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.
Welsh singer, Duffy had a huge success with her debut album, Rockferry, which contained hit singles such as “
Mercy” and “
Warwick Avenue”. She had the Amy Winehouse style of throwback voice, and all of us expected more of that for her sophomore album, but she decided to go for more upbeat sound. Duffy still maintains her unique soulful voice, but this lead off single may turn off some initial fans.
Fran Healy may not be a common name in the US, but he is the lead singer for the British band, Travis who are huge in Europe. Wreckorder is his first solo effort, and for this track, he gets help from Neko Case.
Exactly one year ago this month, Shakira released the album, She Wolf, which failed to generate much hits, except for the titled track. The new single from her seventh album, Sale El Sol (meaning The Sun Comes Out), features the track, Loca, which has UK rapper Dizzee Rascal as a guest. The track is a moderate success in the US, but became #1 in numerous European countries.
Scottish singer/songwriter KT Tunstall’s first two studio albums have both charted top 3 in UK, but this one peaked at #5. Although I consider myself to be a moderate fan of KT (I’ve been to her concert), I didn’t particularly like her first two singles. When I was checking iTunes, for some reason, this was the most downloaded song from her latest album, even though it’s not listed as a single. I did enjoy this track though.
Ever since they performed at MTV Video Music Award, this song has been getting a lot of airplays, and it was on top 10 of iTunes download list. For those of you who caught on to the fever, they have been a popular act in their native country of UK for a couple of years now, including the single, “
You’ve Got the Love.”
Mark Ronson, who is famous for bringing the soul back, for producing for Amy Winehouse and his own hit album, decided to ditch horns for 80s keyboard sound. Since I enjoyed the throwback soul sound, I was disappointed to hear that, but as a talented producer, he had to move on. Not sure how successful his new album will be, as it’s not as catchy as his previous one. Perhaps for his third album, he may go back to the soul sound once again.
UK electronic musicians Underworld released their 8th album, Barking. Although the album failed to break Billboard top 100 album, they have been warmly welcomed in other countries, including Japan which boosted this single to #1. On the latest album, there is a collaboration track with Paul Van Dyk titled, Diamond Jigsaw.
Sting has toured with his old bandmates, The Police, and it seems like there is not much more to do for him, but he has decided to team up with orchestra symphony to put a little spin on his favorites and rarities. This symphonic remix of “Englishman In New York” has turned into a top 10 hit in Japan.
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For being white and having a little nasally voice, he is often compared to Eminem. But Professor Green is British, and he doesn’t have the lyrical power that Eminem possess (at least not yet). Still, this collaboration with popstar Lily Allen is a fun sounding track.
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Jeff Beck is a legendary guitarist from The Yardbirds. Since then he has worked on multiple projects, including working with Rod Stewart on the single, “People Get Ready” which was a big hit in 1985. Many of his tracks are instrumental only, but on his latest album, he has recruited a few of famous vocalists, including Joss Stone, who sings this cover of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins classic (also made famous by Nina Simone.
When Ozzy’s wife Sharon was promoting this album, she specifically targeted sports audience. How much more appropriate could this song get for a sporting event? Bottom of the 9th inning, and you can hear the stadium ringing, “Let me hear you screaaaam!!”. It paid off as this song has been sitting in the rock chart for several weeks now.
American indie band, We Are Scientists have been around since the early 2000s, but they have always been more popular in UK than in their native country. “Rules Don’t Stop Me” is the lead single from their fifth album, and it is currently available for free mp3 download from Amazon MP3
It’s been three years since her last album, X (which was her 10th album), and her 11th album, All The Lovers, debuted at number one in UK. The album was actually released during the same week as her debut album, Kylie, was released 22 years ago. That makes Kylie Minogue 42 years old. That also makes Minogue the only female artist to have a number one album in four consecutive decades (80s, 90s, 00s and 10s).
After having a mega-hit with
“Paper Planes” two years ago, she has been busy. She has given birth to her baby, worked on a song for Christina Aguilera’s new album, and recorded her third album, titled MAYA. Her multi-cultural background (growing up in Sri Lanka, India, England) shows in her music. The single, “Xxxo” is slightly more mainstream sounding than her past songs (she admits to it as well), but it stays in my head.
Following his successful single,
“Break Your Heart” featuring Ludacris, UK newcomer, Taio Cruz is back on US top 10 with “Dynamite.” I’m not quite sure why this song is a hit yet, but maybe I just need to listen to it some more. I’m not quite sure why the song, “Dirty Picture” featuring Ke$ha wasn’t selected as the second single in the US (it was in big hit in UK), but I would guess that should be coming out in near future. Although, Rokstarr is Taio’s debut album in the US, he has already released an album in UK titled, Departure, back in 2008.
UK electronic music master, The Chemical Brothers are back with a new album, Further. It’s been three years since their last release. Further is the first album by the Chemical Brothers that doesn’t have any vocal collaboration with anyone.
Twilight series’ final chapter will be in theater soon. I’ve never watched or read any of the series, but am usually impressed with the collections of songs on their soundtrack. Paramore had the lead-off single on the first soundtrack, and Death Cab got the lead on the second series. For the third one, British rock band, Muse takes the lead. I think they were the only band that appeared on all three soundtracks.
UK heavy metal band, Bullet For My valentine has been slowly winning hard-core fans around the globe in the past five years. Their third album, Fever, was released last month, and the single, “The Last Fight” has reached #2 on the rock chart in the US, and the Japanese chart.
UK piano rock group, Keane hasn’t had a huge US success since 2004 when “Somewhere Only We Know” and “Everybody’s Changing” were huge hits. This month, they released an EP titled Night Train, including this single, “Stop For a Minute” featuring Somali-Canadian rapper, K’naan (his song “
Wavin’ Flag” is the official FIFA Worldcup 2010 song).
Codeine Velvet Club is a side project of Jon Lawler (of The Fratellis, known as Jon Fratelli). Jon has recruited Lou Hickey to join in, and they released their first album at end of 2009 in UK. Even though I’m a fan of The Fratellis, I didn’t know about this band, until I got an email from The Fratellis official mailing list just a couple of weeks ago, where I got to download this song for free. It’s a decent song, but lacks the fun factor that The Fratellis is so good at creating.
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