The Witzard

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it," as 1980's silver screen teen Ferris Bueller would say. Anthony Friedlander , frontman of New Jersey -based Indie/Alternative/Prog-Rock band 4:44 , gets it and really seized the day on July 9th when on a whim, around 3AM, he uploaded 4-track JAY-Z EP to their Bandcamp page. Friedlander and his 4:44 bandmates—bassist Greg Mele, Jr. and drummer Zach Gormley —readily admit that "THIS IS A SHAMELESS MARKETING TECHNIQUE," as JAY-Z 's latest album was seemingly "named after" their band; just imagine a stylistic mix between alt-j , Indie Rock innovators Radiohead, and the frantic, frenzied vocal delivery of Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock . "We're actually huge fans of JAY-Z . Before this whole thing even happened, I had "we are the Mike Jordans of recording" in our Bandcamp Bio ; that is one of his lyrics and this was before h...

I guess you could say that I'm a modern-day musical "purist" in a sense because I don't usually like to hear a whole bunch of pre-release teaser singles before hearing an artist's entire new album. Take My Name Is My Name , for example: I only heard "Numbers On The Board" and "Who Am I?" before picking up a hard copy of Pusha T 's debut solo album on October 8th. G.O.O.D. Music recruited a handful of completely unnecessary guest features , which are now strewn across Pusha T 's 12-track record including Kendrick Lamar , Big Sean, Rick Ross , Kelly Rowland, and former Drake tour-mate Future . Pusha T & DONDA rapidly unleashed music videos for "King Push," "Sweet Serenade," "Nosetalgia," and "Pain" right around or leading up to My Name Is My Name 's eventual wide-release. Recent BET Cypher all-star Kendrick Lamar appears right alongside Pusha T in the black-and-white NPR -assist...