Shady Love (Clean) by Scissor Sisters Official

Ladies and ladyboys: It’s time to get a little shady!

Just minutes ago, disco-pop dance outfit Scissor Sisters premiered their brand new track on BBC’s Radio 1: “Shady Love” featuring Krystal Pepsy–otherwise known as the DJ duo between Sisters frontman Jake Shears & Jeremy Lingvall–and Azealia Banks, a rising 20-year-old NYC rapper (and one of the BBC Sound of 2012‘s more exciting shortlist picks.)

In true SS fashion, the boys (and girl!) have gone and tweaked their sound ever-so-slightly again. Most notably? There’s rapping! That’s right–Jake Shears is spittin’ it quick in the verses (who thought he’d ever be a spitter?), sounding like a cross between Cazwell and Justin Timberlake: “She gon’ vote for Obama and she likes to dance to Madonna/Chops it like Benihana, so mm mmm, mm mmm!” Shears freestyles alongside Banks.

The Boyz Noise-produced song also sees the group moving away from the ’70′s-encrusted Studio 54 stomp of their 2010 studio masterpiece Night Work and moving into the 21st century with thick, gritty House synthesizers and frantic electronica. Fear not: The glittering melodies are still pure disco realness, but the sound is something much more eclectically electric. Oh, and that mini sitar breakdown about 3 minutes in? Just wicked!

Just as quickly, the group also premiered the official video for the track on NME this morning, which is more or less the kind of fierce performance piece I used to dream about staging as a wee gay boy in middle school–flashing lights, confetti and all. Get it!

What a way to kick off 2012! I’m loving the new sound so far. Now bring on the fourth Sisters effort!

“Shady Love” premiered on Radio 1 on January 2. (iTunes)

For those of us who have been following Simon Curtis from the very early days of his career, RA is a pretty big deal.

Read more…

Sounds like: Justin Timberlake, Timbaland
Genre: Urban pop, R&B, electro-pop

Ten-HUT!

Meet Talay Riley, a 20-year-old UK artist signed to Jive Records.

Back in the summer of 2010, Riley released his debut single, “Humanoid.” Like the bulk of 2010 (or really, the latter half of the decade), Riley’s debut is a sexy, electro-pop stomp affair. “Humanoid” is riddled with robot talk and future speak, complimented further by Auto-Tune robo-vocals and slinky, urban pop beats.

Now, the singer is about to unleash his second single: “Sergeant Smash,” a mid-tempo groove that plays like the 2011 upgrade to the Timbaland sound that dominated the mid ’00′s. “I’ll break you off a little somethin’, have you going crazy,” Riley announces above the song’s horn-heavy, militant beat. Add in a drum line and a few rallying cries, and you’ve got yourself a proper pop battle. HOOAH!

Check below to hear a mix of “Sergeant Smash,” featuring London-based rapper Wretch 32, now streaming in full!

Talay Riley is currently in the midst of recording his debut album, due out later in 2011. The album will feature production by the likes of Inflo1st (a member of Ryan Tedder‘s writing circle), Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins and Harmony (a member of Darkchild’s writing circle).

Armed with a heavyweight production team and some truly killer beats, Talay Riley might just have the artillery to go hard this year. Forward…MARCH!

“Sergeant Smash” will be released on February 13. (Official Website)

That’s right. You heard me: “Control Myself” was a goddamn jam. Are you familiar? Yes/no? Let’s discuss.

Let me take you back a little–four years ago, to be exact. The year was 2006. It was a fine year: The Timbaland takeover was just at its glorious peak with Nelly Furtado‘s Loose and Justin Timberlake‘s FutureSex/LoveSounds (prior to total market over-saturation), Suri Cruise survived a crash landing from space, and this little Muuser was preparing to graduate from high school and flee his hometown (where he ironically now finds himself once again upon graduating college in 2010). Fuck.

But before all that, another thing happened in 2006, and that was the February release of professional licker of lips LL Cool J‘s twelfth studio album, Todd Smith. From that album came a certain single: “Control Myself,” featuring Jennifer ‘Jello’ Lopez and Jermaine Dupri (not credited on actual song, therefore irrelevant).

While I’m always quick to call a song “underrated,” it turns out that “Control Myself” actually pulled some impressive chart numbers (and even broke a record!) upon its release–something I didn’t realize until a quick perusal through the track’s Wikipedia page. And so the Lord proclaimed:

It was released as the album’s lead single in February 2006 and remained on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for three weeks, peaking at number eighty-nine. After being released as a digital download in April 2006, the song debuted at number two on the Billboard Hot Digital Songs chart and made a strong Hot 100 re-entry at number four. This broke a record previously held by Jay-Z’s 1998 song “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)”, which had re-entered the chart in March 1999 at number twenty.

