October 2009 Archives

With the new Flight of the Conchords album out this week and Weird Al releasing a career-spanning Greatest Hits next week, we got to thinking about the intersection of comedy and music. As in, there are quite a few intersections of comedy and music. So in honor of the laughs the Conchords and Weird Al give us on a regular basis, we've compiled enough humor-driven songs and clips to kill a workday. Be sure to check out the playlist at the end for a sampling of some of these artists, or sign up for your free trial Rhapsody subscription and listen to high-quality audio of all of these artists whenever and wherever you want.

There were about a million things that happened in hip-hop this decade: it went gangster (again), went pop (again), traveled below the Mason-Dixon line, took a detour to Houston, got crunk, got hyphy, beefed with its brothers, embraced its roots, looked to the future, counted its money, flexed its muscle, bemoaned its impotence, sulked in the corner, fell in love, broke up, went to counseling, and embarked on a world tour. There was 50 Cent, Mike Jones, Cee-Lo, T.I., Lupe, Weezy, Jeezy and , Yeezy. There were basements, clubs and prisons -- black presidents, Jewish Rastafarians and masked supervillains. Anthems came and went, we got low and got blunted. All in all, it was a good decade, not without its disappoints, but certainly not without its triumphs. We’ve tried to assemble some of those triumphs. Try not to get too cross-eyed about who did or didn’t make it -- if your horse didn’t place, let us know in the comments box.

I’ve been a music-is-a-service-not-a-product evangelist for almost a decade now, so most of my friends and a lot of reporters (some people fall into both groups) are accustomed to hearing me go on and on about why I think Rhapsody’s so great. They don’t hear me talk about its problems as frequently, but there’s one big issue with subscription services that frustrates me every bit as much as it does our customers: sometimes, a track that was in the service on Monday disappears on Tuesday. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s incredibly disturbing when it does, so I want to explain to our customers why it sometimes occurs, and what we do about it.

Every week, you can download guilt-free MP3s from Rhapsody recommended artists from our vast abyss of a catalog. For this installment, we're firing off tracks from Brooklyn hip-hop innovators Anti Pop Consortium, Americana troubadour Langhorne Slim and more. Get them while they're hot -- or at least still warm enough to melt butter.

After a six-year hiatus Anti Pop Consortium are back en forme with Fluorescent Black, one of the most inventive hip-hop albums in recent years. It may lack the immediate accessibility of the Blueprint 3, but it's equal in lyrical flow and trumps most in experimentation. [To download, click the button below. When page loads, click "save as."]

Langhorne Slim sheds his reputation for minimalism on his third album, Be Set Free, with a little help from Chris Funk (the Decemberists) and a small tabernacle of horns, strings, guitars and backing vocalists -- yet Slim's new look never seems overdone even with all the added arrangements.

Aussie trio the Grates aren't as ... um ... grating on their sophomore album, Teeth Lost, Hearts Won; the noise-rockers seem to have grown up and polished their act a bit.

 

The Twilight Sad have blaring, fuzzed-out guitars in common with fellow Glaswegians Mogwai, but they blend it together with bittersweet pop -- as heard on their recent album Forget the Night Ahead.

And finally, since the early '60s Preservation Hall Jazz Band have been keeping up the tradition of New Orleans jazz. This recent incarnation of the band as Hot Four updates the time-honored sound with a remix from Philly soul-house maestro King Britt.

With Michael Jackson's This Is It hitting digital outlets and Halloween just around the corner, it's a good time to examine pop's greatest posthumous releases. "This Is It," the most current rave from the grave, looks like the tip of the iceberg as far as Jackson's post-breathing releases will go. Tommy Mottola, the former chairman and CEO of Sony Music, told the Associated Press that there are "dozens and dozens of songs" that did not make the pop star's albums. Indeed, "This Is It" was reportedly found in a box of tapes the singer had. The song was actually penned around1983 for a duets album Anka was recording, but was never used. That's probably why it feels like something off of the Bad album -- which is a good thing. Back then, the song was titled "I Never Had," but it had the same eerie opening lines: "This is it/ Here I stand/ I'm the light of the world/ I feel grand."

