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.
A Fine Frenzy is a one woman band by Alison Sudol who was born in Seattle, but grew up most of her life in LA. Since she sings slow piano ballads a lot, she is often compared to Sara Bareilles who is also breaking through this year. This is a good solid slow song.
I’ve never heard of them before until now, but this is their fourth album, but this is their first major studio release. Apparently they were fairly big in the underground punk scene, and many of those hardcore fans now consider them to be sellouts. This album was produced by big time producer Butch Vigg (drummer of Garbage), and this particular track reminds me of Garbage’s B-side track, “Trip My Wire.”
Compared to their usual songs, this is a mellowed down track. They are one of the headliners at this year’s Summersonic (also on the bill are Black Eyed Peas, Avril, Gwen, Offspring, etc). Last hear when their debut album, “Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not” came out, it was the fastest selling debut album for a group (in UK beating Oasis’ record). Their second album, sold nearly as much, at least in the UK.
They are a popular Seattle hip-hop duo (1 DJ, 1 MC) with multi-racial background. DJ Sabzi is an Iranian American, and MC Geologic is of Filipino descent. Together they’ve received a lot of critical acclaims from locals since 2002. This past year they signed onto legendary Rawkus Records, which some fans thought they might be selling out, but on this particular track they still show that they care about the locals. They are one of the few hip-hop acts that sounds so much better live than on the record.
This song sounded like Justin Timberlake’s “My Love” and sure enough, they were both produced by Timbaland. Maybe that’s why this song caught my attention, as I am normally not a huge fan of R&B songs. This is Valentino’s second single from his second album, “Special Occasion.” He is signed to Ludacris’ Disturbing Tha Peace label.
In Japan Bon Jovi is now bigger than The Beatles. Seriously. This 10th album scored Bon Jovi their fourth #1 album debut in Japan, beating The Beatle’s record of three. That explains why Bon Jovi going to Japan once or sometimes even twice a year to play there. This album has quite a bit of country music influence to it. For this particular track, they apparently made two versions; one pop and the other country version. Jon Bon Jovi was on American Idol recently coaching the contestants and he performed this song live, which of course, boosted sales of this song.
This Jennifer Aniston look-alike singer from California got picked up from being so popular on Myspace. But she also had some connection as her father was the producer for Fleetwood Mac. It’s a nice chill out song with just an acoustic guitar. This song was actually free single on iTunes this month.
This British rock band is made up by three brothers, Gary, Ryan and Ross Jarman. This is their third album, which was produced by Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand (the sound is quite similar). In this music video, a naked girl runs around while they play this song.
Finally! I’ve been waiting for this release for a long time. As a huge Garbage fan, I own every single track on this track, except for this track. The deluxe version of this album had another disc filled with remixes (which I also own from owning all of their singles). But I still bought the whole album instead of just buying the single. Although this song is not doing well at all on any charts or radios, I think it’s a brilliant song that reminds me of The Pretenders. The rumor has it that Shirley Manson is working on her solo album.
This girl is from the Dominican Republic, and this track reminds me of the first song Rihanna came out with, “Pon De Replay.” They both have Caribbean beat and features a rap. Actually when I compare both album covers, they look quite similar (I’m talking about the design, not their faces). Something tells me she is going to end up as one hit wonder. But then again, that’s what I thought about Rihanna two years ago.
The Spider-Man 3 Soundtrack was released a couple of months ago, and the radio stations and MTVs have been playing Snow Patrol’s, “Signal Fire” a lot. Personally I wasn’t such a huge fan of that song or the movie, so I dismissed the soundtrack all together. But I got a free copy from work, and I actually really like the soundtrack. I had a hard time selecting just one track from the album as Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Jet, Rogue Wave, The Walkmen all do a superb job (not sure what Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” is in there with all the alternative rock bands, but I guess I need to watch the movie to find out).
This is apparently their fourth album. What happened to their second and third? I only remember their debut album which had the monster hit, “Hanging By A Moment.” This song isn’t really my cup of tea, but I guess this song is fairly popular on the radio.
