Morning Music Notes – Coldplay and Rihanna, Together at Last

Coldplay To Release a Rihanna Duet, Plus A New Single Below

Song chorus singer for hire, Rihanna, will lend her chorus singing expertise to a new Coldplay song (via NME). The tracklisting was revealed a few days ago, and the song that will feature Rihanna is called Princess of China. Maybe the song is written about her?? Ignore the fact she is from Barbados and let me have this scoop.

Singer Chris Martin told The Sun of how the duet came about, saying:

“The album is designed as a whole piece. It has boy and girl lead characters and top of our list for the girl part was Rihanna, but it took a while to pluck up the courage to ask her. We did a show in Las Vegas and I met her and said, ‘Do you think there’s any chance?’ I was very Hugh Grant-like and spluttering about it. She has such an amazing voice and it’s so different to mine. When the vocal happened I thought ‘Wow, you sound different’ but I think that’s also because she was singing a different song to what we are used to hearing from her and it is written by a bloke from Devon.”

And here I thought they met at Denny’s. Earlier this morning, Coldplay released the audio for new single, Paradise. Make your ears happy and give it a few listens below. The song is taken from new album Mylo Xyloto and the album is out at the end of October.

[youtube J6ZWlDks0nQ]

PJ20 Hits Toronto

Pearl Jam’s 20 year introspective documentary, PJ20 debuted at TIFF on Saturday night, and the boys are in town to play a couple of shows, too, including last night’s show with surprise guest Neil Young (according to an email in the PHM inbox which I am blindly going to believe). From Spinner:

Of all the footage journalist-turned-director Cameron Crowe assembled for ‘Pearl Jam Twenty’ — his retrospective documentary on the iconic Seattle band and their struggles with success — there was one piece that stood apart from the others.

“The ‘Holy Grail’ was the piece of footage of Kurt Cobain and Eddie [Vedder] slow-dancing at the [1992 MTV] VMAs,” Crowe told a room of reporters at a post-premiere press conference Saturday at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). The incident took place under the stage as Eric Clapton was performing ‘Tears in Heaven.’

“That had been talked about — some people didn’t quite remember it even happening, other people swore there was somebody there with a camera…and it’s so powerful. I was watching it again tonight and it’s such a human moment. It’s what happens outside the glare of the spotlight.”

There are several great interviews and reviews floating around, including:
Billboard
The full article from Spinner
Rolling Stone, which features a stream of the two-disc Pearl Jam Twenty in its entirety.

Amy Winehouse and Tony Bennett’s New Video

Tony Bennett has a new duet album, Duets II, featuring Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga, Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey and Michael Buble. The song featuring Amy Winehouse, called Body and Soul, is out in a couple of days. But for now, we have a video featuring a few clips of the song, as well as an interview with Amy Winehouse. If they give us crap, we have to provide crap – sorry for the fluff in lieu of the song.