Tag Archives: Justin Nozuka

Tuned-On! Top 30 #322 – Mar 15/10

The Ides of March are upon us tomorrow, and Daylight Savings Time has hit.  Spring is, well, springing in advance in Toronto, and my work schedule is lightening up a bit to take a few days off this week.  That usually means I get to play a lot of music and get caught up with new releases.


So while this edition of my personal chart (link also to the right under ***BILL’S PERSONAL CHART***) is chock full of stuff, the chart activity is pretty minimal.  But we do have a new #1!  Lady GaGa gets her first chart topper here with “Teeth”, which I think is just an incredibly wonderful and fun song.  It will be competing with Penguin Prison’s quirky and amazing free download “Something I’m Not”, which moves from its debut position of 11 to 6 this week.  (NOTE:  Simon Curtis fans fear not – though “Delusional” will leave the chart after this one, since it’s lasted the maximum 10 chart appearances, new music from Simon is coming soon 🙂 )

A lot of the activity in the chart takes place outside of the Top 10, where there’s a passel of songs battling it out among each other.  The more I  listen to “Hallelujah” by Justin Timberlake, Matt Morris, and Charlie Sexton, the more I appreciate the careful harmonies and how close it comes to Jeff Buckley’s definitive version – especially given recent renditions of the song which I’ve heard in the past few weeks.  Jason Derulo’s “In My Head” is an almost-singalong carried by a great melody.  Dan Black’s pastiche that is “Pass That Head Noize” keeps winning creativity points from me, while “Don’t Stop” by Annie is pop/dance at its most adorable.

Evan Taubenfeld’s “Starbucks Girl” is gonna keep moving up my chart until I tire of it, even though it’s only available now on YouTube (I can still hope for a bonus live version on his upcoming CD, can’t I?).  Example’s “Won’t Go Quietly” puts me in a good mood (which I’ve needed these past few weeks) and climbs 25-17, the Fastest Riser on the chart.  Justin Nozuka’s “My Heart Is Yours” is right behind moving 27-20, an emotional ballad whose closest companion on the chart is “Hallelujah”.   BT & Christian Burns’ “Suddenly” gets stuck in the middle but should find its way out of it in two weeks.  Other debuts from last week by Pink, Javi, Ellie Goulding, and Vampire Weekend should also strut their stuff in the coming weeks.

Right now I can’t get enough of the energy from songs from Clayton Senne’s Wonderland CD, so the title track debuts at #24.  I had this fascination with Massive Attack back in 1994 when they released the splendid Protection CD.  After that they remained interesting to me but dropped off my radar.  Now reduced to a duo, they seem to be back in the same form as 15 years ago with their new CD Heligoland, from which comes the murky, foreboding sound of “Girl I Love You”, featuring vocalist Horace Andy, at #25.

My final debut is timely.  This song has been popping up on my iTouch shuffle in my car a lot lately.  I saw the band open for The Midway State in Toronto last summer and was impressed at how tight they are and how lead singer Shaun Frank wins over the audience.  Toronto’s The Envy signed this week to Gene Simmons’ record label, so expect to hear more from them soon.  “Don’t Let Go” debuts at #29 and is available to you for free by subscribing to their newsletter at their MySpace site.  Below’s a video of a recent live performance of the song.  Enjoy 🙂

Show Us Your Teeth: Tuned-On! Top 30 #320 – March 1/10

Could Lady GaGa get her first #1 on this chart?  While Mika’s “Rain” reigns steadily with former #1 “Delusional” by Simon Curtis right in tow, “Teeth” by Lady GaGa charges 12-3 to become her biggest hit on this chart, surpassing the #4 peak of “Bad Romance” and the current #4 position of “Speechless”.  It’s really hard to say what’s my favourite song from The Fame Monster, I could pick and choose between the three and be very happy.  Not to take away anything from “Teeth” (whose King5kat remix is outstanding) or even “Bad Romance”, but there are other challengers that could get to #1 too…

Also new to the Top 10 besides “Teeth” are Blake Lewis’ retro happiness of “Heartbreak On Vinyl” and “Pick Up The Phone”, the plea from the dancefloor by Dragonette.  But just outside of the Top 10 is our first debut, and it’s the highest one in quite some time.