Time will tell if Jackson will join the handful of stars such as Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, Bob Marley, the Doors and Tupac who have had numerous releases since their passing. For many, multiple posthumous releases come as a mixed blessing: some fans would rather not see their favorite singer's light dimmed with inferior work, while others see posthumous works as career-making highlights. Let's take a look -- in no particular order -- at some of the biggest posthumous hits over the years.

People use The Google to find out everything from the origins of the Chihuahua to where they can find Halloween costumes that fit tiny Mexican dogs. And folks use Google to search for music on the internet a heckuva lot more than they use it for Chihuahuas. Now, Google is launching its initiative and consolidating the scatter-shot universe of internet music through partnerships with Rhapsody, Lala and iLike. Curious listeners will now be able to google an artist, song or album and immediately click on a Rhapsody link, where you can listen to music for free.

Once on Rhapsody.com, curious listeners will enter a well-ordered, easy-to-understand world of pure music. Those who google Owl City's "Fireflies" can instantly stream the hit single on Rhapsody. From there, they can go on to stream Owl City's entire Ocean Eyes CD while reading the artist biography or the check out user generated playlists featuring Owl City songs. They can also stream free Rhapsody radio stations that feature Owl City, such as The Lite Alternative, Indie Now and Pop Hits.

For those who take the next step and subscribe to the Rhapsody music service, they will discover that listening to an unlimited amount of music through their computer is only the start. At Rhapsody we are currently revolutionizing the way that music is consumed.

Rhapsody's To-Go service takes our vast music library off your computer and allows access on your iPhone or Verizon VCAST system, with a number of other smart phone apps on the way.

Likewise, you can access your Rhapsody music library on a host of MP3 players, home audio devices, the award-winning Sonos system and other cutting-edge devices, such as digital televisions.

Rhapsody delivers the power of exploration with unprecedented accessibility, and now, with Google's Music it’ll be easier than ever to discover all that Rhapsody has to offer. For more information, see our partner blog right here.

Mr. Larry Becker
Director of Development, NBC
437 Shyer Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90211


Dear Larry,

This has been an exciting past month for the Heene clan. Mayumi managed to shed five pounds, Falcon went through a bout with the mumps (emerging as adorable as ever), and I spent a week researching and testing various hair dyes. And, oh yeah, we also perpetrated the greatest hoax of the year, if not the past decade, when we pretended to send Falcon aloft in a silver weather balloon.

Though the hoax may have some unintended consequences, it also brought near-universal recognition to our family's name and clearly established the Heene brand as one of the most viable in the reality TV realm. We were able to break through the social media market -- “Balloon Boy” was a top trending topic on Twitter -- and we also were the top story in nearly every major media outlet, from the Drudge Report to CNN to the New York Times.

The natural question now is: what next? We hope to hit the skillet while it’s hot, capitalizing off this newfound fame to push forward and develop a new roster of Heene reality shows that will impact the market for years to come. I’ve laid out some potential pitches.

I've been seeing Hall & Oates references all over the place during the past few years. At the start of the decade, their soft-rocking 1970s period came back into vogue, and now, at the end of the decade, it's their synth-y 1980s hits (and videos) that have made a big comeback. These days practically every indie rocker around (including Josh Rouse and Ben Gibbard of Death Cab) cite the duo as a major influence.

As a child of the 1970s and '80s, I can say that Daryl Hall and John Oates ruled the airwaves during both decades. I can't remember a time when their '70s hits like "She's Gone" and "Rich Girl" weren't omnipresent. Later, at the start of the 1980s, when Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" first came out, I kept thinking it was the Hall & Oates tune "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)" starting up (Jackson and Quincy Jones lifted the song's kick-ass bassline intro and tempo and fit it into their song to give it extra juice).

Hall and Oates are still recording and touring, but they wisely spend a lot of time on their own projects (Hall seems to be the more driven of the two). The duo have now released a surprisingly rich box set, Do What You Want, Be What You Are, which offers a complete portrait of their career.

