October 2008 Archives

"World music" has always been something of an ironic (not to mention ironically limited) descriptor: The "world" in world music doesn't include significant parts of Europe and North America, the music of the whole "world" is given a disproportionate amount of global media and promotional attention, etc., etc. One of the less central (and less often discussed) ironies of the industry, however, is that Asian music, in general, and especially Asian pop music (with the occasional J-pop exception) just doesn't circulate through the world music conduits all that readily. To some degree, the rest of the world's lack of access to Asian pop has to do with differences in local music industries. But it also might be related to a general dismissal of commercial Asian pop as just a bunch of sappy ballads and canned beats.

And okay, yes, there are actually a lot of sappy ballads -- although we shouldn't be too quick to write that material off either. But that's another SoundTrek. Today we're talking about the peppier stuff in the Asian pop oeuvre, particularly in the region's videos. And, oh boy, are there plenty of downright campy, deliciously candy-coated nuggets there -- the stuff that makes pop everywhere good and addictive. Moreover, there's a kind of joie de vivre (and sometimes a wacky plotline) that's often missing from Western pop.

I don't know about you ghouls, but if I had the choice between taking a Charleston Chew that might have been sitting in some crazy old cat lady's house since the last Great Depression or taking some bona fide (haunted) roadhouse blues from the Boss, I know what I'd take. Luckily, this is the Internet where you can have everything all of the time; so for now, enjoy this free Halloween-themed free download courtesy of Bruce Springsteen, wherein the Garden State rocker laureate takes on the myth/legend of the Pine Barrens' own New Jersey devil.

Further Viewing:
Bruce Springsteen's "Jersey Devil" video

Further Listening:
Bruce Springsteen, "Jersey Devil"

Folk-rock that harkens back to the mid-‘60s isn’t a new direction for music. But Seattle duo, the Dutchess & the Duke, aren’t all that predisposed to the glow of the new. Lifelong friends Jesse Lortz and Kimberly Morrisson lived through their twenties chasing a youthful energy in a long line of surf, garage and punk-rock bands. They have also come out on the other side of 30 with an expertise in two-part harmonies, acoustic guitar- and tambourine-driven songs that bear the tight construction of Stones and Dylan classics, and personal biographies that make for some interesting points and counterpoints. In under 30 relatively lo-fi recorded minutes, their debut, She’s the Dutchess, He’s the Duke, shows off songwriting chops and an empathetic vision of life gained from experience. And while experience isn’t necessarily a new direction, it’s always worth gaining. This was the undercurrent to the conversation Rhapsody began with Lortz and Morrisson in Seattle and finished in New York, soon after the Dutchess & the Duke played the Rhapsody Rocks NYC party earlier this October.

What does it mean that, of the five ear-bleeding albums accounted for below, the two I get long-winded about are both by bands of manly men from Tampa, Florida -- neither playing especially sun-shiney music? Yes, it's a major swing state. No, I won't get superstitious.

Song: Halloween
Album: The Days of Wine and Roses
Artist: The Dream Syndicate
Selected by: Jen Guyre
Date: October 31, 2008

If we picked the Misfits or kicked it old school with some Screamin' Jay Hawkins, let's face it -- anyone would've seen that coming a mile away. So instead, we're celebrating All Hallows Eve with some tortured indie souls.

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Michelle Williams' new album, Unexpected, actually came as a surprise to Williams herself. After two gospel albums, the Destiny's Child alum returned to the studio to work on her third solo effort, this time with a breakup on the brain. The resulting album was, "Alright," says Williams. After calling for backup – her mother – she scrapped it and went back to the studio. "My mom was like, 'You sound so bitter! Make music that people can dance to.' And that really helped me – like even if you are upset, still dance!" And dance, you will. Unexpected is, in a way, Williams' coming out party. With producers like Stargate and Rico Love manning the boards, she successfully sheds some of her good-girl image with a sound that's covered in sequins and sass, delivering a hybrid confection that's deceptively sweet ("Thank U") and naughtily nice ("Private Party"), a blend of R&B ("Hungover") and Euro-pop shimmy ("Lucky Girl"). Here, Williams speaks on her new attitude and more. 

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

Time for more 2008 singles that it's my professional responsibility to have an opinion about, seeing how Frank Kogan listed them among his 42 favorites of the year so far -- a list I'd started to pick through in a previous post, though "We Break the Dawn" by Michelle Williams and "Energy" by Keri Hilson have grown on me since then. In this far less cynical round, I actually already like a bunch of the tracks I wrote about! Here they are:

Song: King of Rock
Album: King of Rock
Artist: Run-D.M.C.
Selected by: Sam Chennault
Date: October 30, 2008

We've lost many hip-hop legends, but the death of Run DMC's Jam Master Jay on this day in 2002 seemed more significant in its symbolism. It was not only the murder of one of hip-hop's most talented, but also the official end of an era. The innocence of hip-hop's early years had given way to a more violent malaise that was entertainment for some and a lifestyle for others. That hip-hop neocon 50 Cent was initially implicated in the murder only hammered the point home.

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Count me among those who’ve been skeptical of the continued artistic relevance of indie/underground hip-hop in 2008. There is still a lot of great talent on the scene, both in terms of vets (Murs, Madlib, DOOM, Jean Grae) and rookies (Blu, Black Milk, Pac Div, Blue Scholars), but barely any decent new music was released in the first eight months of the year. The only indie hip-hop album with any replay value was Jean Grae’s Jenius, which was recorded three years prior. And then September hit.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

Song: Mah Na Mah Na
Album: Mah Na Mah Na: Vulcanology.it Remixes
Artist: Piero Umiliani
Selected by: Nick Dedina
Date: October 29, 2008

On this great day in 2003, researchers proved that songs get stuck in your head because their very repetition actually scratches hidden itches in your brain. We aren't sure who those researchers are, but they work in a very neat lab. Everyone has an opinion on the "itchiest" song of all time, but our vote goes to Piero Umiliani's peerlessly goofy hit "Mah Na Mah Na." Umiliani first wrote the song for a Swedish softcore flick in the late 1960s and it became a Hippie-era hit across the globe. Jim Henson obviously loved the ditty (or, maybe he was fond of Swedish erotica?) because he had his Muppets perform it on the Ed Sullivan Show, Sesame Street and on the debut episode of ... The Muppets.

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In honor of the upcoming NBA season, we're turning the PLAY blog into something of a sounding board for today's best ballers. Below, you'll find some of the finest players in the league -- including the Gilbert Arenas, Josh Smith, Michael Redd and Caron Butler -- talking about their favorite songs. Enjoy, and see you at tip-off.

