Matchbox Twenty - North Album Cover

The hype over the latest Matchbox Twenty album has been growing over the past 12 months, with fans waiting patiently (or not so patiently) for details of a release, as the band dropped song titles and photos from the studio over twitter.

“North”, the title for the new album refers to the band finding our way. Paul Doucette spoke to Rolling Stone. “We went into this record with a lot of material. Many different songs that could have taken us in many different directions. It sort of overwhelmed us for a bit. But, at a certain point, we figured it out. We figured out where ‘North’ was.”

Mark your diaries and reserve a copy at your local record shop. Matchbox Twenty – North.

We previously compiled a tracklist from the bands twitter account, we suspect the tracklist to North will go something like this:

1. Walking Around The Line

3. The Way

4. She’s so mean

5. Lights

6. Radio

7. Overjoyed

8. Real Love

9. I Don’t Want to be Loved

10. Hollywood

11. Josephine

12. The End

13. English Town

14. I Don’t Wanna Wait

15. Don’t let the lights go down.

Don’t forget to listen out for the debut single from North, She’s So Mean.

Happy Birthday Rob!

He was born in 1972 on a U.S. military base in Landstuhl, Germany and the rest as we know is history. I want to share with you as a special birthday gift a poem I wrote about Rob.

I hope you feel that it embodies the person he is as well as the performer we’ve seen him to be through these years. I’m glad to be a fan! I’m happy that he has shared with us so much in his music and I can’t wait to see what’s around the bend.

Rob Thomas – 2010 birthday clip:

Rob Thomas – 2008 birthday clip:

This is for you, Rob

Wait – be prepared

to stop exactly on the spot

where I am

as the music starts

identify

Rob’s strong voice

already listening

I start to feel

elevated ~

Then again as I watch

Rob’s performance

I’m reminded from

lines on his face

‘bright lights’ in his eyes

it’s his ever-pounding heart

what’s inside his blood

escaping from his soul

as he shares fragments

of himself

proving how much

this element called music

means to him in his life

willingly sharing

this kind fervor

with his fans

allowing them to feel

his elation ~

Realizing

after all those

long days

always

it’s the fans

giving you

time

to keep creating

what you love

most.

Thanks for the music

and here’s to even more!

***

In 2007, Daryl Hall started his own website – Live from Daryl’s House. The idea was to play music with his friends and stick it up on the Internet. Since then his quests have included: Matt Nathenson, Keb’ Mo’, Chromeo, Smokey Robinson, Train, John Rzeznik and Todd Rundgren to name but a few.

Rob Thomas and Daryl

Back in 2010, Daryl invited Rob Thomas to bring his best songs and sing them together. Thrown into the mix were a couple of Hall & Oates classics thrown and a great cover of the Marvin Gaye song ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’.

For those who haven’t seen it, click the link below and watch not only some great behind the scenes footage but Rob and Daryl rock out great versions of:

3 AM
Disease
Someday
Ever The Same
Kiss On My List (Hall & Oates)
She’s Gone (Hall & Oates)
I Heard It Through The Grapevine (Marvin Gaye)

http://www.livefromdarylshouse.com/currentep.html?ep_id=13

I will be back to full speed soon enough, but i wanted to let everyone who uses the site that we’re still around and thinking of you all!

Happy 2012 EVERYONE!!!

Matchbox Twenty Live 2012

As Vice President of Lippman Entertainment, the management company behind Matchbox, Rob and the Break & Repair Method, Nick has the inside track. He’ll keep you updated with all the goings on, as well as hit you up with some great matchbox related news! With the new Matchbox record and tour on the horizon, there has never been a better time to follow @mrlippman.

Brian Yale in the Studio

But Lippman Entertainment doesn’t just look after the Matchbox guys. From pop legend George Michael and world renowned lyricist Bernie Taupin, to up and coming band, Midnight Mirage, Lippman Entertainment has one of the most diverse and talented artist rosters around and is at the center of great music. Just look at what they’re working on:

Matchbox Twenty (@MatchboxTwenty) are locked in the studio making what Rob describes as “the game changer” of a record.

