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AMC's Mad Men is a show that people either love, hate or have never watched. We love it over here at Rhapsody's "all things 1950s and '60s" desk, and we even put together a playlist of songs from the show's first season, which was its most musically rich (so far). There are actually a couple of modern numbers mixed in here (including the show's theme song by RJD2), though mainly the playlist gives you a good idea of the E-Z listening jazz and pop that was a vital part of the early 1960s.

Play the Mad Men playlist now  and be sure to sign up for your free Rhapsody trial membership today.  

I have no idea if summer is officially here or not. It's June and it's sunny outside. What more do you want?

I was thinking about summer songs, and one that has nothing to do with beaches, lakes, waterfalls or convertibles popped into my head -- "Bicycle," Queen's immortal ode to physical education. This number rules.

It's only three minutes long but Freddie and the boys build it into something that feels like "Bohemian Rhapsody," only the lyrics bring up cycling, Star Wars, cocaine and Vietnam (Mercury doesn't seem to like two of these things very much). But I'll tell you what Freddie does like -- he likes riding his bicycle. He also enjoys riding it where he likes.

The song is from the Queen album Jazz and its other highlight is the awesome (almost Southern rocking) "Fat Bottomed Girls." This has what I like in a summer rock tune -- those slamming, simple hand-clapping glam drums and a great guitar riff. Freddie brings up bicycle riding in this one too but I think he may be inferring something else.

As a child I just took lyrics at face value and I'd still like to think that Mercury was just so into cycling when he cut this album that he just keeps bringing it up all the time.

When I bought the Jazz LP as a kid it came with a poster that combined the two songs with a photo of voluptuous ladies riding bicyles.

Even as a green elementary school student I questioned the hygiene of cycling naked, but after all of these years both songs still sound like summer to me.

If you want to hear many more sun-stroked songs, why not check out my Summer radio station? 

We are all fallible. Remember that.

A week back, I wrote about the old synth-pop hit "Safety Dance." I may even have said that the song is "basically retarded."

Then, I returned to my ancestral home of San Diego, CA. The family ventured from Imperial Beach up north to the luxurious city of La Jolla for a seaside picnic. Towards the end of the day, I was standing on a cliff with my 11-year old nephew watching his older brother body surf over treacherous rocks. Yes, I was much too cowardly to go in and tempt death on those rocks. This timid nature helps explain my chosen profession of rock critic. We are a meek, bespectacled bunch.

In general,  I don't know what you do when confronted with a relative defying death amidst a setting sun. Cry for help? Pray? Perhaps conquor by demons and dive in and drag the child out of the sea and suggest a game of cards instead? 

That day, I discovered what I would do. It turns out, in times of crisis, I start to sing "We can dance if we want to/ We can leave your friends behind..." -- Yes,  the opening lyrics to "Safety Dance."

I have no idea why I broke into robo-song, but here is the beautiful part. My nephew didn't miss a beat, he picked it up with "Cause your friends don't dance/And if they don't dance/Well, they're no friends of mine."

I looked at him and asked how in the world he knew the song. He told me EVERYBODY knows "Safety Dance."

Later that night, they broke out their laptop and should me a video of Jimmy Carlin shredding to the Men Without Hats robo-classic. Then, the two boys fired Rhapsody up and put "Safety Dance" on "repeat" while my baby boy laughed and popped-and-locked to it for about 15 minutes (and by "pop-and-lock" what I really mean is that he kicked his legs around in an insane Riverdance style frenzy).

So, thank you Men Without Hats!

You and your "Safety Dance" are helping to bridge generations and to unite families. 

You know the drill. I take two complementary songs and let them duke it out in my brain until one song emerges triumphant and the other slinks off defeated.

In the early '80s, you could do pretty much anything as long as you danced to it. Take Men Without Hats' immortal 1983 No. 3 hit "Safety Dance." This song is about dancing safely. Attaining this level of safety, the lyrics tell us, entails ditching your nondancing friends. Man, nondancing friends are the worst -- they grow up to be rock critics.

That same year, Re-Flex took "The Politics of Dancing" to No. 24 on the U.S. charts. It's kind of hard to figure out what this one is about. Dancing to politics and feeling good about it, I guess. The lyrics ask authoritatively, "Is this message understood?" Don't question it ... just start dancing to politics and feelin' good!

Hmmm. This is a tough one.

