It’s the biggest destination for music on the internet and Youtube has finally recognised that fact with the launch of a dedicated music section. The revamped youtube.com/musicnow shows you recommended videos and artists based on existing videos you are watching, a list of upcoming local concerts using Songkick gig data and the most relevant music chart of all, a Youtube top 100 for the week highlighting the songs that are being watched globally (Nicki Minaj’s Super Bass currently sits on top).
In the coming weeks, Youtube is teaming up with curators like Vice Magazine, SPIN, XLR8R and music vloggers like The Needle Drop to offer daily playlists for further exploration. Youtube have promised these services before but this music transformation is their most complete yet.
One video sitting high in the Youtube chart is Kanye West and Jay-Z’s Otis from the Watch The Throne album. The album broke the iTunes one-week sales record with 290,000 downloads in a week. As outlined by Billboard (bit.ly/securitywtt)., this feat was made possible by the extraordinary measures the duo put in place to ensure that the album DID NOT leak.
14 year-old Jasmine Van den Bogaerde hit UK charts and worldwide blogs after BBC Radio One play of her piano and voice cover of Bon Iver’s Skinny Love.
bit.ly/birdylove
With interest in the band rising over the last four years, England’s Wild Beasts will return next month with third album Smother. The first single, Albatross, is a lovely lilting piano number with a somewhat pretentious video.
bit.ly/wildalba
An amazing classic soul singer who never got his break finally gets recognition. Now 62, the Brooklyn singer has released the brilliant No Time For Dreaming, his debut album on Daptone Records (home to Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings). Bradley plays the Sea Sessions festival in Donegal in June.
bit.ly/charlesb
Everyone loves Sade, even Jay-Z, as evident by this remix of her song Moon & The Sky featuring The Jiggaman on a verse.
bit.ly/jaysade
Remix of the year?
NYC’s Holy Ghost! Give the enigmatic pop duo Monarchy’s single Love Get Out of My Way a disco makeover complete with Dixon’s clichéd but fitting vocals.
Listen at Nialler9 >
New Jay-Z – Ultra
Just in time for festival season, Jigga drops a track produced by Swizz Beats from the upcoming Trending Topics #4 rap mixtape.
Listen at Nah Right >
Florrie
The drummer from the Xenomania house band who is responsible for banging sticks on Girls Aloud’s The Promise and Alesha Dixon’s That Boy Does Nothing tries out the solo pop thing. With cool electro producers Fred Falke and Moguai helping her out, the tunes sound really good so far.
Listen at Nialler9 >
World Cup song of the week
A mix of Irish World Cup anthem Put Em’ Under Pressure and French purveyors of electro bangers Justice unite these two countries in a manner now implausible thanks to Monsieur Va-va Voom’s handball.
Listen at Soundcloud >
The five best music mashups
A top five of genuinely superbly crafted music mashups. Behold how suited Iron Maiden’s The Trooper and The Monkees’ I’m A Believer fit together and tell me it’s not a mash made in heaven.
Read at Blender
From Justice to Jay-Z
Jay-Z’s recent single On To The Next One is built on a sample taken from Justice’s D.A.N.C.E. Hear how it was done.
Watch at Nialler9
R Kelly has more Trapped in the Closet
R Kelly claims to have 15 more chapters of his seminal hip-hopera ready to go. He just wants to know if you want it. Yes, R. Yes, we do.
Read at The Daily Swarm
1. Jay-Z – On To The Next One
Jigga serves up a visual-heavy monochrome video to match his Justice D.A.N.C.E. -sampling tribal tune from The Blueprint III.
2. How to make ‘Smack My Bitch Up’
Insightful video tutorial which shows how Liam Howlett may have created The Prodigy’s seminal track using the music program Ableton. What’s most fascinating is how he twisted samples from other well-known songs into completely unrecognisable shapes.
Faith No More reunited clip
A post-breakup ballad from 1978 by Peaches and Herb was the perfect and most bizarre way for the enigmatic Mike Patton and co. to open their recent reunion shows. Genius.
Contender for cover of the year?
Who would have thought a Balkan version of Katy Perry’s Hot and Cold could be this good?
Confessions of a Super Hero
A documentary which looks at three men and one woman who work as superheroes on Hollywood Boulevard while pursuing their own fame. Watch it online.
http://short.ie/superherodoc
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