Song: I Gotta Feeling
Album: The E.N.D.
Artist: Black Eyed Peas
July 2009 Archives
Right before they departed for Wacken, we caught up with Italian goth metal outfit Lacuna Coil's leading lady Cristina Scabbia to find out what she listens to when she's not controlling crowds or giving advice in her Revolver magazine column. Says Scabbia, "It's definitely a question I'm sure every musician hates -- if you love music, just 10 songs are nothing!" But she happily obliged us nonetheless, and goes on to express her love of Faith No More, Muse, Alter Bridge and more. Check it out right here.
From left: Nathaniel Motte, Sean Foreman
Colorado krunk superstars 3OH!3 have been on a collision course for success since an unforgettable performance on the Denver stop of 2007’s Vans Warped Tour inked them a spot playing every date of the tour in 2008. The same year, they signed to Photo Finish Records and released their debut album, Want. In the past two months, they’ve headlined the entire Warped Tour, and most recently, their debut single, "Don’t Trust Me," has gone platinum, becoming the No. 1 single in the U.S. Behind the aggression of heavy bass drops and Lil’ John-influenced beats, 3OH!3 bring humor to the rap game with line after line of infectious, tongue-in-cheek rhymes that have people hooked from coast to coast. The band took a break from the chaos that is Warped Tour and sat down with Rhapsody to discuss rumors about touring with Barack Obama and what it is like to have a No. 1 single.
Moving from the center of the deathcore scene through the history of American death metal, Job for a Cowboy have embarked on an expansive journey in their so-far short career. With their top-100-charting 2007 debut, Genesis, and a celebrated, self-released 2005 EP in tow, they got the metal underground's attention. Now with their sophomore effort, Ruination, featuring new guitarist Al Glassman and new drummer Jon Rice, as well as the band's coveted slot in this year's Mayhem Festival, J.F.A.C. are expanding on their sturdy foundation and conquering new territory. We caught up with guitarist Bobby Thompson to find out more about their transition into death metal.
Song: Fallin' For You
Album: Fallin' For You
Artist: Colbie Caillat
The "bubbly" Colbie Caillat adds a little more sweetness to summertime love with her newest single "Fallin' For You."
Song: Summertime Clothes
Album: Merriweather Post Pavilion
Artist: Animal Collective
Download "Summertime Clothes," a beguiling slice of sunny electro-pop, from Animal Collective's much gushed over Merriweather Post Pavilion.
We’re all used to record companies using sex to sell music. Hey, we’re used to companies using sex to sell everything from soap to lawn mowers to retirement homes these days. But I can’t think of another group that used sex as thoroughly — and it must be said, strangely — to help sell their records as the Ohio Players.
The coolest band to ever come out of Dayton, Ohio (we aren’t even fact checking this one but please do not send me hate mail, Guided By Voices and Breeders fans — you know that the Ohio Players are cooler), the Ohio Players showed that jazz was alive in funk and soul throughout the 1970s.
Madonna has built an entire career on reinventing herself so often, so ingeniously and so convincingly that we're never quite sure where the persona ends and the "real" Madonna begins -- and that's the point. Her Madgesty straddles and subverts the line between authenticity and artificiality, constantly compelling us to question our assumptions. A side effect of her self-induced stylistic schizophrenia, however, is that Madonna's titanic influence on pop music has been multifaceted. In other words, the Mother of Reinvention didn't just inspire a few followers; she spawned a new heir to match every persona. In honor of her new single "Celebration,” we present this field guide to the various and sundry Madonnas, complete with our pick for the Madonna follower who's most closely followed in each persona's footsteps.
Grizzly Bear by Tom Hines
As you may have noticed, I've been on something of a Warp kick lately. To me, Warp will always be first and foremost an "electronic" imprint -- after all, the label served as my main introduction to contemporary electronic music 15 years ago, via Autechre's Amber and then other Warp artists like Aphex Twin. (I wrote at some length about my first encounter with Warp eight years ago, when the label's cofounder Rob Mitchell passed away; you can read that piece here.)
But in recent years, Warp has arguably had its most surprising successes outside electronica, in hip-hop, avant-pop and indie rock. I've already talked about Jamie Lidell, Battles and Flying Lotus. Here are a few more crucial albums from the guitar-wielding weirdos warping Warp's aesthetic in wild, white-knuckled ways.
Over the past decade, hip-hop and R&B have become the musical equivalent of peanut butter and jelly. When R&B was looking for direction in the '90s, it turned to hip-hop's thundering bombast, and when hip-hop began falling from grace this decade, it adopted R&B’s sexy swoon. And though genre purists from both sides have cried foul, this cross-pollination has resulted in some great music. In honor of this week’s release of the T.I./Mary J. Blige single "Remember Me," Rhapsody has picked the 10 greatest R&B/hip-hop duets of the past decade.
Gnarls Barkley
Now that moonlighting members of Vampire Weekend and Ra Ra Riot have unveiled their side band, Discovery, and Interpol's Paul Banks released his latest album, Julian Plenti...is Skyscraper, under the moniker Julian Plenti, it's clearly time to ponder one of rock history's great riddles: Do side projects of active bands often wind up bigger than the main dish? And the definitive answer is ... sort of! Below, you'll find a rough guide to side projects that were more successful than the musicians' main gigs. Some of the entries may surprise you.
Welcome back to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe.
There have been some news items up recently about Apollo 11 landing on the moon 40 years ago. Probably not enough headlines -- we could all use some good news right now, even about something that America did four decades ago. We could use some good music now, too. Sinatra fan and all-around man's man Buzz Aldrin played Frank Sinatra and Count Basie's stellar version of "Fly Me to the Moon" on the actual trip to the moon. The Apollo 10 astronauts also played the song when they orbited the moon. Bottom line: astronauts, like jazz musicians, dug Sinatra.
The tune can also serve to show how special Sinatra's knack was for bringing his own style and musicality to his material. The English composer Bart Howard wrote the number in the '50s, and it was recorded by a number of vocalists. Everyone from Nat "King" Cole to Peggy Lee, Bobby Darin and Annie Ross cut readings of it (here's June Christy's version).
Here's the difference: everyone before Sinatra's definitive recording sang the tune the way the composer conceived it -- as a very sincere and kind of drippy love song. On the surface, Sinatra changed the ballad into a romantic swinger. But, he also changed the entire approach of the lyrics and the entire feel of the song.