I interviewed Daryl Hall the other day about the box set, his Philly soul roots and his truly entertaining internet TV show, Live From Daryl's House. Hall gave thoughtful, B.S.-free answers and took it in stride that a fleet of work trucks pulled up right outside the Rhapsody offices and jackhammered the city streets to dust for the duration of our conversation. Click here to read the interview and to play a selection of music from the most successful duo in pop history.

When all is said and done, "Weird Al" Yankovic may well go down in history as the most insightful popular music critic of the past two or three decades. He certainly had the most honest reaction to Nirvana if nothing else, and Kurt Cobain himself considered him a genius for it ("What is this song all about/ Can't figure any lyrics out ... We're so loud and incoherent/ Boy this oughtta bug your parents.") And now, a newly compiled double-disc retrospective called The Essential "Weird Al" Yankovic is making a definitive case for the legacy of his satires. Rhapsody recently talked with Al about the compilation, pop and rock in the '00s, how the music biz neglects nerds, and why R. Kelly is more parody-worthy than Radiohead.

single-phile: the latest singles, dissected and discussed

You might not think an hour-long musical comedy series featuring flimsy (and, really, one-dimensional) plots about a misfit high school glee club would be so ... addictive. But all it took was one listen to Glee's dramatically over-the-top, heavily harmonized, show-choir-iffic cover of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'," and we were hooked. And we're not alone: the show itself is doing fairly well (though it's not quite a smash hit yet), but what's even more fascinating is that the songs featured in each episode, which Fox has been releasing as singles, are actually becoming hits in and of themselves. Almost every one has made it into the Top 100, and "Don't Stop Believin'," "Somebody to Love," "Halo/Walking on Sunshine" and "It's My Life/Confessions, Pt II" have cracked the Top 40. These are pop songs masquerading as show tunes. They are show choir covers, people. It's kinda ... weird, no? We decided to devote this week's single-phile to figuring out what it is about the Glee singles that makes us so, well, gleeful. Here are our top 10 reasons why we think everyone is Gleeking out, complete with quintessential representatives from the show and other examples.

iPhone Apps are like snowflakes -- each one is different. One thing every app has in common, however, is big dreams. Today, Rhapsody is proud to announce that its app is 500,000 downloads closer to achieving those dreams. Over 500K shrewd users have decided that unlimited access to practically any song, practically anywhere ain't such a bad idea.

For our supporters young and old, veteran and prospective, be advised that we've recently submitted a new version to the App Store. Pending approval by Apple, the new version of Rhapsody's app will feature improved sound quality and stability. Future versions are in the works, with a terribly exciting array of new features (are we saying the Rhap App will cook you breakfast in the morning? Let's just say we're not not saying that). Thanks to everyone who's downloaded the app so far. For those of you who haven't tried it -- get busy!

The likely pick for my favorite album of 2009 is looking to be the self-titled debut from the xx, a co-ed London quartet of 20-year-olds whose self-produced album is a masterpiece of sensuality and restraint. Even I'm surprised at my enthusiasm for the record: it doesn't necessarily reach out and grab you on first listen, favoring atmospheres over hooks and suggestion over immediacy. Still, I have a hard time listening to it only once in a given sitting (one of the pleasures of a 39-minute album).

One of the things I like about the record is how it distills so many influences into such a simple, unassuming form: there's a vintage rock 'n' roll patina borrowed from Sun Studios-era Elvis and, less authentically vintage, Chris Isaak's "Wicked Games" (which serves as the barely disguised foundation for the xx's "Infinity"). The welling bass is reminiscent of dubstep and UK garage, and the sullen ambiance recalls post-punk and early goth; the song structures suggest the molasses Americana of Galaxie 500 and their protégés, like Low, Yo La Tengo and Mazzy Star.

The more you listen, the more references you can spot, floating like drops of oil on the surface of the xx's inky, glistening infusion. Since I can't just keep listening to their album on a constant loop (can I?), I put together a playlist that pulls together a number of possible xx influences—as well as a few contemporaries who achieve a similarly dark, viscous bliss in their music—including all the above plus Slowdive, Hugo Largo, David Bowie, Massive Attack, David Sylvian, Cocteau Twins, Seefeel, Brian Eno and many, many more. Listen to a sampling below, and check out the whole playlist here at Rhapsody's Playlist Central.

