Nov 4, 2011

RhoDeo 1144 Grooves

Hello, today is all about Buffalo Man, the name of the silhouette character featured on most of the covers of the band's releases. It was created by Jay Kay between 1992 and 1993, seemingly a self portrait silhouette of Jason wearing a buffalo hat. At a birthdayparty I teased a fan that JK had internalized the Flintstones characters, i got into a heated debate, certainly after i threw some more oil on the fire that i considered the music a bit too sleek from time to time and geared to the well-off. Now this certainly isn't Jay Kay's background, far from it, but the kind of fans you gather has a baring on how the music is perceived. It's that snobbish jazz thing that raises my hairs. Well i certainly didn't make friends that night, somehow i got blamed for that necktie getting agitated.

Well what can i say Jamiroquai has sold 40,000,000 albums. With early lyrics frequently espousing a green, ecological stance, yet now owning over 30 luxury cars, Kay is frequently accused of environmental hypocrisy, a claim he obviously denies as he can drive only one car at the time, but his love of fast cars sees him speeding easily. However, he did hold Top Gear's no 1 spot in the Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car track competition. Boy Toys, interestingly he's into 'girl' toys as well, hats. Jay is well known for his array of elaborate hats and headgear. When appearing professionally (in concerts, interviews etc.) he has been referred to as "the mad hatter" for his love of headgear. It is said that he has over 50 different hats that he wears at concerts and in public.

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Jamiroquai has amassed a steady stream of hits in its native U.K. and experienced chart success in just about every other area of the world, with an irresistible blend of house rhythms and '70s-era soul/funk. The original band was Jay Kay (vocals), Toby Smith (keyboard), Stuart Zender (bass), Nick Van Gelder (drums), Wallis Buchanan (didgeridoo) and Alec Moran (pipeau). These are the founding members of Jamiroquai and were involved in the writing and production of the first album. The lineup of the band has changed several times, and the longest serving and now core members of the band are lead singer and songwriter Jason "Jay" Kay and drummer Derrick McKenzie (1994).

Kay was the impetus behind the formation of Jamiroquai, deciding to form the band after an unsuccessful audition to become the singer of the Brand New Heavies. Despite his self-professed attempts to treat Jamiroquai as a band, Kay has always been at the forefront of how the group is marketed, and has therefore always had the lion's share of media attention, to the point where he is viewed as almost a solo artist. Born on December 30, 1969, in Stretford, Manchester, Kay's mother, Karen, was a jazz singer who regularly performed at nightclubs, and in the '70s had her own TV show.

After leaving home at the age of 15, Kay found himself homeless and in trouble with the law (by committing petty crimes to get by). After a near-death experience (where he was attacked and stabbed) and being arrested for a crime he did not commit, Kay decided to return home, where he chose to pursue a legitimate career over crime: music. Kay didn't have a band to back up his compositions, but he quickly came up with his future project's name, Jamiroquai, a name that combined the name of a Native American tribe (the Iroquois) along with the music-based word, jam.

Kay's home demos caught the attention of the record label Acid Jazz, which issued Jamiroquai's debut single "When You Gonna Learn?" in late 1992. With Kay enlisting the help of others (Jamiroquai's best-known lineup), the single was a success and was soon followed by a long-term ( 8 records deal) and lucrative recording contract with Sony. Jamiroquai's full-length debut, Emergency on Planet Earth, followed in 1993 and became a major hit in their native England (peaking at number one on the charts) The band's second release, The Return of the Space Cowboy in 1995, managed to steer Jamiroquai clear of the sophomore jinx that affects so many up-and-coming bands by out-selling its predecessor in Europe and was a sizeable hit in Japan, as well.

With most of the world dancing to Jamiroquai's beat, America was next in line for the band's third effort, 1996's Traveling Without Moving. The album spawned the worldwide hit "Virtual Insanity," for which an award-winning video was filmed and helped the album achieve platinum status in the States by the year's end (as well as a highlighted performance at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards). Despite achieving breakthrough success, bassist Zender opted to leave the group during sessions for its follow-up, which resulted in Kay scraping almost an entire album's worth of new tracks in order to start from scratch with a new bassist (the slot would eventually go to newcomer Nick Fyffe). During the downtime, Jamiroquai contributed a brand-new track, "Deeper Underground," to the soundtrack for the 1998 movie Godzilla.

But the long wait between albums seemed to kill Jamiroquai's momentum in the U.S., where a fourth release overall, 1999's Synkronized, was largely ignored (yet back home and across the globe, it was another major commercial success). Subsequently, it appeared as though the majority of Jamiroquai's U.S. media attention focused on non-music related events, such as the band turning down a million-dollar offer to play at a concert on New Year's Eve 1999. It didn't take Jamiroquai as long the next time around to issue another album, with A Funk Odyssey hitting the racks two years later in 2001. Kay also helmed a volume in the mix-album series Late Night Tales. From there, Jamiroquai spent the next two years gathering material for a sixth studio album.

