally going back on his word. Darn! Said we weren’t going to bash the president. Hey, at least in this instance it was good that he ended up doing the opposite of the very thing he said he would do.

It wasn’t like Bush Sr. saying “Read my lips: No new taxes” and then going back on that one. Speaking of Bush, it’s a curious thing that neither of the Bush boys have their inaugural speeches available on Spotify.

So, without further ado, here is a four-hour playlist of presidential inauguration speeches, for you to celebrate Presidents Day.

Or, of course you could just spend two and a half minutes watching this classic video from Cox + Combes about the first president of our nation.

No, you’re more patriotic than that! Listen to the playlist of speeches!

Have a great day off, America!

The post Listen up: Presidents Day playlist appeared first on Metro.us.

Lady Gaga is canceling the remainder of her “Born This Way Ball” tour — 21 dates in all — because she injured her hip and needs surgery, Live Nation said Wednesday.

Gaga, 26, tore the labrum of her right hip as a result of repeated strain, Live Nation said.

“The labrum is a cushioning of the hip joint,” says Dr. Robert Gotlin, director of the orthopedic and sports rehab program at Beth Israel Medical Center. “It’s a rubbery-type substance that’s the shock absorber between the femur and the hip socket.”

Dr. Gotlin says her injury could be congenital, meaning she was born with an anatomic irregularity that led to a tear (she was born this way!), or that she injured herself “doing a lot of jumping, hopping and torquing.”

It could also be those wacky shoes of hers: “Anything that has potential stress on her hip — like shoes, jumping, hopping or irregular surfaces” could cause injury, he added.

Dr. Gotlin was quick to note that Gaga’s pain might actually not be due to the tear in itself, and that she could have an underlying problem, but that the only way we’ll be able to know that is if she completes the surgery and her pain goes away.

But it’ll be a bumpy road before she’s back to her wild self: Dr. Gotlin says it’ll be about six weeks until she’s feeling OK, and that she’ll need about three months of physical therapy before she starts getting back to her routine.

On Tuesday, Gaga tweeted that she had to postpone several shows due to the synovitis, an inflammation of the joints, which she had been hiding.

“I’ve been hiding a show injury and chronic pain for sometime now, over the past month it has worsened,” she wrote on Tuesday afternoon. “I’ve been praying it would heal.”

Ticketholders are able to get refunds, Live Nation stated.

Follow Meredith Engel on Twitter @MeredithAtMetro.

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In print, a psychedelic band from Western Australia who call their latest album “Lonerism” don’t seem like the most likely candidates to be the biggest sensation in indie rock. But Tame Impala are selling out most of the shows on the tour they are about to begin, which is their biggest trek through the U.S. to date.

“Whenever there’s music where the lyrics are wearing your heart on your sleeve and talking about things that you don’t really talk to anybody about — which is really just kind of music in general — but whenever you’re doing it onstage, you just have that feeling that you’re connecting with other people in the world that feel the same way,” says singer and songwriter Kevin Parker.

The music on “Lonerism” ranges from heavy to melodic to focused to spacey. Sometimes it is all of those things in one song. What makes the album so exciting is that no structure is safe from being seriously messed with. The songs are all prone to either sudden unexpected explorations or sudden endings. A vicious lead guitar might step forward in the mix into what a listener might think would be a searing solo, only to have the song end two seconds later. On the song “Keep On Lying,” a trippy organ and guitar interlude gives way to a party conversation that makes the listener feel like an observer who wants — but just isn’t able — to participate.

“I love the sound of something that makes you feel like you’re on drugs,” admits Parker when asked if he approves of the “stoner rock” title that his band is often tagged with.

But the song titles on “Lonerism” speak volumes for those who don’t speak much: “Music to Walk Home By,” “Why Won’t They Talk To Me?” and “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” are just a few.

“It’s really an album about other people, or at least trying to interact with people,” says Parker. “I think the whole loner thing about the album is that overall the character realizes that he’s destined to be alone, from all of these interactions.”

