December 2006 Archives

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Hope your holidaze rock as hard as this!

"Holy smokes", you say! "Two blog entries from Linda Ryan in one week? The world must be coming to an end!" Actually, no. It's just that half of the office has already left and are enjoying the holiday season. So I have a little more time on my hands than usual, and I'm feeling a little bit snarky. Snarky, if you haven't guessed by now, is the word of choice for the Editorial department.

So, check it out. I got this email from my friend (who heard it from a friend who heard it from another you been messin' around. I digress.) which contained a funny, fake letter to KISS' Peter Criss from Beth. You know, Beth. It's pretty funny - you can read it here. So of course I fire up KISS in Rhapsody and play some hits. And all of a sudden "Christine Sixteen" comes on. WTF? Have you listened to that song recently? "She's been around, but she's young and clean." Um, OK. How could I have not noticed those were the words? That one that did not age gracefully. And it makes me think, what other songs haven't aged so well in the last 20 or so years? Time and perspective change things more powerfully -- with more irony -- than anything else I can thing of (off the top of my head). Here are a few songs where, years later, your perspective on them has changed -- usually not for the better.

1. Kiss - Christine Sixteen - this is the one that started it all, for obvious reasons. I quoted the lyrics above so just listen and try not to laugh out loud.

href="http://play.rhapsody.com/garypucketttheuniongap/younggirlthebestofgarypuckett/younggirl">2. Gary Puckett & the Union Gap - Young Girl - rumor has it, this is R. Kelly's favorite song.  No matter how new or old a song is, singing about getting up in some young one's grill just isn't right. "Young girl, get out of my mind. My love for you is way out of line..." Hmmmm. And that brings us to song number 3.

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3. Gary Glitter - Doing Alright With the Boys -  This song works when Joan Jett sings it, but something gets lost in Gary Glitter's version. And it's a shame because this is a fist pumping (He he. She said pumping) anthem of epic proportions. When he sings, "Hey you, whatcha gonna do, now I'm making all the noise again? Hey you, whatcha gonna do, now I'm playing with my toys again. Now I'm back with the boys again. I'm doing alright, doing alright with the boys, boys, boys" you can't help but laugh. Well, of course you are, silly. You're back with the boys. Emphasis on boys, right. We get it.

4. Britney Spears - What You See Is What You Get - Well, we saw it -- but we don't want it. Sheesh! Keep the undies on, missy!

5. Corey Hart - I Wear  My Sunglasses At Night - Holy cow! How did this song get to be a hit in the first place?  It must've been the hair. But you know, the late '80s were very 'pro' Corey. I mean, Corey Haim and Corey Feldman - I can't think of another one but a trifecta of (essentially) one-hit-wonder Corey's should be good enough.

So there you have it. Make your own list and post them in Playlist Central. We will thank you for the memories.

You've heard me say it before and I will say it again -- Dead people make the best music. If you can't get music made by a dead person, then get your hands on some music that is being made by really old people.

I bring this up because its time for you to listen to Rhapsody's picks for the Best Jazz Albums of 2006.

Spotlighted on the list are sessions led by three amazing drummers. Combine the ages of band leaders/percussionists Paul Motian, Chico Hamilton and Jack DeJohnette together and you'll get an integer that approaches the national debt of many island nations. And not sparsely populated island nations either.

But this isn't a case of age before beauty. Jazz shows that age can equal beauty. Paul Motian has retired from touring so that he can create sumptuously beautiful music full-time in New York City. Jack DeJohnette is still crafting strikingly modern jazz -- this time out with guitarist Bill Frisell. Meanwhile, West Coast jazz legend Chico Hamilton celebrated his 80th birthday by recording three all original Cd's. We only picked one Hamilton platter so that we could give to a couple of other worthy musicians.

Fear not, YOTRFJs (Youth of Today Rabid for Jazz) -- younger musicians just at the start of their careers are also crafting awesome jazz. The Rhapsody list includes such spry modern innovators as Jason Moran, Donny McCaslin and Taylor Eigsti.

Check it out -- the list contains 25 examples of the best jazz featured on Rhapsody all year.

by Linda Ryan

It's been so long since I've blogged something, it's downright shameful. But we just voted in another crop of Dig This! winners for the month of December, so I was inspired to write and tell you all about them. If there is a music lover on your Holiday "To Get" list, this just might be an excellent place to start.

Just to refresh; Dig This! is our monthly program where our editorial staff nominates releases to highlight. The criteria: 1) the artist's release must by less than 6 months old and 2) it must be an artist that is "under the radar."  So with that, here are December's winners.

We're still stuck in "Best of 2006" madness here at the Rhapsody International Complex.

Basically, we get sequestered into the labyrinthine B.O.B. (which stands for the Best of Basement) where we argue and hash things out. We don't just argue about what we think the best albums of the year are -- we argue about everything from Elvis Presley vs Little Richard to Penguins vs MeerKats (word is that penguins have jumped the shark -- with global warming the desert dwelling meerkats will soon have an even bigger desert to be cute in. While the penguins need to get busy building very small aqualungs).