Everybody else sang "Fly Me to the Moon" like it was about the dreamy way you feel when you're really falling in love. With Sinatra, the song becomes about the ridiculously great way you feel when you fall for somebody -- it's so good, in fact, that maybe it's not even real. Whatever happens, enjoy the ride while it lasts -- which in this case is 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
And Sinatra is perfectly in synch with Quincy Jones' sublime arrangement and the Basie Band's euphoric playing. Everything comes together on this one. Can you imagine actually flying to the moon while listening to a song that makes you feel like you're flying to the moon?
To listen to these songs and thousands more by Sinatra, Basie, Q and their pals, go directly to Frank's World, my superlative Rhapsody Radio station.
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On the Record is a video series where rockstars gush about their favorite records -- in exactly 45 seconds. Bulletproof Remix EP was released on July 21st, 2009. |
ARTIST: 
RECORD: |
Lemmy on the Beatles and more in the rest of our On the Record series.
 St. Vincent |
 Ladytron |
 Passion Pit |
 Animal Collective |
Song: California Love
Album: Death Row's 15th Anniversary
Artist: 2Pac
2Pac's great ode to his home state is still the perfect summer jam. Download it now.
From left: Pitbull, Shakira and Nelly Furtado
single-phile: The latest singles, dissected and discussed.
Industry insiders and music critics have been predicting for years that Spanish-language pop is poised for a massive crossover -- the kind of infiltration that would not only challenge the domination of English on the American charts, but also break down the division between mainstream (read: black and white) pop and Latin pop. And yet for many years, what happened instead was that the industry was paying attention to -- and working to grow -- a powerful but separate Latin pop market. That market has its own constellation of stars, many of whom (like Shakira or Ricky Martin) have crossed over into the mainstream -- but only by also switching languages. Until recently, the presence of Spanish on the pop charts basically consisted of "Livin' La Vida Loca."
The sound of L.A. group Sa-Ra Creative Partners is hard to pin down. Their brand of psych urban music straddles the line between funk, soul and hip-hop. It references Funkadelic, Prince, Sly & the Family Stone and J Dilla, but ultimately the music manages to sound like nothing you've ever heard. It's jerky electro, ethereal hip-hop and secular gospel. It's beautiful music that is, at times, difficult to listen to.
Consisting of (from left, in photo at left) Om'Mas Keith, Taz Arnold, and Shafiq Husayn, the group became darlings of the underground in 2005 with a series of 12-inches and remixes. They released their debut album, The Hollywood Recordings, in 2007, and followed up this year with Nuclear Evolution: The Age of Love. In that time, an entire echo-system of psychedelic soul acts sprang up, but Sa-Ra remain at the forefront. Even if you haven't heard of the group, it's likely that your favorite artist has. The trio has worked with Erykah Badu, Kanye West, Dr. Dre and John Legend, among many others. In fact, Keith is currently serving as Diddy's musical director.
We recently caught up with Om'Mas Keith. By chance, we spoke with him on the afternoon of June 25, just when the news of Michael Jackson's death was reported. We discussed Jackson's influence on the group, as well as a wide range of subjects including Thelonious Monk's funeral, Keith's father, the group's future, and the influence of Sly and the Family Stone.
The other night I wandered out to the front porch. There, with a sixer of Bell’s Oberon at my feet, I cranked a little New Riders of the Purple Sage and watched the fireflies light up the trees late into the night. It was my own private send-off to John “Marmaduke” Dawson, who died from stomach cancer on July 21 in Mexico. Apparently, the former N.R.P.S. frontman had been living south of the border for quite some time. I always suspected Dawson was battling a serious illness. YouTube footage of a one-off appearance with the New Riders in 2001 shows a tiny man, frail and weak, who looked far older than 56.Dawson, who co-wrote the American Beauty classic “Friend of the Devil,” was one of the elders of the Grateful Dead tribe. Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter and he were pals in the mid-1960s, years before Haight-Ashbury and the whole acid rock/hippie thing. Back then, they all hung around Palo Alto and picked old folk music: jug-band tunes, bluegrass, country blues, etc. Another member of the inner circle was guitarist David Nelson, and after the Dead became a national act, Dawson and he began developing a new sound: psychedelic country rock, aka cosmic American music: a mix of hippie vibes, Bakersfield honky-tonk and vintage rockabilly.
Though it's Los Angeles legends like Gram Parsons, the Byrds, Gene Clark and the Flying Burrito Brothers who receive the bulk of the credit for pioneering cosmic American music, the New Riders’ contributions cannot be overlooked. Featuring Garcia on pedal steel and Mickey Hart on drums, 1971’s New Riders of the Purple Sage is every bit as seminal as The Gilded Palace of Sin, Sweetheart of the Rodeo and The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark. In fact, early tunes like “Dirty Business” and “Gypsy Cowboy” find the New Riders diving into the psychedelic void far deeper than their Southern California counterparts.
Song: Vacation
Album: Return to the Valley of the Go-Go's
Artist: The Go-Go's
Whether you're on vacation or stuck in a cubicle dreaming about one, the timeless Go-Go's ditty "Vacation" will help put a smile on your face.
England's Warp label achieved its crossover status -- bridging the worlds of hardcore bleepheads and, you know, normal people -- thanks to a roster filled with names like Aphex Twin, Prefuse 73 and Boards of Canada, artists adept at combining electronic mischief with broad pop instincts. (What else could explain the way that Jamie Lidell went from playing abandoned buildings to opening for Elton John?) But Warp, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, hasn't quit tickling the fringes of modern music. Consider these artists the conductors on the label's regular shuttle to the outer limits. Who knows: they might just become its next big names.
Mira Calix
Warp's resident conceptualist, producer/composer Mira Calix uses the stuff of everyday life as her inspiration and source material: car horns, insect flutter, the ambient buzz of wide-open, rural spaces. She mixes these with vintage synthesizers and odd electronic gizmos as well as piano, cello and other acoustic instruments. The Elephant in the Room: 3 Commissions collects work commissioned for gallery installations and contemporary opera, but don't let that scare you off: heard at home, these quiet, patient soundscapes subtly color everything around you.
Jackson and His Computer Band
Around the time that Justice were starting to take off, another Frenchman released an album that shared many of the Ed Banger duo's characteristics: blistering distortion, shuddering rhythms, church choirs, bloody synths. But Smash doesn't beat listeners over the head the way Justice do; its disco breaks and electro synths are tempered by brooding moods and cottony ambiance.