Team: New Orleans Hornets
Position: Power Forward
Born: August 29, 1980 in Teaneck, NJ
Height: 6'9"
Weight: 240 lbs
College: Xavier University
Drafted: 2001, Round 1, Pick 18
Other: One-time all-star plays the tuba and was named by Sports Illustrated to the NCAA All-Decade Team

Team: Minnesota Timberwolves
Position: Guard
Born: September 24, 1983 in Newark, NJ
Height: 6'4"
Weight: 205 lbs
College: Villanova
Drafted: 2006, Round 1, Pick 7
Other: Eighth leading scorer in Villanova history with 1,966 career points, and  a front runner for the Rookie of the Year award after a strong showing in this year’s NBA summer league

What's new? What's good? What will you find here that you won't hear anywhere else this week? Sit back, relax and click through to the premieres, the originals and the exclusives available only on Rhapsody! This week:

Katy Perry, "Hot N Cold (Rock Remix)" (Rhapsody Exclusive)

Anberlin, TK (Rhapsody Premiere)

The Higher, Rhapsody Original (Rhapsody Exclusive)

Song: F*ck You
Album: Dre 2001
Artist: Dr. Dre
Selected by: Toshi Kondo
Date: October 28, 2008

This is the anthem for guys looking for relations with no complications -- with married women. Devin the Dude smoothly croons the lighthearted hook, making it easy to see Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg as providing a necessary service rather than as misogynistic homewreckers.

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It’s been well-documented, most notably in a couple books I wrote a few years back, that perennial Hagerstown, Maryland Nerf-metal also-rans Kix were my favorite (which is a polite way of saying “the best”) rock band of the ‘80s and early ‘90s. I believed that then, I believe it now, and I’m still waiting for somebody to prove me wrong. (Explanation? Let’s just say crossing AC/DC with the Cars and shouting dirty jokes about explosions on top was an awesome idea. Plus, their tunes rocked.) Anyway, Steve Whiteman, who used to sing like the most snot-nosed clown in your 8th grade class for Kix, has for the past several years been fronting a somewhat less visible act called Funny Money. (Not that Kix were super visible in the first place, but they did put out six albums on Atlantic Records rather than Fizz Donkey, after all.) Funny Money’s third, best, and most recent album, it turns out, is available on Rhapsody. So you wouldn’t expect me to ignore it, would you?

Song: Sarah Crazy Child
Album: Scarborough Fair: The Besat of English Folk
Artist: Tyrannosaurus Rex
Selected by: Nate Cavalieri
Date: October 27, 2008

If you couldn't tell by his adopted name, Steve Peregrin Took was into the mystical wood-fairy stuff that comes straight out of a tome of Tolkien. Took collaborated with Marc Bolen to shape the freaky folkie sound of early Tyrannosaurus Rex (which later became T Rex) and died on this day in 1980. His death -- from choking on a cherry stone while tripping on mushrooms -- is every bit as bizarre and fantastical as his music, which is of huge influence to a later generation of folk artists like Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom.

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Hey, people! Check out our new ad featuring lord of the auto-tune bedroom lullabye, T-Pain.

SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

Buena Vista Social Club returned from the dead (almost literally) last week, and this week Puerto Rican rappers/provocateurs Calle 13 took on the living, breathing lyrical fire. (Colombian rock outfit Aterciopelados wasn't far behind on that front either.) Plus, a sneak preview of songs from a hotly anticipated Bollywood flick, and Los Lobos guitarist David Hidalgo goes folkloric ... again?

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this edition of SoundTreks.]

Submitted for your approval: three slow bands, two fast bands and one band that can't make up its damn mind. At least two albums below are better than the one that the notoriously unreliable site metacritic.com ranks among the best-reviewed albums of 2008. And at least two have song titles that pay tribute to soul music, even if they don't necessarily get their groove on.

Concentric Pleasures is a blog column dedicated to the best in electronic dance music: house, techno, their cousins and offspring. Named in honor of vinyl's grooves, it's a weekly roundup of new releases and back-catalog finds.

I've been in the mood for a certain strain of '90s electronic music lately. The records I'm thinking of were often considered "home-listening electronica," though they were firmly grounded in the club culture of their day: deep and sensuous, they privileged harmony and melody as much as rhythm, and no matter the techniques they employed—sampling, breakbeats, drum machine sequences, analog synthesizers, digital sound design—they always let the sound itself dictate the final form. If we're going to have a revival of this stuff—and I hope we do—we could do worse by way of preparing than to dig out some of the classics of Peacefrog's catalog. The U.K. label has roamed far and wide since its founding in 1991, moving from acid house to hard techno and on through a range of Detroit and Chicago styles; these days, it's putting out José González and Nouvelle Vague. But there was a moment in the mid-'90s where Peacefrog, along with R&S Apollo, essentially set the standard for deep, emotive techno—to borrow a Black Dog title I cited last week, you could call it "ambiance with teeth."

Song: I Wanna Be Adored
Album: The Stone Roses
Artist: The Stone Roses
Selected by: Stephanie Benson
Date: October 24, 2008

On this date, 10 years ago, former Stone Roses lead singer Ian Brown was sentenced to four months in jail for charges of threatening behavior on board an aircraft. A flight attendant claimed the spitfire musician told her not to wave at him or he'd chop her hands off. Ouch. Maybe he was just tired of all the adoration.

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A few years ago, I interviewed the Dodos, a San Francisco duo who was, at that time, trying to keep their heads during the disorienting situation that befalls a band who's being vigorously courted by record labels. We parked on the sidewalk of a café in the Mission District as the singer, Meric Long, spoke about the most bewildering gig he'd ever played, a few weeks prior, in the board room of a Manhattan skyscraper, to an audience of record industry decision-makers. For a musician of Long's pedigree -- a vet of San Francisco's indie songwriter scene who pens unapologetically nervy, decidedly un-commercial songs -- his obvious discomfort about the situation was evident then, and even more so when they issued their first LP on a reputable small independent label, French Kiss. The situation with the Dodos office gig was on the brain yesterday, sitting in a conference room on the 48th floor of a building near the chaotic center of Times Square (where Rhapsody's New York office makes its home) when Ryan Star strode in, guitar in hand, dressed in faded black, buttressed by a small trio of nervous, doting label operatives.  

In the latest installment of John Norris Interviews ... our intrepid reporter talks to the electro-rock duo Ratatat. The group, made up of Mike Stroud and Evan Mast, talk about their recent touring, their recording set-up and their affection for analogue instruments like Mellotrons and harpsichords.

