News Roundup: Radiohead Plot Return, Weezer Want Your Demos, Taylor Swift Goes Back To The Drawing Board

Videos by American Songwriter

Radiohead

Radiohead are heading back in the studio in January, and from the sound of things, they’ll be there to record an album, and not a collection of disparate singles. Look to Radiohead to shake up the game again, by charging $499.99 for their next studio offering.

“10 years ago we were all collectively (that’s the band) in the land of Kid A,” wrote guitarist Ed O’Brien earlier this month, “and although hugely proud of that record, it wasn’t a fun place to be. What’s reassuring now, is that we are most definitely a different band, which should therefore mean that the music is different too and that is the aim of the game.” Read Rolling Stone’s interview with O’Brien here.

Tori Amos, whose first holiday album, Midwinter Graces, is out now, recently sat down with the magazine to give a track-by-track breakdown of her 1992 breakthrough album, Little Earthquakes.

In it, she describes the pressures of writing, and how the record label rejected her initial song selection, which lead to the creation of signature tunes like “Precious Things.” “[label head] Doug Morris…said to me, “I think you need to write and record another track.” I said, “No. I’ll do four. I can’t do one because there’s too much pressure for that one to be it,” says Amos.

Taylor Swift has been named AP’s Entertainer of the Year (last year it was comedian Tina Fey). The 20-year-old country dynamo says she’s grateful for the honor, and talked about her next move: “The second that I put out Fearless, the moment that album came out and I was done with it, I started writing for my next album,” she said. “I love to plan 20 steps ahead of myself, and it’s a really fun competition game that I play with myself, trying to top what I’ve done last. For this next record, that’s all that I’ve been thinking about, that’s all that my mind has been fixated on for the last year, and it’s all that I’m going to be thinking about for this next year.”

Thanks to a raging Facebook campaign, Rage Against the Machine’s 1992 aggro-anthem “Killing In The Name” beat “The Climb,” the latest from X Factor winner Joe McElderry, on the UK Christmas charts, by a margin of 50,000 downloads. Rage will donate all the royalties to the charity Shelter. Guitarist Tom Morello tweeted: “Quite a day! Thanks again for making Rage part of this historic campaign. Changing the charts or the world: together we can’t be stopped.”

Johnny Cash fans, take note: though presently unconfirmed by his record label, Amazon.com has a listing for the Rick-Rubin produced Johnny Cash American VI: Aint No Grave, with a release date of February 23, 2010.

Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo wants you! Still recuperating from a bus crash earlier this month, Cuomo is asking fans to collaborate with him on a song he began writing before the accident. “I wrote this tune, ‘Shusui.’ Now I want to write the lyrics. Before I do that, I’d like somebody to produce a better demo of the music,” said Cuomo on Weezer Radio, adding that the lucky winner will earn $208.

“Shusui” means “autumn water” in Japanese, so, we suggest you aim for an “autumn water” kind of vibe. Fans can hear the track, and post their versions at Indaba Music.com.

2 Comments

Leave a Reply

Leave a Reply

Best Albums of 2009: Staff Picks