Let it be known that in the great Rhapsody Dogs vs Cats debate of 2006 has come to a close. Sam and Michele picked cats while I picked dogs. Tim had his vote split between cats & dogs (he's the boss, he can do this), while Linda sidestepped the issue by picking chinchillas. Dogs were out-numbered 3 to 2. It didn't look good.

Since none of us even knew what a chinchilla was, Henry produced a Rhapsody by-law that forced Linda to vote for either a dog or a cat. Just then, Max walked up to Linda, looked at her and placed his paw in her lap. Jonathan walked back in the Rhapsody Voting Chamber just as this was happening and -- presto! -- Linda and Jonathan both voted for dogs. That put Dogs at 4 votes and Cats at only 3 votes.

Dogs win! Or they should've won, but Eric, Stephanie, Henry, Jon and Sabrina all refused to vote, calling into question the accuracy of our Rhapsody voting machines. For the 5th consecutive year, we could not reach a final vote on which is better, the cat or the dog.

Thankfully, almost all of us came together and agreed that Mutts is the best comic strip in the universe and in that strip, dogs and cats are best friends. Sam had to rock the vote-boat and put in a good word for Boondocks even though its been on hiatus all year and papers have just been re-printing old strips of it every single day.

One musical thing the Rhapsody committee hammered out is that Dean Martin does the all-time best version of "Baby, It's Cold Outside." As much as I love Dino, I think I disagree with the community. I have done a bit of research on this subject and have come to the conclusion that "Hot Lips" Page does the best version of this groovy snow-laden tune. Page even mentions showing the young lady in question his etchings! You can hear this amazing track and countless other holiday jazz numbers on my Rhapsody Cool Yule xmas channel.

Oops...I've gotta run back down to the basement and rejoin the Rhapsody committee. Next time up: The Best Jazz of 2006.

by Garrett Kamps

I totally never post to this thing. It's been months. In a year where blogs got huge, plateaued, then jumped the shark (sorry, heARTattacker.com, or whatever the new cooly high stuff is), I've been a bad, bad blogger. But since we're nearing resolution time, and also with an eye toward diluting Dedina's wildly entertaining stories about dogs and cats and music, here's, like, something I think. Woohoo!

This Karen Dalton business, In My Own Time -- oh my lord! It recently got re-issued, and hence plugged into Rhapsody. Oh, it's so sad and beautiful and interesting. Dalton rubbed elbows with Roberto Zimmerman in that '60s Greenwhich Village folk music scene none of us were cool enough or old enough to set our peepers to first hand, but homegirl didn't cut a lot of music -- merely two album's worth, in fact, and when those eventually came out in '69 and '71, folks were dancing to a different drum circle. So Dalton was all but forgotten. But not by...Joanna Newsom! Whose courage to sing like the 900-year-old cosmic soul-vixen she is is gleaned just right about directly from Dalton, and Newsom will tell you this. So check out this re-issue of her 1971 gem. If it doesn't make you cry then your heart is made of cold, hard rock.

By Tim Quirk 

I was unexpectedly in NYC Wednesday night, and wormed my way into the dress rehearsal at St. Ann's Warehouse for Berlin, Lou Reed's mind-blowing 1973 concept album about dissolute lovers who beat and shoot each other up and then the girl kills herself and the guy gets super eloquent about it with the help of a choir. In college, my suicidal girlfriend used to listen to that and Joy Division's Closer in the dark for days, so the fact that I still adore both works should tell you something about how great they are (if amazingness-of-album minus craziness-of-traumatizing-lover-who-was-addicted-to-said-album still equals stupendousness, then one can assume said album is actually super-stupendous).

Holy smokes! It's pouring rain today and everything is soaked. Right outside the massive Rhapsody International Complex rests the twisted, bloody remains of the worst car accident that I have ever seen in my life. It looks like the streets of Baghdad out there.

Mix blighted weather and the stench of death together with a bitter but potent dose of melodrama and you get the Walker Brother's timeless classic "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore." This is probably the best Phil Spector song that Spector had absolutely nothing to do with. It gets even better after a dash of Ennio Morricone was sprinkled into it.

So I submitted my end-o-year poll and then found this song that i missed by Camera Obscura. Now I wish I voted for it on the Song of Year ballot.

The Quirk clan spent the weekend stringing lights on and otherwise decorating our co-opted pagan holiday tree. Yes, there's a lot of crappy Christmas music in the world, but there's also a lot of Christmas music that's actually enjoyable in Rhapsody. Here's almost 10 hours of the latter -- everything from those Who's down in Whoville singing Fah-Hoo-Doh-Ray to Wilson Pickett singing "Jingle Bells." Put it on shuffle play and you should find a decent balance between people like the Andrews Sisters and the Eels. Click here to launch the playlist.

