Most people probably don’t know Diplo but you almost certainly know his music and he’s currently one of the most hard working producers out there.
Starting out as a Dj and artist in his own right, Diplo (Thomas Wesley Pentz) has graduated to producer and cool name to drop for everyone from Beyonce to Britney, Kanye, Robyn, Thom Yorke and Madonna.
At the moment you would probably recognise his music in Beyonce’s ‘Girls (Who Run The World)’ which samples his Major Lazer project with Dj Switch.
Here are a few of his finest moments below. Watch and be impressed and surprised. Major Lazer’s second album drops later this year, the first one is an e2 favourite….
When Justin Vernon circled high above the other new acts in 2008 with his For Emma, Forever Ago album it was always going to be a difficult album to follow.
The debut album was recorded in a cabin in the woods and sounded like it. It was a desolate suite of poems full of longing and regret that charmed many a music lover into making it their favourite album of the year. After the EP that followed and subsequent work with Volcano Choir, heavyweights like Kanye finally noticed and the name of Bon Iver became one to watch.
The wait for a follow-up is now over and Friday 17th sees the new album appear and it sounds even better than the first so far. Here is a taster…
With the news of Prince playing Malahide castle on 30th July, it caused a whole lot of enquiries with us for tickets. ‘What?!?’ they said – ‘€135! – I’m not paying for that! Who does he think he is?’ Of course, that was just for the best seats in the house, the regular ones are just €89.50. But is he worth the cash in these hard times?
Admittedly, in a 35 year career, 20 of those years are probably best forgot. Anything after Diamonds & Pearls – the Jevoha’s Witness years, the hip replacement years, whatever you want to call them, he’s hardly been at his creative peak for a while. But DJ, can I get a rewind on that clock back to 1988? When you compare him to his contemporaries, Michael Jackson and Madonna, he was more cutting edge back then and a lot more versatile. Back in the day, Prince could play every instrument amazingly well, write timeless songs and sing and dance like the funky devil possessed him – all at the same time! It’s said that he has a vault of thousands of songs that he has never released from that creative high time and that he constantly recorded as he only needed 3 hours of sleep at night. Could Michael and Madge really play an instrument? We still don’t know the answer to that as we’ve never seen it.
Due to copyright reasons we can’t post his videos here but just look at this body of work and ask yourself the question, is Prince worth it? We think so.
It’s almost half way through the year, where does that time go? It’s been a pretty good year so far with Lykke Li, Gruff Rhys, Fleet Foxes, Jonny, Metronomy, Panda Bear, Foo Fighters, James Blake, Deerhoof, Keren Ann, Siriusmo, Mogwai and probably a few others I’ve forgotten. Anyway, here is the list for the next few months….
20/5/2011
Amon Tobin – Isam
Thurston Moore – Demolished Thoughts (Produced By Beck)
Aerosmith – Tough Love: Best Of The Ballads
Pete & The Pirates – One Thousand Pictures
Art Brut – Brilliant Tragic
Prodigy – Worlds On Fire: Live: Includes Blu-ray
Kate Bush – Directors Cut
Lady Gaga – Born This Way: Deluxe Edition
27/5/2011
Andrea Corr – Lifelines: Bonus Dvd
Journey – Eclipse
6/6/2011
Arctic Monkeys – Suck It & See
Tom Vek – Leisure Seizure
Dr Dre – Detox
My Morning Jacket – Circuital
Battles – Gloss Drop
Iron Maiden – From Fear To Eternity: 2cd
13/6/2011
Neil Young – A Treasure
Pitbull – Planet Pit
Paul Simon – So Beautiful Or So What: Deluxe Edition: Includes Dvd
20/6/2011
Bon Iver – Bon Iver
Patrick Wolf – Lupercalia
27/6/2011
Arcade Fire – Scenes From The Suburbs Includes Dvd
Beyonce – 4 (Four)
22/8/2011
Professor Green – At Your Inconvenience
12/9/2011
Cher Lloyd – New Album Out Soon
26/9/2011
Pink Floyd – Dark Side Of The Moon 2011 Immersion Boxset: Bonus 2 Dvd And 1 Blu-ray: 3cd
7/11/2011
Pink Floyd – Foot In The Door The Best Of Pink Floyd
2/2/2012
Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here 2011 Immersion Boxset: Bonus 2 Dvd And 1 Blu-ray: 2cd
And just remember kids, all dates are subject to change…..
As we are enjoying the new Beasties album so much we thought it would be a good excuse to go back through their finest moments.
It’s only when you start looking at their older tracks that you realise how much they have got through in their 25 year career. From naive white-boy, rock-rap through instrumental funk and all the way back to old-school hip hop, they have always been true to their roots and deserve respect for that. In today’s soulless, dancefloor hit-generating climate these grey-haired, cancer-battling ambassadors of hip hop can still manage to sound fresh and genuine whilst wearing their impeccable influences firmly on their Adidas sleeves.
