Katy Perry Releases New Song Roar Early After Leak

Due October 22, Perry's fourth album, "Prism", is the follow-up to the 2010 smash, "Teenage Dream", which sold more than 5 million copies worldwide. Checkout the song here.

Phoenix May Record With R. Kelly

(Radio.com) A band headlining practically every major American music festival in one summer tends to have thoughts on the circuit. Phoenix's cause for favoring Lollapalooza is admittedly "a very selfish reason," notes guitarist Christian Mazzalai. "A beautiful skyline, it's unbeatable."

Mazzalai's brother and fellow guitarist, Laurent Brancowitz, took it one step further. "The countryside gives me anxiety attacks," he explained, noting that most festivals put up fences to barricade you in. "It's a bizarre concept when you think about it."

Hours before Phoenix headlined the final night of Lollapalooza earlier this month (Aug. 2-4), Brancowitz (feeling very Zen) and Mazzalai spoke with Radio.com about how Michael Jackson influenced the video for "Trying To Be Cool," the possibility of working with Sofia Coppola (and others!), and why the phrase "mint julep testosterone" got its own t-shirt.

We also left the interview with a sneaking suspicion that the band is going to be recording something with R. Kelly really soon. Maybe.

Radio.com: You guys surprised everyone at Coachella by bringing out R. Kelly to perform a few songs. How did that come together?

Laurent Brancowitz: We just asked. We are big fans and we asked him in a very simple way and explained what we had in mind and he just said yes.

Christian Mazzalai: We wanted to do something special because it was our first big show for this album. The idea came to us one week before the show, very late. Before going onstage we always put on R. Kelly's music, which is very far from our music, but we love his art. So we created a mash-up between our music and his music. We sent it to him and he said yes. The funny part is he arrived late so we didn't see him before. We met him onstage. We didn't rehearse so there was a beautiful tension.

Radio.com: Are there any plans to record with him in the future?:

Mazzalai: Yeah, maybe. Maybe. [Lifts sunglasses and winks] Maybe. Maybe soon you will know. Maybe. more.

Coldplay Releasing New Song For Hunger Games: Catching Fire

(popmusiclife) Coldplay's new single, "Atlas", will be featured on the official soundtrack for the forthcoming film, "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire". The song will be available via iTunes and all digital retailers on August 26, ahead of the film's release on November 22.

"I have great respect and admiration for Coldplay, and we are thrilled with how well they have connected to the themes and ideas within the film," said Catching Fire director Francis Lawrence.

"Their unwavering passion and excitement for the project elevated the collaboration even further, and we can't wait to share this music with audiences around the world."

Coldplay frontman Chris Martin shared the lyrics to the new song by posting an image of a handwritten sheet with them on both Facebook and Twitter. Check it out here.

Jason Aldean Highlights Stadium Tour In Night Train Video

(Radio.com) Jason Aldean has been breaking countless records during his current summer stadium Night Train Tour. So what better way to immortalize it than in the music video for his current single "Night Train?"

The video, directed by Wes Edwards, gives an insider look to Aldean's current tour. From the merch stand being set up to fans arriving at the venue and Aldean slowly walking to the stage, the video sets up his nightly performance in great detail. As the lights dim and Aldean takes the stage to screaming fans, the video gives a glimpse at what Aldean sees each evening. Watch below:

Last month, Aldean headlined two shows at Boston's Fenway Park and broke attendance records for the venue. Both shows sold-out in minutes and surpassed Paul McCartney's previous record for a single-night concert and Dave Matthews for his two-night run in 2006.

That same month, Aldean performed a sold-out show at Chicago's Wrigley Field. Footage from that show (which included a surprise downpour) is featured in the "Night Train" video.

It's been a big year for Aldean overall. As music journalist Alan Light said in a recent Radio.com profile on Aldean, this year the Georgia singer "blew through being an arena headliner" and proved he can now handle stadium crowds. Watch the video and read more.

Frank Ocean and Tyler, The Creator Lead OFWGKTA Carnival Lineup

(Radio.com) This November, Odd Future's second annual OFWGKTA Carnival will be held in Los Angeles. Headlined by OF members Tyler, the Creator and Frank Ocean, with additional artists to be announced, the show is set to take place Nov. 9 at The Park @ LA Coliseum.

This marks Ocean's first show in America in quite some time. Besides his May performance at New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest, he's mostly been touring abroad. In June, he debuted three new songs in Germany during his international tour.

Back in February, Ocean announced that his album is under way. "It's another cohesive thing, bordering on a concept record again," he told BBC Radio 1. While we're not entirely sure what to expect, he did say that it will be a continuation of his last album Channel Orange.

"At the end of Channel Orange, there's 'Golden Girl' and it's this beach scene, and I kinda wanted to extend that feel into the next record all together, kinda make it that theme," he said. "I'm going to Bora Bora when I get back [to the U.S.]. I put a studio in my house. I'm gonna take it all to the beach and work for a few weeks." more on this story

Brett Eldredge Comes Full Circle On 'Bring You Back'

(Radio.com) "I want to tell you how special this night is," Brett Eldredge said during his album release party Tuesday (Aug. 6) at New York's Highline Ballroom. "I never had an album in my life and I've been dreaming of this day."

