Your Sunday just got better!  Check out album review #3 of 10 featuring some of the best albums released this year.

Artist: Quadron

Album: Avalanche

Label: Alarm/Epic

http://www.quadronmusic.com/

Electronic Soul duo Quadron released their sophomore effort Avalanche in March.  The Danish group, comprised of singer Coco Maja Hastrup Karshøj (Coco O) and musician/producer Robin Hannibal (also of the band Rhye) outdid themselves with this second album.  Singles “Hey Love” and “Favorite Star” are catchy and fun enough to be instant earworms, and slow jams like “Befriend” and “Something That You Like” are smoldering burners that could make Sade jealous.  It’s nearly impossible to listen any track off of Avalanche without moving a part of one’s body; tapping a foot, nodding a head, swaying hips or snapping fingers.  Quite possibly, all of these things would happen at once, and that is the mark of a really great album.

-Heather Thueringer, Music Supervisor

It’s that time of year… time to pick your top albums of 2013.  At PlayNetwork, we’re going to do it a little different this year.  Our music team picked their top 10 albums and then wrote a review for one of the albums that made the list.  We are going to feature 10 of these album reviews written by our music team.   Here is the first one, enjoy!

Artist: Classixx

Album: Hanging Gardens

Label: Innovative Leisure

http://classixx.la/blog/

Following a steady string of hotly-tipped remixes and singles over the last four years, LA-based electronic production duo finally unleashed their debut studio album this past summer and quickly became a go-to soundtrack for the sunny season. Hanging Gardens showcases Classixx’s seamless blend of disco, house, R&B, funk and pop styles that mixes infectious pop singles with breezy dancefloor grooves, all with an impeccable 80s-influenced touch and a talented roster of diverse guest vocalists. The album also stands out with its flawless sequencing and pacing, undoubtedly the result […]

We round out the month of January with the final 20 artists from our top 40 Albums of 2012 Music Supervision team. Stay tuned through 2013 to more great music coming our way! 

An added bonus for you audiophiles: we’ve built an exclusive channel on our web radio player featuring all of artists on our Top 40 list. Click the image below to enjoy!

Our 2012 Music Supervisor Top 40 Album countdown continues with 30-21. In these you’ll find a good mix of flavors…hip-hop, rock, pop, electronica, with a solid international flair. Check out the videos for each artist.

Tanlines: All of Me

Frankie Rose: Know Me

Django Django: Default

Frank Ocean: Sweet Life

Niki & The Dove: The Fox

Twin Shadow: Five Seconds (NSFW)

THEE Satisfaction: QueenS

Yuna: Thinkin Bout You (Frank Ocean Cover)

Kindness: Swinging Party

Kendrick Lamar: Swimming Pools

Happy New Year folks! As we close the door on 2012, we look back on the year in music. Every year our music supervisors spend countless hours ingesting thousands of artists, albums, and songs that wrap around their cerebellum and become the basis of the branded sounds we create for our clients. But, their own tastes are sometimes left out of the mix (so to speak).

This year, our diverse team of Music Supervisors all voted on their personal favorite albums of 2012, the music that caught their ear and stood out from the pack. We tabulated all the votes, ranking them in order, and this Music Supervisor Top 40 Albums of 2012 list captures some of the passion for new music and the individual tastes of our group.

Over the next several days, we’ll start at 40 and unveil ten at a time until we hit number one!

For a sneak peak into the list that we’re playing live at this very moment in our Redmond offices, scan this […]

Our second to last post about our favorites in music from 2011 brings up PlayNetwork Music Supervisor, Traci Stetzer, who serves us something new, some old magic, and something to spread the word about as her favorites from 2011.