Andy Pettitte: The Cher of notable post-season pitchers. Explanation to follow.

The 2009 baseball post-season is well under way, and watching the Yankees, Angels, Phillies and Dodgers duke it out got our gears turning: if Cole Hamels or Andy Pettitte were a band, which band would he be? Said gears continued turning, and now we have this list of past post-season pitching greats and goats along with their counterparts in the music world -- take that, Joe Buck! Don't really understand this premise? Hate baseball? Not to worry, because we've added appropriate (or approximately appropriate, in some cases) playlists to go along with each entry. Enjoy!

Welcome back to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe.

When I was a kid, my first exposure to Sinatra probably came from old Warner Bros. cartoons like this one.

This chicken-crazed cartoon doesn't feature the real voices of Sinatra or Bing Crosby, but it shows you the effect they both had on the ladies (or, at least, the chickens). It also clues you in to their divergent swing-era styles -- Bing's short vocal lines were bubbly and upbeat while Sinatra was brooding, with longggggg, smooth phrases that held back languorously behind the beat.

People literally didn't know how Sinatra could hold notes the way that he did during this Swooner Crooner era. Musicians falsely assumed he found an Eastern swami who taught him the secret art of circular breathing. The truth is that the young, clean-living Sinatra was so dedicated to doing things differently than the reigning vocal star, Crosby, that he actively worked on building his lung capacity and breath control. During an era when exercise was literally considered freakish, the razor-thin Sinatra ran cross-country and swam laps while singing in his head between breaths.

While this isn't my favorite Sinatra period, it does feature the most flat-out beautiful singing of his career. People today often think of his string-laden ballads of this period as slick and "commercial," yet he and arranger Alex Stordahl created a revolutionary sound that nobody else had at the time; it's almost classical chamber music meets jazz. Sinatra also preferred to record older, quality songs by the greatest composers instead of the latest novelty numbers -- he was the first major star to curate what are now called "standards," or the Great American Songbook.

Ballads like "There's No You" helped define the World War II era by speaking of the pain of separation during this time. It is a truly haunting performance.

Unlike Crosby and even Louis Armstrong, Sinatra kept developing and refining his style and sound over the course of his career. The other artist who did this over a similar time frame was Miles Davis -- the two regarded each other's work with the utmost respect.

For more Crosby and bow-tied Sinatra from the razor-thin years, you can listen to my superlative Frank's World Rhapsody Radio Station, which now has "just-click" links for your Facebook and Twitter pages.



    

What a week for country music lovers. Rhapsody is bringing you brand-new music from some of today's hottest, most talked-about country stars a week before you'll hear it anywhere else. No kidding: we've got big names, bluegrass names and names you'll soon be acquainted with. So sit back, relax and let's listen to some music!

You've heard of the boys of summer. Well, how about the boys of fall? Christian music fans are welcoming a bushelful of new music this month, and most of it comes from the men. You'll find get-on-your-feet rock, soulful piano-driven ballads, old-school hip-hop, heartfelt worship and heartbreaking story-songs that point to the hope that drives each of these talented artists. Here's the scoop on some of fall's early highlights.

Leeland (pictured), Love Is On the Move
Brothers Leeland and Jack Mooring along with Jake Holtz and Mike Smith make up this prog-rock band that sees its music as a means to minister. Past albums drew spiritual inspiration from what they saw happening in their little hometown church, but this album has the Baytown, Tex., boys expanding their horizons to include a broader world view. While they've always been socially conscious, a partnership with Christian relief organization Food for the Hungry, along with outreach trips to Africa and Asia, opened their eyes even further. The music on Love Is On the Move definitely reflects that with call-to-action tracks like "Follow You," featuring friend and Gospel Music Association Male Vocalist of the Year Brandon Heath. The message of this album: don't just sit there, do something!

