Well, here it is people, the album artwork for the new The Streets album, Everything Is Borrowed. It’s due to be in an online store near you on 15th September.

The lead single from Everything Is Borrowed is The Escapist, which is currently available as a free download from their official site. The second single is the album title track, Everything Is Borrowed.

From what we’re hearing, the new album should be a much more positive affair than the previous release, The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living. Some of the official blurb says:

From its uplifting title-track - a euphoric meditation on how to make the best of life’s infinite possibilities – to the almost mystical finale, “The Escapist” (wherein Mike Skinner happily ponders the insignificance of “little, fleeting, momentary me” in the dappled sunlight of his “favourite tree”), Everything Is Borrowed seems to be lit from within by a healing flame of optimism. Freed from celebrity hang-ups and savouring a thrilling rush of new-found perspective, Mike Skinner has made a record to console the lonely and bring a smile to the saddest visage. Warm-hearted, witty and utterly distinctive, this is music to help Britain through the credit-crunch.

Almost sounds a bit Zen, doesn’t it?

Track Listing

1. Everything Is Borrowed
2. Heaven For The Weather
3. I Love You More (Than You Like Me)
4. Just Thought Of Something
5. On The Flip Of A Coin
6. The Sherry End
7. Alleged Legends
8. What Are Chances Of That Like?
9. When That Day Will Be
10. Further Away
11. Strongest Person I Know
12. The Escapist

One of our favourite British bands, Kaiser Chiefs, have revealed the title of their latest album will be Off With Their Heads. This is the third studio album to be released by the band. It has been produced by Mark Ronson and Eliot James and is due to be released on October 13 (along with just about every new album hoping to make big sales for Christmas).

Collaborations

Interestingly, the album features some collaborations between the Kaisers and Lily Allen, New York Pony Club, Sway and the composer David Arnold.

Arnold has been responsible for adding orchestration to the songs I Like It Too Much and Half The Truth. The inimitable Miss Allen performs on Always Happens Like That.

Frontman Ricky Wilson says that “It’s good we’ve got our weirdness back.” Which makes us wonder what treats are in store for the fans….

Let us know below if you’re a fan - are you looking forward to the new Kaiser Chiefs album?

Track Listing

The full track listing for Off With Their Heads is as below:

1. Spanish Metal
2. Never Miss A Beat
3. Like It Too Much
4. You Want History
5. Cant Say What I Mean
6. Good Days Bad Days
7. Tomato In The Rain
8. Half The Truth
9. Always Happens Like That
10. Addicted to Drugs
11. Remember You’re A Girl

Just when you thought they’d cashed in on the Queen name enough, Brian May and Roger Taylor (along with not-quite-Freddy frontman Paul Rodgers) are squeezing a few quid more out of fans desperate to hear a bit more Queen.

The new album - the first since their Made In Heaven album in 1995 - is to be called The Cosmos Rocks. Looking back to when we first talked about the possibility of a new album in November last year, we were obviously pretty excited.

However, after hearing the dreary dirge of Say It’s Not True shortly afterward, there’s no sign of the rock genius that was Queen’s trademark in their original incarnation. Even John Deacon’s walked away!

What we’re left with is two guys (May and Taylor) rampantly demolishing the Queen name. Shit, if they wanted to start a band with Paul Rodgers, but call it something else. Start something new.

Yes, we understand that Say It’s Not True is written about a serious issue, but it’s also a preachy, unsubtle piece of cliched nonsense. Band Aid, Part 76. Have you heard it yet? Before you click the play button on the video below, you’ll need a couple of ProPlus washed down with a triple Espresso. That’s if you want to listen all the way to the end.

We can but pray that The Cosmos Rocks will be a winning album. But without Freddy Mercury and judging on the evidence above, it’s more likely that the Cosmos will be silently weeping for what these guys are doing now.

The excitement of big name album releases this year continues, with Dr. Dre’s latest project, Detox being considered for release in “November or December”.

Dre hasn’t released a full solo album since 1999’s 2001 (confused?), but considering it took him 7 years between The Chronic and 2001, you can be fairly sure that the Doc has been putting his heart and soul into the production of this album.