Parker says he has been surprised by how people have taken to Tame Impala though, in particular a group of school children from Staten Island whose moving reinterpretation of “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” has racked up thousands of views online.

Check out the video below.

“It was pretty surreal,” says Parker of watching the PS 22 Chorus perform one of his songs. “It didn’t even feel like it was my song. It felt like the people doing the song, that whole thing that I was watching on the computer screen was bigger than the song, like I was covering their song. … Kids can extract that pop element to it. It’s not that only kids can do it, but it’s that it can be taken out of it and you can leave behind the totally blown-out distorted drums and you can just make a nice little sing-along out of it that’s really uplifting.”

Broken mirrors

Tame Impala’s summer single, “Elephant,” features one of the most badass lines in recent memory. In the song, about an overconfident, but ultimately insecure man, Parker sings, “He broke the mirrors off his Cadillac, cuz he doesn’t like it looking like he looks back.”

Parker admits that the line was on special reserve for a while.

“I don’t actually remember how I thought of it,” he says. “All I know is that I was driving home from the beach. I know where I was and it was long before I started writing lyrics for that song. I didn’t have a notebook, but I just remembered that rhyme. I didn’t even think it was going to fit. I had no idea how it was going to fit into a song. I then sort of sang it and put it into a sentence and it really seemed to fit well. It was one of those cosmic miracles with lyrics that don’t happen very often for me.”

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Stop whatever you’re doing and try to wrap your mind around this: Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z are uniting on stage.

The New York Post is reporting that the two mega-stars will share the stage in an upcoming tour. The Post reports they’ll do ten dates. Rolling Stone magazine is reporting eleven to thirteen shows.

The tour will be across America over the summer in support of “The 20/20 Experience.”

“We’re definitely going on tour … I don’t know how much I should say … It’s going to be a lot of fun, I know that,” Justin Timberlake told a red carpet reporter at the Grammys, according to Pitchfork.

According to the reports, they’ll be on tour the same time Beyonce is on tour.

We’re predicting JT, Jay-Z and Bey will join force on the Barclays Center stage. This is just wild speculation based on nothing but our dreams.

To prepare for the tour click here to listen to ‘Suit & Tie.’

Follow Mary Ann Georgantopoulos on Twitter @marygeorgant

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As Yo La Tengo close in on 30 years as a band, the trio has secured their name as one of the most beloved and longstanding survivors in indie-rock. While most of their contemporaries have already broken up and launched reunion tours, Yo La Tengo continue on their sonic journey without interruption, and with a legacy and longevity revolving around consistency— not so much a consistency of sound, as much as providing a standard in making great, timeless records that will go down in the permanent lexicon and discography of indie-rock music.

Beginning in 1984, and based around the husband and wife harmonies of founding members Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, the addition of James McNew in the early ’90s put the band in a unique position where each of the members was now a potential singer and songwriter, making their music all the more diverse.

They have scored films, appeared on numerous compilations and they even dared to take their already underground following to more obscure levels by creating a garage rock cover band known as “Condo F—s” for anyone following along.

With the recent release of “Fade,” their 13th official LP, the band seems to have created one of their most thematic and introspective records to date.
Beginning with the lines: “Sometimes the bad guys come out on top/ Sometimes the good guys lose/ We try not to lose our hearts/ Not to lose our minds,” you get the sense that this is an album dealing with maturity and a search for answers.

And though the feeling seems to continue on throughout the record, according to the band, the theme may not have been conscious at all.

“I probably would say it’s not true,” says singer and guitarist Ira Kaplan. “But I could be lying. Although the songs are written over a year, the lyrics are not. The lyrics are written very quickly. We tend to sing along in a sort of nonsense kind of way and even record the songs without lyrics and at the last second come up with them. I think because of the speed and the concentrated space in which the lyrics are written, the songs end up talking to each other. But in no way is there a plan. It just sort of takes shape the way it does organically, not with a concept put behind it.”

With access to friends and jazz musicians who appear on “Fade,” Yo La Tengo’s sound progression seems to continue to grow stylistically in dynamic while continuing to soften in decibel. But even that is put into question.