Further Viewing:
Additional installments of John Norris Interviews...

All of the artists in this post -- late '60s acid-boogie outfits, biz-boosted '80s cheeseballs, early '00s garage-rock dresser-uppers -- have names that start with "Ch." Strangely, so do I. Savor the moment now, for it may never happen again.

Song: Touch the Sky
Album: Late Registration
Artist: Kanye West 
Selected by: Rachel Landy
Date: October 23, 2008

Six years ago today, Kanye West tempted fate in Los Angeles, enduring a near-fatal car crash. Thankfully, he recovered, and since has educated us on Jesus, workouts, gold diggers, Daft Punk and conflict diamonds, all while embracing the life he nearly lost. He comes full circle on Late Registration's “Touch the Sky” proclaiming, “I think I died in an accident, ‘cause this must be heaven.”

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Maybe it just means I’m turning into an old grump, but 2008 will go down in history as the first year in memory that I actually wound up liking two albums by bands of white people that hit Billboard’s blues chart. First there was Too Slim and the Tail Draggers, from Seattle. Then there was The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, from Indiana. Both are trios, both spend a lot of time on the road, both play guitar better than they sing, both record for small labels, both I never heard of before this year, and both like to eat.

FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD: Lykke Li, "Breaking Up (John Hill Remix)"

Her songs may hit the sweet and sensitive chords, but Lykke Li is not a woman to be messed with. The Swedish indie songbird is one of Rhapsody's Dig This! artists for October, and we got a chance to talk to the feisty singer-songwriter about her debut album and that Victoria's Secret ad ("this thing about sellouts is bullsh*t"), while she got the chance to clear the air about her real feelings on Madonna (ahem, definitely not an influence, people).

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link for the rest of the interview.]

In honor of Headbangers Ball's 20th anniversary, we caught up with Hatebreed/Kingdom of Sorrow frontman and former host of the Ball, Jamey Jasta. "These were really hard to choose," said Jasta when asked to pick his favorite metal songs. "I wouldn't say these are my all-time faves or the order I would would list my top metal songs. This is what I would say right now off the top of my head and I included some metal-influenced hardcore songs, too. Here's my 15 jams. Enjoy and be inspired by them like I have!"

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

by Tim Quirk

When does a mustache become a mustache?

It’s probably not a good sign for the Lovely Feathers that I spent most of their set at Ace of Clubs wondering about their mustaches. Or, more precisely, wondering if the three mustaches I’d counted when they first took the stage actually counted as mustaches.

Latin-pop princess (and wife of Tommy Mottola) Thalia made Lunada after a year off doing the mommy thing, but you'd never guess she'd been doing anything other than tearing up the dance floor, surrounded by a fawning entourage, judging by this accordion-driven, Shakira-esque hip-wiggler.

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Ah, CMJ. Wherein the music industry converges on New York City with hopes, dreams and aspirations for the future, only to be crushed by the endless diatribes of the ruthless critics and hipster elite who are never impressed  and always too cool. That's pretty much the expectation, yet the excitement -- to be part of something, whether or not it's on the cusp of making a greater splash in the music wading pool -- is still in the air as the long, fashionable line outside of Rebel NYC moves a grueling two inches every five minutes. On Monday, October 20 -- the brisk eve of the festival's kick-off -- The Syndicate hosted its 10th annual Conflict of Interest party featuring, among others,  Rival Schools, and as I finally acquire a wrist band for entry, the fun has (unofficially) begun!

Head on over to Rhapsody to check out our photo gallery of 20 Classic Political Albums. It features cover art from the most incendiary, revolutionary, wealthspreadingary albums of all-time, with links to combat rock from the likes of U2, Sly and the Family Stone and more.

Further Viewing:
Rhapsody's 20 Classic Political Albums

What's new? What's good? What will you find here that you won't hear anywhere else this week? Sit back, relax and click through to the premieres, the originals and the exclusives available only on Rhapsody! This week:

Coheed and Cambria, Rhapsody Originals (Rhapsody Exclusives)
On this exclusive four-track EP, New York progressive rock/emo quartet Coheed and Cambria strip down fan favorites and let their strong songwriting and tight musicianship shine.

Little Big Town, Rhapsody Orignals (Rhapsody Exclusives)
Little Big Town reel off harmony-laced favorites such as "Fine Line" and "I'm With the Band" with precision and charm.

Jazmine Sullivan – protégé of Missy Elliott, endorsed by Stevie Wonder – is quite the storyteller. Her debut album, Fearless, embodies the kind of emotional schizophrenia that good, juicy R&B albums are made of, taking on different personae and sounds throughout: vamp, victim, victor, retro, nouveau and pop. Philly born and bred, Sullivan comes from a place where soul comes naturally. In her earlier days, the up-and-comer performed at the venue – Philly's Black Lily – where artists like Jill Scott and Musiq Soulchild were, at the time, still making a name for themselves. She's worked behind the scenes, singing backup vocals and penning songs. And she's even bounced back from label drama. Her Missy-assisted breakthrough single "Need U Bad" reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. At only 21, Sullivan has proved once and again that she's got the chops. Earlier this month, Rhapsody had the chance to catch up with Sullivan at Radio City Music Hall, prepping for her second night on tour with Maxwell. Here, she speaks on Missy-as-inspiration, the craftsmanship behind Fearless, and "Bust Your Windows"-style methods of revenge.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

Here's a glimpse into Department of Eagles' fantastic new release, which lushly mixes McCartney/Beatles-esque beauty with hints of some of indie rock's most astute members of the animal kingdom, including Animal Collective, Caribou, Fleet Foxes and member Daniel Rossen's other band Grizzly Bear.

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This week, MTV2's metal sanctuary Headbangers Ball is celebrating its 20th anniversary. To mark this momentous occasion, we caught up with Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider, former host of Heavy Metal Mania -- the Ball's first incarnation in the '80s -- to talk about his top 15 metal songs. We'll let him tell you all about it:

"Top 15 Metal Songs? This is an impossible task. Why only 15? And how do I chose from the decades of great metal that I've lived through, loved and still love? This needs to be broken down into decades, then categories. Deep cuts and hits. THIS SUCKS!

"Alright, I've chosen these songs because of the effect they had on my favorite music. The fact that my list ends in 1985 doesn't mean I don't love a lot of the metal that's come out since then. I LOVE METAL. Don't know what my parents did to me when I was little to f*ck me up ... but I'm glad they did! Here are 15 metal songs that mattered and in my view effected the metal world more than others. I know they're mostly hits -- that's why they reached and affected the masses."