From Left: Jerry Douglas, Alison Krauss, Brad Paisley
On Tuesday, July 21, Brad Paisley, Alison Krauss and Charley Pride played to a very special audience. As part of the White House Summer Music series, the country music luminaries were in charge of serenading the First Lady and President Barack Obama. “I know folks think I’m a city boy, but I do appreciate listening to country music,” President Obama said as he introduced the concert. And what followed was a series of emotional performances from some of country’s biggest icons.
Not too many 27-year-old DJs can boast a career as long and influential as A-Track. The Montreal-based turntablist first rose to prominence in 1997 when he captured the DMC championship (the Super Bowl for DJs) at the age of 15. He spent the rest of that decade wracking up titles and accolades. When turntabalism begin to fade in the first half of this decade, he switched gears, experimenting with everything from ITalo disco to Baltimore Club Music. Somewhere along the way, he also became the tour DJ for one Kanye West. Many site him as a primary influence on West, who would soon began adopting a more electronic-friendly sound. Recently, A-Track formed the Fool’s Gold label along with NY scenester Nick Catchdubs, and has continued to play to sold out crowds around the globe. In this exclusive Rhapsody interview, A-Track discussed the Fool's Gold philosophy, his approach to live performance and his latest mixtape, Infinity +1.
Part II of the interview after the jump.
Song: Surfin' U.S.A.
Album: Sounds of Summer
Artist: The Beach Boys
What's summer without a little Beach Boys? Grab "Surfin' U.S.A." for free here!
brokenCYDE
Do you have an elaborately sculpted (and perhaps crayon-hued) hairdo, garb yourself in skinny jeans and neon colors and <3 txtspk? Chances are, you're a scene kid and you will totally <3 this playlist of hott scene bands. Conversely, if you've never heard of "scene," thought neon went out with Reagan and can't understand what's up with all these suburban kids making what sounds like snotty, screamo gangster rap, you are probably old (we feel your pain, friends!). Don't get all emo about it: just listen to this playlist (or raid your kid's MySpace page) and catch up! (You OG types can also check out Philip Sherburne's playlist of old-school raunch-rap acts who made him laugh his hiney off at LMFAO.) You can listen to a sampling of the tracks below, or listen to the entire playlist here.
In 1978, a British New Waver calling himself Elton Motello had a supremely sleazy punk-disco dance club hit called "Jet Boy Jet Girl." Almost immediately, a Belgian New Wave singer calling himself Plastic Bertrand, using both the same studio musicians and same backing music as "Jet Boy Jet Girl," turned the song into a French song called "Ca Plane Pour Moi," one of punk's greatest and silliest novelty hits. Both songs have been covered countless times over the years, sometimes by far more famous bands. The playlist below provides an overview, and tosses in other rock classics about jets and by people named JET and Jett and Jetboy that somehow, in this context, totally fit.
Welcome back to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe. Music critics sometimes debate whether Sinatra was a jazz singer or not, but jazz musicians never seem to care what he was -- they just love the music he made.
Sinatra was the favorite male vocalist of pretty much every jazz artist out there -- Duke Ellington and Count Basie, Miles Davis and Stan Getz, Oscar Peterson and Lester Young (pictured).
Ahhh ... Lester Young.
Here's Young fronting the Oscar Peterson trio on "These Foolish Things."
Young and Sinatra never recorded together, but they adored each other's music. Young called Sinatra his "main man" and would often interpret standards through Sinatra's version of a tune.
For his part, Sinatra studied the sides that Lester cut with Billie Holiday and Count Basie and always said that he took from Lester Young as much as the tenor sax titan took from him.
Joe Lovano, speaking about Sinatra and Young, said, "There's a lot of similarities in the presence, the purity, the way they deliver a tune." Lovano also recorded his own tribute to Sinatra, titled Celebrating Sinatra. Here's Lovano laying out on "This Love of Mine," one of the few standards that Sinatra actually wrote.
Rhapsody has Sinatra fronting a sublime small jazz combo, but almost all of his recordings -- like this recently unearthed reading of Rodgers and Hart's "This Can't Be Love" -- swing with the pulse of jazz. To listen to more Sinatra, Lester & Lovano, go directly to Frank's World, my superlative Rhapsody Radio station.
Song: All Summer Long
Album: Rock N Roll Jesus
Artist: Kid Rock
Have yourself a rockin' summer day with Kid Rock and his sizzling hit "All Summer Long."
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On the Record is a video series where rockstars gush about their favorite records -- in exactly 45 seconds. Radio Dance Floor was released on July 14th, 2009. |
ARTIST: 
RECORD: |
Lemmy on the Beatles and more in the rest of our On the Record series.
St. Vincent |
 Deer Tick |
 Dengue Fever |
Animal Collective |
GWAR's infallible leader, Oderus Urungus, has an advantage to playlist making that no other band can boast: according to GWAR mythos, this alien-barbarian is billions of years old, and therefore has seen music emerge, unfold and flourish. And yet he picked William Shatner?! Explains Urungus, "I don't know much about music even though I sing in a band -- I use these terms very loosely. Nevertheless, there is a lot of human music out there (written in tribute to GWAR, no doubt) that actually titillates my warty protuberances. I listen to everything from death metal to cheesy pop, so don't get your knickers in a twist if this list is a little weird ... I am Oderus, after all!" Even weirder is his new gig. As GWAR celebrate 25 years of thrashing shock rock by returning to Earth and gearing up to release their 11th album, Oderus Urungus has also joined the ranks of FOX News' late-night program Red Eye as an interplanetary correspondent. From on the job at the World Series of Poker, here's the playlist of charmingly witty, cuttlefish-carrying Oderus Urungus.
Jamie Lidell
What do hypersoul crooner Jamie Lidell, futuristic beatsmith Flying Lotus and psychedelic math-rockers Battles have in common? Aside from their shared penchant for turning traditional forms inside out, and the ability of all three artists to combine experimental-music rigor with refreshing good cheer, they all make their homes on Warp, the iconic U.K. label that turns 20 this year. Despite a roster heavy on electronic agents provocateur like Aphex Twin and Autechre, no single sound dominates Warp's catalog, which ranges from bleepy electronica to mind-bending hip-hop to smart, snappy rock 'n' roll. Here are 10 Warp artists you need to hear now.