“Sometimes we’re also not the best judge of those types of things,” says Kaplan. “We think we create a balance and maybe certain things jump out more than others. What we are doing on this show though, is extremely different. We will essentially be our own opening act. So we do a first set of quieter songs and then the second set is louder.”

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To varied effect, the Grammys continued with its tradition of pairing young musicians with legends. This works well on playlists when you want to make a local act seem on par with stadium-filling rock stars, but the problem with doing it year after year in live performance is that it cheapens the innovative approach into novelty.
The formula did work occasionally, such as when the Black Keys augmented their usual bare bones duo sound with Dr. John and the wall of horns that is the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The tribute to The Band, featuring Alabama Shakes, Elton John, Mavis Staples and multiple Mumfords was a hit too.

But elsewhere, the jams were disjointed and uncomfortable, as with Alicia Keys and Maroon 5 doing “Girl on Fire” together. And Elton John added little more to Ed Sheeran’s Song of the Year-nominated, “The A Team” than giving host LL Cool J a chance to make a joke at a young Twitter who needed to look up #sireltonjohn.

While it is admirable that the Grammys attempt to bridge musical gaps, there are some valleys that are just too wide. Miguel and Wiz Khalifa delivered one of the early successful pairings last night with a brief mash-up performance of the former’s Song of the Year-nominated “Adorn.” But having them announce the winner for Best Country Solo Performance made no sense.

Let’s get together and feel all right

One of the fun things about the Grammys is watching these famous people interact with and address each other. Here are our favorite moments from last night, where stars called each other by name.

Host LL Cool J tries out a hip-hop nickname on Taylor Swift: “I’m happy to say that my friend T-Swizzle has already won an award.”

Adele calls J. Lo her good luck charm

Neil Patrick Harris introduces fun.: They’re so awesome that they might want to change the period in their name to an exclamation point.

Kelly Clarkson learns a little something about new R&B: “Miguel, I don’t know who the hell you are, but we need to sing together.”

And the Grammy goes to…

The awards portion of the show were mostly what people expected. At least they were what we expected. In our Grammy predictions story on Friday, we correctly forecasted two thirds of the night’s biggest winners. We called it that Gotye would win Record of the Year and that fun. would win Song of the Year, but in what was a surprise win of sorts, Mumford & Sons won Album of the Year for “Babel.” Below is a complete list of winners.

Record of the Year

“Somebody That I Used to Know,” Gotye, featuring Kimbra

Album of the Year

“Babel,” Mumford & Sons

Song of the Year

“We Are Young,” fun. and Janelle Monáe (Songwriters: Jack Antonoff, Jeff Bhasker, Andrew Dost and Nate Ruess)

New Artist

fun.

Pop Solo Performance

“Set Fire to the Rain (live),” Adele

Pop Performance, Duo or Group

“Somebody That I Used to Know,” Gotye, featuring Kimbra

Pop Instrumental Album

“Impressions,” Chris Botti

Pop Vocal Album

“Stronger,” Kelly Clarkson

Dance Recording

“Bangarang,” Skrillex and Sirah

Dance/Electronica Album

“Bangarang,” Skrillex

Dance Recording

“Bangarang,” Skrillex and Sirah

Traditional Pop Vocal Album

“Kisses on the Bottom,” Paul McCartney

Rock Performance

“Lonely Boy,” the Black Keys

Hard Rock/Metal Performance

“Love Bites (So Do I),” Halestorm

Rock Song

Dan Auerbach, Brian Burton and Patrick Carney (“Lonely Boy,” the Black Keys)

Rock Album

“El Camino,” the Black Keys

Alternative Music Album

“Making Mirrors,” Gotye

R&B Performance

“Climax,” Usher

Traditional R&B Performance

“Love on Top,” Beyoncé

R&B Song

Miguel Pimentel (“Adorn,” Miguel)

