A new study by Kaplan International Colleges has found that the music and lyrics of the late reggae legend, Bob Marley are the most useful when it comes to learning English. The Colleges asked hundreds of former and current students if listening to music in the English language assisted them in their studies, the results were 80% replied that it did, with 14% of those people highlighting the work of Marley as being particularly helpful.
Following in the footsteps of Foo Fighters, and Scissor Sisters, UK band Elbow are also going to take some extended time off. The bands leader, Guy Garvey told The Sun, "We've got our arena tour this November and December, which will be like a farewell party. We've already done six songs for the next album, then we'll come back to finish it next year."
Sweden's Refused are finishing out their reunion "in style." The hardcore band confirmed that their reunion, which began earlier this year and took them to Coachella, all around the US and Europe will come to a close on December 15 in the band's hometown - Uema, Sweden. The band took to Facebook to confirm the news and said, "So there were those years right after school, when you were 15 and pissed off and everyone thought you were a loser and you ran around with the other weirdos, generating weirdness and little else. And there were those years when what set you apart from the others become a fixation and a lifestyle and you had a band and people talked about what you did but you were so used to being weird you just lumped them in with the rest of the slanderers. Then there were those years when the ideas you'd clung to through late adolescence were beginning to ring hollow and you got more and more confused and destructive and the band broke up and you had rent to pay. That was among the tougher years. And then slowly, over a span of time, you began to sort yourself out and your friends started making sensible decisions in their lives and it suddenly began to seem like most of you were gonna be ok.
And then there was the year when you stopped being a petulent kid and you got your favorite musicians together in a room again and decided that you were gonna accept the love of thousands of listeners, accept the success that was waiting there to be had and just in general enjoy being appreciated for the exact same qualities that made you a freak to your contemporaries in your teens. This was one of the better years.
And now it is coming to a close. It's been kind to us. And that old punkrock golem "The shape of punk to come" has done good. The hatchet is buried, 1998 is not such a terrible memory for us anymore. We're going home. And we're doing it in style.
With old friends and new acquaintances in tow we're gonna take over our old hometown Umeå for one more night, just because we can. On the 15th of december at the Exel arena we'll be sharing the stage with these magnificent comrades: Randy (http://www.randytheband.com/), a band of punkrock bandidos from the north who we befriended years before we even were Refused, Two White Horses, an excellent sister/brother-duo from Sävar, both of whom we've individually collaborated with in different musical projects through the years, and Råd Kjetil Senza Testa, a new and exciting musical collective consisting of old Umeå pop and hardcore scenesters, among them the guy who produced the very first version of New noise for a local hardcore compilation in early 1997. We unconditionally endorse these bands.
Great music, good crude fun, what more do you need? It's going to be one of those nights.
Thank you for populating the pit in 2012.
Over and out."