Raise your hand if you lika da music? Now keep it raised if you're among that rare breed that still enjoys a nice meaty album to sink your teeth into -- not a clip, a mash-up, a single or even an EP, but an album, an LP, a record! Well guess what -- your favorite bands dig records as much as you do, which is what gave us the idea for On the Record, Rhapsody's original video series wherein rock stars gush about their favorite record -- in exactly 45 seconds. Peep these new installments with Glasvegas and School of Seven Bells to see which records they picked!

Previous episodes with Claude VonStroke, Noisettes, 16 Frames, Gomez, Doves and Ra Ra Riot after the jump.

Yes yes it's time for another installment if Rock Star Guide to the Galaxy, Rhapsody's original video series featuring super-awesome bands giving super-awesome tours of their super-awesome hometowns. This week we are proud to bring you Philly's finest with hosts Amanda Blank and Rose Luardo of Sweatheart.

This morning Garth Brooks held a press conference at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville in which he announced he would dust off the ol ten-gallon and officially come out of retirement. Brooks, who retired at the top of his game in 2000 to spend more time with his three daughters, has only played a handful of shows in the past decade, most notably President Barack Obama's inauguration.

After the press conference this morning, Brooks and a handful of media boarded a plane heading to an "undisclosed" location. It is widely speculated that the group is headed to the Wynn casino hotel in Las Vegas, where he will announce a string of shows in 2010 at 3pm PST. The hotel's Encore Theater has not had a permanent headliner since the death of comedian Danny Gans, and coincidentally, the Wynn has said in a statement that it would be announcing a new music schedule soon.

But can Brooks, who has sold 113 million albums and is the best-selling solo musician in U.S. history, get back into a game that has changed dramatically in his absence? He responds, "I know this is a young industry, so I'm not sure I'll be welcomed back. But if the fans want me, I still want to pursue my music." Considering how quickly his five Los Angeles wildfire benefit dates in 2007 sold out, it's fair to say the demand for Garth Brooks hasn't diminished in his ten year hiatus.

Having sat on the sidelines for a decade, Brooks took advantage of the press conference to take the music industry to task, saying, "We need to take back the music." He added, "We don't realize how powerful we are. If the world goes silent for a day, we will realize how powerful we are. Athletics have got it right: until we unionize, we have no power."

To date, Brooks' digital catalog is available exclusively at WalMart. Hopefully his return signals a willingness to release his potent catalog to other digital outlets. However, he cautioned that his music would not be available digitally until the current music system, "gets it together."

One thing we know for certain, Garth Brooks will be the biggest thing to happen to Las Vegas since Elvis.

Dickie Peterson (that awesome-looking dude in the center here (and yes, the guy on the left looks pretty awesome, too)), who succumbed to liver cancer on October 12, 2009, was the original bass player and vocalist of incalculably influential San Francisco superblues power trio Blue Cheer. In the late '60s, Peterson, Leigh Stephens (guitar) and first drummer Eric Albronda represented about the most extreme rock music around, as far as double-tracked guitar freakouts, dog-exploding volumes and all-out heaviness were concerned. The overfuzz of his bass and long haired yahoo screaming on hit single "Summertime Blues" simply defined acid rock, not to mention the rest of Blue Cheer's skull-rattling 1968 debut, Vincebus Eruptum (they're all good but do not miss last song "Second Time Around"). Released that same year, follow-up Outsideinside was murky and deliberate -- a menacing flipside to the sunny hippie rock of the times. Even today you can hear unmistakable traces of Outsideinside's trudging riffology in basically all the music that came out of Seattle in the early '90s, and all over the sludgemetal of modern day New Orleans. From here, Blue Cheer's history becomes convoluted as guitarists and drummers come and go, with long hiatuses throughout the '70s and '80s. Recently, however, Peterson had successfully reformed the band and recorded What Doesn't Kill You in 2007.

New albums from Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam have me daydreaming about the days when grunge stormed America and wrapped just about every high school between Seattle and Syracuse in red-and-black checked flannel. Those were heady days for me and my alternative pals Jay, Kerry, Jared and Ted. In the summer before senior year, we’d sit around Ted’s house (his parents were never home) and impatiently wait for MTV to play the “Alive” video or maybe even Temple of the Dog's "Hunger Strike." Feeling intensely nostalgic, I’ve been spinning the popular classics of grunge over the last week or so. Some of these sound really great, others kind of dated and a few haven’t changed at all. I figure I'd share my discoveries … in the form of a stock report.

