Adam Lambert's chart-topper 'Trespassing' is a high and a low

When Season 11 of "American Idol" comes to a close in a few hours, no one should feel too sorry for the runner-up. One need only to look to this week's pop charts for evidence that the "American Idol" crown isn't a requisite to cultivating a fanbase. The theatrical pop-rocker Adam Lambert finished second on "American Idol" during its eighth season, and this week he earned his first No. 1 album in "Trespassing." 

Lambert's "Trespassing," his second full-length since competing on the talent show, sold 77,000 copies in the U.S. in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The album's title track, meanwhile, has sold just north of 11,000 downloads. 

This chart-topper, however, isn't entirely a cause for celebration. Lambert's 2009 debut, "For Your Entertainment," opened with a much heartier 198,000 copies sold in its first week, when it arrived at No. 3 during the holiday season. "Trespassing" can boast that it is the lowest-selling No. 1 since Amos Lee's "Mission Bell" opened with 40,000 copies a little more than a year ago.

Just behind Lambert is U.K. singing sensation Adele, whose "21" has been in the top 10 now for an astonishing 65 weeks and sold an additional 63,000 copies this week. The title has sold more than 9 million copies. Carrie Underwood, another "Idol" vet, had last week's No. 1 with "Blown Away," which this week sold 54,000 copies. In three weeks, "Blown Away" has sold more than 440,000 copies.

Rock 'n' roll hucksters Tenacious D landed in the top 10 with their latest, "Rize of the Fenix." The duo of Jack Black and Kyle Glass sold a little more than 44,000 copies of their latest, their first since the movie-musical "The Pick of Destiny" in 2006. 

Sup Pop's elegant dream-pop act Beach House cracked the top 10 for the first time in its career. The indie duo's latest, "Bloom," entered at No. 7 with about 41,000 copies sold. The band's 2010 effort, "Teen Dream," was a career breakthrough, landing the act gigs at the Hollywood Bowl and the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

Live review: Best Coast at the Wiltern

Bethany Cosentino is perhaps the most on-message songwriter in rock music right now. Over her two albums as Best Coast, including this year’s “The Only Place,” the L.A.-based singer returns to her favorite themes — the pleasures of California, the pangs of coupledom — with the same dedication that Rick Ross applys to describing his car fleet.

But one song that she played at her big homecoming show at the Wiltern on Friday showed she might be growing uncomfortable in that niche. “How They Want Me to Be” is a tender bit of pre-Beatles pop with a light country haze. On Friday, Cosentino played it as a rebuttal to her stereotype as a stoner cat lady-turned-overnight superstar. “All of my friends stick up their noses, ask me where my money is,” she sang. “I don’t want to be how they want me to be.”

Cosentino is a scrappy, relatable songwriter growing into an actual pop star, one with an acumen for self-branding. On Friday, just when all the cats and weed and Californiana edged up to cliché, she’d subvert it with a newfound self-awareness. Best Coast’s show codified one of L.A.’s newest rock stars, but it also showed how “being yourself” is a performance for Cosentino as well.

Album review: Best Coast's 'The Only Place'

Fans concerned that Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno, who perform under the moniker Best Coast, would succumb to the pressure of high expectations can relax. On their sparkling second album, the Los Angeles duo, whose 2010 debut, “Crazy for You,” brought them international sing-along acclaim, offers little evidence that they care about impressing critics or alienating the less commercially-attuned. Personal expectations, however, are another story, as Cosentino throughout the new album dives into hopes both dashed and fulfilled involving love, life and her future with both.

Unlike “Crazy for You,” which was buried under a protective layer of distortion, on “The Only Place” a confident Cosentino stands at the front of the stage, seemingly unconcerned with judgment or ambivalence while she sings. With a voice that strives to hit Neko Case and Martha Reeves territory but which more often than not is in the Belinda Carlysle and Suzanna Hoffs range, Cosentino’s strength as a vocalist doesn't come from pitch-perfect vocal tone, but rather, it lies in how she and Bruno craft solid, three and four minute pop songs that suggest everyone from Buddy Holly to the Crystals to the Bangles without sounding like any of them. Best, there’s a uniquely Californian feel to the album, a gloss that’s not so much of the commercial variety as of the feel-good kind.

