About This Site
Each month I select 20 songs (10 songs twice a month) that I am either hooked on or am curious about. Most of the music I select are rock, hip-hop, R&B and pop songs.
My song selection comes from 20-30 CDs I get from various sources each month, as well as recommendations from iTunes and Amazon. I also check out the charts in US, UK and Japan.
Although Rihanna has never had a #1 album yet, her singles do quite well. From her latest album, Rated R, “Rude Boy” is the most successful as it is currently sitting at #4 in US, and #2 in UK. The music video for the song looks a lot like M.I.A.’s “Boyz” with crazy colors and 80s video game look.
Actor Jeff Bridges, who is probably most well known for portraying “The Dude” in The Big Lebowski, recently won his first Best Actor Oscar Award. He received it for portraying Bad Blake, a fictional country singer songwriter. He actually does all of the singing in the movie, and he sounds pretty good. But of all the songs on the soundtrack, Ryan Bingham’s “The Weary Kind” which stands as the theme song for the movie, is the most sincere song. This track also took the Best Song Oscar award.
So far Timbaland’s second Shock Value hasn’t done as well as the first, which had monster hits like “Give It To Me”, “The Way I Are” and “Apologize” all of which have hit top 3 on the Billboard single chart. None of the singles from Shock Value II have hit top 10, but “If We Ever Meet Again” featuring Katy Perry has hit top 3 in UK. The chorus of this track reminds me a bit of euro pop group like Aqua.
Brooklyn, New York band, Yeasayer, toured with fellow Brooklyn band MGMT, and recently released a second album, “Odd Blood”. I had never heard of them until Amazon serviced “Ambling Alp” as one of the free mp3 download. It reminds me of 80s pop, like The Wham.
Two years ago, AT&T did the similar thing for the Beijing Olympic by enlisting big name artists to raise money for the US Olympic team. 3 Doors Down was part of that program and released, “The Champion in Me” back then. This year, for the
Vancouver Olympic charity compilation, 3 Doors Down releases “Shine.” I purchased this song for the cause, but I thought the song was leaning on the cheesy side. I didn’t watch much of the Olympics but from what I hear, it was supposedly exciting.
I had never heard of this punk trio band from Illinois, but they have been around since 1996. The current lineup consists of Matt Skiba (vocal/guitar), Dan Andriano (vocal/bass) and Derek Grant (drums). Their latest album, This Addiction (same name as the lead off single) is their seventh release. They sound like other punk rock bands such as Bad Religion, MxPx and Rise Against.
Album: Love
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Angels & Airwaves is lead by Blink-182’s Tom DeLonge, and they are trying to pull off what Radiohead did with In Rainbows, where fans can download the entire album for free, but they can also make a monetary donation. DeLonge hopes to make up the money from corporate sponsorship and tours. The album is actually quite good, so I suggest that people download it from their
official website. The album, Love, was released on Valentines Day, and within 48 hours, there were already 300,000 download.
When I heard this song on the radio, I thought it was another one of Jack White’s new project. But once I listened to the vocal closely, it wasn’t Jack White. The band turned out to be Crash Kings from LA, who had signed to new label of Linda Perry (formerly of Four Non-Blondes, but recently more famous for producing for Pink or Christina Aguilera).
I assume this DJ name is pronounced, “Dead mouse.” Deadmau5 is a popular house/techno DJ from Toronto, Canada. This track, “Ghosts N Stuff” have been around for some time, but the album was released just a couple of months ago. The beat is great. Being a Canadian, he performed during the winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Animated virtual band, lead by Blur’s Damon Albarn is back with their third album, Plastic Beach. Albarn mentioned that it is going to be the most “pop” album he has ever worked on. Once again there are a lot of guests on the album, including Snoop Dogg, Lou Reed, Mick Jones, De La Soul and more. For this track, Bobby Womack and Mos Def lend a hand. I haven’t heard any other songs on the album yet, as the album will be released in early March, but I didn’t particularly think that this song was as catchy as their previous singles.
What’s great about Ludacris is that he always brings fun into hip-hop, showcasing that you don’t have to be gangsta to enjoy hip-hop. The album, “Battle of the Sexes” was initially supposed to be collaboration album between Ludacris and female MC, Shawnna, but that was later changed. This single, produced by T-Minus, has climbed to #6 on Billboard single chart.
Nneka’s father is Nigerian and mother is German. She grew up most of her life in Nigeria until she was 18, and since then divides her time between Germany and Nigeria. She reminds me a lot of Neneh Cherry. Her song is poetic and her music is unique. With Lauryn Hill out of picture (though there are a lot more rumor of her comeback), Nneka could make a good dent in the US for her rap/R&B style of music.
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