Welcome to Gaia! ::

To the public which is the Backstreet Guild Members,

We would like to invite everyone back to the new Backstreet Boys Guild, right here on Gaiaonline. It has been a while since we had much activity in the guild and we hope to keep it that way too, with or even without a new CD in suite. Yes we have gone under some change here in the Backstreet Boys Guild from hiring new crew member starbunnie and our guild mule – BSBG – Mule – aka MuMu to contest and various activities. Our major issue that has been going on is trying to keep the BSBG active and that has lead to banning (which can be removed if the person wishes to rejoin, which has happened), it seems that we would be doing something like again in the next year or a longer period based on the activity of the guild. The crew would also like to acknowledge the new members who have joined the BSBG and have tried their best to follow the rules and have taken part in many of the activities on the guild; we truly appreciate your dedication.
This newsletter is our way to keep everyone up with what’s going on in the guild, the world of Backstreet, as well as share information about other things in the world of music, fashion and other forms of media that might have some Backstreet tie in. It is just our way of giving you all the monthly summary and let you know what’s up.

KTBSPA

The Backstreet Guild Crew


heart L e t t e r F r o m T h e C r e w

Are you out of the many that are friendly to others?
Who just want to do good deeds and make people feel welcome?
Well people in the Welcome Committee are just that.
There are about four placements.

July 23, 2009 4:10 p.m. EST
Anthony Jones - Celebrity News Service Contributor



by. s.b.

As the masses of Backstreet Fans wait, (or don't wait) for the new Backstreet Boys songs to hit radio station July 27th. There is now thoughts about the music video that will follow. It has been a current trend for the guys not to move as much as we like them to, just the usual standing reaching for the camera, heavy emotions .., It's not as if it is a bad thing BUT I think we are all tired of it and want to see them dance. I mean for the ones who have heard the song, it is the kind of song that requires them to do something! Doesn't it? Personally the main concern of the music video is how they are going to be presented and if its going to come off as a NKOTB (the whole video hoes verus actual dancers & actresses). Right now all we can pray for is that the song gets a good run and hopefully a great video will shoot it to the moon and back again.

Saturday, July 25 2009, 4:57am EDT

By Nick Levine, Music Editor
More than alright, a lot more than alright actually. Their new single 'Straight Through My Heart' is a RedOne-produced pop anthem that cleverly updates the classic BSB sound for 2009. The verses operate at a very danceable midtempo, the big synthy chorus hits you like a smack in the face, and the lyrics work a brilliantly boyband love-as-gunshot metaphor: "Straight through the heart, a single bullet got me, I can't stop the bleeding..."

If you haven't heard 'Straight Through My Heart' yet, you can listen to it in full over on the Backstreet Boys' official site. Oh, and if you'd like to find out more about their new album – due October 5, a week after the single - check back on DS first thing Monday morning to read our uber-upfront interview with AJ.



heart Article: The Leaks + The Album


For more infomation on the new album check out the This Is Us Album Thread

Guild Mule Thread:: To Vote !!!

Season Two of Project Backstreet Way recuritment
is about to start up in the fall/winter season.
The prize(s) are being determine at the moment.
For the ones who wish to participate fill out the form and send it to
-BSBG-Mule- subject title Project Backstreet Way S02















heart c o n t e s t

The Death of Michael Jackson: A Story Fit for Hollywood
July 18, 4:47 PM
Author: Allen Glines

As we approach the one month anniversary of Michael Jackson's death, we're still receiving epic twists and turns about what happened along with the ongoing custody battle raging between Katherine Jackson and Debbie Rowe. A little while ago, I thought the disappearance of his story from the media would be good for us all, but now my opinion has changed because I realized the need to set the record straight. During his life, we did everything we could to demonize him knowing only the tidbits of information that were released to the public. He did whatever he could to keep his private life private. Now we're experiencing a flood of information because can no longer control what we know.
When regular people die, their memory fades into the minds of those who loved them. So many people loved Jackson that his memory will likely never fade. Past generations will pass his music on to their young ones, who will pass it on to their young ones, and so on. Not only that, his story is so intriguing it's difficult to imagine even the most experienced screenwriter coming up with something as fascinating. He entered the exclusive club of celebrities who became more relevant after their death than they were in their last days of life, which goes to show the degree of how much we took him for granted.

