Jenny Charlesworth

Jenny Charlesworth is an arts and culture journalist and Deputy Editor at Spinner Canada. She regularly contributes to The Straight, Concrete Skateboarding and The Grid. A music and pop culture enthusiast, Jenny has written for The Wire, The Globe and Mail, Paste Magazine, Montecristo Magazine, Color Magazine, The Block, HUCK, AOL.com and The Tyee. She lends her expertise to CTV National News. In 2010, Jenny was a member of the Polaris Music Prize Grand Jury.

Cadence Weapon: Rapper Sounds Off on Drake Diss, Odd Future and Rap Beefs

‘Tis the season for year-end lists. But it’s not just music critics and bloggers tallying up the records that rocked 2011, Cadence Weapon is also taking stock of the releases that moved him this year — and he’s not pulling any punches when it comes to albums that fall flat either.

So whose record failed to make the cut? Well, after his recent tweet comparing Drake’s ‘Thank Me Later’ to a “book on tape,” it’s safe to say that ol’ Drizzy isn’t getting any blue ribbons from Cadence Weapon.

“With Drake’s album, I feel the same way when I go to see a blockbuster movie: it’s really well made but just doesn’t do anything for me,” he tells Spinner.

“There’s a couple good tracks on it,” he adds. “I end up only liking a few tracks here and there from contemporary rap; it’s not designed for me, it’s designed for whoever still buys albums.”

But Cadence Weapon, who got fans hyped on his forthcoming effort, ‘Roquentin,’ at last month’s M for Montreal Festival, knows where to draw the line when it comes to calling out another rapper.

“I don’t want to diss Drake now and never be able to go for a ride in his Maybach,” he jokes. “I feel like every journalist tries to get you to slag him off. When you interview Timber Timbre do you think the journalist goes, ‘So what do you think about Bon Iver, is there a beef?’ No, that would never happen. It sucks, ‘cause it creates a problem for me because I want to make music that’s maybe not so confrontational…”

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Let’s all chill out and let Courtney Love do her thing

By Jenny Charlesworth

Courtney Love’s ta-tas are back in the news this week. It seems a Hole concert in Sao Paulo was all it took for the 47-year-old to peel off her over the shoulder boulder holders and expose her boobies yet again. Just a glimpse of those nips and the gossip rags snap to attention, all too happy to ridicule Kurt Cobain’s wild widow. But isn’t it time we gave this train wreck of a woman a hall pass? When it comes to Nirvana’s Yoko Ono, we’ve slagged and sneered enough—Love learned long ago that she’d never be America’s sweetheart.

Her “kinderwhore” days may be long gone—the itsy-bitsy baby doll dresses balled up with Cobain’s flannel in some long-forgotten storage locker—but that doesn’t mean Love will ever slip into a power suit and play the part of old maid. There’s no reforming this rock star; she’s as controversial as they come. But after the umpteenth public-relations disaster, you’d think we’d be over the mud-slinging and cut Courtney Michelle Harrison some slack.

When it comes to first-world problems, Love has enough to warrant that OxyContin addiction—and the need to show off her suspiciously perky 34Bs to a stadium of bamboozled Brazilians. Long before Love was shamed for canoodling with Michael Pitt (her late husband’s doppelganger and star of the Cobain biopic Last Days), or traumatizing a New York Times writer by shimmying out of her skivvies mid-interview, she had a whole host of other sorrows to bring her down.

Having horny businessmen fork over dollar bills for a whiff of her lady bits had to be a great confidence-booster when she stripped as a pro. As were those years riddled with drug addiction and debauchery—no doubt helped along by accusations from ruthless Nirvana fans that she murdered the Sid to her Nancy. Then there’s that whole business of being on Social Services’ hit list for her WTF parenting skills with Frances Bean Cobain. This psychological roller coaster is bound to send anyone off the rails now and again. So if that means a little areola served up with Hole’s greatest hits, then we should be able to awkwardly laugh it off—just as David Letterman did when Love re-enacted Drew Barrymore’s infamous on-air tit flash.

