Focus Music Notes. "Out of the Blues". Popular music through the decades

As Japan recovers from the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11, the world’s top recording artists respond to the tragedy with this benefit album. The 38 tracks include some of their biggest hits, featuring an exclusive remix of Lady GaGa’s “Born This Way,” Katy Perry’s “Thinking of You,” Bruno Mars’ “Talking to the Moon,” Adele’s “Make You Feel My Love," and more.  All proceeds go to the Japanese Red Cross.

New Island Records signing Alex Clare, whose Diplo & Switch produced debut single  “Up All Night” has generated a genuine buzz across radio, press and the blogosphere, follows up with the April 18th release of his new single “ Too Close ” . The single, produced once again by Diplo & Switch, is taken from Clare’s forthcoming debut album which will be released in the summer. The 25 year old Golders Green native recently previewed tracks from the album during a couple of incendiary live shows and will be putting in more live shows in the coming months. Clare writes and sings his own songs but is not a singer songwriter, not in the traditional sense anyway. After playing in a succession of London bands and following a brief career as a chef, too many long hours and too many sliced fingers, Alex decided to go it alone and started writing songs and demoing them himself. Things happened very quickly from there. The demos found their way to Island Records and two weeks later a deal was

Jon Fratelli will release his first proper solo single ‘Santo Domingo’ on the Island label on April 11th. Taken from his forthcoming new album “Psycho Jukebox”, it is at once strangely familiar, lyrically obtuse and so catchy it’ll make your head swim. It follows the free download of ‘Rhythm Doesn’t Make You A Dancer’ which is available now from http://www.jonfratelli.co.uk/   Jon Fratelli’s debut solo album is called Psycho Jukebox and like any jukebox worth its salt it’s chock full of the kind of solid gold easy action that makes you want to throw the windows wide to annoy the neighbours. Psycho Jukebox is brimful of melody, pop-psychedelia, classic ’60s-tinged pop, and characters whose lives are lived in a twilight world of ambition and failure, triumph and loss. Fans of The Fratellis will not be disappointed! Says Jon: “ The chorus of ‘Santo Domingo’ is something I’ve had in my back pocket for a while now. It’s that instant thing – how quickly can you grab someone’s attention?! I’m