Today's Pick

Katie Armiger continues to mature and prove she's a talent to be taken seriously. Armiger's sound is pop-country, and she's wise to continue to stay true to that style. The 20-year-old singer wants to "Scream" since she has held it in too long and she has to let it out. She shows off her big voice in newly released video for her new song "Scream," which is about dealing with getting dumped.
Armiger was first inspired to pursue country music after winning a Houston, Texas city-wide competition. She has released three albums in the past few years and has continually gotten better with each album. Written with Sarah Buxton and Blair Daly, "Scream" is her latest single off of "The True Confessional: Confessions of a Nice Girl." The track, may be her most polished and professional single to date, finds her making strides both as a songwriter and a vocalist.
Like the narrator's own day-to-day life, "Scream" plays like a quietly ongoing tumult of pent-up emotions followed by a sudden and dramatic release. The song's first verse is relatively surface-level, as Armiger recounts a meeting with her former lover in which she meets her "replacement." "I just smiled and shook it off," she says, only later to "scream at the top of my lungs" to vent the oncoming feelings of hurt and jealousy. It's a simple but effective portrayal of the near universal experience of putting on a brave and front only to crumble once the spotlight is taken off.
From start to finish, the lyric and performance are characterized by a definite air of believability. While reckless emotion is a hot trend right now, Armiger's more graceful reaction to getting dumped stands out. You should never 'scream' in church, but when the one you love is marrying someone else, it's probably forgivable. "You see me driving kind of frantically, with the invitation in the passenger seat," Armiger explains of the concept of her new "Scream" video. "But you don't know if I'm going to stop the wedding."

Los Angeles indie rock band Foster The People are exploring stranger territory with their new lip-enhancing video for "Call It What You Want," the third single off People's Choice Awards nominees' breakout debut hit album "Torches." Foster The People's priority is to experiment and create rather than to lavish in fame, or if it's just a super fun, tongue-in-cheek kitschy kind of video.
"Call It What You Want" is a melange of increasingly creepier images set to the band's characteristically up-tempo indie pop. It finds frontman Mark Foster singing about how in today's society, people are too ready to conform instead of being themselves and doing their own thing. It's probable the song was influenced by the band's irritation with the music industry's attempts to pigeonhole them.
Foster and his bandmates find themselves suddenly living in a mansion in the Ace Norton-directed clip, where, to say the least, they don't quite seem at ease. The imagery includes Foster shooting six female fans, whose shirts spell out "Foster," with his hand in the shape of a gun. Norton explained its concept: "The video is about the void you create in our life when you have everything you want. How with success, people tend to fill that void with meaningless things. It's about the creative extremes we go to when time passes by us at light speed; how boredom gets our minds racing into beautiful tangents. It's about the surrealism of the mundane."
The new video for "Call It What You Want" is the most lavish of their young career. On one hand, the clip, with its nondescript gaggle of female fans and Hollywood mansion setting, seems to be making a statement about the band's new-found fame following the surprise success of their Top 10 summer smash "Pumped Up Kicks." While on the other, there's just a whole lot of creepiness, with no rhyme or reason, going down.

