Have you ever uttered the words “music was better back when…”? Or maybe you’ve been the one listening to a friend wax poetic about the good ol’ days of rock ‘n’ roll. In either case, you’re definitely not alone. There’s a seemingly huge divide between electronic music artists of today and, say, the organic sounds of The Doors. But guess what? Not anymore.

The folks over at the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (aka the GRAMMYs) got together with Hyundai and GreenLight Media & Marketing for the new film RE:GENERATION. Along with world-famous electronic music heavyweights Skrillex, Mark Ronson, The Crystal Method, DJ Premier and Pretty Lights, they brought the ultimate music experiment to life.

These relative new-comers were each assigned a genre of music to work with — country, jazz, classical, R&B or rock — and were then paired with legendary artists from each category to create and remix the ultimate tracks. RE:GENERATION is all about respecting classic musicians — the pioneers and revolutionaries — while ushering in a new era of sound. We were blown away by what was possible when today’s top DJs worked with amazing talents like Nas, Mos Def, Erykah Badu, LeAnn Rimes, Martha Reeves and members of The Doors, among others. Take a look through our gallery below to see and hear all the collaborations. Read More »

If there is one thing I love about a new year (it’s only February, so it’s still new-ish), it’s new music! Some of the artists that I’ve listed below, have kept me waiting/hoping/praying for years for them to release new full-length studio albums. I am getting antsy! From John Mayer to JoJo, there are tons of new albums that are rumored to being released in 2012, and I cannot wait. I need a serious break from listening to a LMFAO song every 30 seconds on the radio.

So I’ve compiled a list of 10 bands/artists that I am pumped to have pumping through my speakers over the next 12 months. Enjoy! And if I missed any that you’re really looking forward to, let me know! Read More »

I like weird music. It’s as simple as that. I can go from listening to Eminem to Pitbull, then back to Pink Floyd and maybe some Led Zeppelin thrown in there. I saw Hanson in concert. In 2008. And loved every second of it. But, I digress.

I’m always trying to find something new, something different. I even went through a stint where I thought I could write music. I wrote a song or two and fumbled to put them together on a borrowed Fender. Even my 10 years of piano playing struggling couldn’t help me then. I finally decided to put  my efforts into finding unknown, musically talented people (aka, NOT me). Here’s a little taste of who I’ve found. (Oh, and p.s., they’re all college age-d. Hello jealousy.) Whether you love awesome mixes of the newest stuff, or something off the beaten path, you’re going to enjoy at least some of the following artists: Read More »

Just as I stopped hearing “F*ck You” on the radio, Cee Lo releases a new, almost-as-catchy song. This song goes in a different direction. Instead of being a “F*ck You” song, it’s a cute love song about still loving despite a relationship that has its share of imperfections. Awwww. This is going to be the song everyone will play after they get into a fight with their boyfriend or girlfriend. Read More »

Boys, boys, boys. Here at CollegeCandy, we love them. A lot. And being that we have a lot of time on our hands to search for them on the web, we thought we’d use it to our advantage and yours and bring you a little eye candy that not only makes us drool but also tugs at our heartstrings. So here’s your chance to meet some of the most talented guys in the world…who rock. Like, for real. (They’re musicians, people.)

Name: Mario Blalock
Age: 26
Location: Orlando, Florida
Type of Music: Acoustic/Soul
Why He Rocks: Mario has the voice to send any girl over the edge. That, combined with his phenomenal lyrics, will leave you breathless.

Have you been singing all your life?
Not really. I really only tried to sing seriously once I started playing guitar… which was, like, 10 years ago. I started with karaoke trying to do Prince and Creed songs if I remember correctly.

How would you describe your style of singing?
People have told me my voice sounds like Lenny Kravitz and I have no idea how… I definitely do have a little rasp. I don’t know, I just sing from the heart to whatever the purpose of the song is.