If a movie about Jackson's life was scheduled for release next weekend, millions would line up around the block to buy a ticket while just as many would protest the film at every turn. The adulation we showed him upon hearing about his death seems to have had an expiration date. It's almost as if some people showed love and support because it was the popular thing to do at the time, but when the story went from the front page to the second, they turned their back on him again. Showing support shouldn't be a follow-the-leader thing; it should be something you do based on if the person has earned it or not. Michael Jackson earned adoration.



Album review: Billy Talent - 'III'
Canadian punks keep it real
By: Ben Patashnik
Jul 9, 2009

Refusing to bow to the punk-band-on-a-major archetype (write hit, get signed, smoke corporate pole) by, well, sounding just like they did when ‘Try Honesty’ landed in 2003, Toronto’s Billy Talent have always peddled as decent a line in melody as screechiness. Their third is business as usual - ‘The Dead Can’t Testify’ and ‘Rusted From The Rain’ are serrated, moralising pop-rock, and ‘Devil On My Shoulder’ and ‘Diamond On A Landmine’ have a chunky hookiness - but a change of pace would’ve worked wonders, as the nasal vocals and ever-chiming guitar become as familiar as a mild hangover. ‘III’ is unspectacular, yet it’s laudable that Billy Talent’s chins to remain unencumbered by the ballbags of big business.
Latest Single


Mercury Prize nominees announced
Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Nominations for the 18th annual Mercury Prize were announced this morning in London, England. Some of the names on the list include Kasabian, La Roux, Glasvegas, The Horrors, Bat For Lashes and Friendly Fires.
The inspiration for Canada's own Polaris Music Prize, the Mercury is a £20,000 prize that is awarded to the best album from the United Kingdom or Ireland.
Previous winners include Franz Ferdinand, PJ Harvey, Pulp and Arctic Monkeys. The winner will be announced on September 8th.

Here are the nominees:

Bat for Lashes – Two Suns
Florence and the Machine – Lungs
Friendly Fires – Friendly Fires
Glasvegas – Glasvegas
Lisa Hannigan – Sea Sew
The Horrors – Primary Colours
The Invisible – The Invisible
Kasabian – West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum
La Roux – La Roux
Led Bib – Sensible Shoes
Speech Debelle – Speech Therapy
Sweet Billy Pilgrim – Twice Born Men

From: MuchMusic News


Polaris Music Prize Names 2009 Short List
By: Spacelab Research Staff

Canada's Polaris Music Prize has announced its Short List for this year, as culled from the Long List. Who made the cut? Names like Metric, Chad VanGaalen, Mlajube, ******** Up, Great Lake Swimmers and more. See the full list below.
Founder Steve Jordan said "If there's a common thread to these records, it's that each artist built on previous successes by pushing themselves into even riskier artistic dimensions."
The Polaris Music Prize Gala will be held September 21st in Toronto. You can listen to the event and all of the performances on the CBC live broadcast, or on Sirius Satellite Radio.
Other Polaris Music Prize winners include Caribou (200 cool , Patrick Watson (2007) and Final Fantasy (2006).
The winner receives $20,000 (thus the prize), judged solely on artistic merit, without regard to genre or record sales. The Polaris Music Prize is awarded to the best full-length Canadian album released from June 1, 2008 to May 31, 2009.
The list was selected by 180 members of the Polaris Music Prize jury, which consists of music journalists, broadcasters and bloggers from across Canada. They try to avoid bias or old school deal-making by making sure that no music industry personnel with direct financial relationships with artists vote for Polaris.
{Click Here for Long List}

Check out the bands on the Short List below:

2009 Polaris Music Prize Short List
Elliott BROOD - Mountain Meadows
(Toronto, ******** Up - The Chemistry Of Common Life
(Toronto, ON)
Great Lake Swimmers - Lost Channels
(Toronto, ON)
Hey Rosetta! - Into Your Lungs (and around in your heart and on through your blood)
(St. John's, NF)
K'NAAN - Troubadour
(Toronto, ON)
Malajube - Labyrinthes
(Montréal, QC)
Metric - Fantasies
(Toronto, ON)
Joel Plaskett - Three
(Halifax, NS)
Chad VanGaalen - Soft Airplane
(Calgary, AB)
Patrick Watson - Wooden Arms
(Montréal, QC)







heart World of Music News

Janelle Monae: The next big thing?

