June 2007 Archives

Song: Bewildered
Album: Ballads
Artist: James Brown
Selected by: Linda Ryan 
Date: June 29, 2007

James Brown is best known for the funky brand of soul that inspired a thousand or so dance moves, but he seriously outdoes himself on this slow, mournful ballad. Colored with sepia-toned doo-wop-style backing vocals, "Bewildered" highlights Brown's soulful wail in an unparalleled way.   

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by Nate Cavalieri

THE GOOD!

• Band of Horses put down the bong and finish another record!
  Under the all-caps title "RECORD IS DONE!!!" Band of Horses, runners-up of the hotly-debated Rhapsody year-end staff poll for 2006's Everything All The Time, might finally issue a follow up. "That's right folks," reads the myspace blog. "That little bastard's in the can and soon will be set free on the Sub Pop record label. We're looking at doing that sometime in October if CD's and Records still exsist [SIC] in 4 months."

Song: The Shredder
Album: Discover Worlds Of Wonder
Artist: Little Wings
Selected By: Eric Shea
Date: June 28, 2007

Three years ago when I snapped my wrist skating, my friend Nat Russell from Birds Of America burned me a get well mix with a sort of "Endless Bummer" theme running throughout the 45 minutes of songs. Now, anyone unfortunate enough to know of my soft rock side understands that I have a sad song fetish. But gentle reader, there is no song more melancholic than "The Shredder" by Little Wings. It successfully transcends the bummer feeling of conflict between one's love for flying sideways and the inevitability of growing old. Singer Kyle Field's weepy voice explains:

"When your ball bearings rust/ you'll eat my dust/ call it a favor/ sooner or later/ you're gonna fall."

Thanks again for the sweet mix, Nat. We'll make it to Shred City some day....

Play It Now, Bro!

Édith Piaf is revered as one of the greatest French singers of the last century. Often compared to cabaret star Judy Garland, Piaf was a nationl icon who rose from a begging street singer to a scandal-stricken diva. She lived a short life, dying of cancer at the age of 47. Her funeral procession drew thousands of mourners to the streets of Paris and the ceremony was attended by more than forty thousand devotees. The 2007 Olivier Dahn film La Môme (or La Vie en Rose in English-speaking territories) recounts her valiant life story with a stunning performance by Marion Cotillard as the fragile Piaf.

Song: Drop the Pilot
Album: Gold
Artist: Joan Armatrading
Selected by: Linda Ryan 
Date: June 27, 2007

This breezy pop tune is guaranteed to put a spring in your step. With heavy, steady rhythms and punctuated pounding keys, this song oozes confidence, and when Armatrading's deep, buttery voices coos, "I'm right on target, my aim is straight...I'm the one you need" what else can you do but agree?

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Song: Time to Build
Album: The Natural
Artist: Mic Geronimo
Selected By: Sam Chennault
Date: June 26, 2007

A great artifact from a time when hip-hop had more of a future than a past, "Time  to Build" features guest spots by Ja Rule, Jay-Z and DMX. At this point, in the fall of 1995, none of them had released a full-length, so this is an early snapshot of these soon-to-be legends. The beat is old-school NYC boom bap and is produced by another future mover and shaker, DJ Irv (aka Irv Gotti).

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Who knew Ryan Adams was channeling his inner Anne Murray on Easy Tiger?

For webcasters, web radio listeners, and just about everyone involved with creating or distributing music, July 15th is beginning to look like the occasion of a state-ordered execution. Standing on the gallows are the freedoms that have allowed internet radio to grow into a creative and diverse medium.

Song: Thunder Island
Album: Thunder Island
Artist: Jay Ferguson
Selected By: Nick Dedina
Date: June 25, 2007

The heat is rising and the beaches are filling up, making it the perfect time to drag out Jay Ferguson's immortal summer tune "Thunder Island." This one went Top 10 in 1978 and it still carries the scent of skin-cancer-loving, SPF-free coconut oil. Get out of the surf, throw yourself on the sand, crack open a Fresca and sing along to memories of a girl the "color of Indian summer." Those who prefer auto shop to beachcombing can just dig Joe Walsh's stinging lead guitar lines. Those hiding in the library just take your glasses off and get some sand kicked in your face.

