7 Day Download: Skyler Stonestreet
Friday, March 14th, 2008
Skyler Stonestreet began playing classical piano at the age of seven, and within a few years found a sound and writing style that branched out from her classical roots, and became a sound all her own. 
Her song “Always” was nominated by the LA music awards for the best female singer/songwriter of the year and her songs have also been in the BMI sampler for the Sundance Film Festival 2007 and on XM radio. Skyler’s songs have been featured on MTV’s Laguna Beach and on Lifetime’s new reality show Spotlight 25, and she is currently finishing up her full-length album. You can find out more about this extremely talented unsigned artist on her Myspace. -Gabriel Lemus
“What’s A Girl To Do?”
JunkMag is not the copyright owner of this piece of music; it is posted for promotional purposes and will be removed after seven days.
MGMT seems to be everyone’s new favorite band, and… well, I guess we’re no exception. It’s sort of like Klaxons-lite with all the charm of the happier moments of Lo-Fi-Fnk. And they’re cute, so. Duh.
Santogold’s “L.E.S. Artistes” is part Tegan & Sara and part Noisettes, with a bit of The Cars in the verse synths and chorus strumming. So pretty much it’s been on repeat around these parts for two days straight. I confess I haven’t done my homework on her – nor am I even sure if Santogold is the name of the band or the lady – all I know is that she’s dudes with MIA and Mark Ronson, and that all four songs on 
This is one of those difficult times where I completely trash a song and then feel bad about it later, but Natasha Bedingfield’s cover of Madonna’s “Ray of Light” is possibly the most godawful piece of trash and pop blasphemy of the 21st century thus far. It’s not her voice that’s the problem; the vocals are as impressive and unique and wonderfully stylized as always. But Bedingfield takes one of the most signature songs of one our very few obvious icons and attempts to make it her own. It’s just not happening. The stunning boredom induced by the watered-down punky drums. The fact that the original is the very definition of pop in 1998. It’s nearly impossible to do any justice to it, even if Bedingfield does have the better voice of the two.
Klaxons, however, delivered a completely straightforward re-make of Blackstreet’s “No Diggity” that makes me want to take off my clothes. Maybe it’s the fact that they put out one of my favorite albums of last year and I’d pretty much group marry them this afternoon if the opportunity presented itself, but I can see this track staying on repeat for another two hours, annoying my friends and neighbors. That’s all. I just love them. -Brad
On “She’s Makin’ Me Lose It” Blake manages to nab Prince, Chromeo, the Chemical Brothers, and even solo JC Chasez; mixing Megaman blips with heavy nineties synths and vocoded harmonies over a pretty tightly mapped beat. It gets a bit epileptic at times (there is such a thing as too many layers), but it’s never poorly done. This track is as mainstream pop as electro gets; it would be right at home on a 2007 ‘N Sync album. But you can’t deny that “Pop” made you shake, so bite the bullet and save this one too.
Jordin’s electro dalliance is also a mainstream one, though the verses are more Junior Boys than the big Stacey Orrico chorus. I love Jordin Sparks. She really seemed like the girl in high school who everybody knew and only one person hated, and that person was a bitch that nobody liked anyway. So I was glad she won last season, her voice is great (though not epic) and she definitely deserved to win over Blake, whose voice is an unremarkable Adam Levine knockoff. Jordin’s album has a few standouts among the ballad filler, “Young and in Love” being my favorite. I want more.
This song is Madonna’s “Burning Up” with a slightly different bassline. That said, Timbaland has gone and re-invented another one, and Ashlee Simpson should be thanking the Lord for his divine intervention and another shot at a singing career despite having scarce talent.
Kylie’s new album X is a schizophrenic mess of a collection that can’t really decide what it’s trying to be. There’s masterfully done 90s throwback R&B (“All I See”), supreme electro-pop (“In My Arms” and “Speakerphone”), cabaret funk (“2 Hearts”), and “Nu-Di-Ty,” a monster of a track: Gwen-like chanting and bendy tuned vocals over a hip hop beat reminiscent at times of her 1998 collaboration with Towa Tei, “German Bold Italic.” Most of the album is great pop music, exciting and experimental, but it’s very disjointed from track to track and the play order is off. Why is this track twelve? Why was “Rippin’ Up the Disco” ultimately left off the album but boring “Sensitized” included? While X isn’t quite unified, it’s a great sampler and “Nu-Di-Ty” is one of the standouts. -Brad
The album came out a full two seasons ago, but I just got around to listening to Good Charlotte’s Good Morning Revival, now that “Dance Floor Anthem” is inescapable. I remember when “Keep Your Hands off my Girl” came out and everybody thought the dining Cory Kennedy video was an official release. I wasn’t a big fan of the song then, but it’s since grown on me, as has the Broken Spindles remix included as a bonus track at the end of the disc. In fact, most of the album has grown on me, much the way that Panic! did after some repeated guilty subway listening. This mix brings the lacking vocals to the forefront and makes them the focus of the song, and work as they may on the noisy album track, here they come off pretty awkward. But it’s weird enough for a band like Good Charlotte that it makes the track interesting at least, fun and danceable at best.