Mar 23, 2009, 12:49 PM | by Jeremy Medina

Categories: Buzzworthy, Do My Job For Me, Janelle Monae, SXSW 2009

SXSW has sadly come and gone, but a few acts have emerged from the Austin heat as the festival's most-discussed. That list definitely includes the bizarro, hyper-stylized alt-R&B singer Janelle Monae. Poised to (possibly) break out in a major way, Monáe certainly has the pedigree to justify the buzz. Once a protege of fellow Atlantan Big Boi, Monae signed to Bad Boy Records last year, thereby making Diddy one of her biggest cheerleaders. "Janelle Monae is one of the most important signings of my career," Diddy said in a statement last year.

Though touted as everything from the next Michael Jackson to the female James Brown, Monae clearly has her own sound and style. Usually garbed in a dapper suit-and-tie -- and sporting some sort of combination of a mohawk and Afro -- the lady stands out in a crowd.

So, what's the problem? Well, her music is, shall we say, odd. Her dense, other-worldly songs manage to sound both futuristic and like a throwback to Motown. While interesting, her mass-appeal is questionable. But then, Monae seems like a love-her-or-hate-her artist who isn't going to change for the sake of commercial success. In other words, the next Rihanna or Beyonce she ain't. Her closest contemporaries might be Santigold and M.I.A., although it's hard to say without hearing a full album. (The debut record is rumored to be set for later this year.)

Check out the video below and tell us what you think. Are you digging Monae's unconventional vibe, or is she yet another example of an artist whose buzz been artificially created by the Internet?
{Many Moon, She's brought back the art of music video}



The Saturdays: 'Chasing Lights'
Released on Monday, October 27 2008
By Nick Levine, Music Editor

Brought to us by Fascination Records, the home of Girls Aloud, The Saturdays are rapidly becoming part of the chart furniture. This glossy five-piece, featuring two former members of S Club Juniors and one X Factor Boot Camp survivor, have cracked the top ten twice in the last three months. Their Yazoo-sampling debut single, 'If This Is Love', reached #8 in August, while the altogether more satisfying 'Up' went three places better this Sunday.

Chasing Lights, their impressive debut album, should maintain the upward momentum. Those seduced by the singles will find plenty to enjoy here, especially 'Lies' and 'Work', which repeat the trick of welding memorable choruses to sparky electropop. There's plenty of feisty attitude too, with lyrics that slam two-timing boys, kick dithering boys up the arse and tell sexy boys exactly how they make them feel. "I'm about to blow my top," the girls sing on the lusty 'Set Me Off' - and they sound like they mean it.

Predictably, the ballads aren't quite as much fun, but they never slip into the sappiness that mars lesser pop albums. The R&B-tinged 'Issues' sounds pretty sweet until the killer line comes - "I don't know if I should slap you or kiss you" - and there's little doubt who's in charge on the break-up songs. The girls are calm and collected on 'Chasing Lights', telling a controlling boyfriend to "go on, bye bye", and there's even a hint of spitefulness on the similarly-themed 'Fall'.

Will they still be around in three albums' time? It's too soon to say - and for now it doesn't really matter. The Saturdays have carved out an enviable niche for themselves with this consistently enjoyable debut album. Their sassy, modern, chart-ready pop is more straightforward than most Girls Aloud singles and younger than the music Sugababes are now recording. The world, or at least the top ten, should be their oyster.
Latest Single: Work


Alphabeat, This Is Alphabeat
By: Peter Robinson

Few songs in recent memory have proved quite as polarising as 'Fascination'. Combining equal parts 'Footloose', 'Modern Love' and Danish six-piece Alphabeat's own brand of sunshine pop, 'Fascination' is - depending on whom you ask - either some sort of second coming of Pop-with-a-capital-'P' or the most irritatingly banal Top 10 single of 2008. The song was certainly defiantly mainstream but, as testament to Radio One's recent claim that the station would resume its support of mainstream pop, it ended up on the playlists of the nation's former favourite.