Who’d have thunk it in 1985? 3 white boys are keeping hip hop alive.
The new follow-up to Fleet Foxes’ 2008 self-titled debut, Helplessness Blues is on sale now in e2. We’ve had a week or so to soak in the new album and think it may be batter than the original. More upbeat and summery in style, it serves as an updated Simon & Garfunkel along with so many more influences from west coast hippy optimism to a little free jazz. Robin Pecknold has really cemented himself as one of today’s most crucial songwriters. The melodies are flowing like fine wine on a summer’s night with good friends to boot.
If you were in any doubt over this band, please check out the sample track below, Battery Kinzie.
Festival of the Fires is a rekindling of Ireland’s oldest recorded festival, Bealtaine. The dawn of May will see Ireland illuminated as the festival returns to the Hill of Uisneach and selected sites nationwide.
A cultural celebration on a national scale, the Festival’s epicentre is the Hill of Uisneach in Co. Westmeath.
In May 2010, 73 other sites & communities joined in the main Uisneach celebration, with 14 international fires also lit in solidarity. In 2011 the festival is to grow, with a full weekend of celebrations planned. Acts confirmed so far are THE SAW DOCTORS – KÍLA – REPUBLIC OF LOOSE – PADDY CASEY – MUNDY – LIAM O’MAONLAI (Hothouse Flowers) agus RÓNÁN Ó’SNODAIGH (Kíla) - PREACHER’S SON – THE AFTERMATH – THE RIPTIDE MOVEMENT - BI-POLAR EMPIRE – PETE COURTNEY – JUKEBOX GYPSY – TOUCH THE EARTH - RONAN LEONARD – THE DG KELLY ORCHESTRA – THE REVELLEZ – JUNAH – KILL GOLIAT
Last year was just stunning, especially the fire ceremony at the end of the night. Don’t miss out! Get your tickets now from e2 Music Mullingar or Navan.
One song you are not likely to find on the shelves at E2 is the suspiciously-sounds-like-Justin-Bieber’s-Baby internet hit/miss Rebecca Black’s Friday. Not for reasons of taste but down to pure stupidity.
Charting the story to the start of every small-town girl’s weekend, Friday is a modern love letter to mediocrity. Girl finishes school on a Friday afternoon, girl meets up with her friends, one of which has the access to a parents car. The aforementioned friends, with girl, then meet with other teens in a car-park to ‘party’. That’s the new American verb of ‘party’ or ‘partaaay’ rather than the type with jelly and ice-cream. It’s hardly Pride & Prejudice. You’ve seen it a thousand times before on TV or if you are unlucky enough, in real life. In the case of the video on YouTube, you’ve seen it 76 million times before. Yes. 76 million times. This internet hit has subsequently become the most disliked video ever on the video site with almost 1.5 million dislikes.
As it’s gained so many hits in the space of about 6 weeks, Black (and surely now, her manager) better capitalise on this pretty quickly. She’s not on your radio yet and definitely not on your tv and hits come and go pretty quickly nowadays. Sandi Thom anyone?
With the news that Chris Martin’s wife – the perennial waif, Gwyneth Paltrow is set to release a country-pop album at some point, it makes you think of all the other stars that have made attempts at crossing over from the silver screen to winning our ears over.
Acting god, Johnny Depp spent a brief time as a guitarist in the grunge-era band P and no-one really noticed. Memorably, dudester – Keanu Reeves was almost bottled stage at Glastonbury with his band Dogstar. Wide-eyed, christian hobbit, Elijah Wood runs his own record label. Boozy, fist-flailing antipodean Russell Crowe even has his own self-congratulatory named band Russell Crowe & The Ordinary Fear of God. The ever-radiant Scarlett Johansson who has released two, yes, two, fairly credible albums. The first, Anywhere I Lay My Head was a brave collection of mainly Tom Waits covers with a touch of Jesus and Mary Chain. Anyone who has the guts to cover Tom Waits is worth a listen anyway but these albums are clearly the work of someone with both good taste and a little bit of talent.
The list goes on, David Hasselhoff, Natalie Imbruglia, Don Johnson, Nicole Kidman, Juliette Lewis, Burt Reynolds, Stephen Seagal, Bruce Willis, John Travolta, Clint Eastwood and let us not forget Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner have all given us efforts with very mixed results. More often, bad than not.
Our clear winner though, is the dream girl of every guy with glasses, Zooey Deschanel, who has a charming, addictive voice and cute looks to die for. She has collaborated with musician, M Ward, under the name of She & Him for two albums of upbeat and very sincere and melodic 50s/60’s inspired kitch-pop that feature both covers and originals. E2 recommends heartily.
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