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Turn on the bright Lights

The MuchMusic darling reinvented herself with a littlebit of help from hip friends like Shad and Holy Fuck

By Jenny Charlesworth

If you are a MuchMusic darling looking for a hip overhaul, getting Holy Fuck to guest on your new record is a good place to start. With a name too profane for TV and a sound too experimental for the mainstream, the electronic outfit provides instant cred for a pop star looking to slum it in the indie music scene. But according to the raven-haired electro princess known as Lights, her recent revamp courtesy of the Toronto group isn’t nearly so contrived.

“I’ve never written for a particular audience,” Valerie Poxleitner, who has legally changed her name to Lights, tells the Straight. “As an artist, you’re establishing your creative vision—not where other people see you.”

On the line from her hometown of Toronto, the 24-year-old spells out why—and how—she decided to step away from teen pop on her new album, Siberia. If it were just about pleasing the powers that be (and the fans who lap up manufactured radio chart-toppers), then Lights would have pulled the plug on her sonic reinvention rather than walking away from Sire, the major U.S. label behind her 2009 debut, The Listening.

“It comes down to artistic integrity, and this is the record I wanted to make,” the singer-keyboardist says of her reasons for leaving the label. “It was a battle, it really was. We were like, ‘We’re not crazy, this is something we’re really proud of.’ Some people get it, and some people don’t.”

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What do you say, Coeur de Pirate?

Inked Quebec indie popster Béatrice Martin (a.k.a. Coeur de Pirate) goes Blonde for her latest album.
1. Parlez-vous français?

Our country may have two official languages, but unless your name is Celine Dion, it’s pretty damn hard to become a major Canadian pop icon if you sing exclusively—or even primarily—in French. Happily, that hasn’t slowed down Coeur de Pirate’s Béatrice Martin. She might still be under the radar of most Anglo-Canadians, but she’s got about as many Facebook fans as Tegan and Sara—and she’s adored in France. As for those who can’t make sense of Blonde’s French lyrics, don’t feel like you need to learn the language on Martin’s account. The singer-songwriter isn’t looking to be an ambassador for her native tongue. “If people find the need to go beyond the music and look into the French, that’s great,” says Martin. “But they don’t need to. That’s not what I’m about; I don’t think I can take on that role.”

2. The title is not a nod to her hair stylist. 
Martin may be a blonde bombshell, but her sunny locks didn’t inspire the title of her sophomore album as Coeur de Pirate. All those confused Anglophones who think this collection of piano pop tunes has anything to do with (a) hair or (b) Bob Dylan, take note: “Blonde actually means ‘my girlfriend’ in Quebec French,” explains Martin, who happens to be the, er, blonde of Bedouin Soundclash frontman Jay Malinowski. “The album talks about all the seasons of a relationship, from when you meet someone to the break up and whatever happens after. A lot of it is about loving from a distance, too.”

3. On Blonde, Martin makes beautiful music with her boyfriend. Again. 
Martin and Malinowski’s courtship started with the Bedouin Soundclash/Coeur de Pirate collab “Brutal Hearts,” a smoldering duet carried by hypnotic percussion and seductive strings. But it was their Armistice project that proved the musical union had legs. With Mariachi El Bronx (the mariachi-loving incarnation of L.A. punks The Bronx) adding a festive boost to their sweetheart harmonies, Martin and Malinowski teamed up for Armistice’s debut EP, which came out in February. It was no surprise when Martin and her beau co-wrote “Saint-Laurent” for her solo record. “I wouldn’t collaborate with anyone I didn’t have a story with, because that’s what makes it interesting,” she says. Blonde was bolstered by a few more all-star recruits, too, though it might take some careful listening to pinpoint their contributions: Sam Roberts croons en français on the country-tinged “Loin d’ici,” while Bon Iver’s go-to saxophonist, Colin Stetson, lets Martin’s angelic voice take center stage on “Ava.”

4. The Weeknd is the voice of Coeur de Pirate’s generation.
Though she’s known for playful pop—a far cry from the slick, x-rated R&B Abel Tesfaye makes as The Weeknd—Martin couldn’t resist tackling “Wicked Games,” a track from Tesfaye’s Polaris Prize–nominated House of Balloons album that serves up some real killjoy rhymes: “Bring your love, baby, I could bring my shame/Bring the drugs, baby, I could bring my pain.” “I could see myself in his words, which is why I covered the song,” the 22-year-old says of the one-off, which, sadly, isn’t featured on Blonde. “He’s explaining our mentality for this generation, that people go out at night and numb themselves when things aren’t going well.”

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