From left: Young Jeezy, Lil Wayne, Drake
Hip-hop tours are always a bit of a crap-shoot. For every beyond-belief blockbuster like last year's Jay-Z/Mary J. Blige tour, you have a debacle like the '97 Wu-Tang Clan/Rage Against the Machine rampage, where our favorite Shaolin warriors seemed more interested in visiting local jail cells than in performing music for sold-out crowds. More recently, Lil Wayne's traveling adventures have included arrests for everything from cocaine possession to weapons charges. But, lord willing and cops permitting, this summer looks like a monster for hip-hop live shows. We have the Rock the Bells Tour featuring Nas, Talib Kweli, Wu Tang and Slaughterhouse among others, as well as the Jay-Z/Ciara tour that is already well under way. But perhaps the elephant in the room is Weezy's monster America’s Most Wanted AKA Young Money tour featuring Weezy F., Drake, Young Jeezy and Soulja Boy. Over 21 days, Weezy and crew will scour the continent, playing everywhere from Scranton, Penn., to Edmonton, Canada (you can check complete dates here). And though it’s an open question whether these guys can stay out of trouble (Drake should be safe), we already have a pretty good indication of what kind of live show they put on. Below you’ll find our exclusive and all-inclusive tour guide.
Daft Punk tower over their indie dance acolytes like, well, a giant, gleaming pyramid. So it's only appropriate that some starry-eyed statesiders would eventually borrow not only the French duo's filters, but even one of their album titles. That would be Discovery, perhaps better known as the duo comprised of Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij and Ra Ra Riot's Wes Miles. (Perhaps to compensate, they named their debut album simply LP.) Their buzzing, gleaming layers of filtered synthesizers would be unthinkable without Daft Punk's influence, but they take just as much inspiration from contemporary R&B, favoring jiggling, syncopated drum-machine beats and scads of breathless falsetto, often run through vocal effects like Auto-Tune. At their best, as on "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend," they remind me of Hot Chip or even His Name Is Alive's experiments in electronic R&B; elsewhere, as on the highly questionable Jackson 5 cover "I Want You Back," an instinctive indie aversion to execution saps the force from their music, rendering it kitschier than it probably wants to be.
Song: Summer of '69
Album: So Far So Good
Artist: Bryan Adams
Hard to believe the summer of '69 was 40 years ago! Celebrate the season with Bryan Adams' classic nostalgic rocker.
When word went out that Clint Eastwood was producing a documentary feature on the life and music of jazz pianist Dave Brubeck few were surprised. After all, Eastwood is a lifelong jazz fan (and pianist) and his movies have long featured jazz scores or plots, including a feature on Charlie Parker and biographies of Thelonious Monk and Tony Bennett.Click here to listen to a batch of tunes and film themes from Clint Eastwood movies -- many written by the man himself -- and to discover the music of his son, Kyle, who is a fine jazz bassist.
The tough Eastwood & the bookish Brubeck actually have a lot in common -- both are from the San Francisco Bay Area, fell in love with jazz early and have a life long connection to nature. They're both continuing to work at a feverish pace at an age when they could be phoning it in or sitting back collecting honorary degrees.
Something else that connects the two is that for decades they were often scoffed at by the critical establishment. Today, old Eastwood "violent entertainments" like The Good, The Bad & The Ugly are often studied classics. Likewise, Brubeck is now celebrated for creating the kind of unorthodox, highly personal jazz that he was once berated for making.
Jordin Sparks is, in many ways, the epitome of the American Idol dream. In the two short years since winning, she's released a successful debut that spawned two Top 10 hits (including "No Air," her smash duet with Chris Brown), toured with big-name acts like Alicia Keys and the Jonas Brothers (with whom she's currently on the road) and even performed for two presidents! Now she's releasing her sophomore album, Battlefield, which premiered on Rhapsody last Tuesday and drops everywhere else next week. When she recently sat down with us to talk about how far she's come, we discovered that, despite her success, Sparks is still very much the sweet Arizona girl she was before she became a household name.
We're pretty sweet on Deer Tick's new album around the Rhapsody compound, which Justin Farrar recently shared some thoughts on. Additionally, we caught up with lead singer John Joseph McMcauley III back in March at the South By Southwest music festival down in Austin. He gave us some insight on how Deer Tick came to be and talked about a few songs from the band's debut War Elephant. Then he told us what kind of beer he enjoys. Give it a viewing right here, then mosey on over to Born on Flag Day and give those ears of yours a treat.
Song: Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
Album: 500 Days of Summer
Artist: She & Him
Agony and ecstasy underpin the story of 500 Days of Summer, and what better tune than this Smiths cover by She & Him to get you in the mood?
This will sound kind of strange to a lot of you, especially those who know their jangle pop and roots rock history, but this new Deer Tick album, Born on Flag Day, has my noggin drawing comparisons to the La’s, that Brit pop band who put out one truly astounding record in 1990. To begin with, there’s John McCauley’s voice: The dude croaks, burps, belches and hiccups like Lee Mavers -- had, of course, a witch turned the La’s mercurial frontman into the celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County. Secondly, and this is the far more important point, Deer Tick is a lot like the mighty La’s in the way the group takes sounds and styles that are more or less pre-British Invasion and feeds them into a scrappy, shaggy brand of alternative rock equal parts quiet/acoustic and loud/electric.But where Mavers and company drew their inspiration from skiffle, a countryish folk-pop trend popular in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s and early ’60s (see Lonnie Donegan), Deer Tick looks to classic American music from the same period, everything from twangy instrumentalists (the Ventures, Duane Eddy) to rock & roll artists who cut rockabilly with Tin Pan Alley. These include Ritchie Valens, Roy Orbison and Ricky Nelson, as well as Buddy Holly and his legion of followers: the Bobby Fuller Four, Bobby Vee, Tommy Roe, etc. Now if you didn’t spend your childhood with ears glued to the oldies station, then check out this playlist I recently put together. It features a lot of the vintage rockers I just mentioned. It totally rocks, if I do say so myself.
Deer Tick also differ from the La’s in their overt revivalism. Mavers, even when penning timeless jangle pop like “There She Goes,” never really went straight-up retro. McCauly, in contrast, lifts scraps of melodies, rhythms and vintage guitar licks directly from his heroes. “Easy,” Born on Flag Day's opening track, as well as its lead single, isn’t too far removed from the Meat Puppets or Dinosaur Jr. But dig beneath that initial burst of feedback and those scratchy guitars, and you come to rumbling tom-toms and a chiming ride cymbal that are so “I Fought the Law.”