The good news for those who enjoyed 'Fascination' is that there is plenty on This Is Alphabeat to match that song's appeal, and the good news for those who found themselves yelling at the radio is that while This Is Alphabeat is not exactly an album aimed at taking the Led Zeppelin fanbase by storm, there's plenty to extend the band's sound across a variety of styles taking in electronica, disco and new wave. There's even a curious cover of PiL's 'Public Image'.

The band's journey to the Top 10 was brilliantly executed. This Is Alphabeat was first released in Denmark last year, where it went platinum. A small gig in London last spring came as the band were taken on by Mika's manager, who signed them to EMI imprint Charisma. Lengthy tours, the band regrouping in east London and a limited release for the benefit of 'cool' taste-makers gave the band some distance from the hyper-pop sounds that pepper this album, meaning that the band now sit alongside other nurovision acts such as Robyn and Annie in the British media's easily manipulated barometer of cool.

When 'Fascination' dropped it was also, unintentionally, a missile which hit right at the heart of an audience of young music fans who enjoy High School Musical, or who voted for Same Difference on The X Factor. However, Alphabeat's music, headed up with tagteam vocals from Anders SG and Stine Bramsen, is in another league. These are songs about love and loss and all the bits in between, made by adults for adults; pop music which also just happens to appeal outside the band's peer group. It's how pop used to work, once upon a time, before the genre became synonymous with fobbing children off with total rubbish.

This retro approach is perhaps no accident, as songwriter and guitarist Anders B wears his classic influences on his sleeve, notably on the brilliant new single '10,000 Nights' which references both 'Wuthering Heights' and 'The Safety Dance'. 'Go-Go', added to the album since its Danish release, is a homage to Chic with added disco zapping noises, while the pumped-up 'Boyfriend' and its battle cry of 'don't you touch my boyfriend, he's not your boyfriend, he's mine' is in severe danger of becoming the soundtrack to rowdy nights out across the country. As the album ends with 'Nothing But My Baby' and a snatch of polite feedback, This Is Alphabeat feels like the story of a band having embarked on an ambitious experiment in classic pop, having pulled it off, and having turned in something of a modern pop masterpiece to boot.
Fascination


Pop review: La Roux

(Polydor)

This is the moment in the stories of La Roux and Little Boots when everything is supposed to go wrong. Grotesquely over-laden with premature accolades, Elly Jackson and Victoria Hesketh are now expected to release faintly disappointing debut albums and then step gracefully to one side to let the next big thing come through (it's the dubstep crossover, apparently). But these two twentysomething Facebook divas have turned the crushing weight of expectancy into a means of generating creative momentum.

These two albums don't just deliver independently, they deliver together. And what they deliver is a sumptuous, gatefold-sleeve, double-disc tribute to an electro-pop pantheon in which Vince Clarke reclines on Bob Dylan's old plinth, Italian dance maverick Gala (of Freed From Desire legend) dines on the grapes of Nico, and Rachel Stevens's Sweet Dreams My LA Ex supplies spiritual ambrosia.

The first time you hear La Roux's opening shot, In For the Kill, there doesn't seem to be much to it. But as this song's inexorable progress up the download chart has testified, that very absence of apparent content has a strangely addictive quality. There's an intriguing synthetic wheeze lurking in the upper reaches of Jackson's vocal range. Those who feared this effect might pall over a whole album will find solace in the unexpected emotional intensity of her lower register.

Little Boots's vocal style is more uniform, but her production (with help from Lily Allen's vintage keyboard consultant Greg Kurstin and Hot Chip's Joe Goddard) is more diverse. And where Jackson's As If By Magic contains a distant echo of the heroic synth fanfare in the Human League's Open Your Heart, Hesketh counters with a guest appearance by Phil Oakey. Symmetry's joyous cross-generational head-to-head finds them united in the conviction that "Everything I want to be is there in your reflection".

While La Roux's dismissal of "early 90s décor" (in Colourless Colour) is probably the only line on either album which could not have been written in the early 80s, that doesn't mean the pleasures here are purely nostalgic. With creative accounting, Little Boots's New in Town could even be seen to set out the modestly self-sustaining stall of a new breed of low-maintenance, high-impact, post-credit-crunch digital pop star. "I don't have a lot of money, but we'll be fine," she insists. Her confidence is infectious.








n e w m u s i c