Welcome back to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe. That universe, of course, includes a galaxy of Dean Martin.

Frank Sinatra could be funny in movies and in the recording studio, but in concert his attempts at humor often came out as mean-spirited. That's because Frank lacked a certain something that his best friend, Dean Martin, had in spades.

Dean Martin was funny. He had such a knack for improvisation and throwaway lines that he didn't even rehearse for his long-running TV show (don't try this one at home, young actors -- Martin was a pro who memorized the scripts). Hey, even Dino's old record sleeves had a sense of fun about them, letting his fans know that he didn't take himself -- or his career -- too seriously.

Take 1957's Pretty Baby (pictured above). This one delineates the entire Dino ethos, minus cocktails. Then, once you uwrap the record, Martin croons romantic ballads such as Rodgers & Hart's "It's Easy to Remember."  For more Martin mythologizing, you can go to this old post I wrote a few years back.

We actually don't have the Pretty Baby album available on Rhapsody at the moment, but I'm working with the good folks at Capitol EMI to change this. That's part of my mission in particular and Rhapsody's mission in general. We aren't happy with having only 150 Dean Martin CDs available to Rhapsody users. We won't rest until they are ALL up (as you can see, we're doing pretty well; most of his Reprise albums are currently on Rhapsody, we just need Capitol to concentrate on putting out the original LPs instead of greatest-hits CDs). We do the heavy lifting so that you don't have to.

For more Martin and Sinatra, you can listen to my superlative Frank's World Rhapsody Radio Station, which now has "just-click" links for your Facebook and Twitter pages.



 
 


 

The fall release schedule has kicked in, in earnest, and the electronic-music world is humming like an overheated Theremin. From Basement Jaxx' cyborg pop to the nether reaches of the underground, here's a selection of recent records that don't require a PhD in electronic subgenres to appreciate.

Lead singers tend to be prima donnas who snag all the front-row babes and front-page accolades. Unfortunately, replacing these ego freaks is almost always an exercise in failure. Though the dude might've skipped a rehearsal or three, he’s the vessel through which all those killer songs are delivered to the masses. The medium is the message and to lose the medium means nose-diving right back into club circuit hell, where green rooms are nothing more than a gutted bathroom plastered in hand-scrawled personals: For a good time call ...

Musicians know all this, and yet there are always going to be successful bands who believe they can succeed with a newbie frontman. Can you blame them? If you were Eddie Van Halen, wouldn’t you feel a powerful urge to stick it to that blowhard D.L.R.? I know I would. Of course, Van Halen are one of the rare exceptions to the rule. Say what you will about Van Hagar and lame-o hits like “Right Now,” but they sold a ton of records. Roth’s popularity, meanwhile, declined with each passing year he wasn’t swinging from the rafters 40 feet above Michael Anthony and his Jack Daniels bass.

But what of the other titans of rock who dared switch frontmen? How did they fare? Let's find out ...

Britney Spears' latest contribution to pop music's math textbook, "3," is a celebration of bedroom-floor activities involving more than two people, and I don't mean vacuuming! Though that might happen too, actually. But Britney coos naughty stuff about "Not only you and me/ Got 180 degrees/ And I'm caught between" and "Peter Paul and Mary gettin' down." (Where's Puff the Magic Dragon when you need him?) But believe it or not, Ms. Spears is not the first pop star to deal with said multipartner practice, and others have documented entirely different lovemaking activities at least as nontraditional. Herewith, an inventory of sex-obsessed songs that opt for flavors other than vanilla.