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Song: While You Were Sleeping
Album: Ash Wednesday
Artist: Elvis Perkins
Selected By: Jon Maples
Date: June 22, 2007

Epically languid, with world class longing, Perkins builds a tapestry of chaotic events through a night of restless slumber. His imagery accesses his inner Dylan, while his vocal delivery comes directly from the Leonard Cohen school of understated, yet overheated emotional turmoil. 

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Today is not only the first official day of summer, but it's also Go Skateboarding Day. Unfortunately, I will not be going skateboarding today because I gotta bail back to Minneapolis in an hour. But before splitting to the city that birthed many seminal musicians, I thought it would be cool to leave you with this summery sounding playlist.

Song: Like A Vibration
Album: Rhapsody Originals
Artist: The Whigs
Selected By: Tim Quirk
Date: June 21, 2007

Today, we invite you to have a two minute and forty second brain surgery. First, the Whigs give you an anesthetic in the form of hypnotic guitar, a steady beat and words that rhyme. At 1:25, the saw that removes the top of your head comes in. They spend the rest of the operation filling your skull with images of dancing and desire. We guarantee you’ll feel better when it’s over.

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I live in Bangkok, Thailand. Of the many reasons I love it here, besides the round the clock open vice and downward spiral of personal annihilation I am free to engage in on a nightly basis, high on the list is the fact that they sell these amazing metal t-shirts everywhere for cheap. And because I am emaciated, Thai sizes, which are too small for the average American lard ass, fit me perfectly. The t-shirts themselves are always of really good cotton and are often double sided. As a result, my wardrobe consists almost entirely of awesome metal shirts (and the two pairs of fake Levi’s I bought for $20).  

"Social Networks are like celebrities - there is always a pretty young thing just waiting to be discovered," says Om Malik from GigaOM.com, the San Francisco-based online news and weblog. "If you follow that logic... the post-API Facebook is like Norah Jones - classic, cool and very still on the way up."

Song: Long Hot Summer
Album: Catch-Flame
Artist: Paul Weller
Selected By: Nick Dedina
Date: June 20, 2007

Paul Weller wrote the best summer song of the 1980s with the Style Council but I think this recent concert version is even better. The tune harkens back to the eternal feeling of the season, when vacation, free time, sunshine, memory and heartbreak all go together. We don’t really have a word for these feelings in English but Brazilians call it saudade. Catch the saudade wave here.

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Listen up boppers...

Just a few minutes ago, Rhapsody's own Fil Rodriguez sent out the trailer to the upcoming Joy Division feature film Control. I have to admit that I was skeptical of this project but it looks great -- more  a grubby kitchen sink portrait than a deification.

The movie went over big at Cannes, which probably explains the French subtitles on the trailer.Now that we're on the subject of Joy Division, here's the band playing "Transmission."

Wanting to ride the bummer out a while longer, I'd go for this old clip of Nancy Sinatra singing "Bang Bang" -- the best thing that Sonny Bono ever wrote.

If you need a pick-me-up after that, head straight for the Small Faces' old promo for "Lazy Sunday". This one never fails to put a smile on my mug.

The best video I've seen lately was sent to me by my old friend JBL.

It's better than "best" -- its fantastic. If you doubt that The Who were just about the best live band ever please watch this. This is from a TV show the Rolling Stones did but pulled at the last minute. The rumor is that The Who were so amazing that the Stones were embarrassed.

The other thing that JBL sent my way is the intro to the movie Dance Craze. After a groovy intro it kicks off with The Specials performing "Nite Klub." Wow, what an incredible band -- they do the song more in the style of their trippier second album. This music is so good that it had the power to take "high spirited youngsters off the street."

Finally, why not check this one out? It's got Big Bird and Leslie Uggums in it...the Ian Curtis and Nancy Sinatra of the Sesame Street set.