Fascinating.

But back to the song: It is very good. There are many reasons why it is so good, but perhaps one of the most important is that delicious beat.

…Not that it’s an original beat. Oh lord, no. It’s actually a sample of an incredible ‘before its time’ number, the 1983 Afrika Bambaataa song, “Looking For The Perfect Beat.”

There’s also the song lyrics, which are unstoppably fantastic. While Mr. Cool J’s lyrical lusciousness makes my panties moist throughout, my all-time favorite moment comes in right around the two minute mark: “She licked awf huh lip glaws / Huh hips tawsed, back and fawth.” (At least, that’s how it sounds to me.) MMPH.

Then there’s this genius moment as the song is coming to an end where it seems every songwriter involved with this song suddenly threw their hands in the air and proclaimed “Well, alright then! I’ve done all the rhyming I could possibly do! Let’s just–I don’t know–LET’S JUST SAY WHATEVER COMES TO MIND NEXT.”

And what sprung from that momentary lapse in creativity was the greatest string of non-English lyrics/syllables of all time: “Zuh, zuh, zuh, zuh, zuh, zuh, zuh, zuh, zuh, zuh.”

Inspiring and provocative.

And last, but certainly not least, there’s the song’s accompanying video, directed by Hype Williams.

It is also amazing, and no doubt a crucial piece of the overall amazing-ness of the song. While Mr. Ladies Love plays it Cool J rapping under a wide-brimmed baseball cap, J-Lo remains fresh to death posing in front of a mirror while donning those knee-high boots and whippin’ her hurr. The wide-screen ‘double video’ effect is both dizzying and cool.

As a member of what some media thinkers/shriveled prunes might dub as ~the instant gratification MTV generation~, I must say it’s quite nice to be bombarded with so many sexy things in my face at one time without being allowed even a second to process what the fuck is being presented in front of me.

All together, “Control Myself” is a spicy, saucy affair–one entirely worthy of both (a) pussy poppin’ and (b) booty shakin’.

And that is why “Control Myself” is an amazing song. I thank you for your time.

So everyone and their estranged god-mother may be getting their tits out about Kitty Purry‘s salacious sex romp on Sesame Street as of late, but it’s this magical moment from speed metal trio N*Sync that’s got my full attention.

In what is perhaps the most important television moment since the staged landing on the moon, watch as professional actor Justin Timberlake and various frosted-tipped, closeted men awkwardly lip-synch in front of some young furry puppets (as well as the characters of Sesame Street.)

In a word: Inspiring.

Thanks for posting this one on my wall, Muuser Michael.

How can you become the best at anything? The way you do it is you just try to kill it every time.

Natalia Kills is a very new kind of radio killer.

Starting with the release of her murderously good buzz single at the end of 2009, “Zombie,” the soon-to-be superstar began capturing new fans left and right with her noir-gone-glam style and urban-meets-dance sound, immediately awarding herself the title of “Most Anticipated of 2010″ here at MuuMuse.

Now, with her self-produced, self-directed “Love, Kills XX” web series (check out the fifth installment, which just premiered yesterday), the singer has prepared herself a unique platform to introduce herself, her creative vision, and her music to the world.

As one of Cherrytree/Interscope’s newest artists on the brink of debut (with an album to be released in the fall), Kills was nice enough to chat with me on the phone last Friday about her background, as well as providing plenty of hints for what’s to come.

Check out our full conversation below to learn more about Natalia’s influences, ambitions, and plans for world domination. And yes–she’s deadly serious about all of it.

Hey Natalia! How are you?

I’m fine, thank you. How are you?

I’m doing great. You’ll have to forgive me. I’m getting over a bit of a cold, so my throat’s kind of scratchy today.

No problem! I hope you feel better.

Oh, thank you! So, you are, of course a very new artist under Cherrytree. I was wondering how you ended up under the label?

Actually, it was quite a while ago. Basically, I’m from England and I made a demo and put it on the internet in 2008. Perez Hilton blogged about me and I got all of this buzz. One of my songs got two million plays in a very short period of time. So, I went to L.A. and had kind of been going for a while hoping to make some contacts and follow my dreams–you know how a lot of people go to Hollywood to make it and such. So I went back to L.A. and I met a lot of people, but it wasn’t that hard to know if you go with Will [Will.I.Am].

