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.
I’ve never heard of a movie called, The Hip Hop Project, and never heard of the soundtrack either until one day I was browsing through iTunes and somehow came across this album, and I listened to the 30 second preview, and I immediately fell in love with this song. I don’t know where I can go to see this movie, but after reading the synopsis, it interested me. The movie is supposed to be about kids growing up in New York and using hip-hop as empowerment and self growth. This guy, Kazi, was apparently a former homeless teenager, but is now a youth mentor. It’s nice to hear non gangsta rap once in a while.
Kelly Clarkson’s last album was a huge hit. She tries to follow that success with this third album, which has quite a bit of dark feeling, including this lead off single. The rumor has it that she butted heads with the producers and Sony BMG head, Clive Davis regarding this album since it was not commercially well made. I’d like to take artists side for the most part, but after listening to this song, I am worried about her upcoming album.
Kevin Michael is half Italian and black. This was one of iTunes free single of the week, and I immediately liked the song. It has a cool soulful vibe, and catchy pop feel at the same time. So far he is only releasing an EP, but hopefully his full album is going to be just as good.
Thanks to MySpace and Sum 41’s lead singer, Deryck Whibley catching their page, they were able to sign to a record label. This song reminds me of one of Angels & Airwaves songs.
UPDATE 2008-Mar: Permanent Me decided to break up.
This song is from their fourth album, The Sufferer & The Witness. I have actually never heard of them until recently. They are the only hard rock/punk band where every single member of the band is a vegetarian. But this song rocks.
Shawn Lee is American, but he’s been around everywhere and when he moved to UK, he was signed. He also released a couple of albums solely in Japan. I’ve never heard of him, but this song was one of the free downloads at iTunes, and it grabbed my attention. It has a similar eerie feeling as Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy.”
This Aussie band started out by two highschool kids, singer/guitarist, Shimon Moore and bassist Emma Anzai (I can’t find any data, but she looks part Japanese from the photos). Moore, who used to give “Free Hugs”, made a video from his hugging experience, and when one of his friend’s grandma died, he sent the video as a sympathy card, using this song as the background music. And that video was posted on YouTube, and next thing you know, they had 10 million views. Needless to say, they were soon signed, and touring around the world.
A weird combination of former Rancid vocalist and former Canadian teen pop almost-star, Skye Sweetnam, where she sounds like Gwen Stefani from 10 years ago. Rancid is supposedly not broken up, but while on the break, Armstrong has been busy producing for other people, the biggest project being Pink’s failed album, Try This. A Poet’s Life is Armstrong’s first solo album, and the CD includes a DVD with a video for every single song. I’m not a huge Rancid fan or anything, but have always enjoyed their singles. I like this song as it’s catchy and fun.
This rapper/producer from Florida is famous for using vocoder on pretty much everything. On his last album, he had a hit with "I'm N Luv (Wit A Stripper)". His second album will be coming out early next month, and this is the first single from that album.
I remember when I first started going clubbing, the big hit then was, “Free” by Ultra Nate. Since then she popped up occasionally (such as on the movie 54), but has been pretty much obscure, like most dance divas from the 90s. I always thought of her as an European, but I guess she’s from Baltimore. This song brought Ultra Nate back on the chart and it scored #1 on the dance chart. I still prefer “Free” though.
This song sounds a lot like My Chemical Romance. Those two groups performed “Under Pressure” together in 2005, but since then they are no longer friends. I forget what happened, but I remember reading something on some magazine. Since this album sounds a lot like My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade, I thought maybe they were produced by a same person, but this album is produced by John Feldmann (lead singer of the band Goldfinger).
Yes! White Stripes are back and they sound stronger than ever. All I can say is awesome. How could they sound so good and cool with just a guitar and a drum. A lot of bands have twice the people, but don’t even sound half as good as the Stripes. Icky Thump is the first single and also the name of their sixth album. The White Stripes are from Detroit and have always recorded in Detroit, but they’ve moved to Nashville since then and this is the first album recorded in Nashville. There is a bit of Nasville influence on their new album.
I’ve never heard of a movie called, The Hip Hop Project, and never heard of the soundtrack either until one day I was browsing through iTunes and somehow came across this album, and I listened to the 30 second preview, and I immediately fell in love with this song. I don’t know where I can go to see this movie, but after reading the synopsis, it interested me. The movie is supposed to be about kids growing up in New York and using hip-hop as empowerment and self growth. This guy, Kazi, was apparently a former homeless teenager, but is now a youth mentor. It’s nice to hear non gangsta rap once in a while.
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