Part of that vibe arrives courtesy of producer Jon Brion, whose work in Los Angeles over the past two decades has added a new branch to the archetypical “west coast sound” family tree. Brion, best known for his work with Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann, Kanye West, Brad Mehldau, and dozens of others – as well as the music for Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic ode to the San Fernando Valley, “Magnolia” -- sequestered the band in Capitol Studios on Vine over the fall and early winter to make “The Only Place,” and you can hear his influence in the album’s cohesion. There, in the same room where the Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, and Green Day made some of their classics, Cosentino, Bruno and Brion set to work making magnetic – and focused -- new songs.

Pop music review: Wanda Jackson and Best Coast

Two far-flung generations of rock ’n’ roll — Wanda Jackson and Best Coast — ring in the New Year with spirit and sass at Club Nokia.

Rock ’n’ roll is still a lively way to begin a new year, and two far-flung generations of music and attitude in the form of rockabilly icon Wanda Jackson and Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino welcomed 2012 with a loving roar at Club Nokia on Saturday night. Each led sets that were at times fiery and casual, with the two biting on words of love gone wrong and joking easily about themselves and the night ahead.

In the ’60s and ’70s, Jackson enjoyed a successful middle career as a popular country singer. But she remains best known as “the queen of rockabilly” and today is a vibrant direct link to the first generation of rock ’n’ roll. At 74, she’s inevitably a different singer than she was in the ’50s, but she’s still fired up with power and sass.

“You all look like a beautiful flower garden,” she said warmly to her crowd, adding, “with a weed here and there, of course.”

Arriving onstage barely 20 minutes before midnight, she said, “OK, I’ll bet you’re ready to rock. Why not?” and dived right into an urgent “Riot in the Cell Block #9” and “Rock Your Baby” with hardly a breath in-between.

On “I Gotta Know” from 1956, Jackson eased back and forth from rockabilly snarl to a country lament, singing, “If our love is the real thing, where is my wedding ring?” And her reading of Bob Wills’ forlorn “I Betcha My Heart I Love You” included a yodel that was full and rich with feeling.

Her husband of 50 years, Wendell Goodman, came out to help with the night’s countdown to midnight, with 30 seconds to spare, and she sang a traditional “Auld Lang Syne,” and noted, “If nothing else, you kept breathin’, which by itself makes it a good year.”

Best Coast to get the Jon Brion treatment

Avant pop orchestrator Jon Brion, a longtime regular of Largo, will be producing the sophomore effort from Best Coast. The band unveiled the news today via various social networking sites. No doubt, Brion's biggest claim to fame is working as a behind-the-scenes man on Kanye West's "Late Registration," but locals lucky enough to catch Brion at Largo can get a small glimpse into a pop music mind that constantly seems restless. 

Big name guests abound at Brion's gigs -- a Fiona Apple appearance wouldn't be unexpected -- but it's a treat to see Brion essentially act as an one-man band as he subtracts and adds loops and layers to lush and lovely power pop. Brion seems like a fine choice to help transition Best Coast out of the low-fi world without draping the band in studio slickery. 

Lest anyone be concerned that Brion will have Best Coast going all orchestral and stringy, know that his connection to the band runs deep. Best Coast's secret weapon, Bobb Bruno, has spent plenty of time on the Largo scene and was running in the same circles as Brion, albeit in his bunny guise, long before he joined Best Coast. Those who once caught Brion improvising with now-Wilco guitarist Nels Cline and a man in a bunny suit may even start to wonder whether there's a harder, rougher, weirder Best Coast yet to be unveiled. 

The world will find out in early 2012, when the album is due.

ALSO:

Best Coast plays in the sand of a new California sound

The emotional toughness of the Dum Dum Girls' 'Only in Dreams'

The queens of L.A.'s lo-fi scene

-- Todd Martens

Photo: Credit: Best Coast's Bethany Cosentino. Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times

Dave Grohl, Ben Gibbard and others to honor Bob Mould at Disney Hall

 

Hüsker Dü and Sugar frontman Bob Mould has a new memoir, "See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody," out. It's a reflective and deeply felt tale from the frontlines of America's second wave of punk and Mould's own late-in-life struggles in coming to terms with his homosexuality.

