Album Announcement: Chambers

Big news today: Gonzales announces a new album called “CHAMBERS”, set for release sometime in 2015!

If you are on Gonzales’ official email distribution list (and why wouldn’t you be?), you may have noticed a snippet of text that went along with the streaming cancellation notice:

“…we have a great surprise in store for you in January”

Then, on January 6th Gonzales responded to a comment on Twitter with the following: Continue reading

Chilly: “I, ii, iii, IV” vs. “XCX”

Gonzales’ recent article in The Guardian (Chilly Gonzales on musical tropes in 2014: when the chord progression died), examines the current trend of eschewing ‘traditional’ chord progressions and harmonic content in favour of a distinct and instantly identifiable ‘sound’. In a 2012 New Yorker article (The Song Machine), I was struck at how producers had to incorporate hooks into the intro, pre-chorus, chorus, and bridge, because artists only had 7 seconds of to ‘hook’ listeners. It’s possible that the introduction of a ‘sound’ attempts to mitigate the insatiable need for hooks in music, with a ‘sound’ for a song that would draw listeners in, but how did we ‘progress’ to this point? Gonzales’ article certainly struck a chord with readers, as feedback appeared swiftly. After reading the article and feedback a number of times, we wondered if there was a secondary, larger message within Gonzales view of the hits and musical trends of 2014. Continue reading