Lifehouse’s fifth studio album, Smoke & Mirrors, comes out today. With Smoke & Mirrors lead singer/guitarist Jason Wade, drummer Ricky Woolstenhulme Jr., bassist Bryce Soderberg and newly added guitarist Ben Carey, along with long time producer Jude Cole, have created a set that combines their live sound with great record making. Smoke & Mirrors started out with a mission to capture the live, rock side of the band; a sound they had perfected after three years of solid touring. Songs like “Smoke & Mirrors,” “Wrecking Ball” and “Had Enough” (with guest vocals by Chris Daughtry) have a very raw and stage driven feel to them. However, after living with the early tracks and experimenting with others, a piece of the puzzle seemed to be missing.
Equal to their enthusiasm for the live sound, they also love to make studio records. After all, one of Lifehouse’s greatest achievements is the tens of millions of radio spins garnered over the span of 4 albums, so to create a record solely focusing on the sound from their show felt off balance.A trip back into the studio to experiment in more of a ‘record making’ effort produced tracks like “All In,” “Here Tomorrow Gone Today” and the first single “Halfway Gone” co written by Kevin Rudolf (Let it Rock). Songs sure to be heard on radio for years to come.
Now I have had the album in my hands for the week. And I have listened to it pretty much the whole time. I love that the album has a bit of everything. My favorite songs are “Nerve Damage”, which is the rock that I remember from them and “From Where You Are”, a love song that reminds me of a past song that I love “Everything”. In this album you can tell they were experimenting more. And I think they pulled it off quite nicely. To get your copy of the album in the Standard or Deluxe version go here.
To kick off the album release I have an amazing giveaway, an AUTOGRAPHED Smoke & Mirrors CD/Poster Pack. Here are the rules: The contest is open to residents of the US and Canada (except where prohibited by law) and you must be over the age of 18. You must have a valid email or I can’t contact you to say you have won. I will not use your email for any other reason besides contacting you if you are a winner. Leave all answers in the comments below with your email address. The contest will close next Tuesday, March 9th at midnight.
Here is what you need to do. Leave your name and email below with your favorite Lifehouse song. I can’t wait to see the answers and good luck.
UPDATE: This contest is now closed. Thank you for all your entries and the winner will be contacted through email.
I have been dying to be able to talk about OneRepublic’s new album Waking Up that is out today! So here I go…I got an advance copy of the album last week and I have to admit that I haven’t stopped listening to it. I am pretty sure everyone has heard me have it on repeat.
Waking Up, recorded in OneRepublic’s hometown Denver, is the band’s most sweeping, cinematic effort to date, with even more strings and movie-like moments, thanks in part to the use of the same children’s choir and orchestra used by Batman and Edward Scissorhands composer Danny Elfman (with whom Ryan Tedder has shared ideas). Plus, OneRepublichas recently added co-writer and bass and cello player Brent Kutzle to its lineup. “All he listened to before getting into this band was soundtracks,” Tedder says. “He can name every score and soundtrack guy from the last 15 years.”
My favorite songs off the new album are definitely All This Time and All The Right Moves. Especially with All This Time it talks about how someone was always in love with this one person, and how all this time it was them they were supposed to love. (I’ve listened to that song the most.)
This for sure has to be my favorite album of there year. You can get it on iTunes right now by following this link.
Ryan Tedder says his best work with OneRepublic is ahead of him, and he’s more inspired than ever. He practically speaks in lyrics these days. “Music is my life,” he says, “and songs are my currency.”
Serabee is releasing her new EP tomorrow November 10th. I have talked about Serabee before. She has an amazing sound that you haven’t really heard yet. I think that it will get her far. I’ve listened to the whole EP and I love it. I will be buying it tomorrow!
My two favorite songs on the EP were Driving Me Stupid and The Rest Of Me. I love how she sings about how in love you can get…how it can make you feel like you are crazy. And with her soulful and upbeat love songs you are sure to be able to relate to her.