It signals what I think will be a poignant new era for Kylie; while she’s still singing about being in love with a generic “you,” it’s a cohesive band and a distinct musical style all around, instead of another synth club track with a standout vocal. This is much harder to turn into a thumping club mix. In fact, this remix of the track, done by Studio, is more like what you’d hear on a tropical beach at night while drunk, possibly dancing with the guy from Britney’s “Don’t Let Me Be the Last to Know” video. Perfect for playing at night in the city while pretending. The digital single will be released November 5.
West Indian Girl’s “To Die in LA” takes the boy/girl urban commune vocal approach perfected by The New Pornographers and breeds it with the excitement and electronic flourishes of Office to produce a rhythmic anthem broken by shouts. I know… these descriptions today are almost as absurd as anything on Pitchfork. But at least I didn’t compare the band to a banana sliced in the most perfectly measured segments, a shapely amalgam of sonic root vegetables that know when they are being coy. -Brad
I’m officially an idiot. I am completely infatuated with Miley Cyrus’ “See You Again.” As Miley is Billy Ray and Tish Cyrus’ bratty lovechild, this song is the snotty spawn of Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” and Paris Hilton’s “Screwed.” Hannah Montana be damned, this is Miley’s debut to the world outside the Disney Channel. I never would have thought while cringing to “Achy Breaky Heart” in my stepfather’s red pickup truck in deep rural Ohio in 1992 (the year of this bitch’s birth) that fifteen years later I’d be enthusiastically singing along to his daughter’s pop radio breakout, even if it is somewhat of a ripoff of “Sunglasses at Night.” But, I also never imagined I’d be taking pictures of drunk people for a living. -Brad
I was way ahead of the game on Ashley Tisdale, however. Channel surfing several years ago I would stop on The Suite Life and tell Kathy “I love her. I love Ashley Tisdale.” In a completely gay way. I was years ahead of the rest of the world on Anderson Cooper. Ask Kathy. Ask her. So then Ashley became the High School Musical second fiddle and her price tag started to rise ever so slightly, until Vanessa Hudgens’ Barbie vagina made its way onto the internet… it was Ashley’s time. Her single hit the air, the video is perfect, and she’s going to be the next Hilary Duff. “He Said, She Said” is kind of stupid, but in a completely danceable and wonderful way. Now let me focus my attention on Drake Bell. -Brad
The Donnas’ latest (independent) release Bitchin’ is a fantastic evolution from their stint at Atlantic Records, which introduced them to the world beyond throwback punk enthusiasts and people who bought whatever Marilyn Manson told them to. When Spend the Night made them TRL stars, their sound was a polished and perfectly produced version of what they had done for years – Ramones on the rag. The album that followed, 2004’s Gold Medal, was an overlooked and underrated rock goldmine that took their sound outside what it had previously been, including even dabblings in twangy folk rock played on electric instruments. This new collection is somewhat of an arrival at classic status. Equal parts Joan Jett, Kiss, AC/DC and Garbage, this is the album that The Donnas’ work to this point has prepped them for. This track being offered, “What Do I Have To Do,” begins like The Rogers Sisters’ “Why Won’t You” and continues into what would undoubtedly be the lead soundtrack single if Clueless had been made today. -Brad
Chantal Kreviazuk’s Ghost Stories, on the other hand, isn’t much of a departure for her at all. In fact, much as it pains me to say, this is the most boring thing I’ve heard from her. I genuinely liked her first few albums and kind of lived for Colour Moving and Still in 2000 for a few months. Her ballads and downers are usually good, and these definitely aren’t bad, but without a few movement tracks like “Dear Life” and “Before You” interspersed, her music is too thick to handle. This track, however, is great and clearly tailored for pop radio despite being released only as an iTunes exclusive with the new album. A moderate beat and hip hop synth stabs echo early Timbaland collaborations with people who refused to change their sound for him. With a few more shakers this track easily could have fit onto Nelly Furtado’s latest, which makes sense as it was co-written by members of the Philosopher Kings, who helped make Furtado famous with her debut Whoa, Nelly. Chantal’s got it in her to abandon the Avrils and put out a non-lite-radio pop album yet. I can hear it in this track! I have high hopes! -Brad