The end of the year is near, and we've just completed Rhapsody's Best of 2006 polling. This year's list features a diversity of genres and styles not seen in recent year end polls. 

Rhapsody's 2006 Best Album poll results.

1. TV On The Radio
Return To Cookie Mountain

2. Band Of Horses
Everything All The Time

3. Lupe Fiasco
Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor

4. Gnarls Barkley
St. Elsewhere

4. Joanna Newsom
Ys

6. Belle & Sebastian
The Life Pursuit

7. J Dilla
Donuts

7. Cat Power
The Greatest

9. M. Ward
Post - War

10. Ghostface
Fishscale

10. Neko Case
Fox Confessor Brings The Flood

As great as 2006 was for albums, it might have been even better for individual songs. There were many classics in the past year. Here are the winners from our Best Songs Of 2006 poll.

1. Gnarls Barkley: Crazy

2. Lupe Fiasco: Kick, Push

3. Band of Horses: The Funeral

4. Justin Timberlake: Sexyback

5. Christina Aguilera: Ain’t No Other Man

6. Dixie

Chicks: Not Ready To Make Nice

7. E-40: Tell Me When To Go

8. Arctic Monkeys: I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor

8. Taylor

Swift: Tim McGraw

10. “Weird Al” Yankovic: White And Nerdy

And just in case you're interested: 2005's Album list:
1. M.I.A., Arular
2. Gorillaz, Demon Days
2. My Morning Jacket, Z
4 The Magic Numbers, The Magic Numbers
5. Kanye West, Late Registration
6. Madonna, Confessions on a Dancefloor
7. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
8. Beck, Guero
9. Bright Eyes, I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
10. Mylo Destroy Rock and Roll
10. Amadou & Mariam Dimanche a Bamako

by Sam Chennault

Nas is my all-time favorite emcee and his new album, Hip-Hop is Dead, is pretty bad ass.  It raises a lot of interesting questions: is hip-hop culture dead? did we sell it down the river for the skrilla? what's the relationship between art and commerce? are the two mutually exclusive?

Anyway, here's a bio of that was rejected for our service (too long), but you might enjoy it as an overview, introduction or whatevah.

Biggie's star may have shined brightest, and Rakim was more influential, but Nas has consistently pushed the art of hip-hop lyricism further than any other emcee. From the first line of his 1991 debut on Main Source's "Live at the BBQ" to his 2006 collaboration with Jay-Z, "Black Republicans," Nas has astounded listeners with his ability to integrate shockingly raw poetic imagery into glum ghetto narratives.

Nas' debut album, 1994's Illmatic, is considered a classic. On songs such as “Memory Lane” and “One Love,” Nas sounded as he could’ve been 60 or 16; a shortie on the corner slinging rock or a revolutionary perched on the steps of capitals. Notions of transcendence and self-determination clash with a relentless ticker tape of torn lives and dead bodies.  This is music that breathes and bleeds, and is one of the greatest hip-hop albums ever released.

Despite universal praise, the gritty Illmatic was a commercial flop. When Nas returned to the studio for his sophomore album, 1996's It Was Written, he left behind hyper-realist ghetto rap, and instead focused on conceptual Mafioso fantasies. It was jarring for fans, but the move paid off. On the strength of singles "If I Ruled the World" and "Street Dreams," It Was Written sold over three million copies.

The taste of success proved addictive, and Nas spent the remainder of the 90s taking a long stroll through a desert of bling. While I Am and Nastradamus featured a handful of good songs, they were generally greeted with derision thanks to albums' pop focus and Nas' lack of lyrical direction.

During this period, Nas was going through a period of deep personal struggles. His mother was diagnosed with cancer, his longtime girlfriend (and baby's mama) proved unfaithful and he felt artistically sterile. As Nas hit rock bottom, Brooklyn emcee Jay-Z released "Takeover," a diss track that contended Nas had "fell from top ten to not mentioned at all."

Jay-Z's quest to disgrace Nas backfired. Instead of demurring, Nas retaliated with the searing track "Ether." (the link is to the edited version, which takes away a lot from this track unforetunately) When the track premiered on NYC hip-hop station Hot 97, the normally arrogant Jay-Z was stunned, and could only mumble that the track was "vulgar…just really vulgar." Jay-Z's mother intervened on the BK rapper's behalf, and Jay eventually apologized to Nas for his outburst. The word "ether" has since entered hip-hop lexicon as a synonym for humiliation.

Nas' next two albums, the streetwise Stillmatic and the personal God's Son, further solidified his place as hip-hop's reigning poet,  while hit singles "Get Ya'Self a Gun," "Made You Look" and "I Can" proved that he was still commercially relevant. In 2005, Jay-Z reached out to Nas and the two ended hip-hop's most storied beef. Nas' 2006 album, Hip-Hop is Dead, was released on Jay-Z's Def Jam records.

By Tim Quirk 

The same thing happened when I interviewed Dave Davies.