"Safety Dance" has safety on its side. I have a fear of pain so that makes safety good. But, it's also by a Canadian band, which would now be a big plus but back in 1983, this was considered a minus. The song is also basically retarded. Yet, when you add a couple of decades to "retarded" you get a good thing ("Safety Dance" now sounds like Kanye West minus the vocoder).

"The Politics of Dancing" made rock critics and college students mad because it actually has nothing to do with politics. I guess that should be a bad thing, but nobody but rock critics and college students actually cares about the political content of songs. It also sounds halfway between the Fixx and the new edition of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (minus the Neanderthal haircut and the misplaced coolness factor).

I'm kind of leaning toward Re-Flex because I've been listening to both songs on "repeat" for a good while now and "The Politics of Dancing" is somewhat less annoying. I also like it when the singer asks "Is the message understood?" a whole lot -- it reminds me of getting lectured by my father about how to hang his tools back up in the garage.

Listen to both 37 more times and have an epiphany.

So, the loser is (drumroll) ... The Killers' "Human."

"Human" reminds me of Ultravox's "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes," another 1983 song about dancing, this time while crying your eyes out (very hard to do safely and even harder to do while feeling good). Plus, if you are going to ape Ultravox, you might as well go for the superior "Reap the Wild Wind" (what a great song!) and not "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes." The final factor to make the axe drop is that the Killers' "Human" actually dares to ask the question "Are you human or are you dancer?"

That could be the lamest song lyric I have ever heard in my entire life.

Come home, "Safety Dance" and "Politics of Dancing" -- all is forgiven.

The unflappable Palmer seemed to lead a charmed life. He even managed to avoid various hairstyle crimes throughout the 1970s. No other pop-star coiffure survived that decade unscathed.

One editor in the Rhapsody office has pointed out that perhaps Palmer just thinks bikinis are funny. He says that there is no real evidence that there are supermodels behind him. This is merely evidence that that editor's life blows in comparison to Robert Palmer's.

Maybe he hadn't yet ramped up to supermodels; Palmer seems to be taken with a blind or drunk or blind drunk lady with a questionable perm.

Rumors abound as to the identity of this (possibly abducted) female. Some say it is a pre-fame Laraine Newman, while others have speculated that it is Jackie O, hiding out from the hirsute shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.

Either way -- your life blows next to Robert Palmer's blessed existence!

This may fall into the "too much information" category, but the strangest mix of magazines is to be found in the Rhapsody lounge. Farm Friendly, Dental Hygiene, Wireframe Weekly -- what do any of these rags have to do with music?

So, it was with great relief that I got to cozy up with a copy of Billboard last week. Man, you learn all kinds of stuff reading that magazine. For instance, Billy Joel will be celebrating his 60th birthday soon, and Dolly Parton is rocking with Cracker Barrel (the restaurant, not the Southern rock outfit).

The thing that really caught my eye was a sidebar to the Dave Matthews Band cover story. It lists the artists who've sold the most albums since 1991. The Beatles (bless 'em) still lead with over 57 million. Metallica are No. 2 two with almost 52 million. Pink Floyd have shifted over 35 million. U2 have racked up almost 34 million.

No. 9 on the list is the Dave Matthews Band -- they've sold almost 30 million albums. Add in Matthews solo and you get 33 million. I had no idea they were that massive. I can't tell you the title of one Dave Matthews song. Nothing against them, but I don't hear them often.

Here's what I've been thinking about -- U2 and the Dixie Chicks (rounding out the Top 10 with almost 27 million albums sold) get played on the radio all the time. But I can't think of the last time I heard either Metallica or Dave Matthews on FM rock radio.

Growing up, if any rock band sold over a million records they'd be played on FM and AM radio -- Pink Floyd and KISS played in between cuts by the Commodores and Kenny Rogers, for example.

Why have bands such as Metallica and Dave Matthews been banned from radio if they obviously have tens of millions of fans?? I don't know the answer to this, but it's probably an example of why terrestrial radio is dying. It's also an example of how much of a fan base touring can give you.

Green Day actually broke the curse of dying CD sales in 2004 with American Idiot (11 million and counting). Fantastic album, though they did it with plenty of help from radio. With CD sales decreasing every year, it'll be interesting to see the sales numbers for Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown after it's released this month, even if it's the huge hit it's expected to be.

Will Green Day knock Dave Matthews off the list? Matthews has a new album, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, coming out next month. 

It's possible that the two acts share a lot of fans -- you'd just never know it by listening to the radio. 

Dave Matthews fans who are totally into it and one lady (far right) who is just kinda into it.