In a year when your favorite long-dormant musical act finally released new material after a multi-year hiatus, only a precious few releases -- from voices old and new -- were truly able to capture the pop culture zeitgeist. These are those albums.
British neo-soul singer Jessie Ware performed "Say You Love Me" last night on The Late Late Show last night. The song is a gorgeous, R&B slow-burner that escalates to soaring pop anthem.
“Tough Love” aims to make Ware more accessible to pop audiences, even if so far it has been overlooked by U.S. consumers (the album debuted at No. 50 on the Billboard pop charts last week).
My only criticism of the Mountain Oasis Electronic Music Summit is that too much great music was programmed at the same time, forcing some difficult decisions about where and when to show up. The 2014 edition cannot come soon enough.
The year ahead looks to be an exciting one with the emergence of wealth of great new music waiting in the wings. Will Jessie Ware and Django Django be the toasts of 2013? Will 2013 be yet another banner year for forward-looking hip-hop and R&B? And let's not forget all the great new bands expected to break big in 2013.