Surrounded by his family, friends and approximately 600 fans, Eldredge celebrated the release of his debut album, Bring You Back, with a slew of tracks off the LP and a montage of covers including Tupac, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and The Wallflowers. While the fans came for chart-climbing singles like "Don't Ya," Eldredge's eclectic choice of covers spoke a bit to what differentiates the charismatic country newcomer.

In an interview with Radio.com during release week, Eldredge explained how "One Mississippi," one of his favorite tracks on the LP, perfectly melds his love for country and soul music.

"'One Mississippi' is definitely a song that brings in the whole love I have for soulful music combined with country," he said, adding that Ray Charles also influenced the ballad. "I heard Ronnie Dunn growing up, I heard Brooks & Dunn and I loved his soulful vibe that he had. I love how he ties that in with country music but with a very rural lyric."

Another new song, "Mean To Me," shows off his skills as a songwriter who excels at tender tracks, despite his well-documented goofy side. Though its message is anything but casual, Eldredge explained that the track came to him nonchalantly while fiddling around on the guitar.

"I wanted to write a song telling someone, 'If I could mean half as much as you mean to me, that would be amazing,'" he said. "Just describing these wonderful things that are special in this world. 'If I could be the fire in your firefly. If I could be the name that changes yours. If I could be the faith that sets you free. The answer to your prayers.' The real special things in life. If I could be that, then I'd be what you mean to me."

Eldredge has come a long way since moving to Nashville seven years ago, and it shows on Bring You Back. more.

Haim Take On Sheryl Crow's Strong Enough

(Radio.com) The three Haim sisters have shown that they can tackle a Fleetwood Mac song (or two), and now the young pop group prove they got the muscles to lift one of Sheryl Crow's most famous ballads.

"Strong Enough", off Crow's debut album Tuesday Night Music Club, is almost two decades old now, and Este, Danielle, and Alana do it justice by keeping the song's shape and adding a little more groove to the mix. Listen to the song above, via Australia's Triple J Radio.

Haim will release their debut album Days Are Gone September 30th via Columbia records, featuring the previously released singles "Falling" and "Don't Save Me." Listen to their slinky new single "The Wire", plus check out the album art and 2013 tour dates with Mumford & Sons and Phoenix here.

KT Tunstall Enlisted 'Maverick Desert Punk' To Create New Album

(Radio.com) There are two sides to KT Tunstall, both of which make their way onto her new album Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon. Recorded in the Arizona desert, Tunstall teamed up with local Tucson resident Howe Gelb, from the alt-rock band Giant Sand.

The Scottish singer felt he could help her expand the pop sound that she had become known for, since her debut single "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" became a hit in 2006. "He's this Maverick desert punk, non-conformist and I come from a very formulaic pop song background, and it was such an interesting meeting of minds," she told Radio.com.

"The idea was to go over there and record straight over an old tape machine and just do live performances and see what happened," Tunstall continued. Feeling inspired, what happened was that she knocked a number of songs in a short burst of time.

"Suddenly we had this half an album's worth of material that I really felt confident about," she said. "It wasn't just material spilling out that was varied quality for me, it felt like it was strong material."

That material, however, embodies two distinct feelings, like side A and side B of a record (hence the split title). The first half takes on the laid-back atmosphere and ambiance that Gelb created in his desert studio, while the second half was penned after a tumultuous summer in which Tunstall's father passed away and her marriage of five years (to her drummer Luke Bullen) dissolved.

"Everything changed for me," she said. "I was almost a different person by the time I went out to do the second half." more on this story

N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton Turns 25

(Radio.com) N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton, which turned 25 this month and Radio.com's Matthew Ismael Ruiz looks back on the album's impact in the latest edition of Not Fade Away:

Twenty-five years ago, N.W.A.'s manager Jerry Heller walked into the label chairman Joe Smith's office at Capitol Records and played him the group's debut LP Straight Outta Compton. Smith told him he should stop getting high.

Smith admitted that he loved the name of the record label that Heller had started with Los Angeles drug dealer Eric "Eazy-E" Wright: Ruthless. But as Heller said in 2006, Smith was incredulous that he hoped to release the album on his label. "You're trying to tell me somebody's gonna listen to this, or play it, or buy it?" he said. "The day that happens, I'll retire."

Though his words seem laughable now, in the late '80s, when Ruthless was a nascent startup with only a few releases to its name, gatekeepers like Smith (who retired in 1993) decided which records would even get the chance to be hits. Pre-Internet, grassroots communities could typically only support artists locally—if you wanted a crossover hit, you needed your record on the radio and a video on MTV. And there was no way that any commercial radio station was going to air a track like Straight Outta Compton's "F— Tha Police."

So when the group released their debut through Priority Records in 1988, they did so without radio airplay. They cut a video for the title track, which was promptly banned by MTV. Suburban parents were terrified. And then the FBI unwittingly gave them more exposure than they ever could have paid for. more.

