Show Me What You Got

Coachella stage panorama. Photo: joshc on flickr.

While the beginning of 2010 was rather uneventful music-wise, it seems that things are starting to take a turn in the right direction. Coachella was this past weekend; it boasted one of its most star-studded lineups and received its largest audience to date. Independent stores all over the world celebrated another successful Record Store Day on Saturday. Summer is coming which means it’s almost festival season, and major new albums are on their way to store shelves (or more conveniently, your computer’s iTunes store). With all these developments, there’s a lot to keep up with, so I’ve prepared a quiz for you all to test your knowledge on Coachella and the latest music news. If you think you know your stuff, go for it! And better yet, if you don’t, take it anyway and hopefully you’ll learn something new about what’s going on in the world of popular music today.

Click here to take the quiz.

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This weekend, Jay-Z became the first rapper to headline Coachella. Although it wasn’t the most innovative of his performances (it bore distinct similarities to his headline show at Glastonbury ’08), he delivered a satisfying stream of hits and obscurities during his 90-minute set, while integrating rock standards such as “Wonderwall” to appeal to his largely-alternative audience. Also, bringing wife Beyoncé out for a song didn’t hurt. In light of his successful performance, here’s one of his classics given a fresh spin. Dave Wrangler, producer extraordinaire, strikes mashup gold once again by throwing a muffled vocal from Jay over the funky guitar stylings of Javelin, to give “Roc Boys” a very retro, yet very 2010 makeover. Even though it’s conventional in almost all ways, the remix is enough to give the song a breezier vibe, which would sound spectacular blasting out of some raspy boombox speakers on the beach.

Jay-Z vs. Javelin, Roc Boys (Dave Wrangler Remix)