McCauley’s love for early rock & roll reaches a fever pitch on “Straight into the Storm.” From that classic-sounding title to the dude’s exuberant shrieks, this song reeks of nostalgia. You can easily imagine a group of young and greasy punks, maybe the even The Outsiders, rocking out to it back in ’61. Hell, it’s total El Paso rock.
Of course, this entire review, however positive, implies that McCauley is nothing more than a master of pastiche. Oh well. I really don’t think that’s such a bad thing, especially when the master in question can pen a classic ballad like “Smith Hill.” When spinning this track, pay extra special attention at the 2:55 mark. Coming out of the chorus, Deer Tick could easily slip into a guitar solo or whip up yet another verse. Instead, McCauley cranks the string section and reaches for this melodramatic teen opera climax. It’s a trick torn from the pages of the Roy Orbison songbook. Like so much of Born on Flag Day, it’s an utterly delicious chunk of pop music.
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On the Record is a video series where rockstars gush about their favorite records -- in exactly 45 seconds. Radio Dance Floor was released on July 14th, 2009. |
ARTIST: 
RECORD: |
Lemmy on the Beatles and more in the rest of our On the Record series.
St. Vincent |
Deer Tick |
Passion Pit |
Animal Collective |
Song: Waking Up in Vegas
Album: One of the Boys
Artist: Katy Perry
What happens in Vegas doesn't always stay in Vegas, especially if you're Katy Perry. Get her sin-city spectacular hit "Waking Up in Vegas."
One of the best things about working here at Rhapsody (besides from the complimentary oyster bar) is talking to artists about the music they love. Musicians don't always enjoy talking about their own work, but they love talking about the music that inspires them. Rarely do artists just listen to the kind of music they make -- they love all kinds of music. Sonic Youth recently listed their favorites for us here. It is truly an enjoyable collection of music.
Rob Thomas also made a groovy playlist of his favorites for us. Nice guy and a really strong batch of tunes.
The artist that brought Sonic Youth and Rob Thomas together was the American expat Scott Walker. I grew up reading about Walker the same way that I grew up reading about the Velvet Underground -- there was once a time when you couldn't find their records in America, so all you could do was read about them. David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno and Julian Cope always said that they were heavily influenced by Walker's arty pop -- and when I finally heard Walker's solo material I discovered that they weren't exaggerating. Sonic Youth picked Walker's "Jackie," one of many Jacques Brel covers that he performed.
Rob Thomas goes for one of Walker's ballads with the Walker Brothers -- a cover of a Burt Bacharach tune (Walker was -- and is -- a fine songwriter in his own right, by the way). It's nice that Walker's fellow countrymen are now into his music the way that British and Irish artists have been. My guess is that the superb feature documentary Scott Walker: 30th Century Man has had a lot to do with this. Check it out -- maybe Sonic Youth and Rob Thomas saw it together.
Nearly 20 years since their inception, roots rockin' stoner metal outfit Clutch may have grown, but they have never wavered. Beginning in 1991 with groove-oriented funk 'n' roll, fast-forwarding to 2009's blues-based ninth album Strange Cousins from the West, Neil Fallon and co. have run the gamut between rock and metal, but have always done exactly what they wanted to do. Explains Fallon, "This is a band that ... made music for music's sake and wasn't interested in anything else other than improving itself and being sincere while doing it." As a further testament to that, Clutch have even formed their own label imprint as a vehicle for exercising their creativity, which -- in addition to Clutch's most recent releases -- has also spawned an instrumental project called the Bakerton Group. To learn about Fallon's philosophical take on his musical output and humble fascination with rock history, plus the inner workings of Clutch's latest record, stay tuned right here.
Song: Whatever It Is
Album: The Foundation
Artist: Zac Brown Band
Rootsy rockers the Zac Brown Band have become mainstays on the charts with "Whatever It Is," from The Foundation.
Founded in 1982, Metal Blade Records was young metal fan Brian Slagel's DIY solution to the absence of metal music in record stores across the nation. In a time of tape-trading and word of mouth propelled by a burgeoning underground scene, he saw an opportunity missed by major labels to get metal out to the masses, and nearly 30 years later Metal Blade is still thriving and bringing metal to your doorstep. Boasting an eclectic roster, from Florida death metal legends Cannibal Corpse to Polish black metal heroes Behemoth, as well as Christian metallers Whitechapel, thrash apprentices Lazarus A.D. and heralded deathcore outfit Job For a Cowboy, Metal Blade is a veritable heavy music institution. Here's a taste of some Metal Blade essentials, available for streaming exclusively on Rhapsody.
Once upon a time, shotguns were not regularly considered a musical instrument. That's changed somewhat in the two decades, since gangsta rap took hold -- in fact, one of last year's biggest pop hits (M.I.A's "Paper Planes") used a gunshot for one of its most memorable hooks. So while there's plenty of violent hip-hop below, that's not all there is -- a few of these songs date back to the '50s and '60s, some task drummers for the gun sounds, and the playlist starts and ends in the Wild West. In all cases, standing out of the line of fire is strictly advised.
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On the Record is a video series where rockstars gush about their favorite records -- in exactly 45 seconds. Listen to Trevor Hall's new record streaming exclusively on Rhapsody. |
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Lemmy on the Beatles and more in the rest of our On the Record series.
St. Vincent |
 Deer Tick |
Passion Pit |
 Animal Collective |
Song: Goodbye
Album: Goodbye
Artist: Kristinia DeBarge
Up-and-coming diva Kristinia DeBarge's debut single has already become a smash hit. Get "Goodbye" here.
Welcome back to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe.
It also looks like I sometimes get to anger some of Frank's legion of fans. When I stated that I preferred the thin, well-coiffed Democratic to the old-fat-bald-Republican I received the following note from a reader:
"I saw Frank live as an fat old bald guy and he was brilliant. I was feeling apolitical at the time so maybe I caught a break."
Now, I was probably too young to see Sinatra in concert. But this guy tells the truth -- the OldFatBaldGuy could still bring it in concert. I have a mess of official releases and a furlong of bootlegs to prove this. The 1970s, '80s and (especially) the '90s could kind of be heartbreaking for Sinatra. When he was on fire in concert, I wish he would've just run into the studio with a casual jazz combo and cut an album. When his voice is in tatters, it's like watching an aging Muhammed Ali try and hold it together in the ring (and that's if Ali was smoking and drinking and staying up all night and then dragging himself to the ring to box all over again). But, overall, Sinatra was a masterful performer.