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

As legend has it, Neil Young wrote “Powderfinger” for Lynyrd Skynyrd -- but they never got to record it. Thirty-one years ago today, lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and band members Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines died in a plane crash. Nevertheless, the last verse serves as the perfect tribute: “Would fade away so young/ With so much left undone.”

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Fans of any '60s icon share a similar gripe: the legacy of too many great artists is inextricably tied to too few of their songs in heavy rotation on oldies stations. These select tracks get played and played out, and eventually even the lifelong Beatles fan reaches for the dial during the third daily course of "Yellow Submarine." Today, I cued up the Four Tops after reading about the passing of the band's leader, Levi Stubbs, who died in his sleep in his Detroit home at the age of 72, and was reminded about how this predicament is particularly hard on the stable of artists from '60s Motown: The Jackson 5 is relegated to "I'll Be There"; Stevie Wonder, a Motown artist with as deep and wide-ranging catalog of any, is on three times an afternoon with "For Once in My Life." For the Four Tops, the heavy-rotation hits come between 1964's "Baby, I Need Your Loving" and their final Top 10 in 1973, "Ain't No Woman (Like the One I've Got)." Of the handful of stuff between these bookends, some, like The Big Chill-approved "It's the Same Old Song," represent Motown's streamlined mainstream operation. Others, like "Reach Out, I'll Be There," speak to the group's power in the studio. But it's the outlying, oddly successful hit "Bernadette," a tune that is among their most popular and their most enduring, that best demonstrates Stubbs' power as a performer. It's the rare example of a heavy-rotation hit that lives up to its responsibilities. 

SoundTreks: a regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

Turkey, situated quite literally on the imaginary line that divides East from West, Asia from Europe,  is home to both millennia-old sites of civilization and bustlingly modern metropolises. So, it's not surprising the region has fostered some pretty fascinating musical culture and genres over the years, from the fearsome Janissary bands that made music a military strategy to the belly dance music of the Ottoman courts (which lives on today, thanks in part to Roma musicians who innovatively incorporated it into their own dance music traditions). We are actually of the opinion that Turkish roots-pop (by which we mean dub classicists Baba Zula, not some kind of Anatolian Blues Traveler) is going to be the next gypsy punk or Saharan blues in world music.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this edition of SoundTreks.]

So we (and by we, we mean Rhapsody and the fine folks over at Matador Records) had a little get together the other day. Canadian hardcore-punk believers F*ck*d Up played, on and off, for 12 hours straight, getting by with a little help from their friends. In between their own chaotic, raucous sets,  F*ck*d Up served as the house band for guests like Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, Tim Harrington of Les Savy Fav, the Vivian Girls, John Joseph of the Cro-Mags, J Mascis, Moby and more, all of whom provided mosh-pit-inciting covers of punk and hardcore classics from the likes of Wire, the Ramones and the Descendents. Enjoy a little taste of the proceedings in the video above and check out a photo gallery of the event after the jump. We've got much more to come from the show (including video interviews and performance footage), so stay tuned.

Concentric Pleasures is a blog column dedicated to the best in electronic singles: house, techno, their cousins and offspring. Named in honor of vinyl's grooves, it's a weekly roundup of new releases and back-catalog finds.

Also known as Black Dog Productions, the Black Dog came up amidst the crazily productive musical chaos of Sheffield in the early days of rave. Beginning in 1989, they crafted a handful of ambitious, wide-ranging EPs (mostly for GPR and their own eponymous imprint) that incorporated breakbeats and electro-funk into gorgeous, streamlined house and techno in clear debt to Chicago and Detroit. Working with a tidy toolbox, they forged analog synths, drum machines and samplers into a powerful, emotive sound by turns tender and tenacious. (Their track title "Ambience With Teeth" just about sums it up.) By 1993's The Cost EP for GPR and the Bytes album for Warp, their increasingly variable tempos and time signatures would move away from straight techno toward a more fractured, abstract sound. Their approach would eventually come to be known as IDM, or "intelligent dance music"; it's fair to say that along with Autechre and Aphex Twin, the Black Dog round out IDM's Holy Trinity. But they're also the genre's most direct link to another, earlier pantheon: Detroit's first generation of techno producers, whose augmented chords and steely sequences directly informed the Black Dog's melodic sensibilities.

You know what would be really horrible? If all the happy metal bands started touring with all the sad metal bands and cheering them up, so they weren't sad anymore. Fortunately, a number of the albums analyzed below suggest that, so far, that has yet to happen.

On this date back in 1995, during an interview with The Observer, Noel Gallagher said he wished Blur's Damon Albarn and Alex James would die from AIDS. Fortunately, his wish was not granted, but we wish the lad would take a lesson from his own songwriting. We were going to pick "Don't Look Back in Anger" but thought this great stompin' ditty off of Oasis' new album would suffice.

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Sure, at first we felt a bit jealous about this Joe the Plumber guy. It was the tractor-beam intensity with which both presidential candidates looked through the camera and into the soul of that Ohioan everyman – blathering about Joe's taxes, Joe's health care, Joe's American dream, Joe's this and that. We’ll admit it, by the end, we felt a bit neglected, straining to merely imagine ourselves as the mustard on the candidate’s gushing Joe sandwich.

When the Judas Priest-worshiping Early Man emerged in 2004, combining New Wave of British Heavy Metal swagger with punk speed, no one could have guessed they'd be instrumental in bringing about a new retro-inspired direction in heavy music. But with the underground success of their 2005 debut album, Closing In, that's exactly what happened.

It hasn't been all smooth sailing since their debut, though. While vocalist/guitarist/bassist Mike Conte and drummer Adam Bennati have been constants (even performing as a duo for a time), it seems that the band's many lineup changes stifled their identity, while an indie label specializing in all things not-heavy may have stunted their potential.

Now, after recently relocating to Los Angeles  from New York City and signing with The End Records, Early Man resurface refreshed, embarking on a national tour and awaiting the release of their new EP. Here, Conte, aka “Early Mike,” takes us through what the last couple years have been like for these purveyors of vintage metal, and what’s on the horizon.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

Legendary NYC club CBGB closed on this day in 2006. Open-minded and ever filthy, it gave acts like the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, Patti Smith and Richard Hell & the Voidoids their first shot. Hell even wrote a fine article for the New York Times about its closure (http://www.richardhell.com/CBGBTimes.html). "Blank Generation" is one song that sums up that scene, started by all those crazy kids who converged on the sinking city during the '70s.