Do you write your own music? If so, where do you get inspiration for your lyrics?
Yeah, I write everything. I pull from my own experiences a lot, but some is also just from observing life and the things that none of us are spared from. Empathy is so useful in life, and so many of us just neglect giving time and attention to our friends while they’re in flux… so moral is, be a better friend and you may get more lyrics. Read More »

Boys, boys, boys. Here at CollegeCandy, we love them. A lot. And being that we have a lot of time on our hands to search for them on the web, we thought we’d use it to our advantage and yours and bring you a little eye candy that not only makes us drool but also tugs at our heartstrings. So here’s your chance to meet some of the most talented guys in the world…who rock. Like, for real. (They’re musicians, people.)

Name: Sam DeArmond
Age: 22
Location: Lambertville, MI
Type of Music: Acoustic/Pop/Rock
Why He Rocks: With the combination of those eyes and a voice that makes us swoon, how does he not rock.

How long have you been singing?
About 8 years…the same time I started playing guitar.

What are your favorite kinds of songs to sing?
Any song I can relate to and feel. Genre-wise though, I’d have to say pop/rock type stuff.

What inspires the lyrics for the music you write?
My relationship with everyone and everything in this world. I also write about relationships that I see from my perspective. Read More »

Boys, boys, boys. Here at CollegeCandy, we love them. A lot. And being that we have a lot of time on our hands to search for them on the web, we thought we’d use it to our advantage and yours and bring you a little eye candy that not only makes us drool but also tugs at our heartstrings. So here’s your chance to meet some of the most talented guys in the world…who rock. Like, for real. (They’re musicians, people.)

Name: Louis Johnson
Age: 21
Location: Wellington, FL
Type of Music: Indie/Acoustic
Why He Rocks: Watching Louis on My Life as Liz is pretty great, but getting to talk to him is so much better. He’s hilarious. You can find out for yourself because, lucky for you, he’s on tour right now with his band, Augustine!

How long have you been singing and playing the guitar?
I’ve been singing for my whole life. My dad’s a musician so he got me into it early. I started playing drums when I was 6… I was beating on whatever I could. Then I got a Ludwig kid set and then I kept playing drums until I was about 13 and then I started playing guitar so I could play in this band in high school called Odd Man Out. I really have been doing it my whole life.

Where are you from?
I’m from Wellington, Florida, which is a suburb of West Palm Beach. I definitely can’t complain; the beaches were perfect all the time. I spent a lot of my time there going skin boarding, where you put the little board down on the sand and then surf the waves in.

Was it always a dream of yours to turn your talent into a career?
When I was really young I wanted to be a baseball player, but other than that, I always wanted to be a musician. It has always been my dream. My dad has always supported me kind of doing what he set out to do when he was younger. He ended up becoming a lawyer and had his law degree before he even went into music, but I’m trying to start early and do what I want first and see what happens from there. Read More »

Boys, boys, boys. Here at CollegeCandy, we love them. A lot. And being that we have a lot of time on our hands to search for them on the web, we thought we’d use it to our advantage and yours and bring you a little eye candy that not only makes us drool but also tugs at our heartstrings. So here’s your chance to meet some of the most talented guys in the world…who rock. Like, for real. (They’re musicians, people.)

Name: Don Mitchell
Age: 27
Location: Northampton, MA
Type of Music: Rock/Classical/Folk
Why He Rocks: He’s quirky, funny, and he’s in a band that has a unique sound that you won’t be able to stop listening to.

How old were you when you started singing and playing the guitar?
I started singing in a children’s choir and started playing the guitar when I was thirteen or fourteen.

Was being in a band something that you had always planned on doing as a career?
I didn’t really have a plan completely formulated, but I certainly didn’t think that I would ever be in a band. I did think that it would be great to be involved with music but I didn’t know what form that might take. It ended up being a pretty cool opportunity because some of the guys had been in a previous band together during college. Afterward it just kind of came around at the right time that I was considering what to do next and was applying for jobs and thinking about grad school and then I sort of went and visited a couple of the guys and they were talking about how they were forming this band. It ended up working out that we got along well and wrote good songs together.