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

A lot of debate has occurred over the course of music history about whether music itself can really effect political change. In real life, the connection between music and change often seems tenuous at best -- the dream of an aging hippie or an over-eager musicologist -- in the face of more direct or even violent means of revolution. But then, every so often, you hear a voice like Mercedes Sosa's, and all that skepticism washes away. Sosa's songs weren't always political, nor were her performances always even necessarily connected to revolutionary movements (despite the Argentinean government's opinions to the contrary). And she herself said, "Artists are not political leaders. The only power they have is to draw people into the theater." But the weapon the woman had at her disposal, which she often called the "voice of the voiceless," was precisely that: her powerful, compelling voice, a voice rich enough to convey her convictions, a voice capable of inspiring people and giving them strength.

Born in 1935 to a poor family in San Miguel de Tucuman (in Argentina's sugarcane country), Sosa won her first singing competition at age 15 and went on to help pioneer the musical-political nueva cancion movement that swept Latin America in the 1960s. The movement shed light on the concerns of the working people and the disenfranchised in the face of oppressive dictatorships. Though she was not known as a songwriter, Sosa put her own distinctive stamp on many of her peers' tunes, imbuing their tales of struggle and protest with her versatile style (which drew from not only Argentinean folk traditions, but also a wide range Latin genres), her bombo drum and, especially, her evocative contralto voice. In the 1970s, the ruling military junta took notice of her influence (as well as her connections to leftist groups), and the government's harassment forced her into exile. She lived for several years in France and Spain, brokenhearted and working as a musician and a teacher. When she returned to Argentina in 1982, she discovered that she had become a folk hero for her oppressed countrymen. She retained that esteemed position for the rest of her career.


A few of the thousands of mourners who came out to pay their respects in Buenos Aires

Over the course of her career, Sosa released 70 albums (several of which won Grammy and Latin Grammy awards), performed in venues like Carnegie Hall and the Coliseum, collaborated with artists ranging from Caetano Veloso to Pavarotti to Joan Baez, and served as a UNESCO goodwill ambassador. When she passed away on October 4 due to liver, kidney and heart problems, we lost one of Latin America's most beloved singers and a compassionate musical visionary. But the mark that powerful voice left on the world is indelible and prolific.

Take a listen to a few of the late, great Mercedes Sosa's most powerful moments below. Or Rhapsody users can listen to a full selection of her best work on this tribute playlist, a mere tip of this artist's considerable iceberg of work:

Playlist: R.I.P. Mercedes Sosa, 1935-2009

Welcome back to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe.

In 1969, the very same year that Woodstock took place, Sinatra hit the charts big with a song called "My Way." Concord Records has released a special 40th anniversary edition of the song's eponymous album.

Here is my Rhapsody album review:

"Unfortunately, the hit single 'My Way' has been interpreted as one of Sinatra's defining personal statements (despite the fact that his work is usually artful and subtle instead of self-aggrandizing). That said, the resulting album is strong, though arranger Don Costa is better on the ballads than the swingers and Sinatra is strong throughout. 'Watch What Happens,' 'Didn't We' and 'For Once in My Life' are all keepers; the stunner is 'All My Tomorrows,' which runs deeper and darker than Sinatra's previous Capitol recording. You may want to skip the run-through of The Graduate's 'Mrs. Robinson,' though it's worth hearing him ad-lib the line 'fooling with that young stuff like you do.' This anniversary edition adds two bonus tracks."

With my very first Frank's World post I inadvertently raised the ire of many a Sinatra fan by noting that I don't really feel the need to hear the song "My Way" again. While Sinatra was very happy to have an era-defining hit in the Age of Aquarius, he is described in Chuck Granata's fine book Sessions With Sinatra as always having reservations about the tune. Even if he wasn't too crazy about the number himself, he took the time to weave a solid album around it.

You can listen to every single album that Sinatra cut for RCA, Columbia, Capitol and Reprise Records during his decades-long recording career on Rhapsody. And you can also listen to all of these songs and more on my superlative Frank's World Rhapsody Radio Station, which now has "just-click" links for your Facebook and Twitter pages.
   

One thing we've noticed over here at Rhapsody is how current events and the news affect people's listening habits. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise -- if Michael Jackson dies or Herbie Hancock wins a Grammy or a Johnny Cash biopic comes out, people instantly want to listen to some of their music.