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by Toshitaka Kondo

Everyone faces adversity, T.I. just faces it at very inopportune times. 2003's "Rubber Band Man," his breakout hit, brought him to the cusp of superstardom -- and then he was jailed for probation violations. He bounced back with a starring role in the movie ATL and "What You Know,” the huge first single from the critically acclaimed King. However, adversity struck again when his best friend Philant Johnson was murdered in front of him during a shootout on a Cincinnati, Ohio, highway after a concert afterparty. Again, he came back, going platinum in 2007 with T.I. Vs. T.I.P., winning a Grammy for an appearance on Justin Timberlake’s “My Love,” and landing a General Motors endorsement deal. In late 2007, he was faced with his biggest challenge, catching a federal weapons charge that threatened to keep him in jail for up to 30 years. After working out a plea deal that calls for 1500 hours of community service and a (postponed) year in jail, T.I. showed resiliency with the recently released, introspective Paper Trail. The album moved an impressive 568,000 copies its first week and spawned the first two number one songs of T.I.'s career: “Whatever You Like” and “Live Your Life,” featuring Rihanna. Rhapsody got the King on the phone to get his thoughts on addressing Philant on Paper Trail, ending his feud with Shawty Lo, and the comments Jim Jones recently made about him.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

Every year on the last weekend of September, 400,000 people crowd into 13 blocks of San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood to take part in the annual Folsom Street Fair. To date, this non-profit leather/fetish festival has raised over $3.5 million dollars for local and national charities. This year marked the 25th anniversary of the Folsom Street Fair and Rhapsody was there to talk to a few of the performers, female electro up-and-comers Von Iva, and the Grammy nominated Shiny Toy Guns.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link for additional Folsom Street Fair video and a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

Last week, my friend Frank Kogan, whose pop-music tastes I have often seen eye-to-eye with, posted a list of his 42 favorite 2008 singles so far on his livejournal blog. He included many songs I was entirely oblivious to -- several of them apparently actual hits. So, I decided to do some investigating. Here are a few results, with more likely to come:

On October 15, 1973, two months after the release of Goat’s Head Soup, the French government slapped Keith Richards with a two-year ban for trafficking in cannabis. The next Stones tour France experienced was in support of Black and Blue, an album filled with faux-reggae like “Cherry Oh Baby.”

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You can have your Dirty South and maybe even your DC Hardcore -- but when it comes to most rank and file rock 'n' roll, American regionalist associations are pretty dicey. There's Seattle of the '90s or Detroit of the '00s, and sh*t, even sniveling Omaha. Yet, when it comes to similarities in the way things actually sound? It rarely comes out in the wash (heard Screaming Trees and Alice in Chains lately?). It was on the brain a lot last week when the long-withheld digital release of Kid Rock went live in Rhapsody. Even if his late career more resembles the beer-bloated aggrandizing of Southern rockers like .38 Special than the MC5, Kid Rock makes much of his Michigan roots.

In scenes with, well, a scene, the glue always seems to be influential figureheads -- something that might be more embodied these days by hip-hop producers. In that way, the recent collection of singles by Memphis garage-rock riser Jay Reatard firmly proves the exception of Memphis' rock legacy. It’s a record that's not only sonically, stylistically concordant with the city's vibrant underground rock scene, but one that shows the long-lasting influence of the people who built it.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

(Photo: Ali Anne) 

For the most part, the term “one-hit wonder” is used pejoratively. As they say in the South, even a blind squirrel can find an acorn, and we generally believe that this is true in pop music. One-hit wonders are flukes, flashes in the pan that take a back seat to career artists. This isn’t fair, of course. Some of the best songs of the past 40 years have been produced by so-called one-hit wonders. Their music is, by and large, unencumbered by the pretenses of legacy. It’s looser, more prone to novelty and gimmickry. From old-school classics such as Jean Knight’s “Mr. Big Stuff” and The Larks' beautiful “The Jerk”  to disco and funk jams such as Anita Ward’s “Ring My Bell” and E.U.’s wonderful “Da Butt,” this music is fun and carefree. And, what’s better, the acts didn’t stick around long enough to wear out their welcome. They never matured, never changed and never slipped into self-parody. In the mind of the listening public, they are ephemeral and ageless, the pop music equivalent of Dorian Gray. Let the Rolling Stones tour until their Depends get squishy; Musical Youth will forevermore be in their early teens, passing the dutchie to the left-hand side. And there is also no cult of personality surrounding them. They never substituted celebrity for music because few of these would ever be considered celebrities. What you hear here is pop music in its purest form.

Further Listening:
Playlist: One-Hit Wonder, the Urban Music Edition

Back on this day in 1969, Frank Sinatra was issued an arrest warrant for refusing to go to court to discuss alleged mafia ties. He showed up in court a couple months later claiming he didn't know anybody in the mafia. Was this true? No, it wasn't. Did Sinatra really have stronger organized crime ties than many performers, then and now? No, he didn't -- and he was always hurt by rumors that the Italian mob helped his (self-made) career.

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Welcome to the October 2008 version of Dig This! Every month, Rhapsody’s editorial staff will introduce you to some artists you may not know, give you a chance to check out their music, and present them in their own words -- watch this space for upcoming features on the individual artists. Oh, and we’ll throw you some free downloads from them, too.

This month in Dig This!:
The Dutchess & the Duke, a couple of kids from Seattle, Washington, who play acoustic guitars and harmonize on tunes that evoke classic mid-‘60s folk-rock, even as they sound utterly modern.

Lykke Li, a young woman from Stockholm, Sweden, whose modern indie-pop is by turns futuristic (dig those electronics), retro (listen to those girl-group song-structures) and quirky as all get-out.

The Mole, an electronic-music producer who came to prominence on Canada’s west coast, but whose melodic yet minimal dance music now fits in perfectly with his adopted hometown of Berlin.

by Toshitaka Kondo

Two questions will be answered after Joseph “Jim” Jones drops his fourth album and major label debut, Pray For Reign, this December. The first is whether the Dip Set capo can drop another “We Fly High.” The ubiquitous Billboard top 5 anthem had everyone screaming, “Baaaaaallllllin" and helped him independently push 438,000 copies of his third album, Hustler’s P.O.M.E. (Product of my Environment). His latest single, “Pop Champagne,” featuring Ron Browz and Juelz Santana, should answer that, as it has already become one of the hottest hip-hop songs of the moment. The second question is whether Jones can build on the gigantic buzz he generated from his independent success -- that ultimately led to his joint venture with Sony Music -- and catapult himself into the pantheon of A-list rappers like Jay-Z, Kanye West and Lil Wayne.