On Nov. 21, some of America's most well-regarded, punk-inspired artists will take to Disney Hall to show how influential Mould's work has been in their own lives. Dave Grohl, Ben Gibbard, Ryan Adams, No Age, Best Coast, members of the Hold Steady, comedian Margaret Cho and Grant-Lee Phillips will join Mould to perform from his catalog and talk about how his blistering, noisy yet melodic and hopeful songs have informed generations of younger artists.

Tickets go  on sale Sunday and range from $29 to $49. To prep, Mould's memoir (co-written with Michael Azerrad, author of the seminal "Our Band Could Be Your Life") would be a fine refresher course.

RELATED:

Book Review: 'See a Little Light' by Bob Mould with Michael Azerrad

Bob Mould comes of age at live show in L.A.

No Age turns up the noise

-- August Brown

Photo: Bob Mould. Credit: Noah Kalina

 

This weekend: Make Music Pasadena festival on Saturday, featuring Best Coast, Ra Ra Riot and more

Those venturing into the well-manicured wilds of downtown Pasadena this Saturday will inevitably encounter what may be the city’s loudest day of the year. Designed as a community celebration for music of all pedigrees, the fourth annual Make Music Pasadena festival unfurls a full day of musicians ranging from platinum recording artists to scrappy up-and-comers performing on street corners, art galleries, outdoor stages and theaters near the area of Colorado Boulevard.

Months after the lineup was announced, the festival presented by 89.9 KCRW  is finally upon us. Headliners at the 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. event include Best Coast, Ra Ra Riot, Hello Seahorse!, Ben L’Oncle Soul, Zola Jesus and the Morning Benders. All for the low, low price of $0.

Notable headliners aside, the spirit of the pop-up concert remains an integral part of the festival’s DNA. Ducking into an air conditioned art gallery or local shop is liable to turn your sweltering trek through Old Town Pasadena into an intimate, unlikely local gig with artists playing throughout the day. Over 500 professional and amateur musicians are set to perform in more than 30 unconventional performance spaces.

The Pop & Hiss interview, Part 2: Nathan Williams of Wavves and Best Coast's Bethany Cosentino

 

Pop & Hiss published Part One of a conversation among L.A. singer Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast, Nathan Williams of Wavves (who's Cosentino's boyfriend), and writer Matt Diehl last week, but the interaction was a little too long to digest all at once -- and we even edited some of it out. Still, it was an entertaining, pull-no-punches roundtable totally worthy of publication, so what follows is the conclusion. The pair are in the midst of their first-ever duel-headlining tour, which arrives in Tallahassee, Fla., Thursday before venturing up the Eastern Seaboard:  

1/27, Tallahassee, Fla. (Club Downunder)
1/28, Athens, Ga. (40 Watt Club)
1/29, Carrboro, N.C. (Cat's Cradle)
1/31, Washington (9:30 Club)
2/1, Philadelphia (Starlight Ballroom)
2/2, New York (Webster Hall)
2/3, Brooklyn (Music Hall of Williamsburg)

For a full list of the tour, check here. The pair arrives at the Music Box on Feb. 24. (Note: the freewheeling conversation contained a certain amount of cussing, some words of which we've excised from our relatively family-friendly blog.)

Matt Diehl/Los Angeles Times: Last year, you both controversially dissed Katy Perry (“Oh I hate Katy Perry so much, you do not represent California Girls, ...,” Bethany posted on Best Coast’s Twitter). Why the hate?

Bethany Cosentino: We’re not into Katy Perry. I admit that she has good songs; I just don’t like her — I don’t like that whole kitsch thing. But she takes her cat on tour, which is cool.

Nathan Williams: I like “California Girls” — that song is great. I just don’t like that she’s like “I’m a weird girl” when she looks like a model. I love Lady Gaga, however.

LAT: Bethany, are you fan of Bruce Springsteen? I noticed the drum fill that opens [the Best Coast song] “Boyfriend” is the same as the one from Springsteen’s “Badlands”…

NW: I love Bruce Springsteen. When I was first listening to the rough mixes from the album, I was like, “Wait — this is ‘Badlands’!” But Bob [Bruno, Cosentino’s musical partner in Best Coast] had never heard that song before. I pointed it out to him, and he was like, “Oh my God, that’s really weird.”