If you want a fantastic example of the Old Man giving his all on the stage, try Concord's recent concert release, Live at the Meadowlands. This 1986 show proves that Sinatra was still a major contender and was basically in the same place that acts like the Rolling Stones and the Who and U2 are in now: making so much dough and pleasing so many people when they go out on tour that they're not too worried about what they do in the studio (U2, for example, now records new material about as often as Sinatra did when he was well into his 70s!).If you want proof that Frank the Human could still battle with Sinatra the Legend, just try these awesome concert versions of "Mack the Knife" and "The Gal That Got Away." "Mack" is looser than his studio reading, and "Got Away" is more powerful than his old Capitol reading from his 1950s prime (I swear on a stack of old Billie Holiday records) .
I just wish he went into the studio more when he was on fire like this.
Is it just us, or is LMFAO's "I'm in Miami B*tch" a whole lot like the Lonely Island's "I'm on a Boat" -- except not as funny and not, frankly, as funky? But the QWERTY-loving gag-rap duo and their new album, Party Rock, got us thinking about other occasions where funk has been put into the service of humor, unwittingly or no. Featuring tracks from the likes of Blowfly, Too Short, Eddie Murphy, DJ Assault and, uh, Leonard Nimoy, this playlist takes in filthy banter, faux-gangsta boasting, good-natured absurdism and (just for good measure) everyone's favorite dancing-banana meme. Oh, and it's totally NSFW, as though you hadn't figured that out already. Listen to selected tracks below, and get the whole playlist here.
Call it what you will -- folk-pop, blue-eyed soul, lite/jazz/yacht rock, whatever -- but soft rock ruled the airwaves during the 1970s. Scaling back the endless guitar solos and putting the song front and center, this oft-maligned genre came from noble roots, with songwriters following in the wake of Dylan, the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, soul and L.A.'s country rock scene. Sometimes soft rock was just escapist fun, but the best music often contained '70s confusion, emotional grit and (at times) bitter lyrics -- Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac, Paul Simon and Elton John describe the decade as well as any author or filmmaker. Lasting art aside, you can just dip into soft rock as if it were the condo Jacuzzi from the singles community of your dreams.
Click here to explore my Top 25 list, along with albums reviews from me and the rest of the crack Rhapsody staff.
Click here to listen to a soft rock sampler and -- in case you haven't seen it yet -- you should check out Mike McGuirk's picks for the best classic rock albums of the '70s.
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On the Record is a video series where rockstars gush about their favorite records -- in exactly 45 seconds. |
ARTIST: 
RECORD: |
Lemmy on the Beatles and more in the rest of our On the Record series.
 Cheyenne |
 Rachel |
 Mike |
 Lemmy |
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On the Record is a video series where rockstars gush about their favorite records -- in exactly 45 seconds. |
ARTIST: 
RECORD: |
Lemmy on the Beatles and more in the rest of our On the Record series.
 Tom |
Mike |
Cheyenne |
 Tori Amos |
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On the Record is a video series where rockstars gush about their favorite records -- in exactly 45 seconds. |
ARTIST: 
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Lemmy on the Beatles and more in the rest of our On the Record series.
Tom |
Cheyenne |
Rachel |
 Rob Thomas |
Xtina, Celine, Mariah and Elton are cool and all, but there's no beating them old school divas. Goddesses like Billie Holiday, Dusty Springfield and Gloria Gaynor utterly and totally epitomized concepts like grace and class. Plus, they all made some timeless music, from smoky, jazzy ballads to dancefloor anthems. For the perfect overview of history's greatest divas, dig into this killer playlist. May your beloved Rhapsody inspire you to party all night in a vintage sequined evening gown!
Song: Best I Ever Had
Album: Best I Ever Had
Artist: Drake
Canadian rapper/actor Drake has hit it back time across the border with his surprise hit "Best I Ever Had."
Italy's Soul Note Records has done a fantastic job of keeping many of America & Europe's greatest artists recording. You'll be happy to
welcome the label to Rhapsody once you hear work by Art Farmer, Mal
Waldron, Kenny Drew, Chico Hamilton, Buddy Colette, Jimmy Giuffre, Tom
Harrell, Monty Alexander, Dave Douglas, Geri Allen and many more.
Just click this link and start listening to truly beautiful music on Rhapsody -- thanks Soul Note!
Irony Doesn't Kill People, Curmudgeons Do
Being allergic to most things ironic, I half-expected to get some kind of rash from rubbing up too close to Guns Don't Kill People, Lazers Do, Diplo and Switch's kinda-sorta concept album about a one-armed commando from Jamaica named Major Lazer. (It's all very Gorillaz meets, oh, I don't know, Dr. Alimantado or something, or Rex the Dog meets rockers uptown.) But the record's actually kind of awesome. The first track alone features surf guitar; horse whinneys and clip-clopping hooves; Nokia ringtones; cash-register bells; a hyperactive Santigold loop; and gruff, absurdist chat from Mr. Lex. The album's first half offers a solid stretch of dancehall bangers and earnest lovers' rock; Major Lazer achieve genius with "Baby," a 67-second sketch featuring the roly-poly-voiced Prince Zimboo waxing philosophical to a newborn. (The baby has "built-in Auto-Tune," wouldn't you know.) For all the goofiness, Diplo and Switch flex considerable muscle with tracks like the supercolliding "Anything Goes" and the martial, minimalist "Pon De Floor." To make the latter beat, one imagines the producers having rigged up a Whac-a-Mole game with those toy cans that moo when turned upside down. As The Hudsucker Proxy's Norville Barnes would say, "You know, for kids."
Dan Palmer (left), Efrem Schulz
For California skate punk outfit Death by Stereo, it's been a tough journey through the darkness, but they've found their way back. Formed in 1997, D.B.S. took hardcore mentality, punk ethics and metallic tones; injected their outspoken swagger; and made a name for themselves with incredible live shows all across the country. As they gained momentum and their sound turned more aggressive, the band found themselves stricken by tragedy and at the center of some unwanted controversy in 2003 when a fan was killed at one of their shows -- a memory that frontman Efrem Schulz recalls as "one of the most awful things I will probably ever see in my lifetime."