Pop icon, George Michael (@GeorgeMichael) is on the road performing his critically acclaimed “Symphonica Tour”.

Midnight Mirage (@MidnightMirage) have their single “Just Like That” coming in January, with their debut album dropping early 2012.

DJ, producer, composer and all round maestro, Just MATTER (@JustMATTER) has his new website launching and a number of great mixes and live shows coming SOON!

Multi Grammy wining songwriter and producer Larry Dvoskin (@LarryDvoskin) is currently co-writing with some of music’s top writers and up and comers as well as producing 3 independent albums this fall/winter.

ToneDef just finished the debut EP for Cristian Savalas, produced and co-wrote Kady Z’s EP, and is currently working with up and coming superstar Tinashe.

And Kady Z’s (@Kadyz) “Beautiful Disaster” single and video are coming in January, with the “One Million Pieces EP” dropping in March.

So with all this coming up, make sure you get on Twitter and follow tech wizard, man in the know, and all round trend setter @mrlippman!!!

Let’s spread the love for all things Matchbox Twenty related and see if we can get Nick to the 3000 follower mark!!!

Make sure you check out www.lippmanentertainment.com for more details on what they’re up to, and if you swing by Facebook, make sure you hit them up with a ‘Like’. Plus, you should also hook @MrsLippman and @thereallivybaby with a follow too.

Let the following and #FFing begin!

Matchbox 20 - UK Tour 2007

To all who’ve been wondering why the lack of news recently, we took a little time off following the amazing success of MB20 Plus in the BT Digital Music Awards where we came 3rd for Best Fansite. The MB20 Plus engine is now firing on all cylinders once more and we’ll be bringing you all the best MB20 news and articles from the best perspective… yours .

BTDMA

Huge thanks to Nick (@nickrainmaker) Julie (@jflamingo2) and Nadine (@NYSFL) for their amazing contributions to the site. Also a huge thanks to Matchbox Twenty without whom this website would have no reason to exist and who retweeted about the awards for us.  A special thanks to Kyle Cook who has shown huge support to me and this website for many years now!

Guys i don’t know what to say, the news hasnt quite sunk in yet, i’m shaking.

Thanks you all so so much, i can’t wait to see where we will go from here! I’ll be tweeting to you all as much as i can on thursday night to let you know how things are going – so head over to twitter and follow us at @MB20PLUS.

More to follow soon once the news has sunk in!

Paul Doucette

Taking its name from the process of trying to obtain a record deal, Milk The Bee is a great set of songs and a singer/songwriters album if ever you heard one.

Heavy on acoustic guitar and piano, there’s a great mix Americana, country, folk and indie. Starting with This City is Bound (To Do Us In), a song about the drudgery of today’s reality talent(less) shows and a country at war, the album always has a point. But believe me when I tell you, if you’re going through a break up or getting a divorce, you’ll want to hear this album! In fact everything you need to know about this record is summed up in You Won’t Be Able To Be Sad. Emotional and sad but incredibly crafted and mixing all the aforementioned styles, it is – for me at least – the stand out song of the record and can stand shoulder to shoulder with any Matchbox Twenty song.

From This City is Bound through Now We Become Part of It to Your Days Are Numbered, to the melancholic closer The Most Someone Can Now, the album hits all the right marks; sometimes not breaking a sweat and just ticking along; and sometimes bringing out it a rockier edge like I’m At A Low.

There are not really any big intro’s and very few big moments to speak of; it simply gets where it’s going, quietly and confidently. But it’s those elements that make it so great – it’s an album that’s not trying to impress you; it knows what it is and knows how to play on your stereo.

And although musically, melodically and lyrically keeps to the same style and theme and is – at least at the beginning – a little hard to distinguish between songs, it has something that the Matchbox records and side projects sometimes lacked – a real sense of an organic recording and writing process. There’s no uber production, there’s no reliance on programming, there’s just a sense of a record that came together over time. You can hear music being played, being made and being enjoyed. Milk The Bee sounds like it’s been made as its gone along, that there’s been no preconceived ideas, just a sense that things have been tried out until they feel comfortable and right.

