The Wrap-Up brings you the 5 largest music news stories of the week as well as information about new album and music video releases.

HEADLINES OF THE WEEK

 

1. Imagine Dragons collaborate with REO Speedwagon

As part of the Jimmy Kimmel Live feature, Mash-Up Monday, Imagine Dragons collaborated with REO Speedwagon to form the supergroup Imagine REO SpeedDragons for only 1 night. They performed the 1978 REO Speedwagon song “Roll With the Changes.” Both bands appeared to have fun with it and Imagine Dragons easily slipped into the classic rock sound. Check out the unexpected collaboration for yourself and let us know what you think in the comments below.  

2. Lorde gives us a studio update

Lorde used her Tumblr to assure fans that she’s still working on music and that she’s “taking [her] time to make the new stuff as good as [she] can.” In the post, shown below, she also talks about spending time with “some new friends” in the studio and the songs they would choose if they had to pick “one song they would send into space, to live on forever.” You can read the full post below.

hey, you guys. i know it’s been a minute since i came on here, and i feel terrible about that, but i hope your year has at least been manageable, and hopefully even fun. i’m thinking of you. i took a few months off at the beginning of this year, which was so great – i did a bunch of swimming and driving around and being salty – and now i’m just getting into making the next body of work, which is very exciting and scary but SO VALIDATING (i also went to a wild beautiful fashawwn ball last night which maybe i’ll elaborate on in another post). the other day i was in the studio with some new friends, and i asked them which one song they would send into space, to live on forever, if they had to. one said ‘perfect day’ by lou reed (a song which i heard when i was thirteen in passing somewhere, then went home and sat in front of my family’s desktop computer listening to, and cried my eyes out) and someone else said ‘god only knows’ by the beach boys, also in my top 5, so complex and kind of bittersweet and happy, also a good choice. and i thought about it for a while, thought about talking heads and fleetwood mac and nina simone, but the song that came out of my mouth was ‘dancing on my own’ by robyn. this song, to me, is perfect. it’s happy and sad, fiery and independent but vulnerable and small, joyous even when a heart is breaking. every line is perfect, how that second verse (“stilettos and broken bottles / i’m spinning around in circles”) stumbles perfectly into that bridge (”the lights go on, the music dies / …i just came to say goodbye”), and final chorus. it’s just perfect. we put it on right there in the studio, and i was up out of my seat dancing with my eyes screwed shut, and my hands up around my ears, and we looked into each other’s eyes and sang the words, and i could feel something hot and teary in the back of my throat just from FEELING so much at once. and i think it was then when i realized i’m going to be in love with music for the rest of my life. it’s going to be the most important friendship i’ll ever have. i’ll never, ever leave it alone, because you can’t leave alone something like that, something that makes you weep alone on aeroplanes or jolts you out of a chair and shatters your face with a big toothy smile. i think that’s a cool, intense revelation to have, going into your second record. first records are like meeting someone and feeling that need to do everything, just in case for whatever reason, you run out of time, or they stop feeling the same way as you. i feel much calmer, more comfortable in my love of doing this, and its apparent love of me, this time around. so there’s that. the main reason i was inspired to write to you today came from googling a picture of britney taken by david lachapelle, and stumbling across this website called one week // one band. they had this incredibly thoughtful collection of quotes and ideas regarding this photo. out of morbid curiosity, i typed in my own name to have a look at what people were saying. and you guys, i have been sitting here for almost an hour fluttering my hand against my chest and making these tiny high-pitched sounds, because how i was written about, how pure heroine was written about, was remarkable in its attention to detail and flow in these songs. i make music for you guys, as you know, and to read these interpretations of the songs that were so nuanced and so much smarter than anything i’d read from an adult journalist (i believe the author of these wonderful pieces is a touch younger than me) was so inspiring for me. these pieces of writing are like a map to this record, and this (dare i say it bleugh) era. they should be packaged with my record, for goodness’ sake. they’re brilliant. you can find the author, sophia, at http://nyogu.tumblr.com/, and the pieces on my work at http://oneweekoneband.tumblr.com/tagged/lorde/chrono and i guess that’s it for now. sending so much love to you all. thank you for loving and living inside my music. know that i’m taking my time to make the new stuff as good as i can. know that music is still making my heart skip every day. can’t wait to hang out soon. love you. xxx L

 

3. The Killers will release new music because they know their previous work “wasn’t good enough”

While we’ve been enjoying Brandon Flowers’ solo work on Exposure, in an interview with NME, Flowers admitted that the Killers will release a follow-up to 2012’s Battle Born because it “wasn’t good enough” and “we all know it.” However, he shared that the follow-up won’t happen any time soon – only when they “all get on the same page, it’ll work.” He jokingly added, “I need to persuade them to like the same things as I do.”  

4. Arcade Fire will open a restaurant

Win Butler and Régine Chassagne of Arcade Fire are working with Jen Agg and Roland Jean, restaurateurs who previously collaborated to create 3 new Canadian eateries. The two husband-and-wife duos are opening Agrikol, a Haitian restaurant in Montreal. It aims to be open by this summer. In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Butler stated, “[Agrikol’s] more of an art project. The idea is that it’s a cultural space. The thing that we were really impressed with at [Agg and Jean restaurant] Rhum Corner is that it’s this space for Haitian and Caribbean culture and it’s really cool and contemporary.”  

5. Tame Impala release “Eventually”

Tame Impala released a new song, “Eventually,” on Thursday. “Eventually” will be on their new album, Currents, which comes out on Friday, July 17. In a press release, they stated the following about Currents:

Musically, Currents sounds like the work of a player on top of his game and having a blast, Parker indulging his whims and unafraid to dive down the rabbit hole after an idea. Again operating as a one man studio band, Parker’s resultant record calls to mind contemporary hip hop production, Thriller, fried 70s funk, the irreverent playground Daft Punk presented on Discovery, swathes of future pop and emotional 80s balladry, all filtered through a thoroughly modern psychedelic third eye. A genre-bending soundscape fueled equally by curiosity as it is consciousness; it’s an exhilarating new territory for Tame Impala.

“Eventually” definitely reflects the genre-bending sound described above and hopefully we can hear more of their new work at Boston Calling later this month!  

And here are your 12 CUTS ABOVE THE REST!

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