I lumped Penguin Prison’s “Something I’m Not” in with last week’s highlighted songs, but the tune has grown immensely on me during the last week to make it one of this year’s must have records, and it debuts on the chart at a huge #11!  And the great part of it all is that it’s a free download!  Chris Glover has a massive talent up his sleeve, and it’s too bad Interscope Records didn’t take him up on it as cited in this excellent story about him.  I’m not sure if “Something I’m Not” can get to #1 next week, but it will give it the old college try!  Do check it out – you will miss something special from this talented singer/producer/remixer otherwise!

Next, I have to comment about Evan Taubenfeld’s terrific track “Starbucks Girl”.  Because of its connection to Starbucks, and Evan’s fans’ reaction to his use of autotune, the song has been pulled from the Welcome To The Blacklist Club CD and is no longer available as a free download.  And that’s a damn shame.  As is, “Starbucks Girl” has immense appeal, and the excellent, simple video expands on that appeal.  Sure, I said that I’d like a version without the autotune too, but to no longer make the original version available is a mystery to me.  Watch the video yourself and decide!  The song still moves up 25-20 on the chart!!

The chart is full of massive activity this week.  P!nk’s Grammy performance of “Glitter In The Air” is her best record in more than 6 or 7 years, and debuts at #23.  New Yorker Javi, of Puerto Rican and Panamanian background, debuts at #24 with the gorgeous European-sounding Monsieur Adi remix of “Situation” .  UK’s Example could give Calvin Harris a run for his money with “Won’t Go Quietly” at #25.  This song may seem a little static at first but it really grows on you.  Then blog-darling Ellie Goulding arrives at #26 with “Starry Eyed”, which has many remixes (including one by Penguin Prison), but my preference is for the shimmering retro Monarchy remix.  Justin Nozuka’s fans light up this blog as his new CD You I Wind Land and Sea gets closer to release.  “My Heart Is Yours” bows at #27.  And finally, Vampire Weekend enters the chart at #28 with “Cousins”.  The indie band scored a #1 Billboard album with Contra a few weeks back.

One last piece of housekeeping:  I don’t think I’ve mentioned it since I started this blog last Fall.  I have one rule on my personal chart.  Songs must leave the chart after 10 appearances (20 weeks).  This allows a fresh rotation of songs to occur, but it doesn’t prevent them from re-entering at a later date, though this doesn’t happen very often.  Both Mika’s “Blame It On The Girls” and Dan Black’s “Alone” left the chart this week for this reason.

Have a great week and let’s see your comments 🙂

Updates on Simon Curtis, Sam Taylor, Dan Black, Justin Nozuka, and new songs by Ellie Goulding, Penguin Prison, and Vampire Weekend!

So many good releases will be upon is in the first half of 2010, it’s getting hard to figure out what I want to hear and succeed more!

Simon Curtis is over 7,500 followers on Twitter.  He’s promised his mixtape 8Bit Heart will be issued when he gets to 8,000 – whether or not that’s preceded by another single is a good question right now… and there are gonna be several great songs from which to choose!  And take a look at the provocative website of photographer Tyler Shields! He’s shooting the artwork for 8Bit Heart!   Follow Simon on Twitter!


UK fave Sam Taylor is teasing us with snippets of a wonderful new song called “Every Time We Fall”.  You can find excerpts of it on You Tube (below) or his MySpace site.  As I mentioned last month, Sam’s looking at giving us a full song when he gets to 1,000 Twitter followers.  So, as with Simon, follow Sam on Twitter !

Justin Nozuka’s been pretty generous with two singles already out, “My Heart Is Yours”, which appears be out in Canada and the U.S., and “Woman Put Your Weapon Down”, which is U.S. only.  The new CD You I Wind Land and Sea will be released soon, and there are many glimpses of Justin’s songs from this CD that you can find on You Tube, like this one, below.

It’s February 20 and I’ll be seeing Dan Black’s show in Toronto at Wrongbar tonight!!  Really looking forward to seeing what Dan has to offer in a club setting, and hopefully I can report back on the show tomorrow.  The deluxe edition of his CD UN is now available in North America.