R&B Album

“Black Radio,” Robert Glasper Experiment

Rap Performance

“___ in Paris,” Jay-Z and Kanye West

Rap/Sung Collaboration

“No Church in the Wild,” Jay-Z, Kanye West, Frank Ocean and The-Dream

Rap Song

“___ in Paris,” Jay-Z and Kanye West (Songwriters: Shawn Carter, Mike Dean, Chauncey Hollis, Kanye West and W. A. Donaldson)

Rap Album

“Take Care,” Drake

Urban Contemporary Album

“channel ORANGE,” Frank Ocean

Country Solo Performance

“Blown Away,” Carrie Underwood

Country Performance, Duo or Group

“Pontoon,” Little Big Town

Country Song

Josh Kear and Chris Tompkins (“Blown Away,” Carrie Underwood)

Country Album

“Uncaged,” Zac Brown Band

New Age Album

“Echoes of Love,” Omar Akram

Improvised Jazz Solo

“Hot House,” Gary Burton and Chick Corea

Jazz Vocal Album

“Radio Music Society,” Esperanza Spalding

Jazz Instrumental Album

“Unity Band,” Pat Metheny Unity Band

Large Jazz Ensemble Album

“Dear Diz (Every Day I Think of You),” Arturo Sandoval

Latin Jazz Album

“¡Ritmo!,” The Clare Fischer Latin Jazz Big Band

Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music Performance

“10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord),” Matt Redman

Gospel Song

Erica Campbell, Tina Campbell and Warryn Campbell (“Go Get It,” Mary Mary)

Contemporary Christian Music Song

Jonas Myrin and Matt Redman (“10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord),” Matt Redman)

Gospel Album

“Gravity,” Lecrae

Contemporary Christian Music Album

“Eye on It,” TobyMac

Latin Pop Album

“MTV Unplugged Deluxe Edition,” Juanes

Latin Rock, Urban or Alternative Album

“Imaginaries,” Quetzal

Regional Mexican or Tejano Album

“Pecados y Milagros,” Lila Downs

Tropical Latin Album

“Retro,” Marlow Rosada y La Riqueña”

Americana Album

“Slipstream,” Bonnie Raitt

Bluegrass Album

“Nobody Knows You,” Steep Canyon Rangers

Blues Album

“Locked Down,” Dr. John

Folk Album

“The Goat Rodeo Sessions,” Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile

Regional Roots Music Album

“The Band Courtbouillon,” Wayne Toups, Steve Riley and Wilson Savoy

Reggae Album

“Rebirth,” Jimmy Cliff

World Music Album

“The Living Room Sessions Part 1,” Ravi Shankar

Children’s Album

“Can You Canoe?,” The Okee Dokee Brothers

Spoken Word Album

“Society’s Child: My Autobiography,” Janis Ian

Comedy Album

“Blow Your Pants Off,” Jimmy Fallon

Musical Theater Album

“Once: A New Musical,” Steve Kazee and Cristin Milioti, artists; Steven Epstein and Martin Lowe, producers; Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, composers/lyricists

Instrumental Composition

“Mozart Goes Dancing,” Chick Corea (Chick Corea and Gary Burton)

Instrumental Arrangement

“How About You,” Gil Evans (Gil Evans Project)

Producer of the Year, Nonclassical

Dan Auerbach

Producer of the Year, Classical

Blanton Alspaugh

Remixed Recording, Nonclassical

“Promises (Skrillex and Nero Remix),” Skrillex, remixer

Classical Instrumental Solo

“Kurtág & Ligeti: Music for Viola,” Kim Kashkashian

Classical Vocal Solo

“Poèmes,” Renée Fleming (Alan Gilbert and Seiji Ozawa; Orchestre National de France and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France)

Contemporary Classical Composition

“Hartke, Stephen: Meanwhile — Incidental Music to Imaginary Puppet Plays,” Stephen Hartke (Eighth Blackbird)

Short Form Music Video

“We Found Love,” Rihanna and Calvin Harris

Long Form Music Video

“Big Easy Express,” Mumford & Sons, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and Old Crow Medicine Show

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The Grammys are not always easy to predict. Sometimes the National Academy of Recording Arts and Science gets it right, like with Adele sweeping all six categories she was nominated in last year, including the “Big Three” (Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Album of the Year). But sometimes the Academy gets it horribly wrong. We still can’t figure out how Herbie Hancock won Album of the Year in 2008. There is one opportunity for a “Big Three” sweep with fun. being nominated in the major categories, as well as Best New Artist, but we just don’t see them joining the ranks of Adele, Dixie Chicks (2007), Norah Jones (2003) and only a half-dozen others. Here’s why.