However, we can’t help thinking that things just ain’t the same for gangsters these days. You know, time’s are changing, young niggaz is aging. But it’s not as if Dre’s been in deep freeze since 2001 came out. He’s been behind some major music acts in the last few years, acting as producer. No, it’s not like we forgot about Dre.

Ahem.

If you can’t tell, we were massive fans of Dr. Dre’s last album here at Unreality Music. To say we’re stoked about a full new album from him is an understatement.

Anyway, Dre recently spoke to USA Today about the new album -

I’m just now - over the last couple of months - starting to feel that it’s going to be right and it’s something I can be proud of, and everybody is going to love it.

In a perfect world I’m shooting for a November or December release. I’m going to put this record out, promote it, tour and then become a hermit. I’m going to stay in the studio and produce.

And what Dre release would be complete without cameos from the best and brightest in Hip-Hop? Big names rumoured to be on this album are Jay-Z, Lil Wayne and Nas. No word on Snoop, but that’s almost a given, isn’t it?

After being unintentionally outed by retailer Music Dispatch, Metallica have officially announced the track listing for Death Magnetic, due out in September.

But if an over-enthusiastic retailer is what it takes to get the low-down on the highly anticipated Death Magnetic, then shouldn’t we all just be grateful?

The song titles are suitably foreboding, and could easily hark back to the golden era of thrash that we’ve all been hoping for. Titles after the jump…

1. That Was Just Your Life
2. The End of the Line
3. Broken, Beat & Scarred
4. The Day That Never Comes
5. All Nightmare Long
6. Cyanide
7. The Unforgiven III
8. The Judas Kiss
9. Suicide & Redemption
10. My Apocalypse

You’ll have noticed the inclusion of The Unforgiven III, a continuation of a theme which was begun with the Black Album.

In keeping with the name, Death Magnetic, the song titles seem to indicate a dark concept album which seems to start with two songs about the end of life, then ending with themes of redemption and apocalypse. We wonder if there’s any flow to the album - no-one’s mentioned it being a concept album!

Anyway, the excitement continues, but what Metallica gossip will keep us going until Death Magnetic hits the stores on 22 September?

Ben Folds is due to release his third solo album, Way To Normal on 30th September 2008.

Although some of the album was written during the final stages of his divorce last year, Folds says that this album is not about that. Even though the album was originally going to be titled ‘Blood On The Keyboard’…

The songs are not topical. I was not interested in making a record about the D-word. I got all that stuff out of my system on the last record, which was deliberately stoic.

This new album is really about me being free, which is why it feels cathartic and expressive. It’s about me coming back to being myself. I came out of the courthouse, kissed the ground, and walked straight into the studio. I felt like a bottle of champagne that had been shaken for 18 months and popped open in the studio. That’s why this record has so much energy.

The album was recorded at Folds’ studio in Nashville and produced by Dennis Herring. The musicians accompanying Folds on this latest platter are bassist Jared Williams and drummer Sam Smith.

Regina Spektor guests on the first single release from Way To Normal, You Don’t Know Me.

Way To Normal Track Listing

1. Hiroshima (B B B Benny Hits His Head)
2. Dr. Yang
3. The Frown
4. You Don’t Know Me (featuring Regina Spektor)
5. Before Cologne
6. Cologne
7. Errant Dog
8. Free Coffee
9. Bitch Went Nuts
10. Brainwascht
11. Effington
12. Kylie from Connecticut

(Seems we’re talking a lot about T Bone these days, from his work with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss to his musical direction on the Walk The Line soundtrack)

Burnett says that he wanted to get B.B. back to his roots and resisted the temptation to try and give the bluesman a contemporary slant:

I saw B.B. at the Central Forest Ballroom in Dallas in ‘65 or something like that. I remembered exactly how that felt and how that sounded, so I wanted to go back and sort of re-create that very live sound. We all cut it just sitting around in a circle. I tried to be very true to who he was when I first heard him and that energy — in other words, not try to update him in any way.

Of course, with the release of One Kind Favor, King is showing no signs of slowing down - there’s a B.B. King Museum being opened in his honour, he’s touring and in September he’ll begin hosting a weekly blues radio show on XM Satellite Radio. Phew!