I met with labels and a lot of other producers and artists: Timbaland, Justin Timberlake and just many people that had a really creative connection with Will. He signed me to Interscope. He has a label at Interscope and one of the labels I had actually met with that I was very excited about was Cherrytree at Interscope. So, once I signed with Will to Interscope, he has a really good relationship with Martin Kieszenbaum, who runs Cherrytree and is the head A&R of Interscope International and we kind of navigated my project back to there while Will was on the road with the Black Eyed Peas

Would you say that the image or narrative that you’re projecting right now is something that you started out with when you were searching for labels–the whole persona of Natalia Kills?

No, it’s definitely been an evolution. It’s definitely been a growing process. When I made my demo, it was actually called Wommanequin. It was under my real name, Natalia Cappuccini, and the whole thing was about searching for perfection. Being a girl; a mannequin being the perfect female form as a woman. So, I definitely started with the idea. My album is called Perfectionist. It’s literally the next step up from that demo; that idea. So, that idea hasn’t changed.

Developing who I am and making it more obvious was the first thing I was really encouraged to do once I was signed. You know, “Black Eyed Peas”–it says something. It’s a group. There are groups out there like The Knife, and certain words are very easy and invoke a certain feeling so that fans immediately identify. I thought to myself, in this quest for perfection and this great life and everything, “What do I want to do? How can you become the best at anything?” The way you do it is you just try to kill it every time. So, the label said “Maybe that’s what your name should be,” and I stuck with Natalia Kills.

I can see all of the influence that channel into the image because you have a sort of Tumblr style website with different pictures and quotes that inspire you and there’s of course the “Love, Kills XX” series. What sort of influences or references inspired the series?

I’ll give you a really small background of how I got into the film making. Basically, before I decided to do music, when I was quite a bit younger I was 14, I was doing a lot of acting. And you know a lot of creative people slide in and out of music, acting, and theater because it’s all a kind of system of being an expressionist. You have to express. You have to perform. So, I was doing that before I realized that music was what I really wanted to pursue.

I was on all of these sets learning lines and seeing how it was really done for years, and I have learned to a certain degree how it works. You write the script, you write the characters, you find locations, you find a director, you find a producer. and you make the show. So, when I was actually signed to the label they said “Look, I know you’re into all of this [Alfred] Hitchcock, [Stanley] Kubrick sort of stuff. But how are you going to translate that to people? What you need to do is be on the internet and make a diary or talk to the camera while going to the studio.” And I said that was silly to me, because I didn’t really want to be talking to the camera like “Yo, guys! I’m in the studio!” That’s not who I am. That’s not what I like.

So, I said “Well, how about the fans really get to know me through film?” They get to see me being me, but in almost imaginary and extraordinary situations. I’m writing, producing and co-directing it, so really, they’re getting a full-on take of my imagination, and that’s how they get to know me. Not just by seeing this Natalia Kills running around being a femme fatale maniac. They also get to see exactly what I think about, exactly how I feel by me writing all of this and actually directing it and making it real.

So, that’s kind of the general idea of the show, and we’re going to have twenty episodes. I’ve done most of them, but obviously you have to wait until they come out once a week. I’m very glad people are responding to it because it basically brings a very direct and visual impact to show people what it’s about instead of just pictures and interviews or whatever. It’s a different level of entertainment.

Are they leading up to something? Will there be a single or album release when they’re all said and done?

Yes, absolutely. We finished the album and it’s been wonderful. The single will hopefully be going on air in the summer and building from there.

Oh, good! Because you released two buzz singles..

Well, it’s funny. They were really buzz singles. “Zombie” was the first song I even recorded for the record, but I do have a first official uptempo–could be played radio; could be played pop single.

I’m so creative that it’s hard for me to hold back and make people wait for so long, so it was really good that the label allowed me to officially leak a couple of the songs so that people could get a really good feeling. The first single won’t be either of those songs, but definitely in the same vein. Same sound, same style.

You also gave a little preview in the latest series of another song..

Yep, and that will continue to happen, actually. That will keep happening, but if it was up to me, I would want my music to go out into the world and want people to hear it. I would be playing full versions, but I definitely have to leave a bit of mystery so when people get the album there are surprises on it.

Who have you worked with on the album besides Will.I.Am?

I’ve worked with really incredible producers. I’ve worked with Jeff Bhasker. He’s done work on Kanye West’s last two records and the one that’s coming up. Alicia Keys and Jay-Z’s albums as well. He did “Zombie” and is very rhythmic, dark and creative. It’s a lot of fun.

