I think one of the hardest kinds of music to make is hip hop. In the mainstream, you’ve got mostly mediocre rappers with high-class producers who invest it all in a hook for a club banger or radio single. Sure, Dre can hook up with guys like Game and Em who really can rap, and [...]

“The music industry isn’t producing any pop worth listening to.” How often do you hear that? People long for yesteryear. Hell, they long for yesterDAY, when you could at least find Sarah McLachlan and Tori Amos on the charts—women with rich, strong voices who neither warbled nor allowed rap-breaks in the middle of their songs. [...]

Preliminarily, I don’t suppose I could convince some of you to go take this survey and write us in as your favorite blog? 1. I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man (Prince cover)-My Morning Jacket This is Prince with his High School Basketball team. Can you figure out which one is him? (Answer [...]

I hate to call any of these “the best” because there are other great ones out there. These just made the deepest impressions on me. In no particular order. 1. ALBERT HAMMOND, JR.-Yours to Keep. I’m gonna commit a blogger sin and admit that I’m not a fan of The Strokes. I like some of [...]

Okay, so I’ve already posted on the cool “warm and scratchy mix” Cartoon Network is offering here. Now, we’re giving a way a cool grab bag to a lucky reader. I’ve got a list of all the (many) items in it: 1. Warm & Scratchy on CD. 2. An ATHF koozie. 3. An adult swim [...]

1. The Hood Internet offers Spoon vs. Ghostface. Not sure how well this works, but mad points for the concept. 2. Copy, Right? has the Kaiser Chiefs covering “What Time is Love?” (KLF) and Len (remember them? “Steal My Sunshine”?) covering New Edition! It can’t get syrupier than that. If syrupier is a word, of [...]

Cake have been around for over a decade, and they’ve been popular at many of the blogs I frequent, perhaps because their bouncy, light-funk swing has always been just to the left of mainstream and sounds independent, even if Cake was on a major label. That’s right. WAS. Cake as you know it, has changed. [...]

You’ve probably figured out by now that I’m going to save my “Best Albums” list until last. I’m like Casey Kasem that way. But this week, I’ll post my runner ups! 1. !!!: Myth Takes. Hitting my ears at about the same time the first LCD Soundsystem and Rapture albums came out, along with tons [...]

THE 5 BEST COVERS, REMIXES, AND RESISSUES OF ’07 . . . SO FAR 1. You Know That I’m No Good-Arctic Monkeys. If they were gonna do Amy Winehouse, I think they should have covered, “Rehab.” But whatever. This is hot. A rare cover that is as good and vibrant and original as the original. [...]

Yesterday, I hastily threw up Ben Gibbard covering Billy Bragg. Only I didn’t. That’ll teach me to post on the fly. Turns out the show I received was badly tagged. They didn’t do Bragg, but they did do a new song. A really good new song. That sounds nothing like Billy Bragg. Sorry. To make [...]