The tracklist for One Kind Favor runs as follows:

1. See That My Grave Is Kept Clean (Lemon Jefferson)
2. I Get So Weary (T-Bone Walker)
3. Get These Blues Off Me (Lee Vida Walker)
4. How Many More Years (Chester Burnett)
5. Waiting For Your Call (Oscar Lollie)
6. My Love Is Down (Lonnie Johnson)
7. The World Is Gone Wrong (Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon)
8. Blues Before Sunrise (John Lee Hooker)
9. Midnight Blues (John Willie “Shifty” Henry)
10. Backwater Blues (Big Bill Broonzy)
11. Sitting On Top Of The World (Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon)
12. Tomorrow Night (Lonnie Johnson)

Anyone feeling like a slice of old-school blues?

Want a free McFly album? Well, here’s a one-time offer for you - buy this week’s Mail on Sunday (20th July 2008) and you’ll find a copy of their new CD radio:ACTIVE bundled inside!

Copying Prince’s giveaway of his Planet Earth album, the scruffy-haired four-piece are taking this new approach to promoting their record since splitting with their record company (Island Records) earlier this year. And while we doubt it’ll be quite the event that the Purple One’s release was, we still applaud McFly for not toeing the record company line!

Apparently the band split with Island after they advised them to write more relaxed songs. Tom Fletcher recently said:

We always wanted to be bigger and better and we never felt that we had achieved our true potential so we felt that we could get closer to achieving that on our own.

They wanted to take us in a direction that we really didn’t want to go in. They wanted us to be a bit more chilled out and more subdued, but that is not who we are. We like having a laugh and felt we were being pushed in a direction we really didn’t want to go in.

A deluxe edition of radio:ACTIVE is due to hit the shops on 8th September, including four bonus tracks, a DVD and a 32 page booklet. The first single from the new album is One For The Radio, which was released on 14th July.

Veteran rockers Crosby, Stills and Nash are to get the Johnny Cash treatment by recording an album of covers with Rick Rubin.

Rubin helped Cash reinvent himself toward the end of his career, culminating in American IV: The Man Comes Around, which is regarded as one of his best albums.

There’s no doubt that Rubin - fresh from the new Metallica album - will reinvigorate the band and produce a blinder of an album. He’s definitely the go-to guy for any band looking to revitalise their music.

The as yet untitled covers album is expected to be recorded in the new year with the intention of releasing it later in 2009. It’ll be the band’s first album since 1994’s After The Storm. Apparently they have a shortlist of 20 sogns, culled from a list of 60.

According to Billboard, that’s just the tip of the musical iceberg, and there are lots of CSNY goodies due out soon, not least the release of the Deja Vu documentary which follows the band on their 2006 Freedom Of Speech tour.

Graham Nash has recently said:

You fall back in love with the reason why you wanted to play with Neil Young in the first place, the reason why you wanted to play with Stephen Stills in the first place, and with Crosby in the first place,” Nash explains. “You go, ‘…I remember all this sh*t. That’s what we were trying to concentrate on.’ It’s very interesting, very enlightening.

Exciting stuff for fans of the band. We can’t wait for the track listing, and will post it here when we get more information.

Metallica continue to drip-feed information about their Death Magnetic album, signifying that they’re working non-stop to get fans excited about this release. And it’s working.

Today they released the album artwork (above) which features a coffin and notably the classic Metallica logo rather than the modern version that graced the Load albums. We just wish we had schoolbags again to etch that logo into an old canvas bag…ahhh.

In other news, metal fans, the band are blazing a trail by ensuring the entire album will be available for Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock at the time of its release. This is quite a pioneering move for the band, and gives weight to the game makers recent claim that Guitar Hero could viably rival iTunes!

It wouldn’t be our preferred way of listening to music, but there you go…

Death Magnetic is scheduled for release on 22nd September (not so far away now, eh) and was produced by Metallica and Rick Rubin. The new era of thrash is almost upon us, friends. Let’s start sewing metal patches on our denim jackets like in the glory days…