I’ve worked with Akon, who is a wonderful person. I was kind of wondering how he’d be before I met him because I had no idea, and you see people all over TV and they have a certain sound of music. But, when I met him he was very intelligent and creative. I totally understand why he and Will.I.Am. have achieved the level of success that they have because they’re really, really, really good.

I’ve worked with Fernando Garibay and Cherry Cherry Boom Boom [Martin Kierszenbaum] who have worked with Lady Gaga on her new album that no one has heard. She’s working on it right now.

I’ve worked with Ron Feemster who worked with Dr. Dre for five years and Michael Jackson for four years. He was Michael Jackson’s protégé. Michael’s new album that no one has heard (and probably won’t hear now) was all done with Ron. He was looking for a new artist and project after the passing of Michael, and it was really wonderful to work with him. He’s phenomenal, and I believe he could probably change the world with his music. He’s excellent.

That’s a great mix of producers. It sounds like some different sounds all in one..

Yeah, but you know what? The best thing was I got into the studio with Jeff and he started playing away. I do this thing were I choose all the sounds, so we’re kind of musically creating the actual music together. Once we found the sound and all of the different synths and rhythms and stuff, I went to all of the other producers and said “The songs we make have to marry this. They have to out-do it, they have to undo it, they have to re-do it, they have to all be absolutely consistent.”

So, even though I’ve worked with a couple of people on my album, all of those sounds and all of those ideas are absolutely consistent and flowing one after the other. It doesn’t sound like a patchwork of different sound, one in pop, one in hip-hop, one is urban or whatever. It actually sounds almost like the same person might have done every song, but just taking it to another level.

Do you know at all when it will be released?

Yes. In fall, my album will be released while we’re still growing the first single over the summer. I’m very excited for my album to come out. I am.

A lot of my readers were tweeting “When does new music come out?! Finally!”

Yeah, I know! I really want everyone to hear the music! At least the through the webisodes I can kind of leak little snippets so that people are already familiar.

Final question: A lot of artists in the industry are being compared to the same artist: Lady Gaga. What would you say to critics who may try to compare you to Gaga?

I would say thank you for comparing me to someone creative and talented, and not somebody who relies on other people or other sides of the industry to manufacture who they are. That’s what I would say. Thank you very much.

Good answer!

Thank you! Feel better!

Thanks!

Bye.

Bye.

Special thanks to RJ Kozain for transcription assistance.

Click here to visit Natalia Kills’ official website. To hear more, click here to preview and purchase songs from Natalia Kills on iTunes.

Justin Timberlake is back on my radar (on my ray-duh).

This time however, he’s here to try and propel his latest protégé, YouTube sensation Esmée Denters, back into the spotlight once again.

For those who might not remember, Timberlake first signed the Dutch singer onto his label, Tennman Records, back in 2008. After recording with Timberlake and a host of other producers, Denters released her debut album, Outta Here, in Europe during the summer of 2009.

Unfortunately, her debut album didn’t achieve too much traction across the world (aside from her home country, hitting #5 on the charts)–but hey…persistence is a virtue, right? Or something like that.

The track is a light, refreshing electro jam, mercifully free from much of the Timberlake/Timbaland bells and whistles that began to clutter the radio during their 2006 to 2008 reign. (This may mostly have to do with the fact that the track was co-produced by the incredible Stargate.)

The song’s accompanying video, which was just released today, strikes me as an American take on the Cheryl Cole/Will.I.Am collaborations going on overseas right now with the whole pretty singer, annoying producer dynamic going on. It’s cute, simple…I like it, generally.

While I don’t know if this song will lift off in the States (though it ought to), I’m rooting for it nonetheless.

“Love Dealer” is the third single from Outta Here, and will be released on iTunes on May 4. Her debut album will be released later this summer in the US on Interscope Records.

After months of tempting and teasing his fans with song clips and lyric bits, Simon Curtis has finally unveiled his debut effort, 8Bit Heart.

8Bit Heart is a hard-hitting collection of cutting-edge pop hooks, catchy electronic noises and storming, dancefloor-ready synthesized beats that come together to celebrate the very essence of modern pop.

With the vocal chops recalling that of a young Darren Hayes and the smooth, slick flow and raw energy of Justin Timberlake, Simon Curtis has what it takes to be what he’s always sought after: the second coming of the modern male pop artist, upgraded and reprogrammed for the 21st century.

The entire album is available to download for free at his newly designed website, including hi-quality artwork from the campaign and full lyric sheets.

Someone sign this boy…and fast!