Bouncing back from the misfortune was not easy, but Death By Stereo persevered and continued writing and releasing music. Then, after parting ways with Epitaph Records, Schulz explains, "the planets were aligned to end our band." But in trying to do it on their own, D.B.S. found an ally in System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who took the band in under his Serjical Strike imprint to release their Jason Freese-produced fifth album, Death Is My Only Friend. To learn more about the new record and how far Death by Stereo have come since 2005's Death for Life, read what else Schulz had to say in our interview (click below).
SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.
Two very exciting new releases for world nerds (like yours truly) came out this week: the second album from Brazilian neo-bossa ingenue CeU and a fabulous new greatest-hits collection from the self-proclaimed (and rightfully so) Magic Couple, Mali's blind husband-and-wife duo Amadou & Mariam. These two albums might seem disparate, coming from far corners of the globe and encompassing vastly different styles. But I'm willing to put money on the theory that they share a fan base -- one that is enamored of elegant, evocative (and sometimes pensive) vocals, impeccably graceful songwriting and an aesthetic that intertwines respect for tradition with a penchant for organic innovation. Read reviews of both albums by our own Nick Dedina after the jump.
Just to make things interesting, however, we're also going to throw a few more items into this week's column in the form of three albums that really are pretty distinct: the Yoshida Brothers' new best-of album, the sophomore effort of Mexican cumbia boy band Los Super Reyes, and the first stateside release of Balkan brass band rock star Goran Bregovic. Together, these five albums help to demonstrate the exciting, often exhilarating ground a "SoundTrek" through the world of world music can cover.
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On the Record is a video series where rockstars gush about their favorite records -- in exactly 45 seconds. |
ARTIST: 
RECORD: |
Lemmy on the Beatles and more in the rest of our On the Record series.
St. Vincent |
Deer Tick |
Passion Pit |
Animal Collective |
Song: American Girl
Album: American Girl
Artist: Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift, everyone's favorite "American Girl," puts her golden touch on Tom Petty's classic tune
Song: Laughing With
Album: Far
Artist: Regina Spektor
Get "Laughing With," the piano-pop songstress' stirring ballad from her new album Far. Song of the Day presented by the U.S. Airforce.
Need some quality music for your next party? Then try our Discount Oldies playlist! For a low price you and your pals can shake your keesters to such chestnuts as Booker T. & the MG's, Chuck Berry, the Young Rascals and Mr. James Brown. One of our favorites is the pride of the Crescent City, the great Fats Domino, totally killing Randy Newman's "Have You Seen My Baby?" Though the Flamin' Groovies' version is sweet, Fats' is just sublime. So yeah, it's party time!
single-phile: The latest singles, dissected and discussed
A bunch of new singles came out this week, each of them totally compelling but for totally different and unrelated reasons. So rather than trying to lump them together under some kind of jacked-up, ill-fitting umbrella, we'll give each one its time in the sun. (Ugh, sorry!) This week on single-phile: Lupe Fiasco, Anjulie, Fefe Dobson and Ms. Mariah Carey.
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On the Record is a video series where rockstars gush about their favorite records -- in exactly 45 seconds. |
ARTIST: 
RECORD: |
Lemmy on the Beatles and more in the rest of our On the Record series.
 Diplo |
Deer Tick |
Passion Pit |
Animal Collective |
From left: Josh Paul, Brian Craddock, Joey Barnes, Chris Daughtry, Josh SteelyRhapsody has the jump on Daughtry's second LP, Leave This Town, by premiering the record with the Leak a whole week early. We got a chance to catch up with Chris about the record, writing with Richard Marx and life on the road in this exclusive interview.
Let's start with an overview of Leave This Town. What should fans expect from it?
Wow. It’s definitely an interesting record as far as sonically. I believe it carries the torch for what we’ve done and what we’re known for and what people expect from Daughtry, but there’s definitely a mature evolution of the band and, as far as songwriting, the sounds of it as a whole. There are a lot of different elements of this record aside from our pop rock elements, so there’s some heavier tunes in there and there’s also some country flavor in there. We got one song that all it would take was somebody doing a remix on it and you’d see some glow sticks going. But it’s definitely a Daughtry record, for sure. It doesn’t alienate our core fans and what they expect from us, but ... I think it may perk the ears up of a whole new audience. Hopefully I’m right.
Song: Knock You Down (ft. Kanye West, Ne-Yo)
Album: In a Perfect World
Artist: Keri Hilson
The talented songstress is joined by Kanye West and Ne-Yo on her hot hit single.Presented by the U.S. Airforce.
The world is still waiting for a definitive answer to the eternal question, "How old is old school?" But for the purposes of this playlist, let's say mid-'60s to mid-'80s, and let's include everything from gorgeous falsetto ballads to down-home Southern chitlin' circuit blues to wave-hands-in-the-air big-city disco to deadly deep-dish funk to even a couple movin'-on-up upper-middle-class strivers getting their grown-up suburbia on. At just 69 cents per song, how can you go wrong?
It's impossible to pinpoint who invented new wave, but you could definitely do worse than guessing Sparks, Kraftwerk, or Suicide's Alan Vega. They're all on this playlist, as are several hip young folks from the late '70s to mid-'80s, before "new wave" turned into "modern rock" and the world came crashing down. A glorious pogo-dancing party is guaranteed for all, and since every song is priced at 69 cents, you'll have money left over to buy a skinny tie!
The 1970s were the age of classic rock, sensitive singer-songwriters and breezy California pop. They were a time when you got up in the afternoon, slipped into your favorite pair of denim shorts and headed down to the beach. There, you tossed a little Frisbee to the sounds of Little Feat, Slowhand, the Dead and Emmylou. And when nightfall came and those soothing waves washed romance upon the shore, you'd woo that special someone to smooth operators like Firefall and Nicolette Larson.If this sounds like good living to you, then check out our super-sweet discount playlist Smooth Pop and Classic Rock For Cheap.
Song: Birthday Sex
Album: Birthday Sex
Artist: Jeremih
It's your birthday -- or, at least, up-and-coming R&B singer Jeremih is gonna party like it is on his chart-climbing debut single. Presented by the U.S. Airforce.
