ÁTM-Music

 On March 20th, CMT aired a documentary about the start and origins of the country band, Midland . The 45-minutes-long documentary films the band back in 2014, when they decided to leave everything and spend 11 days on the Sonic Ranch music studio to record some songs they had been writing. The idea of being a band was not formed yet :they weren't even signed. It was more like a three friends' reunion after living in different parts of the country for years, far from each other. The result of those recordings is The Sonic Ranch , which starts with one of the band's best songs, Fourteen Gears . It was previously included on their second album, Let it Roll . It's an on-the-road love letter and it paves the way for a more calm and placid sound. The band leaves all the risk and debauchery of their image as the 21st Century Honky Tonk American Band to get into this pleasant journey of tunes.They also leave all the cheating songs and focus on a deeper search of love and trust...

 Italian artist Irama presented La genesi del tuo colore for 2021's San Remo festival, the biggest Italian music contest. It scored the fifth position, even with covid-19 difficulties:A member of his staff tested positive and Irama and his team had to cancel the rest of the performances and be in lockdown. Irama could just perform the song once and the clip was repeated in the following nights. The song is illustrative of these times and of 2020, especially. Here's why it represents everything we have lived and we're living with the pandemic: 1. The Lyrics:  The lyrics are truly poetic, from the beginning. The song was described by Irama as 'an anthem to life' and that's what is shown throughout the whole piece. Life triumphs in each verse: 'There won't be no snow to break a tree' the tracks states in its first words.There is no better symbol of life than nature and a tree fighting for life, to spring, and life is going to make through in spite of ev...

The Grammys ceremony was celebrated yesterday. Let's comment the winners list! The first awards given were for the technical ones and for the minor genres. The first important award was Music video of the year , given to Beyoncé, WizKid and Blue Ivy's Brown Skin Girl. It was the first of the night for the Beyoncé and the first one for WizKid and Blue Ivy, included as writer of the song. Her participation is 'singing/talking' the chorus twice. She is the second youngest winner. Beyoncé won 4 Grammys yesterday. With a total of 28 Grammys, she is crowned the vocalist with more grammys in history. It's funny how the Academy keeps on blessing her so hard when she and Jay-z have disregarded and mocked the awards. The same happens with Kanye, who won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Album . If Kanye tries, he can make fun of the Grammys again and win one  next year. For years, winning a grammy was the peak for an artist, who had worked so hard to get there and th...

 Zara Larsson published her long-awaited second album last Friday. After some years dropping singles, her second chapter is out.  The album begins with the underrated Love Me Land , released in July. It is the best introduction to the record: It introduces you to a dreamy universe, with Zara's powerful vocals and a pure bet for Dance-pop and Electropop.  However, the second track breaks that magic. It's pop-R&B and it counts with the feature of Young Thug, as a commercial appeal (like the Ty Dolla $ign feature on her previous album). Talk About Love isn´t bad but the album creates a universe in the start that should have been preserved. Alongside WOW and Ruin My Life , these feel the most american songs, with trapbeats and mixing it with R&B. They completely separate from the rest.  The third song is an UK potential hit and it includes a choral part in the chorus, like Dua Lipa's IDGAF or Levitating . The truth is that the record has stellar pop moments, li...

Frequently presented as an indie Pop/ R&B duo from Birmingham, Beorma consists of Tom and Ferns, who connected musically during lockdown and started to make music together. The result is the EP  Virtual Emotionality,  in which they touch common problems of the youth of today, from mental health to the internet and the complexity of Modern Day relationships. Their latest single, Woman,  which is out today to coincide with International Women's Day, addresses feminism. Tom's spoken word part  reflects on how women's use of their body in social media is seen in our society, pointing out that men 'only seem to enjoy (...) if the woman is not consenting' and the consequent incongruity and double-standard between men and women.  Fern's delicious and soothing vocals come as an answer to that hipocrisy ,claiming respect towards controlling men, who think that women choosing independence is going to weaken their position in a relationship. Virtual Emotionality ...

