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Ten Singers Who Should've Made the Rolling Stone List

Rolling Stone recently ranked its 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. The list is packed with legendary artists, plus features a handful of celebrity columnists gushing over their fave crooners (Billy Joel on Ray Charles: “He was the minister and I was the congregation”). As with any all-time-greatest list, it’s also riddled with questionable choices and glaring omissions – at least that’s how I see it. With help from Rhapsody Pop Editor Rachel Devitt, I’ve compiled 10 artists who could and should be included in any serious conversation about great singers. Some are obvious, many obscure and a few will have you muttering, “What the … ?”

Have a read as we stoke further controversy!

SoundTreks: Alt-Folklorico Across Genres

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

One of my favorite albums of 2008 (so far) has been En Este Camino by Pistolera. I've described this New York band's sound as Mexican regional, Latin alternative and American indie stitched together in a sonic tapestry that is at once comfortably familiar and chicly cutting edge. Rhapsody's Latin editor Sarah Bardeen was a bit pithier: "previously at-odds elements like accordion and indie rock drink a Corona and lime together." The band itself, which has made nice with the likes of Lila Downs, Ozomatli and the Mexican Institute of Sound, gets even more succinct, referring to themselves as simply "alt-folklorico."

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

He Said/She Said: R.I.P. TRL

Rachel: So, MTV's Total Request Live is set to end its 10-year run, airing its final episode this Friday and a good-bye bash on November 16. In honor of the long-running request show, Rhapsody's Rock editor, Nate Cavalieri, and our Pop editor (that would be yours truly, Rachel Devitt) decided to have a little conversation about its legacy, which I, poptimist that I am, think is fairly significant. Nate is a bit more cynical, however. And off we go.

OK, yes, one of TRL's most significant "gifts" to the world has been Carson Daly (seriously, can we regift that one?), but I also think the show has carved out -- and deserves -- a special place in music history. It's been host to lots of important pop cultural events: the beginnings of the boy band phenomenon; Mariah's popsicle-laden meltdown/striptease; the first official report of Britney Spears's split from K-Fed. For a good chunk of its run, TRL was an important barometer of popular culture. Not to mention it's been one of the only places you can actually see, uh, music videos on the music video network (even if they aren't full clips).

Nate: Rachel, if I wake up on Christmas morning to find a wobbling refrigerator box that stinks of Axe body spray, I'm re-regifting Carson right back to you. I'll go along for the ride that TRL deserves a special place in the annals of pop culture, but, at the risk of coming off like a curmudgeonly fishing buddy of Walter Matthau, the cancellation of the show was a mercy killing after so many years of TRL hobbling along like a crippled old nag. Sure, it made waves during its short and juicy peak, but, like the cast of twits that dominated its charts – the thrill was quickly gone. Its place in the pop-culture scrap heap is somewhere near the Star Trek franchise – enormously popular, increasingly wretched and ultimately unwatchable. As for it being the only place on MTV to see actual music videos, sure, maybe if the video was number one. But if it wasn't number one, they only played part of it! I know but slogging through an entire three-minute video is rough, but, sigh, I want the M back in MTV!

SoundTreks: An Eye on Asian Pop

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

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

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

SoundTreks: Turkish Pop

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

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

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

Video: Stars of YouTube

By Rachel Devitt

Got a webcam and a YouTube account? Then you're already well on your way to becoming a star according to the Marie Digby model of music career-making. All right, so Digby (who's being called the new Colbie Caillat) already had a contract with Hollywood Records when she posted that buzz-generating "DIY" video of her singing an acoustic cover of Rihanna's "Umbrella." But she wasn't the first singer-songwriter (and they have mostly been singer-songwriters, with a few notable exceptions like OK Go) to parlay a lo-fi home movie into (potential) pop stardom -- and she certainly won't be the last. The winners of the annual YouTube awards were announced in March (Tay Zonday, the "Chocolate Rain" guy, took the music category), but we've decided to give a nod to some of the website's most viewed up-and-coming artists (whose YouTube videos have helped them garner audiences and attention) with some YouTube-inspired awards of our own.

Sound Treks: Idols Around the World

By Rachel Devitt

He's got the whole world in his hands.

Sure, you love Kelly, Clay and Jordin. And Randy, Simon and Paula? They're like old, kind of annoying, possibly crazy friends by now. But what about Rini, Thaeme and Timi? The winners of Indonesian Idol,  Idolos Brasil and Idols West Africa might not be household names in the U.S., but they're well on their way to becoming big stars in their home regions, thanks to the many Idol spin-offs that have cropped up around the world since the franchise launched in the U.K. in 2001. We review the best, the brightest and the most YouTube-worthy moments of Idol's international incarnations.

Larry Carlton & Robben Ford: Dad-Rock Bonding

By Rachel Devitt

A few nights ago, I found myself somewhere I never thought I'd be: with my dad at a Larry Carlton and Robben Ford show. Enjoying myself. It's not that I don't appreciate a meticulous blues aesthetic, dexterous finger-styling or a serious rock 'n' roll pedigree, all of which both these legendary rock session guitarists turned bluesy solo artists have in spades. It's just that they play, well, dad rock -- and more specifically, the brand of rock preferred by my own pops: Jim Devitt, lifelong guitarist and consummate baby boomer.

Rough Guide to the Rough Guides

By Rachel Devitt

In 1994, the highly successful Rough Guide travel series struck up a partnership with Phil Stanton and Sandra Aláyon-Stanton, the husband-wife team who founded World Music Network, and began putting out the Rough Guide music collection, a dizzying, dazzling series of audio excursions through the musics of the world. Since then, World Music Network has gone on to release more than 150 Rough Guides. The Rough Guide music compilations embrace the same adventurous spirit and insider knowledge that have made their travel books so successful for the last twenty-odd years. You can be certain you're going to get an informed introduction to the music of a particular region or genre or artist, plus a few wild cards: albums dedicated to internationally beloved stars (like Cameroon's Manu Dibango and Bollywood's Asha Bhosle) and familiar genres (like salsa and calypso), as well as to themes (Brazilian hip-hop, Latin funk), and tunes that push at the paradigms of "World Music."

Sound Treks: This Week in World Music

By Rachel Devitt

 

Bienvenido! Mabuhay! Hos geldiniz! Welcome to the very first edition of Sound Treks, Rhapsody’s new globally minded weekly blog post. Your hosts for this little endeavor are Rhapsody’s World editors and biggest fans: Judy Cantor-Navas, Sarah Bardeen, et moi, Rachel Devitt. Every week, one of us will take you on a little aural vacation through the world of music, playing tour guide to Rhapsody’s cavernous global music holdings. If you think you don’t like world music, this is the blog post for you: Sound Treks is all about exploring the sites and sounds of the world of music, from the “world music” you think you know (including didjeridoos and drum circles) to Brazilian baile funk, Chinese indie rock, Balkan brass and Senegalese hip-hop -- and finding a bit of home even in the most distant “exotic” genre. That said, if you’re already a world music “traveler,” this is also the blog for you: Sound Treks is about expanding paradigms, not throwing them out with the bong water.