What is Darlingside all about and what inspired the unique style of music the band plays?
I think our unique sound partly comes from all of the instruments that we happen to play. When you’re writing a rock song or a pop song and you want to use cello and mandolin and violin, and some crazy other instruments that we throw in occasionally too, it just automatically changes the sound. I think the other thing that’s pretty different about our band is that we all can sing, so we write a lot of things from the prospective of a singing group. We all have pretty different background from some classical, jazz, and folk, and we kind of bring it all together. We follow whatever style we’re interested in at a given moment. Read More »

Boys, boys, boys. Here at CollegeCandy, we love them. A lot. And being that we have a lot of time on our hands to search for them on the web, we thought we’d use it to our advantage and yours and bring you a little eye candy that not only makes us drool but also tugs at our heartstrings. So here’s your chance to meet some of the most talented guys in the world…who rock. Like, for real. (They’re musicians, people.)

Name: Michael Schulte
Age: 20
Location: Flensburg, Germany
Type of Music: Acoustic/Pop
Why He Rocks: Michael’s passion for music is so inspiring. And his voice may or may not take our breath away. Okay, it does. Ahhhh.

What age did you start singing?
There’s no specific age I started singing, as I always loved to sing. I remember singing for hours when I was a little boy and that it really started to bug my brother and sister.

When did you decide you wanted to make your talent into a career?
I always had the dream of being on stage, just me and my guitar in front of a crowd of thousands. But the first time I really realized that this dream could actually come true was in 2008 when I started to post videos on YouTube and people from all over the world were like, “Wow boy, you got it!”

What was going through your mind when you were getting hit after hit on YouTube?
It really was a great feeling to see that more and more people seemed to like my music and my voice. I have always been singing, but never really sang in front of other people. So one day I decided to post a video of me singing on YouTube, and after just one week I had over 1,000 views. People wanted to hear more, so from that point, I kept posting videos. My first goal always was to get 10, 000 views on one video. When I got there my next goal were 100,000 views and then 1 million hits. And I did it! It was also truly a wonderful feeling to see that the number of subscribers was increasing each day.

Read More »

[Sarabeth here, back with some more jams to add to your iTunes library! Every Wednesday, I'm bringing you music suggestions - could be something new, old, hugely popular or fairly unknown -  to awesome-ify your  collection.]

Some of you will be happy to know that this week’s album is actually new for a change. Yay! Woo! Celebration!

Rarely do I get albums based off a random review I find on the internet. Ironic? Yes, but I usually wait until one of my friends has the album and I can listen to it or hear good things from them before I buy. Well, last Tuesday that all changed. While I was perusing the interwebs I came across a review for Cut Copy’s Zonoscope that piqued my curiosity. I gave it a little listen and let me tell you, I’ve changed my tune. No pun intended. (OK, so maybe the bad pun was totally intended, but whatever.)

About the Band:
Cut Copy is a synthpop band from Melbourne, Australia that’s been around since 2001. They currently consist of Dan Whitford, Tim Hoey, Mitchell Scott, and Ben Browning. Dan Whitford started it all a decade ago when he released the single 1981, and then started recruiting other members to join his musical project.

Top 3 Tracks:

Need You Now

Pharaoh’s & Pyramids

Sun God

Why You Should Listen to It:
The best way I can describe this album is that it’s an ’80s dance party that makes my heart happy. From great synth beats to Whitford’s deep soothing voice, this album makes it hard to sit still. I was listening to it at work today and it defintely made those four hours fly by, although I probably got some strange looks from my boss from dancing in my chair during Pharaoh’s & Pyramids. Anyways, if you’re looking for something to rid you of the winter blues, push you through that 45-minute stint on the treadmill or get you through another day at work, Zonoscope will hit the spot.

Want more awesome iPod suggestions? You got it!