I still have plenty videos to send out but lets save em for another day.

by Nate Cavalieri

Sure, sure, better late than never, but it's still a drag to come so overdue to a pair of wonderful, somewhat recent, vaguely-related records many months after their release. Start with You're Making It Come Alive, a LP of immaculate, slightly skuzzy pop from Brooklyn's The End of the World that'll draw quick, if not entirely just, comparisons to other post-Velvets in the Spoon/Strokes camp. But with tunes like the "Party's Over" -- a late night frustrado jam decorated with sagging balloons and hand-wringing hipster sweethearts -- the band deserves better. What might be the better half of "Party's Over," the opening "Crowded Rooms" has tons of loner charm, and, like pretty much everything else that follows, uses the croon of singer/sometimes-guitarist/drummer-when-he-has-to-be Stefan Marolachakis to take your heart out with a spork. At a recent San Francisco show with the Narrator, Marolachakis even pulled off a rare feat with the singing drummer thing -- even though he was on double duty the tunes actually felt good.

Song: Tinseltown In The Rain
Album: A Walk Across The Rooftops
Artist: The Blue Nile
Selected by: Nicholas Baker
Date: June 19, 2007

If you were buying hi-fi in England in the '80s, there were two tracks that were routinely used to test your intended system. One was Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing," which none of us need ever hear again, and the other was this gorgeous slice of perfect pop. Unlike much that was recorded back then, the careful avoidance of faddish synth sounds have given it a longevity well into the age of online music, and it's still wonderful, even if you're only currently hearing it on computer speakers…

The Blue Nile play Tinseltown on Later with Jools Holland.

The original video

Someone buying hi-fi yesterday.

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Song: Geremia
Album: With Lasers
Artist: Bonde Do Role
Selected By: Sarah Bardeen
Date: June 15, 2007

Think Miami Bass cornered the market on sexy/nasty lyrics that could make your granny spit up in her teacup? Think again. If your granny speaks Portuguese, she'll find Miami Bass' monster child, baile funk, even dirtier. But those beats...Oh, those beats! Bonde Do Role has that rump-rousing sound down. Prepare to shake it whether you want to or not.

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The Rhapsody Blog Squad is hard at work re-designing, re-thinking and just plain re-invigorating this space. In the meantime, some things are gonna look a little screwy.

Song: Katie Cruel
Album: In My Own Time
Artist: Karen Dalton
Selected by: Nate Cavalieri
Date: June 14, 2007

Beneath the banjo twang, and snaking Stroah violin Karen Dalton's voice -- which sounds like tearing paper on the high notes -- has a forlorn purity. This immaculate cut comes from the reissued 1971 LP, once the holy grail of collectors, and has been widely touted by the folk tykes like Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom, and I'm sad that I'm only coming to it recently. Chilling stuff.

Karen Dalton singing, It Hurts Me Too
Karen remembered on Mojo.
An in-depth look at Karen on the best radio station ever, WFMU. 

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Recently, two artist catalogues went live on Rhapsody to surprisingly little fanfare.

First off, a batch of prime David Soul has gone up, including the song "Don't Give Up On Us," his immortal No. 1 smash hit from 1977.

Now, I can't say that I want to listen to that one too often, but Soul's previous album from 1976 has some decent, Bread style, soft rock on it.

Song: Heart Shaped Glasses
Album: Eat Me, Drink Me
Artist: Marilyn Manson
Selected by: Jaan Uhelszki 
Date: June 12, 2007

Marilyn Manson hasn't scared anyone in years, becoming as much as a comic book rock star as Alice Cooper whom he based most of his early act on. "Heart Shaped Glasses" is chilling in ways that none of his other gothy stuff ever was. Why? Because this particular song captures the rocker teetering on the edge of self annihilation and titillation, as he sonically describes his obsession and subsequent conquest of 19-year-old actress Evan Rachel Wood. Roller over Nabokov and tell Foucault the news.

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Song: Just a Little Lovin
Album: The L Word: Season 2
Artist: Dusty Springfield
Selected by: Rachel Devitt
Date: June 11, 2007

Like the sapphic soap itself, "The L Word"'s soundtracks are stocked with artists who are pretty, witty, and gay(-friendly), which keeps us coming back for more (even if the show's storylines are corny, porny, and completely out of touch with lesbian reality). Who better to lead off Season 2's comp than lovely, luminous queer lady legend Ms. Dusty and her luscious, languorous version of this luxuriously lazy love-fest?