That brings us to music from Roman Polanski movies. Now, I am going to take the coward's way out and sidestep the issues about why music from Polanski movies has suddenly picked up on Rhapsody.

I don't even want to go there.

After all, I get enough angry emails when I make the (theoretically) bland statement that the Pretty In Pink soundtrack has aged much better than the Breakfast Club soundtrack. Also, being a music critic means that you actively try to avoid the real world as much as possible -- it's scary out there, people!

But Roman Polanski being very much in the news of late means that people are searching for his movie themes on Rhapsody a heckuva lot more than they were a month or two ago.

There's a lot of uncertainty out in the world today. Who knows exactly what is going to happen or when it's going to happen or who exactly it's going to happen to?

One thing's for sure, though. If Johnny Cash has recommended a list of essential songs, you sit down, you shut up and you start listening to those songs.

Back in 1973, the Man In Black gave his daughter, Rosanne Cash, a list of 100 songs that he thought she needed to know. Being a smart cookie, Rosanne listened to those songs and studied them over the years.


Now, Rosanne, a fine singer-songwriter in her own right, has whittled that list down to 12 songs and put out what is easily one of the best albums of 2009 -- The List. In her Rhapsody review, Linda Ryan, our country editor, writes, "It's difficult not to fall hard for the Springsteen-featured 'Sea of Heartbreak,' the gentle honky-tonk of 'Miss the Mississippi and You' and the Elvis Costello duet 'Heartaches by the Numbers.'"

One of the great things about Rhapsody is the depth of our catalog -- over 8 million songs strong -- that allows you to not only listen to the latest music, but also virtually any music from every period. Once you sign up for Rhapsody, it is at your fingertips.

And while you should definitely check out Rosanne's album, I went ahead and searched out 12 earlier versions of the songs on Rhapsody. These are tough, timeless songs with a sentimental streak, full of heartbreak, humor and resilience. The list includes rough, raw recordings as well as more polished, radio-ready hits of the past.

Listen in, take notes and either get reacquainted with some old friends or make some new ones. Johnny Cash was right: these are songs that you'll need at some point in your life. Rosanne Cash does the songs -- and her father -- proud.

I've been seeing Hall & Oates references all over the place during the past few years. At the start of the decade, their soft-rocking 1970s period came back into vogue, and now, at the end of the decade, it's their synth-y 1980s hits (and videos) that have made a big comeback. These days practically every indie rocker around (including Josh Rouse and Ben Gibbard of Death Cab) cite the duo as a major influence.

As a child of the 1970s and '80s, I can say that Daryl Hall and John Oates ruled the airwaves during both decades. I can't remember a time when their '70s hits like "She's Gone" and "Rich Girl" weren't omnipresent. Later, at the start of the 1980s, when Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" first came out, I kept thinking it was the Hall & Oates tune "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)" starting up (Jackson and Quincy Jones lifted the song's kick-ass bassline intro and tempo and fit it into their song to give it extra juice).

Hall and Oates are still recording and touring, but they wisely spend a lot of time on their own projects (Hall seems to be the more driven of the two). The duo have now released a surprisingly rich box set, Do What You Want, Be What You Are, which offers a complete portrait of their career.

I interviewed Daryl Hall the other day about the box set, his Philly soul roots and his truly entertaining internet TV show, Live From Daryl's House. Hall gave thoughtful, B.S.-free answers and took it in stride that a fleet of work trucks pulled up right outside the Rhapsody offices and jackhammered the city streets to dust for the duration of our conversation. Click here to read the interview and to play a selection of music from the most successful duo in pop history.

The last couple weeks saw the release of two new albums that will be a HUGE deal in Europe -- and will probably hardly make a ripple in the United States. The Boy Who Knew Too Much and La Roux are the efforts of, respectively, a major European pop star (Mika) and a seriously buzzed-about British dance-pop outfit (La Roux) who, in the U.S., are simply indie acts with something of a cult following. So what makes a band "big" in Europe, but not here? We set out to examine the subtle nuances that sometimes distinguish the delicate continental palate from our more, well, palatable American tastes. What we came up with was not one answer, but a series of reasons/differences/aesthetic problems.