Top Eight of The Year (in no particular order)

*Foster The People/Torches www.fosterthepeople.com

This debut from the LA based trio is an amazing first showing; every track is superior. It’s my hope they don’t fall into the sophomore slump by placing all the best eggs into the first basket. But I have hope for them, they’re young, creative and even entrepreneurial, working alongside “The Do Good Bus” during their first US Tour.  “The Do Good Bus” is a Los Angeles-based volunteer organization designed to add an element of mystery and fun into volunteer work. The Do Good Bus has a simple premise, taking groups of do-gooders to sites around the city to perform services such as building houses and planting gardens. Where the fun factor comes in is that each day’s […]

We hope you’re enjoying your holidays! As we reflect back on 2011, our second installment of ‘bests’ n music as seen by PlayNetwork’s Music Superivisor’s brings up Music Supervisor, Heather Thueringer’s Top 10 Albums of 2011. Without further ado…

10. Ellie Goulding – Lights

PlayNetwork was fortunate to host a PlayLive event featuring Ellie Goulding just weeks before she was tapped to play the Royal wedding and Saturday Night Live.  She did a great set on our mainstage and was as nice as could be.  Listening to her album Lights, it’s easy to see why she was one of the top-selling British artists in 2010.

Watch Ellie Goulding’s “Lights” Video…

[youtube  http://youtu.be/0NKUpo_xKyQ]

9.  Jamie Woon – Mirrorwriting

I was lucky enough to catch Jamie Woon at South By Southwest and he was fantastic!  His whole album is great and I would highly encourage seeing him live if you can!  You will not be disappointed.

Watch Jamie Woon’s “Night Air” Video…

[youtube http://youtu.be/EL0pTo9Z_XU]

8.  Lykke Li – Wounded Rhymes

[…]

Another year of great music, and  most of us have only scratched the surface, exposed to radio favorites or a few buzz-worthy notables in-between. But beyond that, a sea of music exists that most of us have not been exposed to.

And then there those like members of our Music Services team who eat, drink, sleep, and live music: over morning coffee, in the car, at work, in meetings (wait, in meetings?!), back home again, out on the town, and falling asleep. Rinse, repeat, another morning of coffee and music.

Every year, our passionate and talented music supervisors listen to and catalog, both mentally and literally, thousands of songs and artists while they craft the sound of a brand. So to send off 2011, we’ll share some of our favorites from this past year. Look for several posts over these last two weeks as members of our Music Services team share some of their favorites.  We hope you enjoy!

First up, an in-depth look by Director, Music and Messaging Services Sean Horton at […]

So I did it!  I completed my goal of watching every single non-local comedy show.  It took the whole three days and a lot of following special guest and my imaginary friend Doug Benson around but I did it.  He proves the worth of Twitter with his smart one-liners and ‘Where’s Doug‘ secret sayings to get free merch.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUM69fH7FaE]

Bumbershoot did a great job of designating venues for certain genres of comedy.  Vera Project was local acts, Charlotte Martin was musical comedy, and Intiman was your typical stand up.

The musical comedy was a lot of fun and pretty much everyone involved had toured with Flight of the Concords.  I saw David O’Doherty open for my celebrity crush Demetri Martin a couple years ago and I still reminisce the hilarity his performance produced.  His dad was a trained jazz pianist and D.O.D. plays his things like “My Beefs 2010” on his 1984 tiny electric yamaha keyboard.  Sell out performances by Patton Oswalt and […]

I have an addiction.  It’s a problem.  I’m completely addicted to live comedy.  There had been a couple weeks of not frequenting a stand up joint and I was getting the shakes.  Luckily I got tickets last week to go see Doug Benson of ‘Super High Me‘ , Comedy Central programs, and VH1’s Best Week Ever.  I’ve seen his stand up on Comedy Central before and wasn’t super impressed.  Which is why I’ve decided you haven’t really ‘seen’ someone until you’ve seen them live.  He was hilarious.  Interacting with the people in the crowd who were telling him to open his eyes, making fun of a poster someone made for him, and getting to tell jokes about McDonald’s and how his flatulence smells like delicious McGriddles (they weren’t a sponsor this time).  His opener, Graham Elwood, was fantastic as well.  He kept on getting distracted by the wavy lights in the background and having a little one-man rave party.  I even got my own […]