If Jones fails, it won’t be for lack of effort. He has already spent $4 million in the last year and a half, recording a mix of potential radio smashes like the Ryan Leslie-produced “Precious” and thought-provoking records like “Frenemies,” a track that provides insight into his falling out with childhood friend and Diplomats crew leader Cam’ron. If Jones is feeling the pressure, it's hard to tell. Rhapsody caught up with him relaxing in his new $2 million Manhattan recording space, after a meeting with his business partner Dame Dash, to talk about his recent legal issues, unflattering comments he made about T.I., and his beef with former protégé Max B.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

A number of the artists unearthed below remind me that, long before I lived here, New York City was apparently a really exciting place to hear music. And some of the other artists unearthed below remind me that other places could be pretty cool too sometimes.

Though his death from pancreatic cancer in 2007 left the classical world searching for an ambassador, celebrated tenor Luciano Pavarotti would have been 72 years old today. Pavarotti is remembered for his rich voice, definitive interpretations of canonical roles and passion for performing, all of which are evident in this stunning reading from Bizet's Carmen. In it, Don Jose sings of a flower that Carmen had once thrown him, which, though faded, still holds an intoxicating loveliness -- a perfect homage to the singer himself. 

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SoundTreks: a regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

Wow -- what a great week for world music. The globalized economy may be crawling into a McMansion-sized hole right now, but you've gotta admit, while globalization may suck for mortgage-backed securities, it's been damn good for music. It's like an all-you-can-eat international buffet this week, only the portions are small and all the food is cooked by those grumpy French slow-food guys who burn down fast food joints while wearing hats set at a jaunty angle. On the menu: indie-pop from Argentina's ardently odd songstress Juana Molina, Ethiopian dub reggae (yes, you read that right) from Dub Colossus, psychedelic '60s Amazonian surf-pop from Juaneco y Su Combo, and a Brazilian who's obsessed with Japan and duets with West Coast underground rappers. Viva cross-pollination!

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this edition of SoundTreks.]

Metal in 2008 is a lot of different things to different people. Personally, I'll take the druids-in-the-woods thing over the dorks-playing-Guitar Hero thing. But feel free to differ, of course!

Concentric Pleasures is a blog column dedicated to the best in electronic singles: house, techno, their cousins and offspring. Named in honor of vinyl's grooves, it's a weekly roundup of new releases and back-catalog finds.

There often seems to be an aesthetic divide between electronic-music scenes in the U.K. and Germany, but that's not the case with London's Freerange label, co-run by Jamie Odell (aka Jimpster and Audiomontage). The record's early releases drew inspiration from a range of places—Paris, Chicago, Detroit, New York and of course London itself—and carved out a loose, lush sound that ranged from pumping deep house to the off-kilter funk of West London broken beat. Their more recent records, from producers Stimming, pursue the same sense of sumptuousness, but show traces of German minimal techno's precision sonics. (Stimming, appropriately, is from Hamburg; Freerange has also reached out to Finland, Sweden and even Allston, MA in recent A&R efforts.) Despite the fact that the label has been around since 1996, Freerange don't seem to enjoy the profile you might expect, which is odd: after all, you can hear their influence all over the new German deep house being championed by artists like Âme and Dixon. Here, a few choice cuts from the label: for more Freerange, see Square One, Shur-I-Kan and Palm Skin Productions, for starters; for more recent releases, check out Pezzner, Roberto Rodriguez and Manuel Tur, whose Vebanque EP is especially strong.

The first instance, for many of us, where Kid Rock sounded like he might actually prefer Ronnie Van Zandt to Scott La Rock. “Only God Knows Why” appeared towards the end of his 1998 breakthrough, Devil Without a Cause. Totally awesome vocoder parts and a few lighter-raising/beer-pounding-worthy lyrics proved the redneck son of Michigan was capable of far more than writing stripper anthems.

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Modern metal machine Five Finger Death Punch have been riding high on their 2007 debut The Way of the Fist and the mainstream success of their single "The Bleeding." A staple in the hard rock/metal spectrum, FFDP are made up of former members of U.P.O, Motograter and W.A.S.P. They not only know a thing or two about music, but they've been in this game for a long time -- which is probably why when we caught up with lead axemen Zoltan Bathory and Darrell Roberts to talk music, we got one long list of their favorite songs to speed and geek out to. Check out the playlist on Rhapsody.com right here.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

A 15-year career in hip-hop is hard to come by. But longevity is not the only thing that makes Devin the Dude, nee Devin Copelan, a rarity. Instead of tired gangsta clichés and hard posturing, the Houston native is an architect of vivid, humorous, laidback -- and at times self-deprecating -- tales on the joys of drugs, liquor and ladies. He became the breakout member of the Odd Squad, a group he initially signed with on Rap-A-Lot Records in the early '90s, after singing the hook on Scarface’s “Hand of a Dead Body.” Subsequent efforts like The Dude and Just Tryin’ Ta Live were critically acclaimed, but commercially neglected. Yet, he built up a loyal fanbase and finally rose to national attention after appearing on Dr. Dre’s classic, “F*ck You," from Dre 2001. Since, he has maintained his status as an underground favorite thanks to slept-on classics like “What a Job” featuring Snoop and André 3000. Landing Gear is his fifth solo album -- and first since leaving his longtime home at Rap-A-Lot. Rhapsody caught up with him to talk about the Houston rap scene, almost getting kicked off Dr. Dre’s Up in Smoke Tour, and being in the studio with Tupac.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

RIAA certifications like gold and platinum suddenly seemed like a pitiably low standard for 1997's Devil Without a Cause. Kid Rock's 10 million-copy blockbuster earned a new one: diamond. One of the more brilliant points of light in that perfectly cut gem of horn-doggin', chest-thumping', rhyme-spittin' mayhem is "Cowboy," where Bob Ritchie -- rapper, rocker, show biz badboy -- paints a vivid picture of the Kid's universe. This is a part of a week-long celebration of Kid Rock's addition to the Rhapsody catalog.

