Buzz Track: At Least I

Singer-songwriter Katie Buchanan just released her new single “At Least I”. The track comes off her forthcoming sophomore EP Go, out August 5th, 2014. Originally from Kansas, Katie explores a vein of subtle guitarpop steeped in Americana and heartbreak. She plays around New York rock clubs, drinks too much whiskey, and combines Midwest honesty with the directness that accompanies living in the city. She spent lots of time learning from producers such as Bob Power (The Roots, D’Angelo), Tony Visconti (David Bowie, T-Rex), Nick Sansano (Sonic Youth), and Joel Hamilton (Sparklehorse, BlakRoc). Amazingly, she self produced and engineered these batch of songs.
Contact: katie@katiebuchanan.com, Natasha@ei-pr.com

Bad Suns who we featured and named a top 8 emerging artist just released a record that debuted at #24 on the Billboard Top 200 Chart. The record was produced by Eric Palmquist (The Mars Volta, Wavves, Trash Talk). Bad Suns have performed their first single, ‘Cardiac Arrest,’ on Conan and the track has cracked Top 13 at Alt Radio, with a weekly audience of almost 5M and building. Watch the Conan performance here.
Contact: bryan@newcommunitymgmt.com

Buzz Track: Up In Smoke

Here is a new single from UK indie/folk outfit Volcanoes, called Up In Smoke. We featured them several months ago and have since released a successful campaign with their previous single When We Melodise, gaining attention from EMI, V2 and Fourteenth Floor Recordings, getting support from BBC 2 and BBC 6 Music, taking part in T4 Orange Unsigned, and having finished in the top 20 of the Glastonbury Emerging Talent contest.
Contact: james@mysticsons.com

Southern California based alternative folk/rock band The Tragic Thrills have signed a record deal with Drive-Thru/Razor & Tie Records to release their debut album. Check out the video for the song Tears. Show dates can be viewed here.
Contact: Ben McLane, Esq.

via ShowBiz 411

Yikes! It’s worse than I thought. Robin Thicke’s “Paula” album opened on iTunes today at number 8, and at 76 on amazon.com. That’s after his dreary appearance on the BET Awards this past weekend.

(By the way: this is for real time sales today. The number 1 album last week, just about to be announced, is from our favorite contemp pop balladeer Ed Sheeran.)

What a difference a year makes. “Blurred Lines” was last year’s ubiquitous song of the summer. The album didn’t sell that well, however. The total so far is just over 731,000 copies– not even a million although the single sold over 14 million digital copies.

But “Paula” looks doomed unless Thicke’s all day adventure tomorrow on ABC– “GMA,” “The View,” and “Jimmy Kimmel”–can stimulate sales. But the video for the first song is so weird and awful, and the lack of real build up for this release, spells a sales disaster come next Monday. After Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez’s failures, this is another misstep for the record biz this summer.

What does this all mean? For Thicke it means that without a real dance hit, and no Pharrell to help him, he’s squandered all the good vibes he got from “Blurred Lines.” He’s obviously turned off his base of female fans– already angry about the “rape” connotations from “Blurred Lines” and its X rated video. On “Paula” he pretty much admits to serial cheating on Patton. That’s not a way to woo a female audience.

For Carey and Lopez, it’s different things. Carey seems genuinely besotted with her kids and maybe just doesn’t care about chart positions right now. Lopez should take a cue from Janet Jackson and bow out gracefully now. Mechanized, tricked up music has run its course for those two.

As for Robin Thicke convincing Paula Patton to re-start their marriage, I don’t know: will it work if the record is a flop? I don’t think so unless she feels bad for him. Cue the puppy dog eyes.