It's been in my collection for years and my estimation of it does nothing other than continually increase. "Calenture" is Australian indie band The Triffids' masterpiece. The depth of the songwriting and its observations, and the overall pace of the album all indicate that their lead vocalist David McComb, was an intense artist of the most elite caliber. Formed in Perth, Western Australia in the late 70s, The Triffids achieved some international success in the 1980s, notably in Britain.
The dictionary definition of "Calenture" is, once you have listened to the album a few times, a fairly good description of the major themes running through it. Like all The Triffids' albums, "Calenture" is not an easy album to appreciate, that may be because the production is more polished, for the depth and intricacy of the late McComb's lyrics have hardly changed at all. Indeed, if calenture the delirium is all about the effect of heat on the senses, then "Calenture" the album is all about the effect of passion on reason.
Thematically "Calenture" follows on from "Born Sandy Devotional" by being concerned with, in McComb's words, unrequited love. It would be a relaxed affair, completely low-fi, and maybe "not suitable for the likes of Virgin." Its lyrical tone is one of euphoric fantasy and delusion tempered with the deflationary confrontation of a lonely reality - tenderness and compassion wed bitterness and resentment. An ineffable sadness runs throughout this album as the singer's spiritual faith in human love remains unfulfilled.
The Triffids were never labeled as a Christian band, but there's an undeniably spiritual feel to several of the songs on their most opulent and ambitious album, "Calenture." Moreover, McComb spews his words with the fiery passion of a backwoods preacher. The striking images in "Calenture" illustrate the predicaments of each song's characters. This mixing of the dark and the light side of love and relationships features elsewhere and is a hallmark of the lyrical depth and subtlety of this album. The Triffids remain one of Australia's best-loved, post-punk groups.

Jessie J has unveiled the video for her most recent single, "Domino." The new track, produced by Dr Luke who put a funky dance beat to it, was originally released in August, but is being re-released as the second US single, following "Price Tag" featuring B.o.B., from the 23-year-old's debut studio album, "Who You Are." She performed the song at this year's MTV Video Music Awards and then again on The X Factor USA as she attempted to boost her profile across the Pond.
Speaking to the Daily Star, Jessie J said: "There'll be a lot more pain in the lyrics on my next album. For the seven years before I signed my record deal I was in a bad place and I was scared that I couldn't get out of it. That's why I wrote such upbeat music, as a way of trying to escape how I felt. Now that I am happier, I won't be afraid to explore my pain. But in a good way; it'll be me saying that it's OK not to feel OK. Not every song needs a happy ending."
"Domino" has received very positive reviews from the critics, who praised the sound and tone of Jessie J's performance but likened the track as too similar to Katy Perry, however "Domino" is catchy enough to potentially become her biggest American hit. Jessie J is known for her quirky style, and her latest video is no exception as the 23-year-old dances around in front of 70s-inspired moving wallpaper in different scenes and changes her outfit several times throughout the vibrant clip.
The 'Who You Are' singer is as eye-catching as ever, and seems to be having a blast in the Norwegian director Ray Kay filmed promo, which kicks off with Jessie dressed in a black feathered ensemble in front of moving wallpaper. Considered a style chameleon, Jessie J made sure that the video was bright, bold and colorful and shows off her bubbly personality in a variety of what seems to be a wardrobe of flashy outfits, with some even matching the wallpaper. Jessie J attempts to rival Lagy Gaga and Madonna for costume changes as she attempts to crack the US.

The Fray are apparently still kicking around the music industry with their new music video for "Heartbeat," the first single off of the American Piano-Rock band's upcoming third album, "Scars And Stories," finds us revisiting familiar The Fray tearjerker territory. Though it's cleverly hidden beneath the sweeping sounds of orchestral drums and rock guitars, "Heartbeat" is driven by a gorgeous piano melody. Lead vocalist Isaac Slade's voice is in top form, and he demonstrates his massive range while singing about the best way to love someone.
It's been a tough couple of years for The Fray die-hards. The Colorado foursome hasn't put out a new record since the alt-rock troupe matured into deeper emotional territory on their Grammy-nominated 2009 self-titled sophomore album. Despite some obvious similarities to past works, "Heartbeat" is serious kind of heavy lyric with a big, upbeat energy and he capitalized on that energy with a bit more rock-driven, a catchy chorus, a nice mixture of Slade's melodic falsetto and quirky lower range, and a driving beat to back up the power chords.
Slade penned the song with guitarist Joe King. It was inspired by the singer's experiences whilst traveling in Africa about the awful carnage and the remarkable way in which the survivors are recovering. He explained: "That song came out of a period of my life when I was trying hard to be open to whatever came my way. I traveled through South Africa and Rwanda with a buddy, and at first it was really hard to stay open in the face of so much pain and heartache. But then I ended up meeting so many cool and inspiring people, and all these ideas for lyrics and melodies just started rushing in."
Shot on the beach at Los Angeles, the Justin Francis-directed beach themed video features the boys in the band ride out to the water and carry their gear down to the shore during a care-free night on the beach and performing bonfire-side for a crowd of crunchy-chic ladies and dudes while scary-huge waves crash in the background. The original concept was to shoot the clip with a sunny beach look but when a fog rolled in, it looked like the filming would have to be aborted for the day. Francis says he aimed to capture the spirit of a group of people "enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime evening together."