RECORD OF THE YEAR

This is really the biggest Grammy, and people sometimes get confused because of those 12-inch vinyl things that are also called records. This award honors the actual
performance, the studio production and that certain X-factor that makes a song a defining snippet of sound for that year, or you know, a record.

THE NOMINEES: 

The Black Keys “Lonely Boy”
Kelly Clarkson “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)”
fun. featuring Janelle Monae “We Are Young”
Gotye featuring Kimbra “Somebody That I Used To Know”
Frank Ocean “Thinkin Bout You”
Taylor Swift “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”

WHO WILL WIN:

This was a big year for the Black Keys, and the Academy has been kind to the Ohio duo before, but more for categories like Best Alternative Music Album or Best Rock Performance. Does “Lonely Boy” say 2012 the way that “Beat It” said 1984? Not quite. Our money is on Gotye, though “Somebody That I Used To Know” says 1985 more than 2012. But this is the Academy we’re dealing with.

WHO SHOULD WIN:

We’re going with the fun. song here. While the intro is a little too Broadway for our liking, that chorus really is a perfect audio snapshot of 2012, isn’t it?

WHO WAS JUST A TOKEN NOMINATION:

After Taylor Swift got “Kanyed” at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, she received a secret lifetime guarantee of being nominated for something at every awards show every year she releases new music. This is speculation, but “We Are Never Getting Back Together” is too light to win an award in a category where past winners include “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “I Will Always Love You.”

SONG OF THE YEAR

This award is for the songwriter, so if Kelly Clarkson’s tune wins, she doesn’t actually win, because she didn’t have a hand in composing “Stronger.” All other artists in this category wrote their respective songs.

THE NOMINEES:

Ed Sheeran “The A Team”
Miguel “Adorn”
Carly Rae Jepsen “Call Me Maybe”
Kelly Clarkson “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)”
Fun. featuring Janelle Monae “We Are Young

WHO WILL WIN:

This is the one that fun. actually will win, and when they skip up to the podium to collect their award, that chorus will sound great blasting over the speakers, won’t it?

WHO SHOULD WIN:

You read the nominees, and “Call Me Maybe,” is totally in your head! Not bad, right? Think about how long it took you to get sick of it. Not until at least the ninth B-grade YouTube parody. That is quality songwriting: catchy without pissing you off!  Go Carly Rae!

WHO WAS JUST A TOKEN NOMINATION:

Ed Sheeran? What billionaire decided this acoustic kid is important all of a sudden? And how much did said billionaire have to shell out to allow the Olympics to have him front Pink Floyd for “Wish You Were Here”?

ALBUM OF THE YEAR:

Ah, the album, that rare perfect collection of songs. It’s only getting closer to extinction as we get further away from the analog age.

THE NOMINEES:

The Black Keys “El Camino”
Fun. “Some Nights”
Mumford & Sons “Babel”
Frank Ocean “channel ORANGE”
Jack White “Blunderbuss”

WHO WILL WIN:

Like we’ve already established, the Academy has a soft spot for the Black Keys. This is their big one this year.

WHO SHOULD WIN:

Frank Ocean topped every critical best-of list this year and the guy is almost single-handedly pushing R&B into the future. And “channel ORANGE” is a great listen from start to finish.

WHO WAS JUST A TOKEN NOMINATION:

The nominees in this category are hard to argue with, but what’s easy to argue with is that the ladies were snubbed! Where’s Taylor Swift’s “Red”? While the Grammys are not a popularity contest, “Red” was the second biggest-selling album of 2012, behind only another lady, Adele, who happened to do pretty well for herself at the Grammys last year.

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