The second single from their third album, Minutes to Midnight. Like I said a couple of months ago when I reviewed their first single from this album, there aren’t that many songs that sounds like good old days Linkin Park. Luckily this is one of the good ones. I would assume that they would try to release a couple more singles after this, but I’d be interested to see how those songs will do on the charts.
Lloyd has been friends with Ciara since they were kids, and they’ve both appeared on each other’s music videos. His first single from this album, “You” was a decent hit, and he tries to repeat that success with this second single with a help from Yung Joc.
This mandolin infused song is quite catchy. The video for the song features Natalie Portman in it. This is the first album release after Paul McCartney signed with Starbucks’ label (which also has Joni Mitchell, Sia and James Taylor signed).
“Oooooh, what you do to me….” This simple acoustic song was actually recorded a couple of years ago, but when released as a single this year, it became a huge unexpected success. So now they decided to re-release their fourth album, Every Second Counts with this song and a couple more as a Deluxe Edition.
This guy is another Myspace discovery. When you have JR Rotem producing, and you sample “Stand By Me” and you have interest voice as you are from Kingston, Jamaica, it’s probably hard to not have a #1 hit. I thought it was funny that when I saw the video on MTV, they completely cut out the word, “suicidal”.
Their guitarist Dave Baksh left the band, and this is their first album since his departure (5th album overall for Sum 41). The lead singer, Deryck Whibley wed fellow Canadian singer, Avril Lavigne last year. This song has similar feeling to their first hit, “Fat Lip” from 2001.
From their highly anticipated fifth studio album, The Con. I’m not sure if this is their first single, but it’s being used a lot for promos. Compared to their last album which focused more on their simple two acoustic guitars, this album has a lot more different sound to it. The producer Chris Walla’s (guitarist of Death Cab for Cutie) involvement might have to do with something.
Slash, Scott Weiland and co are back with second album. Their lead off single is still a rocking one, proving that they are planning on sticking around for a while. The rumor has it that Weiland, who’s famous for going to the rehab multiple times, wrote all of the songs while sober for this entire album.
A Fine Frenzy is a one woman band by Alison Sudol who was born in Seattle, but grew up most of her life in LA. Since she sings slow piano ballads a lot, she is often compared to Sara Bareilles who is also breaking through this year. This is a good solid slow song.
I’ve never heard of them before until now, but this is their fourth album, but this is their first major studio release. Apparently they were fairly big in the underground punk scene, and many of those hardcore fans now consider them to be sellouts. This album was produced by big time producer Butch Vigg (drummer of Garbage), and this particular track reminds me of Garbage’s B-side track, “Trip My Wire.”
Compared to their usual songs, this is a mellowed down track. They are one of the headliners at this year’s Summersonic (also on the bill are Black Eyed Peas, Avril, Gwen, Offspring, etc). Last hear when their debut album, “Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not” came out, it was the fastest selling debut album for a group (in UK beating Oasis’ record). Their second album, sold nearly as much, at least in the UK.
They are a popular Seattle hip-hop duo (1 DJ, 1 MC) with multi-racial background. DJ Sabzi is an Iranian American, and MC Geologic is of Filipino descent. Together they’ve received a lot of critical acclaims from locals since 2002. This past year they signed onto legendary Rawkus Records, which some fans thought they might be selling out, but on this particular track they still show that they care about the locals. They are one of the few hip-hop acts that sounds so much better live than on the record.
This song sounded like Justin Timberlake’s “My Love” and sure enough, they were both produced by Timbaland. Maybe that’s why this song caught my attention, as I am normally not a huge fan of R&B songs. This is Valentino’s second single from his second album, “Special Occasion.” He is signed to Ludacris’ Disturbing Tha Peace label.
In Japan Bon Jovi is now bigger than The Beatles. Seriously. This 10th album scored Bon Jovi their fourth #1 album debut in Japan, beating The Beatle’s record of three. That explains why Bon Jovi going to Japan once or sometimes even twice a year to play there. This album has quite a bit of country music influence to it. For this particular track, they apparently made two versions; one pop and the other country version. Jon Bon Jovi was on American Idol recently coaching the contestants and he performed this song live, which of course, boosted sales of this song.