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Maybe it’s about time people stopped underestimating Kid Rock. Just a year ago, you might have been forgiven for thinking he was a has-been – and if so, it wouldn’t have been the first time the charts later proved you wrong. I mean, how many Kid Rock albums has this happened with? Months after it seemed a lost cause, last fall’s Rock N Roll Jesus wound up in resurrection mode this summer, just like his long-tailed 1998 breakthrough and career album Devil Without a Cause, and 2001’s “Picture”-spurred Cocky before it. Buoyed first by a late spring tour with Reverend Run, Peter Wolf and whatever street survivors own the Lynyrd Skynyrd logo these days, then by a late-breaking single that crossed from country -- Kid’s fallback format -- to pop and rock radio, Jesus wound up re-lodging itself in the top 10 around Independence Day. The seasonal bent of “All Summer Long” -- an appropriately lazy, unabashedly manipulative and eventually inescapable late-'70s-Seger-style reminiscence of pre-Internet-era teenaged deflowering and marijuana consumption in northern Michigan that makes no attempt to disguise its “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Werewolves of London” steals – proved such perfect timing that two knock-off cover versions wound up charting to fill the digital-sales gap. And this week, Kid’s own Atlantic-era catalog finally makes its digital debut – exclusively on Rhapsody.

This slice of soft rock velvet might rankle the rowdiest Kid Rock fans, but there's some real deal morning-after regret on this duet with Sheryl Crow. She might sound a little more natural wearing her heart on her sleeve, but the Kid introduced a softer side of himself on another big single from his recently added catalog.

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Summer is but a distant memory. [Sigh.] The temperatures are falling -- and so is your morale. Besides, maybe, Halloween and bloated holiday debt, what else have you to look forward to, you ask? Awesome music, that's what. Myriad releases from the juggernauts of pop will put the kibosh on your Seasonal Affective Disorder -- and nourish your Attention Deficit one. MTV News rundowns what you can expect this autumn -- new releases from T.I., Beyoncé (hallelujah!), Fall Out Boy, Britney (yes, please!), Kanye and more. And while we agree with most of them, we've got a few suggestions, too.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

Los Angeles' Blu is one of the most promising young emcees on the West Coast indie hip-hop scene. Over a 14-month span from 2007 to 2008, he released three full-length projects -- each under a different moniker and each featuring, exclusively, a different producer. The first, and most widely praised, was his collaboration with L.A. producer Exile, Below the Heavens. Exile's work recalled the jazzy, lo-fi hip-hop of early Rawkus Records, while Blu's rhymes were introspective, personal and confessional.  But unlike emo-rappers, Blu rarely cast himself as the victim, preferring to relate his life in events and not emotions. It's the same formula formerly used by Common and Talib Kweli, and comparisons were even drawn to Nas' seminal debut album, Illmatic.

Blu followed this up in 2008 with an album from his group C.R.A.C., which included up-and-coming producer Ta'Raach. The Piece Talks ditched the raw hip-hop palette of Heavens in favor of forays into psych, soul, electro, rock and all points in between. Next, Blu formed Johnson and Jonson with producer Mainframe. The self-titled album, released last month, once again pushed the creative envelope, though it was more playful and ostensibly less experimental. For this exclusive Rhap Session, Blu discusses his sudden ascent, the Johnson and Jonson album and his future plans.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

What's new? What's good? What will you find here that you won't hear anywhere else this week? Sit back, relax and click through to the premieres, the originals and the exclusives available only on Rhapsody! This week:

Kid Rock, Complete Catalog (Rhapsody Exclusive)
One part Skynyrd, one part LL Cool J, Kid Rock is an old-school emcee wrapped up in a Southern-rock package. We are proud to be the new exclusive home of his digital catalog, including his latest release, Rock N Roll Jesus, featuring the hit "All Summer Long."

Pretenders, Break Up the Concrete (Rhapsody Premiere)
Chrissie Hynde and co. return for their ninth full length, a set of songs that combine Hynde's tough-girl lyrics and a decided rockabilly sound.

 Walter Meego, Rhapsody Originals (Rhapsody Exclusive)
Human emotions break through the synth-poppers' computer sheen on this live set. Features "Girls," "Keyhole" and more.

Jarboe, Mahakali (Rhapsody Premiere)
'Tis the season for something sinister. The experimental siren returns with her 14^th solo album. Featuring Pantera's Phil Anselmo.

Yeah, at first it sounded like typical rap rockin' braggadocio bluster when Kid Rock hollered about "Liberace flash" and "fans, girls, money and fame," but the shout-outs to ZZ Top, Skynard and Johnny Cash show the scale on which he'd someday operate. This piece of classic Kid Rock, along with the rest of his catalog, are recent additions to Rhapsody.

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It’s Friday at rush hour, and the show has only begun on the N Judah train line. Regular commuters clutch their briefcases, terrified, as a crowd of rowdy interlopers -- many in cowboy shirts, many in no shirts at all -- pack the car. The route is headed toward Golden Gate Park, where the eighth annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival commenced this afternoon, and two of the car's more enthusiastic riders are stone-giddy about the opening day headliner: "Robert f*ck*ng Plant, man," one says to the other in the blown-mind inflection that's the universal dialect of the three-day event. San Francisco might host a slew other open-air music festivals, but Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, a multi-stage festival of roots rock, country and bluegrass (paid for by San Francisco venture capitalist Warren Hellman) is probably the one that most accurately reflects the eccentricities of its host city. Starting with Robert f*ck*ng Plant.

"Werewolves of London" + "Sweet Home Alabama" = Kid Rock's "All Summer Long." Literally. Detractors can say what they want about the lyrics, but there’s no denying that Kid Rock delivered one of the most insanely catchy, feel-good anthems of summer 2008 and beyond.

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In celebration of VH1's Hip-Hop Honors show (which airs Monday, October 6 at 10 p.m. ET), Rhapsody talked to a variety of contemporary artists about this year's honorees. Here's Sir Lucious Left Foot, Big Boi, on Too $hort.

My uncles were in the military so they used to get stuff from all around the world.  I remember my uncles came back with Too $hort. They were my idols and I used to love what they were doing. Being in the military, they were still some street cats, too. My Uncle Trick and I just thought [Too $hort’s music] was the most fascinating thing ever, [raps] “Cuss words, just let ‘em flow, motherf*ck*n' sh*t b*tch god damn *ssh*l*.” It was the most filthiest mouth I ever heard. I was only like 10 years old, but I was like, “Okay, I’m f*ck*ng with him.” That’s what brought me and Dre [André 3000] together, our taste in music. We was and still are on Too $hort. We liked everything from Tribe to Leaders of the New School. [My favorite Too $hort album] gotta be that Life Is … Too $hort because it was the hardest one. That was the first one that I got introduced to. The beats and all the sh*t he was talkin’ about was for real from the whole Bay Area and how he came up. He was just so cool, like, “Damn, that’s a motherf*ck*r that I want a ride home from school with.” That’s an O.G. cat that’ll sit there and smoke a j with you and say some new sh*t.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring Too $hort and other artists discussed in this interview.]

News flash: metal bands are obsessed with death! And destruction! Or at least they often have names that pretend that they are! See below if you think I'm wrong!