There’s no doubt Serabee’s nomadic musical instincts fan the flames on the fiery self-titled debut. Note perfect and a helluva’ lot of fun, she’s a soul siren who’s not afraid to let loose in ways almost forgotten on contemporary records tempered by auto-tune. Also known for her emotive, uplifting auditions, it was the piano-tinged romp she put on for the executives at Universal republic that would ultimately seal the deal.
“I guess I’ve never been afraid to show what I’ve got,” she smiles, slyly reverting to that wry lyric on “The Rest Of Me”: /’Who cares what I look like under this dress./ I know that you will be impressed….you’ll love the rest of me…’ “
The truly amazing feat is that she was able to pour such an undeniable essence into every groove of her new EP.
I am an avid reader and right now I’m reading, The Mortal Instruments Series. I’m almost done the second book but feel heartbroken about the characters so I must admit that I haven’t been reading as much as I used to.
I had heard about Nightlight by The Harvard Lampoon a couple weeks ago and how it was a parody of Twilight. I know that when I was reading it I had some silly questions about the characters. The book finally came out today and on the EW website they posted a chapter of it.
The main character is Belle and she is moving from Phoenix to where her dad lives, Switchblade. And the main character that she falls in love with is a computer geek named, Edwart. I have to say that I read through the first chapter quite quickly laughing and getting stares at the other people in my house. Here is my favorite excerpt from the first chapter.
It was then that I saw him. He was sitting at a table all by himself, not even eating. He had an entire tray of baked potatoes in front of him and still he did not touch a single one. How could a human have his pick of baked potatoes and resist them all? Even odder, he hadn’t noticed me, Belle Goose, future Academy Award winner.
A computer sat before him on the table. He stared intently at the screen, narrowing his eyes into slits and concentrating those slits on the screen as if the only thing that mattered to him was physically dominating that screen. He was muscular, like a man who could pin you up against the wall as easily as a poster, yet lean, like a man who would rather cradle you in his arms. He had reddish, blonde-brown hair that was groomed heterosexually. He looked older than the other boys in the room — maybe not as old as God or my father, but certainly a viable replacement. Imagine if you took every woman’s idea of a hot guy and averaged it out into one man. This was that man.
”What is that?” I asked, knowing that whatever it was it wasn’t avian.
”That’s Edwart Mullen,” Lululu said.
Edwart. I had never met a boy named Edwart before. Actually, I had never met any human named Edwart before. It was a funny sounding name. Much funnier than Edward.
I can’t wait to get the whole book and read and giggle through the whole thing! I hope they end up writing all the books. I know there is a couple of the characters like Dr. Cullen and Emmett and how they would make them really funny.
Orphan is now out on DVD & BluRay. I watched the movie yesterday and I have to say that I was very impressed. I was on the edge of my seat through the whole thing. I was very glad it was during the day because I was freaking out. And the twist in the movie…I wasn’t expecting it at all. Get it on Blu-ray, DVD, On Demand & Digital Download on October 27th. You can also get it at the WBShop.com here.
The movie has two really strong characters….the girl that plays Esther, Isabelle Fuhrman, and the little girl that plays her sister, Max, Aryana Engineer, I was crying for little Max through the movie! It also stars Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard.
The synopsis goes like this: Tragedy seems to follow nine-year-old Esther. She was orphaned in her native Russia. Her last adoptive family perished in a fire Esther barely escaped. But now the Coleman family has adopted her, and life is good. Until a classmate takes a serious fall from a slide. Until an orphanage nun is battered to death. And until Esther?s new mom wonders if that tragic fire was an accident. From Dark Castle Productions comes Orphan, bringing stunning new twists to the psychological thriller and locking audiences in a tightening vise of mystery, suspicion and terror. You?ll never forget Esther. So sweet. So intelligent. So creative. So disturbed. Check out the official site here.