This Jennifer Aniston look-alike singer from California got picked up from being so popular on Myspace. But she also had some connection as her father was the producer for Fleetwood Mac. It’s a nice chill out song with just an acoustic guitar. This song was actually free single on iTunes this month.
This British rock band is made up by three brothers, Gary, Ryan and Ross Jarman. This is their third album, which was produced by Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand (the sound is quite similar). In this music video, a naked girl runs around while they play this song.
Finally! I’ve been waiting for this release for a long time. As a huge Garbage fan, I own every single track on this track, except for this track. The deluxe version of this album had another disc filled with remixes (which I also own from owning all of their singles). But I still bought the whole album instead of just buying the single. Although this song is not doing well at all on any charts or radios, I think it’s a brilliant song that reminds me of The Pretenders. The rumor has it that Shirley Manson is working on her solo album.
This girl is from the Dominican Republic, and this track reminds me of the first song Rihanna came out with, “Pon De Replay.” They both have Caribbean beat and features a rap. Actually when I compare both album covers, they look quite similar (I’m talking about the design, not their faces). Something tells me she is going to end up as one hit wonder. But then again, that’s what I thought about Rihanna two years ago.
The Spider-Man 3 Soundtrack was released a couple of months ago, and the radio stations and MTVs have been playing Snow Patrol’s, “Signal Fire” a lot. Personally I wasn’t such a huge fan of that song or the movie, so I dismissed the soundtrack all together. But I got a free copy from work, and I actually really like the soundtrack. I had a hard time selecting just one track from the album as Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Jet, Rogue Wave, The Walkmen all do a superb job (not sure what Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” is in there with all the alternative rock bands, but I guess I need to watch the movie to find out).
This is apparently their fourth album. What happened to their second and third? I only remember their debut album which had the monster hit, “Hanging By A Moment.” This song isn’t really my cup of tea, but I guess this song is fairly popular on the radio.
The second single from their third album, Minutes to Midnight. Like I said a couple of months ago when I reviewed their first single from this album, there aren’t that many songs that sounds like good old days Linkin Park. Luckily this is one of the good ones. I would assume that they would try to release a couple more singles after this, but I’d be interested to see how those songs will do on the charts.
Lloyd has been friends with Ciara since they were kids, and they’ve both appeared on each other’s music videos. His first single from this album, “You” was a decent hit, and he tries to repeat that success with this second single with a help from Yung Joc.
This mandolin infused song is quite catchy. The video for the song features Natalie Portman in it. This is the first album release after Paul McCartney signed with Starbucks’ label (which also has Joni Mitchell, Sia and James Taylor signed).
“Oooooh, what you do to me….” This simple acoustic song was actually recorded a couple of years ago, but when released as a single this year, it became a huge unexpected success. So now they decided to re-release their fourth album, Every Second Counts with this song and a couple more as a Deluxe Edition.
This guy is another Myspace discovery. When you have JR Rotem producing, and you sample “Stand By Me” and you have interest voice as you are from Kingston, Jamaica, it’s probably hard to not have a #1 hit. I thought it was funny that when I saw the video on MTV, they completely cut out the word, “suicidal”.
Their guitarist Dave Baksh left the band, and this is their first album since his departure (5th album overall for Sum 41). The lead singer, Deryck Whibley wed fellow Canadian singer, Avril Lavigne last year. This song has similar feeling to their first hit, “Fat Lip” from 2001.
From their highly anticipated fifth studio album, The Con. I’m not sure if this is their first single, but it’s being used a lot for promos. Compared to their last album which focused more on their simple two acoustic guitars, this album has a lot more different sound to it. The producer Chris Walla’s (guitarist of Death Cab for Cutie) involvement might have to do with something.
Slash, Scott Weiland and co are back with second album. Their lead off single is still a rocking one, proving that they are planning on sticking around for a while. The rumor has it that Weiland, who’s famous for going to the rehab multiple times, wrote all of the songs while sober for this entire album.
Embodying the rags-to-riches rap dream, Jay-Z pulled himself up by his bootstraps as a... >Read more
