Settle Down and watch this amazing performer wow po M8

Settle Down and watch this amazing performerI know at this point in my life, I'm supposed to enjoy listening to "sophisticated" music that befits my age. Or I'm supposed to listen to soothing, easy Muzak to calm my middle-aged stressed out brain There is a lot of pressure for your musical tastes to run right alongside your receding hair line. I know my peers in their early.(VERY early fyi) 50's would look at me slightly strangely if they read my blog and my earlier review of Gotye's Making Mirrors. I am too old to listen to pop music. The problem is that I just can't seem to enjoy approved "middle-aged" music no matter how much I try. I don't listen to classical. I have a couple of jazz DVD's and appreciate the musicianship but have no desire to listen to it daily in my car. To retain any "hipster" cred at my age would mean I listen to Stravinsky over Mozart and Bach. I just can't do it wow po. When it comes to music, I just can't seem to grow up.What I do love and have always loved is great rock and pop music, performed by exceptionally talented individuals who write, play, and sing their own music. As with most of my generation, you tend to slip in to playing the same old classic songs that you grew up with and became a part of your life. It's hard sometimes to understand the younger generations and their music, just as it was for my parents. I really don't spend a lot of my time trying to discover and enjoy new talent. I need to wow gold, though, because there is some unbelieveable talent out there.That brings me to the real subject of this post. The 22-year old New Zealand-born, now Australian artist, Kimbra Johnson. As with about a half a zillion others around the world, I only ran across Kimbra because of her guest vocal on Gotye's track "Somebody that I Used to Know (feat. Kimbra)". It is really a somewhat small role, very well performed, but on its own might not inspire you to learn more about this amazing, and I mean AMAZING artist. Kimbra has come to the world's attention due to her association with Gotye, another great artist, but I suspect that her career will rocket past his and be one that we will be lucky to experience for a very long time. I admit that it may be a little creepy for a 50 year old father of two to become obsessed with a beautiful, young singer. Kimbra's talent is so overwhelming though that I think all ages can, and should, enjoy it. If she is forever known as the "Katy Perry lookalike" performing on this already classic track, it would be an incredible shame and injustice.Initially, I wasn't that impressed. At some point while listening to "Somebody that I Used to Know" I decided just to check out what Kimbra's career had been up to this point. She has one CD released in Australia called Vows. Warner has picked her up and Vows will now be released in the US on May 22nd with a few updated tracks. Her only music really available here at this point is an EP on iTunes comprised of four songs. Two of those songs are from Vows, one is a remix, and another is a live recording from a session that Kimbra did at Sing Sing studio perhaps two years ago when she was 19 or 20.Instead of listening to the EP, I went straight to YouTube. I wanted to see what her own performances were about. The first track I listened to was the music video of her single, "Settle Down". It wasn't what I expected. All the comments I see about Kimbra on Twitter compare both her voice and looks to Katy Perry. Normally, that would have been enough to dissuade me from looking further. However, this was NOT Katy Perry. I didn't particularly like the song but it was well produced and very different from anything I'd heard on US radio lately. Kimbra has kind of a classic, 30's\40's style on some of her songs and that was present here. What was also present was a somewhat strangely quirky video using kids to act out a childhood fantasy of what growing up and "Settling Down" would be like. Honestly, I didn't really like it. From there I clicked on the music video for another Vows track called "Good Intent". "Good Intent" is a fully produced film\video with a long introductory section and is immersed in the 30's\40's style mentioned before. Although Kimbra is stunningly, and I do mean stunningly beautiful in the video, again I didn't care for the song and didn't even make it to the end. At this point I dismissed my interest in Kimbra and moved on. I am so glad that I eventually came back.After a couple of days, I found my self hearing this "Boom Ba Boom Ba" in my head. That's the unusual opening to "Settle Down". It was stuck in my head now and I went back and watched the video again. I actually kind of liked it the second time around and decided to watch more Kimbra videos. If you are interested in learning more about Kimbra, I recommend immediately checking out the live performance videos from her sessions at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne. On these videos you will immediately see an amazing young artist in full control of her voice, her style, her band. I was completely blown away. Kimbra live displays an energetic jazzy pop that flirts with Motown and mainstream pop but is something wholly different. Even though she brings some elements of classic style with her, her music is at once contemporary, interesting, and passionate. The live version of "Good Intent", a song I had dismissed earlier, is completely transformed and comes alive. This is the case with every one of the songs I have found from the Sing Sing sessions. Just Amazing stuff.There is another aspect to Kimbra's live performance that must be seen to be believed. Apparently, Kimbra spent many hours on her own learning the technology to loop and track her vocals in real-time during live performance. The Nina Simone cover, "Plain Gold Ring" is an amazing example of this as is her recent performance at SXSW in the front yard of the Spotify House. Incredible video and talent on display. This girl completely loses herself in the music whenever, and wherever she performs. It is a thing of beauty and you can't take your eyes off of her. When not performing, she appears to be the nicest, most down-to-earth young woman that you would ever want to meet.One other thing that impresses me about Kimbra is something that I noticed in watching some of her "behind the scenes" videos. When an artist is that young, you would expect them to be following along with the guidance and mentoring of others. You wouldn't expect them to be assertive necessarily. Kimbra is clearly the leader in her band. She is a fully formed artist at 22, knows what she wants, and works very hard to get it. All I can say is WOW!I strongly recommend picking up Kimbra's EP, Vows from iTunes and of course watching as many of her incredible YouTube videos as you can find. It has been an amazing year already for Australian artists. They are sheltered from the music business in the States to some extent and seem to be able to concentrate on creating their own unique styles. I hope Kimbra can stay true to herself as she moves into this new chapter in her career. I am very, very much looking forward to it.
More articles come from the:http://www.wowgoldpo.fr