Civil Wars New Album An Ode To Their Discord

(Radio.com) The Civil Wars new album was released last week, and in more ways than one it's an ode to John Paul White and Joy Williams' discord, unease and unknown.

It was regarded as a record that could potentially explain the strife that came between White and Williams, to help better understand why the duo had split. Williams had been vague about it in the few interviews she'd given, and White wasn't talking at all.

"It was similar in terms of the actual recording process," Williams recently told InStyle. "We wrote the songs together, recorded them in the same room, much like the previous project. This time around we wanted to really profess a sound sonically and lyrically and I think we did that despite the tension between us. The tension is very much in that sonically regarding harmony."

The duo's debut, Barton Hollow, was universally lauded. Though both came from different backgrounds — White the alt-rocker, Williams the Christian pop singer (the duo met at a Nashville writing camp in 2008) — their voices molded effortlessly, creating endearing harmonies and melodies with an onstage chemistry that made them as rewarding to watch as they were to listen to.

From a general standpoint, that first album spoke often of love and its effects. "C'est la vie, C'est la mort (Such is life, such is death) / You and me / Forevermore," they sang on "C'est la Mort." "Oh my, look what you have done / You're my favorite song," came the refrain of "Tip of My Tongue."

In interviews about The Civil Wars, Williams hinted that in order to find out what happened to the band, one need listen to the new record. Understandably, the consensus thereafter was that the album was riddled with clues to the demise, like it was a puzzle meaning to be solved. After all, the band wrote much of the record on the road last year, while the tension was hitting its peak. Afterward, at the urging of Rick Rubin (who co-produced the electric guitar fuzz of "I Had Me a Girl"), the duo hit the studio to record the album in a two-week period in September. more on this story

Kopecky Family Band Go Full Wes Anderson On Debut

(Radio.com) There's an oft-quoted and hotly debated line in the movie High Fidelty, when the main character (played by John Cusack) says, "I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like… Books, records, films – these things matter."

Some consider the sentiment to be trivial, but there's something in the idea of wearing your inspirations on your sleeve to let people know what you like. It's what the Kopecky Family Band did when they made their self-directed video for "Heartbeat."

"Heartbeat" is one of those songs that is one perfect ad-sync away from turning them into an earworm success band, like the Lumineers or Imagine Dragons (the New York Times suggests you check them out if you like Fleetwood Mac). You know the type, the band who you kind of heard of and then six months later you can't escape because it turns out that one song was just so damn catchy. The track marries lyrics about experiencing a creepy crush with a dark guitar chord and handclaps. So for the video, they naturally went the way of one of their personal inspirations: Wes Anderson.

"We love those movies," singer and bassist Gabe Simon told Radio.com. "They embrace a lot of ideas and things we talk about. And visually we've taken a lot from what he does and tried to put it into what we do when we create art."

And it's true. Anderson's effect on the Nashville band is obvious in more than just this single video, it's in the greater concept of the way they create music on their debut album, titled Kids Raising Kids, pulling in bits and pieces of the director's trademark soundtrack-style. Sonically they seem to share his affinity for the Rolling Stones during their '60s ABKO-era. While their lyrical sense of humor is more like the Kinks, a staple in Anderson's movies like 1999′s Rushmore and 2007′s The Darjeeling Limited. And thematically, with both Anderson and Kopecky, there is always hope — or in the case of the latter, "Hope" — which, in the worlds of both, can be a bittersweet thing. more on this story

Singled Out: Thomas Azier's Ghostcity

Today Thomas Azier tells us about the song "Ghostcity", which is the first single from his forthcoming debut album. Here is the story:

I wrote this song over a period of two weeks, mainly working by nights in the cold winter of 2012 in my city Berlin. I got the idea when I came home in the morning after a night working in the studio on my album. My black coat turned white in the heavy snowstorm that started on the way from the tram-station to my place. The streets were completely abandoned, no tourists, only an occasional city-fox crossing the street. It was morning, but the sun never really rises in the winter, you just see a shadow in a grey sky. I lived in a really rough apartment and the shower didn't work anymore. I turned on the water to fill my bathtub. That's when I got the main idea for Ghostcity.

The heavy synth groove entered my mind almost the same time as the title of the track. I demo'd the track pretty fast on my computer. Since my sleep rhythm was so messed up I worked the following nights on the track and slept during the days. To get inspiration for the lyrics I put the song on my phone and listened to it while I walked through the now. The streets were literally ice and it was hard to walk. I used the city-fox that I encountered around my block in the lyrics: 'Different shadows always following me, The city-foxes are controlling the streets'.

It started to make sense. I compared the city in the song with a violent femme fatal. I imagined her with a leather jacket, suicide lipstick and an untraceable foreign accent. I wanted it to sound like a futuristic abandoned East Berlin.

That's why after I finished writing the song I took the demo to the GDR factory where me and sound designer Robin Hunt own a studio. We started recording the natural reverbs of the factory halls and some of the machines we found in the abandoned building. The heavy drum breaks are Robin's work. He was hitting all these machines with an iron pipe while I was recording it. This completed the dystopian post-apocalyptic vision I had of Ghostcity.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the album right here!

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