Escape the daily drudgery and help us celebrate Kid A's eighth birthday. We'll provide the music, you can buy the cake. Highlighted here is the electro, spacey, apocalyptic eighth track, which foresees an "ice age coming." This "Kid" may be one year older, but its relevance increases with age.

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Morgan Geist's disco credentials are solid: Metro Area, his duo with Darshan Jesrani, has spent nearly a decade in the trenches of back-to-the-future dance music, fusing Italo-disco and early electro-pop with elements of Detroit techno. And Geist's label Environ has provided a stable platform for peers like Daniel Wang, Kelley Polar and Baby Oliver to expand upon the music's contemporary possibilities, even as the Unclassics series has revisited (and remixed) some serious rarities.

But Geist, a New Jersey kid who today lives in Queens, is more than a revivalist. He recorded his first EP in 1994, while still a student at Oberlin College, and throughout the late '90s he released a string of powerful-but-understated singles influenced by Detroit techno and early electro-funk; his 1997 debut album, The Driving Memoirs, still sounds ahead of its time today. In recent years, Geist's work has been mostly focused on Metro Area, but this month, he returns with a new album, Double Night Time. Featuring vocals from Junior Boys' Jeremy Greenspan, it is smoother than its predecessor—its funk more sublimated, its palette of rubber and glass far shinier than the scraggy synths and samples of 11 years ago. But it's also darker: for all the disco-ball spangle, the chord changes wrinkle like a furrowed brow, and the lyrics often feel like silver linings around a massing bank of marbled charcoal. Still, there's something undeniably upbeat, even perky about Geist's music, which makes sense. An hour's conversation with the musician reveals one of the most cheerful, or at least charming, neurotics around—something like a dance-music Woody Allen. Exhausted from a weekend dash to finish up a new Metro Area mix for London's Fabric organization—"I've had like four hours of sleep in the last four days," he warns me—Geist weighed in on stressing about being stressed, among other topics.

In celebration of VH1's Hip-Hop Honors show (which airs Monday, October 6 at 10 p.m. ET), Rhapsody talked to a variety of contemporary artists about this year's honorees. Here's New Jersey's Joe Budden on Naughty By Nature.

Joe Budden: I first got familiar with them with “O.P.P.” When it came out, I was in Queens, and shortly after, I moved to New Jersey. I wasn’t even thinkin’ about [them reppin’] New Jersey [at that time], it was just, “Damn, this sh*t is crazy.” I would hear it all up and down Farmers Boulevard. Everybody was bumpin’ “O.P.P.” But once “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” hit, I was hooked. [What caught my attention was] the music, the message, what Treach brought to the track, and the things he was talkin’ about. I’m a big fan of hip-hop, rebelling, puttin’ your foot down, and standin’ strong in whatever you believe in. To be able to put that record out as a single and have it do so well, as gritty as it was, and with all the commercial attention they were receiving at the time, it was dope. It was definitely one of my favorite hip-hop songs ever.

“Guard Your Grill” is probably my favorite record off [their '91 self-titled] album. That sh*t was just crazy. I stole that album from a friend of mine, B-Wise. He was the biggest, biggest Treach and 2Pac fan. He was pretty upset about it, too. He was lookin’ for it and I told him, “I took it that last time I was at your crib.” B-Wise was a rapper, too. He used to recite Treach’s lines and try to make me understand how ill he was, so maybe that’s one of the reasons “Guard Your Grill” is my favorite joint. 

These days, I almost always just toss the sports section in the recycling without reading it, even on days when Bengie Molina hits a home run without scoring or former pitcher Sen. Jim Bunning (R –KY) calls Henry Paulson's bailout plan un-American. But once upon a time, baseball was my life. In fact, you could even say that the books that turned me into a rock critic in the first place were Jim Bouton’s Ball Four and Bendan C. Boyd and Fred C. Harris’s The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubblegum Book – I just had to take a little detour as a suburban weekly sportswriter to get here, is all. So I can still appreciate a good baseball song (ever hear Alabama’s minor-league homage “The Cheap Seats”?), and as the World Series approaches (seeing how it’s October and all), I feel I should mention that 2008 was a pretty good season for them. There was “I’m Watchin’ the Game” by the Boxmasters (which I discussed here) and “Little League” by Home Blitz (here) and Gashouse Gangsta rap “Caroline” by Old Crow Medicine Show (here), for starters. And it’s about time I also plugged The Baseball Project, an ad-hoc adult-alt-rock foursome who this year put out a whole album of such hymns.

According to rock ’n’ roll legend, Dark Side of the Moon-era Pink Floyd was deeply inspired by the original Steve Miller band. That, of course, sounds kind of bonkers, but dig this gorgeously ethereal acid-rock ballad from the 1968 album Sailor. Does it not shine on like that crazy diamond?

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In celebration of VH1's Hip-Hop Honors show (which airs Monday, October 6 at 10 p.m. ET), Rhapsody talked to a variety of contemporary artists about this year's honorees. Here's Houston's Devin the Dude on Slick Rick.

Devin the Dude: When I first heard “La Di Da Di," it was a wrap. KTSU would play new hip-hop every Saturday morning. They were the first ones who played a lot of new hip-hop. I remember when it first came out, Jazzy Red and the DJs at KTSU like Marcus Love would get it while it was hot. ... The beatboxin’ from Doug E. Fresh [caught my attention] the very first time I heard it. I didn’t know what to pay attention to, the beatbox or the rap. When you tried to listen to the beat box, then Slick Rick hit this high pitched voice havin’ fun with the rhymes so it forced you to go back over to it. Every time you heard it, you laughed, danced, and at the end, it had a storyline. A lot of rap didn’t have storylines back then, but Slick Rick was real good at that. Anybody can just say they’re a story teller, but there’s an art to it and he figured it out. He should be credited for creatin’ a story that you can definitely see in your mind just by words. I was breakdancin’ at the time and I was considering rap, but he was one of the artists, if not the most influential, in [making me] say, “Hey, I want to do this.”

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the artists discussed in this post.]

In the latest installment of John Norris Interviews... John talks to the Brooklyn-via-Philadelphia-and-Michigan duo, High Places. Rob Barber and Mary Pearson talk about their early days, their unique recording set up and their quirky D.I.Y. electronic pop.

Further Viewing:
Additional Installments of John Norris Interviews... [PLAY]

It takes a couple of listens before you realize they’re singing about the apocalypse rather than a rollicking Friday night. The fact that you'll like the song even more and sing along a little louder once you do proves Big Dipper’s genius.

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