LAT: A couple of years ago, Wavves was all over the Internet due to a beef and physical fight with members of the band Black Lips. What was that about?

BC: Well, when you’re in a band that’s existed for a long time and you get some amount of success, and then someone else comes around who’s only been around for a year gets bigger than you… It ... people off.

NW: Situations like that do nothing but help you.

On eve of co-headlining tour, a double interview with Wavves' Nathan Williams and Best Coast's Bethany Cosentino (Part One)

If the 2000s have an indie power couple à la Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, then it has to be Bethany Cosentino and Nathan Williams.  Cosentino is the charismatic singer-songwriter behind L.A.’s Best Coast, whose "Crazy for You" album isn’t just one of last year’s most acclaimed albums, it also proved a commercial success, entering the charts in the top 40; Williams, meanwhile, is the iconoclastic leader of sublime San Diego-bred noise-pop concern Wavves, whose 2010 "King of the Beach" also proved an indie smash, receiving a “Best New Music” rating from Pitchfork.

As followers of their notoriously oversharing Twitter feeds already know, Cosentino and Williams have many things in common: love for cats, Brian Wilson songs, skateboards, baseball hats, Lil Wayne, reverb, their home state of California, surf punk, television and smoking pot among them. But although they share a bed, they have yet to share a stage until now: Friday marks the launch of Best Coast and Wavves’ first ever co-headlining tour (kicking off at Soma in San Diego). In honor of the occasion, the couple recently sat down for their first joint interview — and if their show is as gloriously unhinged, irreverent and funny as the pair is in person, it should prove to be a can’t-miss event. (Note: the freewheeling conversation contained a certain amount of cussing, some words of which we've excised from our relatively family-friendly blog.)

-- Matt Diehl

L.A. Times: So is this your first joint interview?

Nathan Williams:  Yeah. Well, we’ve done interviews…

Bethany Cosentino: With joints!

NW: I actually pre-jointed.

BC: Yeah, he did — puffed an inhaler, then took a hit of the bong.

NW: We’ve done interviews in the same house next to each other.

BC:  We hear each other do interviews a lot.

NW: I can probably answer her questions, and she can answer mine.

LAT: Why are you finally going on tour together?

BC: We’ll get to hang out more. And we like each other’s music. Well, I like his music. If his record [was bad], I may not have had sex with him.

LAT: The satirical blog Hipster Runoff seems to really have it in for you—it seems to have made a cottage industry making fun of your Twitter conversations back and forth. How do you feel about that?

NW: Really, Twitter is our only way of talking when we’re on the road, 'cause we don’t have Facebook.

BC: I don’t give a ... about that guy. I did laugh when Hipster Runoff said “Pitchfork Gives Best Coast Same Score As Wavves To Avoid Relationship Conflict,” but I just don’t need to read it. 

NW: I’m pro “Hipster Runoff”—I think it’s funny. In the end, it just makes both of us bigger and bigger. He can say whatever he wants: It just breeds hate, but it’s always helpful. Anybody that says they hate it probably loves it. That’s just what the Internet is.
 

Live review: Best Coast at the Troubadour

After the last song of her band's headlining set at the Troubadour on Saturday, Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast did something unusual for her — she acted like a pop star. After a brief jam of sun-saturated guitar fuzz, she dropped her instrument and climbed on the stage monitor to belt out some final boy-crazy, implacably sad lyrics.

Coming from a young woman raised in the Smell's gnarled avant-garde (with a bandmate, Bobb Bruno, who plays in a rabbit costume for his white-noise solo project), this was practically a U2-caliber indulgence.

But it underscored the unusual position that Cosentino, one of L.A.'s most promising and disarming new songwriters, is at in her whiplash ascent to national fame. She has a dozen immaculate, three-minute hits that would keep Carole King up at night; 17,000 Twitter followers who ravenously await updates on the exploits of Snacks, her album-cover-star cat; and a streak of the same dreamy, iconic California-ness that's pulled people west for more than a century.