Phoenix are a pop band, plain and simple: a little bit Sloan, a little bit Fleetwood Mac and a little bit Daft Punk. At least, it feels like there's an unmistakably "electronic" element to the French band's records, even if it's just something about the goose-pimply detailing of their sound. (That could also describe the Fleetwood Mac influence, of course.) In any case, they take it back to the dance floor with a new set of "Lisztomania" remixes for Kitsune, the French label that recently released Phoenix's odd, appealing Kitsune Tabloid mix CD.
DFA's Holy Ghost! do a kind of chugging arpeggio thing that sounds an awfully lot like their own song "I Will Come Back." (Like their label mates Hercules & Love Affair and Black Meteoric Star, they clearly love old house and disco, but their take on it is way glossier.) LA's Classixx give blips their due on a spacy, slow-motion remix, and Manchester's Der Die Das dig into a gooey techno groove that reminds me the slightest bit of old Laurent Garnier. None of them are a patch on the original, nor for that matter upon Phoenix's recent album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, which is very good indeed, if you like that kind of thing. (By "that kind of thing," of course, I mean sunny-day singalong guitar pop that sounds like it's been squeezed from a tube full of rainbows and honey -- and who doesn't like that?)
In other recent indie/dance crossover releases, Strangelets (Supersoul Recordings' Xaver Naudascher and David Ducaruge) remix two of Sebastien Tellier's recent hits, gussying them up in tumbling, Italo-inspired arpeggios stretched to nearly eight minutes apiece. "Sexual Sportswear" is particularly good: brittle, pumping and moody. And, refreshingly, done without a trace of irony: these bleeps mean business.
Fever Ray's "Triangle Walks" is the new single from the Knife's Karin Dreijer-Andersson, and a diverse crew tests its malleable mettle. Tiga's is the oddball of the bunch, a low-slung electro number with booming 808s and a Neptunes infatuation. Elsewhere we find brooding downtempo (Ben Hoo), steely minimal techno (Spektre, Allez-Allez) and stately synth-pop (Tora Vintner, James Rutledge). Despite the stylistic range, they tend to bleed together under the weight of Dreijer-Andersson's almost overpoweringly processed vocals. Maybe that's why Allez-Allez's remix -- which all but erases them, stripping back the vocal track to a lone, repeated tone -- is one of the EP's most successful.
Finally, Moby has a new album out; following just a little over a year after Last Night, Wait for Me plots a considerably different course. While its predecessor was an uptempo celebration of New York's downtown dance legacy, the new one eases into a cozy, intimate vibe that's flush with guitars and vocals. Angelo Badalamenti, Beth Orton and maybe even Mazzy Star all serve as inspiration at different points across an album whose only real constant is its warmth. Taking a few cues from Joy Division (via Interpol), "Mistake" is fine, brooding guitar rock, while "Scream Pilots" sounds almost as though it might be a Plugz outtake from the Repo Man soundtrack. The album's best moments are its short, spontaneous instrumentals, fleeting moments when a musical idea flashes up in a smoke of tube glow and tape hiss, and is gone.
Warning: While you're welcome to try and construct a harder rocking playlist than this one , you'll most likely fail miserably. For one thing, all the selections are from the '70s, after rock got heavy but before metal shot itself in the foot by draining all the boogie out. So most of the songs are very funky as well as very fast, which only makes them rock harder. And best of all, the songs only cost 69 cents each, which means more pennies left in your pocket for beer!
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On the Record is a video series where rockstars gush about their favorite records -- in exactly 45 seconds. |
ARTIST: 
RECORD: |
Lemmy on the Beatles and more in the rest of our On the Record series.
Diplo |
Deer Tick |
 Tom Morello |
Animal Collective |
Song: Her Diamonds
Album: Cradlesong
Artist: Rob Thomas
The happily married Matchbox Twenty frontman croons about the hurt of love on his lead single off new album, Cradlesong. Presented by the U.S. Airforce.
From left to right: Jeremy DePoyster, Andy Trick, Mike Hrancia, James Baney, Chris Rubey, Daniel Williams The Devil Wears Prada are not your average scene band. Sure they have their merch in Hot Topics all over the country, and yeah, their fans average around the age of 16, but in their three-album, five-year-and-counting career, these young Ohio natives have accomplished a lot more than any band with "street cred" (though they have that in their own right, if you want to get technical). Debuting at No. 11 on the Billboard 200 with their latest effort, With Roots Above and Branches Below (see: the same debut Mastodon had with Crack the Skye not two months prior), it's like guitarist/backup vocalist Jeremy DePoyster puts it: "Obviously we're young guys and we're small guys and we wear tight pants, but we can make some really heavy music." So with that "don't judge a book by its cover'" admonishment out on the table, find out what else DePoyster had to say about these young guns' thoughts on their "scene," their success and their goals as a Christian metal band. Forget what you may have heard, and please meet the Devil Wears Prada.
Believe it or not, the year hits the six-months-gone mark this week. And while there's no point in claiming these are the absolute best singles of the first half of 2009 (left "Boom Boom Pow" and "Poker Face" off, for instance, figuring you already know what they sound like), they're still 25 really good ones. Lots of rap, lots of country, lots of soul. Not a ton of "rock", though -- maybe because most of the non-rock rocks just fine.
single-phile: The latest singles, dissected and discussed
When Michael Jackson passed away last week, I think many of us felt like he'd been taken too soon, his life cut short just as he seemed to be poised on the verge of some kind of comeback (although the stress of that may have been a contributing factor in his untimely demise). A lot of that feeling probably had to do with his age: he was only 50, but even that relatively young age seems shocking since Michael often seemed to exist in a state of (largely self-perpetuated) boyhood for us, a Peter Pan figure we prefer to remember as a chubby-cheeked child star or a charismatic teen/young adult. But an important part of Jackson's legacy is his rather prolific professional life -- a career that extended over at least three decades and was often a touchstone for what was (or would soon be) going on in popular culture and music. In honor of the late, great King of Pop, this week's single-phile takes a look at some of his greatest hits, their relationship to the pop cultural climate at the time and their influence on the pop music that was to come.
We asked John McCauley of Deer Tick to put together his ideal mixtape for us. We took his selections and threw in a few Deer Tick tracks to make it complete. Take a listen to the result.
Song: New Divide
Album: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Artist: Linkin Park
Linkin Park provided the theme song for the summer blockbuster Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Download it now before the robots attack. Presented by the U.S. Airforce.
- Portions of Album Content Provided by All Music Guide © 2008 All Media Guide, LLC.
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