Would You...?, Touch & Go
One More Night, Phil COllins
The Lazarus Heart, Sting
Butterfly Caught, Massive Attack
Never Let Me Down Again (live), Depeche Mode
Mr. Malcontent, Lloyd Cole and The Commotions
Crack Music, Kanye West (feat. The Game)
Not Ready To Make Nice, Dixie Chicks
I'm Not The Man I Used to Be, Fine Young Cannibals
Robot, The Futureheads
Vapor Trail, The Crystal Method
Firestarter (instrumental), Prodigy
Once In A Lifetime, Texas
Breathe (2 AM), Anna Nalick
Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First), John Mellencamp
Spy in The House of Love, Was (Not Was)
King of Snake, Underworld
New Jack Theme, Living Colour
Giant Steps, John Coltrane
New, No Doubt
Right To Be Wrong, Joss Stone
Tic-Tac-Toe, Kyper
Open Your Heart, Madonna
Penny Lover, Lionel Richie
Club Foot, Kasabian
Cold Hard Bitch, Jet
While We're In Love, Ivy
Deep and Wide and Tall, Aztec Camera
African and White (live), China Crisis
Love You Down, INOJ
this is better than putting your iPod on shuffle. also, not to dis other 'Podders, but having a huge amount of space allows me to put in a lot more, thus making for varied musical fare anytime.
new
A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, Panic! at the Disco
with such song titles like The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide Is Press Coverage and Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off, it takes a few replays to get into this alternative pop gang. but with I Write Sins, Not Tragedies getting positive coverage and MTV video nominations, they are if nothing else, an interesting listen.
Highway Companion, Tom Petty
highway companion, indeed. just when i was ready to hop on the hog and go driving, Petty cranks down the tempo on some of these road trip babies. oh well, maybe he wasn't being literal. life itself, is a highway, after all.
A Girl Like Me, Rihanna
despite a tendency to dismiss the next product of the R&B teen sensation factory, you can't help but notice a select few like Rihanna. with other influences like soca, dancehall and reggae, this Barbadan enthralls as good as any ear candy. easy favorites are Pon De Replay, S.O.S and Unfaithful.
Broken Boy Soldiers, The Raconteurs
never got Jack Black,.. i mean, Jack White or the White Stripes, despite his current status as a hip rock star. i think i own an album or two but never got around to listening to it. as the Raconteurs, White gathered a few friends and issued a collection of 60's-tinged psychedelic pop songs that ostensibly comes from a 'supergroup' though White is the only bona fide star in it. still takes more than a couple of spins to get it down though. maybe i need some weed.
In My Mind, Pharell
after engineering a lot of hits for R&B and pop superstars as an über-producer, the esteemed Mr. Williams finally comes out with his own album. truth be told, i like it better when he delves more into smooth "Frontin'"-territory ("Young Girl/I Really Like You", "Take It Off", "Stay With Me") rather than the pure hip hop/rap stuff.
Loose, Nelly Furtado
she's like a bird and she's free. sporting a new look, attitude and sound (courtesy of hip hop producer Timbaland), this isn't the folky-pop Nelly of 5 years ago. and with the way "Promiscuous" is burning everyone up right now, that should still be good news for her.
Under The Iron Sea, Keane
if you have already overdosed on Coldplay, this band is not for you. especially since they love the piano and don't have guitars in any of their recordings and repertoire. going past their controversial one-upmanship incidents with other bands and musicians (Oasis, James Blunt, the Darkness), Keane's slow numbers can become tedious and if they ask me, they should go more along the vein of "Is It Any Wonder". but what the heck do i know? i'm just not into dark and heavy stuff. at least not Keane's.
Why Try Harder? Greatest Hits, FatBoy Slim
the cover itself should already convince you to get this album. or ask someone to give it to you. like me. and if you don't know who the hell FatBoy Slim is, run for your life because i'm gonna hunt you down like the dog you are.
Stranger Things, Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians
even mellow rockers mellow, as i can see Edie reuniting with the Bohemians and make music that would be relevant to them, after the years have gone by. i always have their debut album as my frame of reference and their high watermark, so i wouldn't peg this reunion as something that would make me forget Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars. there's still enough playful campfire music ("Long Lost Friend", "Stranger Things", "No Dinero") to go around and enjoy Edie's warblings.
DP, Daniel Powter
at first, i thought i was gonna be hearing some kind of emo crap. no fear, its just another Canadian singer/songwriter trying to get you to listen to his stories. to his credit, Powter isn't boring ... he just needs to work on his falsetto. gems include "Bad Day" and "Song 6", adding himself to the list of interesting purveyors of adult pop.
Corinne Bailey Rae, Corinne Bailey Rae
magical, magical, magical. "Like A Star" is already more than worth the price of admission. 'nuff said.
Infected, The The
a great find during Virgin Megastore's current 80s sale (yes, Virginia, i still buy CDs). for $9 i found the best The The album i ever owned. obviously the tape's been played to shreds back home, and re-releasing it in CD and getting it at a lower cost to boot - no second thoughts. singer/songwriter Matt Johnson's political and emotional ramblings wrapped in danceable art-rock slap you hard until you can't ignore him. me, i learned that lesson back in 1989.
Baby, The Stars Shine Bright, Everything But The Girl
finally - my long-lost EBTG album has returned to me. the other great find in the aforementioned Virgin Mega sale, listening to Ben and Tracey's take on orchestral pop music again brough back memories of late high school/early college life. my tape wasn't even of the higher-quality BASF kind, which means after some months or so, hiss creeps in the sound. despite the CD going the way of the dodo soon, i'm still grateful i still found a CD copy of this. and if you aren't familiar what songs are in this album, i have 3 words for you - "Cross My Heart".
which brings us now to the pop diva face off.
Gwen Stefani's off raising a baby, Madonna has been swallowed by Kabbalah, and Britney continues her makeover as white trash mom. who wants to rule the scene? well, we have a couple of contenders here: the emerging Pink and the comebacking Xtina.
Aguilera still has the pipes despite the long layoff. her comeback album, as the title suggests, is chockful of nods and tributes to musical styles of the past (won't be hard to imagine her diva-ing it up in a smoky jazz lounge, or in a Broadway cabaret line). this is okay, except she went a bit overboard with the volume of material - its as if she's apologizing for taking off to get married and all, and serves us up a double disc. that's stretching it for me, as much as i appreciate her superior voice over most of her peers.
and then we have Pink, who had this album out for more than a couple of months now. like Xtina, Pink wants to remind everybody that she'll still around, and she's left her teen pop peers behind as well. i'm more partial to her at this point, showing off several shades of her pop singer craftsmansip and her opinions on issues of the day - she even writes (with the Indigo Girls, for good measure) a personal letter to Bush. but i like her better when she rocks out like in "Stupid Girls", "Who Knew", the title track and her Peaches impersonation "U + Ur Hand". with this album, Pink demostrates her capability for versatality and longevity that very few even grasp.
Verdict: Pink wins by a couple of highlighted hairs.
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