Plus… three great new songs:

Ellie Goulding’s “Starry Eyed (Monarchy remix)”

I’m hit and miss on some of Ellie’s songs, which have been gracing the Blogverse for months now, but this subtle remix is unique with a dash of late 70’s flavour.

Penguin Prison’s “Something I’m Not” – free download

Chris Glover is Penguin Prison, and he’s been remixing many other artists’ songs lately (including Ellie Goulding’s “Starry Eyed”!).  This American talent really mixes up the music styles in “Something I’m Not” – a little bit of something for everyone, without it sounding like the kitchen sink was thrown in for good measure.

Vampire Weekend’s infectious “Cousins” – I love tidy, fun songs done in two and a half minutes!


Simple Things: Justin Nozuka’s “My Heart Is Yours”

Two months after his show at the Mod Club in Toronto, the first single from Justin Nozuka’s sophomore CD You I Wind Land And Sea is upon us!  And the young man keeps it simple with the simply beautiful “My Heart Is Yours”, now also available on iTunes Canada.

It’s hard to say whether or not it takes its cue from a song like Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” but even if not it’s in great company.  The key would be not to have it get lost in the shuffle – Mraz’s single broke the longevity record on Billboard’s Hot 100.  “My Heart Is Yours” is a welcome international calling card for Justin Nozuka!  A clip of his performance of the song from the Mod Club is below.

Tuned-On! Top 300 of the 2000’s – FINAL (#50-1)

Here it is, the final 50 of the complete list of 300 songs, a list that I fussed over for the last few months.  I may have been a little generous overall with songs from the last year, but time will only tell, since 2009 was to me a great year for new music.  I think the best way to introduce this list is with some of my favourite lyrics.

I won’t worry my life away…

I’d go extra miles to show that you are the one thing that I’ve got…

Gimme gimme symphonies, gimme more than the life I see…

I know that after tonight you don’t have to talk about the stars no no…

If I have understood correctly velocity equals the distance traveled, divided by time…

Step into the light, this dog doesn’t bite, oh, just want to be your friend…

Simply being loved… is more than enough, yeah yeah…

I’m living for the only thing I know, I’m running and not sure quite where to go…

My baby’s got the lonesome lows, don’t quite go away overnight…

Feathered hair and lame heels, what turns me on is so surreal…

And I’m only makin’ it worse when I let her go, then I come on back every time I leave…

And I won’t call you baby anymore, won’t call you baby like I did before…

I’m miles from where you are, I lay down on the cold ground, I pray that something picks me up…

You know in 1987 I was dancin’ in a discotheque, and people were coming up to me and sayin’ “What is this shit??”…

The full updated list is available right here – please leave your comments and observations!!  Onward to the new decade… 🙂

Mix Pod Playlist

I discovered My Space has a new playlist compiler called Mix Pod, so I thought I’d give it a shot today.  The playlist has 20 songs that are current (mainly on my chart, and the usual suspects) or recent within the last few years.  Click on “Get Tracks” below, which will take you to the playlist page where you can hear the songs!  The tags below this post will tell you who’s on the playlist 🙂

MusicPlaylist
Music Playlist at MixPod.com

Justin Nozuka at The Mod Club in Toronto, Friday December 11/09

A year after concert dates that did not coincide with my schedule, or missing his show by accident after scheduling the wrong time, I finally caught up with our own Justin Nozuka’s set at The Mod Club in Toronto on Friday December 11/09.  The wait was well worth it, as Justin touched the audience with his deep, deep down-in-the-soul bluesy rock that seems to have a beautiful, mystical quality to it.  We got to hear some of those great songs from his CD Holly – among them, “Criminal”, “Save Him”, “Don’t Listen To A Word You’ve Heard” (with music, not spoken as on the CD), and a communal band/audience effort at my favourite “After Tonight”.   His brothers Henry and Christian Bridges also collaborated with him in an acoustic jam of sorts on a new song.  But the focus of this show was to give the audience a taste of his upcoming sophomore CD Gray.  The bluesy rock is still there but on some songs R&B/Soul seems to be more prominent, along with the intense emotion that sounded so original on Holly.  Justin’s the real deal, and at only 21 he can have as long a career as his bluesy soul is old and deep.  Catch his show before  you can say International Breakout 2010.  Below is a highlight from his Toronto set called “I’m Free”.