This isn’t to say that it’s absent on the other records the guys have produced, it isn’t by any means (just read the other album reviews), it’s just that those records come from well oiled machines, that are practiced and trained at knowing what they want and executing it efficiently. The closest they got to that level of ‘suck it and see’ music making was Exile on Mainstream.

Milk the Bee

So, if you like Exile and are looking for an album you can put on and play, an album that will speak to you and that will hook you in with its gentle and flowing melodies, then Milk The Bee is for you.

It is also a great reminder of the multitude of talents that make up Matchbox. So much is made of Robs song writing, and rightly so, but underestimate your Pauls writing skills at your own risk. He is a fantastic songwriter and a great melody maker. So good, that Paul won the 2009, BMI Songwriter of the Year Award.

Check out The Break & Repair Methods MySpace Page: http://www.myspace.com/thebreakandrepairmethod

You Won’t Be Able To Be Sad – Official Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fjqwqaqCdM

You Won’t Be Able To Be Sad – Live Acoustic Version:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSSrB5MU7W8

Rob Thomas Cradlesong

Yet, times are changing and the way people buy music has changed.  How do we gauge who is listening to what or who anymore?  It’s becoming more and more personal.  So, people become introduced to new music through recommendations whether through musical sites like Pandora or through the “good old-fashioned word of mouth” way.  Most of all, simply connecting to what we are listening to still makes all the difference for a unique musical experience that is craved over and over again.

This value, great music coupled with a popular connection, may be underestimated in creating our music to withstand the test of time.  More and more those who last in the music industry are the ones who realize this awareness.   I believe from interviews I’ve discovered of Rob and within his music including the lyrics that Rob creates he plans far beyond the scope of the music he shares.  He is intuitive to ideas around him in everyday occurrences and uses this to his advantage in order to help each of us relate to what is there remaining in the song itself.  To me, this is the mark of a classic song in keeping it realistic.

So, I thought it would be good idea to explore these many musical themes of the album “Cradlesong” itself.   The videos below have the evidence to help you ponder what I’m attempting to explain to you.  So, sit back, listen, and enjoy discovering through Rob’s own thoughts, his performance and an album review from of his second solo album “Cradlesong.”

Can you feel what this musical process means to him?  What does it mean to you?

Cradlesong Album Themes:

Cradlesong Review:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IZwbSjFI3Q

Cradlesong Acoustic ~ LIVE at China Club NYC 7/1/09 :

Musical Influences of Cradlesong:

Be sure to let me know what your favorite song in the “Cradlesong” album is in your comments below. Thanks!

Yet another opportunity for you to train your fingers ladies & gentlemen, MB20 Fans, associates, desirable and undesirables, bored housewives, Rob Thomas, whoever is reading this – yes YOU, YOU, looking at the screen right now, WE NEED YOUR HELP! This is your chance to VOTE for Matchbox Twenty Plus in the People’s choice category of the 2011 BT Digital Music Awards. Matchbox Twenty Plus has been nominated for a people’s choice award for best artist fan site. Don’t forger you can VOTE ONCE PER DAY, so keep going back each day to register a new vote .

We’re up against some stiff competition from the likes of Muse, Madonna and Michael Jackson, but with a great big community push, We’re confident we can win in support of Matchbox Twenty, who otherwise might not be represented at an event such as this.

In the 8 years since Matchbox Twenty Plus launched, we’ve become the go to place for all of your Matchbox Twenty and Rob Thomas news, and the Matchbox Twenty Plus team, regular visitors, readers and contributors have built a great place to come and meet other matchbox twenty fans and find out the latest gossip about the new Matchbox Twenty album.

So if you want to support our site and get us into the number one spot, click the vote now button left and register your vote for Matchbox Twenty Plus. Every Vote Counts! And don’t forget to send the link to your friends, families, facebook groups and communities and tweet the link to all your followers on twitter!! Let’s Do it!!!

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