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What to do when you wake up in Nashville and look out the hotel window only to see a rainy day?

Go to the Country Music Hall Of Fame, stupid!

Hooked up some more awesome interviews!
We'll post 'em as soon as they're edited.

Geeked out hard on old school twang with Sunny Sweeney.
Check out the sweet playlist she gave us. Girl knows her country!

Eric Shea goes to Nashville and all we get is this stupid blog post. Pics of bullriding and C'n'W stars young and old, after the jump.

Song: The In Crowd
Album: The Ultimate Collection
Arist: Dobie Gray
Selcted by: Linda Ryan
Date: June 8, 2007 

Dobie Gray's buttery voice is a pleasure to listen to on its own, but add a swaggering horn section and smooth backing vocals and "The In Crowd" becomes one of the sharpest slices of go-go infused soul you'll ever find.

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Apparently you do need stinkin' badges around these here parts! Check mine out...007!

Once I got my badges, I went inside the Nashville Convention Center where country music fans were getting autographs. Look! It's Cowboy Troy and his wacky pants!

Flatt and Scruggs' old tour bus was on display too.

Speaking of bluegrass, Cadillac Sky picked a stellar set on the acoustic stage.

I got to interview Elizabeth Cook!

We'll post that interview as soon as Fil and Lauren edit it for Rhapsody. I got turned on to Elizabeth's music by way of Dr. Ted Kartzman and where the hell has she been all my life?!? Seriously! She's the only person to mix my two favorite things together: skateboarding and country music!

Ok dudes...more later. I have to go get drunk now but I'll be back with more interviews, pictures and other rad stuff!

Song: Harder Better Faster Stronger (The Neptunes remix)
Album: Daft Club
Artist: Daft Punk 
Selected By: Sam Chennault
Date: June 7, 2007

Kanye West just unleashed his version of this classic Daft Punk track, but my money is still on this Neptunes' remix from 2004. Pharrell and Chad iron out the original versions kinky rhythms and implant cooing background vocals for a wispy Ibiza-at-dusk vibe.

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Song: Sunday Mornin
Album: Take A Picture
Artist: Margo Guryan
Selected by: Nick Dedina
Date: June 6, 2007

The lead-off track to Margo Guryan's should've-been-huge 1968 debut Take a Picture, "Sunday Mornin'" is as perfect as a song can get. Spanky & Our Gang scored a hit with the number, but Margo's psych/dream rock original version completely blows the doors off that one – it's like the Beatles producing Astrud Gilberto.

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Song: Am I the Same Girl
Album: 20 Greatest Hits
Artist: Barbara Acklin
Selected by: Linda Ryan 
Date: June 5, 2007

If this soul nugget from 1968 sounds vaguely familiar, play Young-Holt Unlimited's instrumental "Soulful Strut" or this song from Swing Out Sister and it will all make sense. Although Acklin may not be a household name in the same vein as Aretha or Dionne Warwick, this soul sister wrote some of the biggest hits for the Chi-Lites, including "Stoned Out of My Mind" and "Have You Seen Her?"

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Song: Hickory Wind (Alternate Version)
Album: The Complete Reprise Sessions
Artist: Gram Parsons
Selected By: Eric Shea
Date: June 4, 2007

This is the prettiest version of "Hickory Wind" put to tape that I have ever heard (and I've heard a lot). Gram's voice sounds haunted with the memories of his troubled youth. He wrote this song for his grandmother and once dedicated it to her from the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, back when playing there with the Byrds. When you listen to a young Emmylou Harris inflect her high-lonesome harmonies with such feverish emotion, you can't help but wonder if the two of them "harmonized" aside from all things music related. Why is this man not yet in the Country Music Hall Of Fame? Can we change this injustice? We can! Sign this petition to get Gram Parsons inducted.

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Song: Sullen Girl
Album: Tidal
Artist: Fiona Apple
Selected By: Stephanie Benson
Date: June 1, 2007

It’s hard to believe Fiona Apple was only 18 when Tidal came out. “Sullen Girl” reveals a softer, more vulnerable side to the edgy, angered teenager and with every strike of the piano and every inflection in her powerful pipes, you can feel her pain. 

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