Dynamite, which was finally released in 2005, was written and recorded in Spain, Italy, Costa Rica, Scotland, New York, Los Angeles and Jamiroquai's own Buckinghamshire studio. Jamiroquai released a greatest hits collection, High Times: Singles 1992-2006 in November 2006. The release of this album marked the end of Kay’s eight-album contract with Sony. The album reached the number 1 spot in the UK album chart after its first week of release. The album featured two new tracks, "Runaway" and "Radio".

After leaving Sony, the band began to work on their seventh project, and several collaborations and side-projects. In a very short mid-2007 interview with Jamirotalk, drummer Derick McKenzie expressed his satisfaction with leaving Sony as the beginning of a period in which the band will have more creative control over their own work, together with plenty of room for experimentation and lack of pressure from a record company. The group's seventh studio album, 2010's Rock Dust Light Star, was recorded in Jay Kay's home studio in Buckinghamshire, it saw a return to their earlier, less pop-like sound. Despite both singles, Blue Skies and White Knuckle Ride reaching into Top 100 charts worldwide, the album sold a mere 34,378 copies on its debut, around half the amount sold of the previous album Dynamite..

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Released in 1993, Emergency on Planet Earth features strong elements of the mixture of the R&B, and funk genres, a psychedelic melange of tight funky rhythms, acid rock intimations, and '70s soul melodies. Frontman Jay Kay introduces himself with an environmentally oriented manifesto inside the sleeve, and his lyrics smack of idealist save the planet revolution. But this revolution would be held on the dancefloor if the band's impressive rhythm section had anything to say about it. Horns, string arrangements, and a didgeridoo provide full texture on most of the album's tunes, and the socially aware party vibe raged into the U.K.'s number one album slot. For a debut, Emergency shows quite a range of diversity, from the up-tempo jazzy instrumental to the stop-start funk. The album was listed at number 23 in the music reference book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.


Jamiroquai - Emergency On Planet Earth ( 338mb)

01 When You Gonna Learn (Digeridoo) 3:52
02 Too Young To Die 6:08
03 Hooked Up 4:38
04 If I Like It, I Do It 4:55
05 Music Of The Mind 6:25
06 Emergency On Planet Earth 4:07
07 Whatever It Is, I Just Can't Stop 4:09
08 Blow Your Mind 8:36
09 Revolution 1993 10:19
10 Didgin' Out 2:35

Jamiroquai - Emergency On Planet Earth ( 130mb)

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Jamiroquai's sophomore record had all the slinky grooves and great musicianship of the debut, but it also offered a better set of songs and more ambitious musical themes. Many consider it to be the best and most refined example of the unique Jamiroquai sound. The album has sold 4,000,000 copies to date. As with Emergency on Planet Earth, Jason Kay's dead-on impression of Stevie Wonder and Sly Stone drives the group's blend of acid jazz and funky R&B. "Space Cowboy" and "Light Years" were hits all over the world, and made the band stars in Europe and Japan, while substantial clubplay earned them a degree of recognition for American audiences. But Jamiroquai refused to be known as simply a party band; the group takes on social issues such as homelessness and Native Americans' rights.


Jamiroquai - The Return Of The Space Cowboy ( 370mb)

01 Just Another Story 8:54
02 Stillness In Time 4:19
03 Half The Man 4:52
04 Light Years 5:56
05 Manifest Destiny 6:24
06 The Kids 5:12
07 Mr Moon 5:31
08 Scam 7:04
09 Journey To Arnhemland 5:24
10 Morning Glory 6:26
11 Space Cowboy 6:24

Jamiroquai - The Return Of The Space Cowboy ( 147mb)

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Three years after their breakout Travelling Without Moving, Jamiroquai returned with another album that charts Jay Kay's continuing fascination with club-bound music of the 1970s . It is also known for being the last Jamiroquai album featuring the band's more traditional line-up and sound. Stuart Zender, the band's bass player for their first three albums left the band during the making of Synkronized, he's not on it as Jay Kay rerecorded everything with him on it (temper, temper). It is noticeable that there is no bass guitar or bass synth sound within the songs. Produced by Kay with Al Stone, who also collaborated on Travelling Without Moving, the album includes several tracks (like the single "Canned Heat") that work infectious acid jazz grooves, and Kay's hipster vocals give out feel-good vibes through a set of ambiguously good-time lyrics. Though other tracks show a bit of an electronica update to the affairs, each still spotlights how strong and tight the band is.


Jamiroquai – Synkronized (flac 384mb)

01 Canned Heat (Album Version) 5:32
02 Planet Home 4:44
03 Black Capricorn Day 5:41
04 Soul Education 4:15
05 Falling 3:45
06 Destitute Illusions 5:40
07 Supersonic 5:16
08 Butterfly 4:29
09 Where Do We Go From Here? 5:14
10 King For A Day 3:44
11 Deeper Underground 4:44

Jamiroquai – Synkronized (137mb)

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Decent oggs - Thanks