 In 2018, John Mayer released the song New Light.  The track, with 80s influences and great synths, sounded funky pop and different to his previous work. As he said on Twitter, he had some disagreements on the budget for the music video. The final result was a funny video shot completely by Fatal Farm on greenscreen using common images and enjoying John's sense of humor.  Jeffrey Max of Fatal Farm, director and creator of the video,  took some time to chat about the making of the video and the inspiration behind it: What inspired you for the video? How the song inspired to create the music video? 'John approached us with the idea of a "mall kiosk" style video. The kind of novelty video that anyone could walk up and pay for. He knew he wanted to do the whole thing on greenscreen and let us just find the best moments in the edit. The song is a reflection on getting older and changing, but the video idea seemed very rooted in the sloppiness of youth. That juxtaposition ...

 After her hit, I Hope You're Happy Now (ft. Lee Brice), which made her win a CMA Award, Carly Pearce is back with an EP of 7 songs. The first single of the project was Next Girl , written by Josh Osborne, Shane McAnally and Carly hersef. It is uptempo, fast and funny , with some clever lines referencing her ex songs' lyrics and with a teaching effort to warn the 'next girl' . Inspired by women of country (Reba, Patty Loveless...), the song is a cool breeze to mainstream country and brings back some bluegrass touch that connects with Carly Pearce's childhood and origin of her love for the country music genre.  The rest of the songs of the EP remain much sadder, focusing on heartbreak from a thoughtful perspective, like in the title track, where she thinks about the year 29, when your life is usually on track, you're young and, at the same time, closer to reach certain maturity. The percussive  Messy talks about the difficulty of moving on, as Day One does too. ...

 Dua Lipa released on February 11th the reedition of her second album 'Future Nostalgia', called 'Future Nostalgia: The Moonlight Edition'. The world was expecting some tracks to dance to, but, when the tracklist was revealed, something changed. Dua lipa decided to include a bunch of bonus tracks that sum up her latest collaborations, from Fever (ft. Ángele) to One Day (ft. JBalvin and Bad Bunny).  Ángele's collab already was far from the album concept, being much darker and far from the disco influences. The Miley Cyrus collab is probably the most similar to the Future Nostalgia record, both remembering the 80s. However, what's the reason for including One Day on the record? A pop-reggaeton track, with no references to the 80s, no disco vibes. The inclusion of these collaborations has made the reedition rely on other people names and it makes you think that they had to search songs to fill the record. The reedition also includes some new songs and the single, W...

 For his new album, 'vague a l'ame', Hatik has released three singles, the super rap 'sans titre' and 'crashtest', betting on rap lyricism. The third single, 'mer', premiered last week, doesn't search the emotion, the intensity in the rap verse, but in the feelings on the chorus ('Je traverserais la mer pour retrouver ton regard' (I would cross the sea to find your look)). The track, produced by his usual composer, Medeline, uses synths, adding the 80s influence that has been spinning around this year in pop music and that gives dinamism to it, making it properly pop.  The single was performed by Hatik at Les Victoires de la Musique, the most popular and important awards of the French music scene, where Hatik was nominated to Best New Artist in the male category. He didn't took home the award, so did Hervé. Hatik sings to Angela again, as he did in his hit with the same title. In fact, the girl who appeared on Angela 's video and ...

Back in October, the chancellor Rishi Sunak suggested that ' musicians and others in arts should retrain and find other jobs' . These generated a deserved reaction from music artists, ruined by the pandemic and the impossibility of doing live concerts . As Tim Burge ss properly said for The Guardian ' Sunak didn’t seem to take into account (...) that musicians and actors have been working other jobs for years – as baristas, chefs, roadies, graphic designers or bartenders, and in so many roles in the ironically named “gig” economy – to fill the time between, well, gigs'.  That is what Coventry singer and songwriter, YNES dennounces in her new song, 'Better Job'. The track sounds punk and , maybe,  there is no better genre for battling disappointment and impotence, asking for help for an industry that annually collects millions, but which is now defenceless, much more since UK's government Brexit deal. The irritation and anger in YNES voice make you touch teen...