'The Voice' winner Javier Colon is giving fans an early holiday gift with the premiere of his debut music video for "As Long As We Got Love," the debut single off of the newly released third studio album,"Come Through for You." The reality competition star teamed up with Natasha Bedingfield for the video duet, and now you can watch the super-sweet fruits of their collaborative labor!
The soft-focus production finds 33-year-old R&B/Pop singer hooking up with Bedingfield. Colon penned the track with former Evanescence member David Hodges, who also co-wrote his winner's song on The Voice, "Stitch By Stitch." The song describes the journey that love can take after two people meet. Bedingfield told Artist Direct what spoke to her about the song: "It's quite a realistic and relatable love story, and that's what spoke to me about the song. When you know someone for a while so well, it's easy to take them for granted. Life can be hard at times and full of responsibilities, but having love in the midst of all of that is what helps us get through it all, having each other helps us know what life's about."
Bedingfield and Colon recorded their vocals separately though they did meet up later for the video. She told Artist Direct: "Due to our schedules and where we both live, it wasn't possible to be in the studio at the same time and in the same place! We had met before this, but we met again on the set for filming the video. It's always fun being around Javier and how he just bursts into song! We sang his songs, my songs and even some Disney [Laughs]."
Colon strums his guitar while belting out the uplifting lyrics and harmonizing with the lovely Bedingfield. "I've been a fan of hers for a long time, to have her on the song is an amazing feat to be able to get her on there. She's a co-writer on the song, too," Colon told AOL Music of his experience working with Bedingfield. The video follows a handsome young couple as they start a family together and Colonn and Bedingfield narrate the love story.

American Idol runner up David Archuleta has premiered the new video for "Wait" exclusively on Channel [V]HD on Christmas Day. Produced by [V] Entertainment, the video was shot in Hong Kong at the beginning of November during his trip to Hong Kong. The track is one of the bonus tracks featured on the 21-year-old musician's Asian Tour Edition of his newest album, "The Other Side of Down."
With Archuleta's recent announcement that he will be taking a break from the music scene for two years as he goes on a Church of Latter Day Saints mission, fans have been trying to take in as much of Archuleta as they possibly can before he leaves. "I've chosen to serve a full-time mission," the 20-year-old musician said during a concert in Salt Lake City. "It's not because someone told me I was supposed to do it and not because I no longer want to do music anymore. It's because it's what I feel I need to do next in my life."
The Miami native just wrapped up his 'My Kind of Christmas' tour and tweeted of a bit of a trouble getting back home for the holidays, "No place like home for the holidays!" He later wished his devotees around the world a happy holiday, "Merry Christmas Eve! And Merry Christmas to those on the other end of the world!! May everyone have a great Holiday Weekend!" Fans of the former 'American Idol' tuned in to watch him perform two Christmas carols, 'Silent Night' and 'The First Noel' on 'Fox and Friends' special that aired on Christmas day.
Archuleta puts his head in his hands as he grieves the loss of a close friend in his new video for "Wait." The runner-up of "American Idol" season 7 is seen staring off into the distance while standing in the middle of the streets. "Even though you're gone I can hear your heart/ It's calling out my name like a flash in the dark," he pours his heart out. Still a bit shocked that he's going to be a full-time missionary. This would have been a promising start to a huge career in Asia.