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 wasn’t even aware that Ashanti had released another album. Actually this one, and the previous one, Concrete Rose, passed by me without much grabbing my attention. This particular track features Akon singing the hook and Nelly contributing a verse, but even then it seems to lack something, considering that her first two albums were really good. Maybe Ashanti is too focused on her acting career more than music nowadays.
Carolina Liar has an interesting background. The lead singer, Chad Wolf is from South Carolina, and after he moved to LA, he did an internship with Diane Warren, and through some luck, he met super Swedish producer Max Martin (Britney, Nsync, Kelly Clarkson). Martin liked Chad Wolf, so he gave Wolf studio time, and bunch of Swedish musicians to be in the band, and thus the band, Carolina Liar was formed. But it’s not the interesting story that sells the band, it’s the music, and they do just that by creating UK rock style of synth-rock with good songwriting. This song in particular sounds like when U2 does an upbeat song.
Ice Cube is back with a brand new record. He’s one of my favorite rappers of all time, and though he’s been busy directing and acting in Hollywood, Ice Cube still finds time to record albums here and there and go on concerts. His latest album, set to be released in mid August is supposed to be a lot more political. “Do Ya Thang” is the second single off of the 9th solo album.
If you are a regular clubber, hearing this song should get you pumped up for the weekend. Listening to this song can get you to imagine the green laser light bouncing around you. Big props to Pharrell who produced the track. On the interview, he talked about how difficult it was to come up with “dance” sounding song, as that wasn’t particularly his specialty. Pharrell commented that it was like going to school, producing for Madonna, as he had to learn a lot of new things to please her.
With a ridiculous cover and title, I was going to dismiss this album, but I gave it a try. First of all, the title of the album is very misleading. Most of the bands doing the cover here aren’t really punk, and they are not covering crunk. Arrested Development’s “Tennessee” or Will Smith’s “Men In Black” are far from crunk. With that said, there were a couple of decent covers on the album, this being one of them. It starts out like it could be a Christmas song, and turns into a cheery pop rock song. Another one worth checking out from the album is All Time Low’s version of “Umbrella”.
This song was available for free download from Amazon. I was hooked on it within the first 30 seconds of the song. O.A.R. stands for Of A Revolution. I’ve heard of the name a couple of times, but I never paid attention to their music. This song in particular should please the fan of Snow Patrol and OneRepublic.
A lot of artists nowadays are doing the deluxe edition re-issues, and Rihanna is joining the bandwagon. The limited edition comes with a DVD featuring behind the scenes footage, as well as three new songs. One of which is “Take A Bow” which has been popular all around the world (though I’m not a huge fan). Another new track, Disturbia is the next single, which is more of a club oriented track. The music video is kind of disturbing as Rihanna portrays psychotic vampire of some kind.
Shwayze talks about himself as the only black kid in the Malibu community he grew up in. Shwayze, along with his producer/friend Cisco Adler (no, not Sisqo who sung “Thong Song”) have their own show on MTV. This song has been getting a lot of buzz even before the first episode had aired, showcasing that MTV still has fairly strong marketing power. It’s a decent summer time, old-school flavored hip-hop tune.
Colorado band, Flobot’s “
Handlebars” is getting a lot of airplays this summer. Add Tickle Me Pink to another breakthrough artist from Colorado. Their debut album, Madeline was released on July 1st. Just as they were preparing to celebrate their first ever album release, the bassist Johnny Schou was found dead at his home. The cause of death is still not released, but the other band members insist that drugs and alcohol were not involved. It’s a sad story, but they are moving on with national tour in memory of the bass player. The band’s sound reminds me of Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.
Reminiscent of some of their older rocking sounds, like “The Good Life” from Pinkerton, Weezer shows their fun side again. Their first single off of the Red Album, “
Pork And Beans” spent 11 weeks at #1 spot on Billboard Modern Rock chart. Personally I like “Troublemaker” more than “
Pork And Beans” but we’ll see if Weezer can repeat the similar success with this song.
Beck decided to team up with producer Danger Mouse (member of Gnarls Barkley) for his 8th album. The whole album has Gnarls Barkley feel to it, except all the songs are sung by Beck (and a couple songs assisted by lovely Cat Power). Overall, the combination of Beck and Danger Mouse work really well.
Recently on an interview Craig has mentioned how he has to be really modest and beg US radio station DJs to play his songs. He became somewhat popular in the US several years ago with the song, “7 Days” but hasn’t repeated the similar success since then. In the UK, he’s still one of the most popular R&B stars. He’s hoping that this single, which samples David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” could bring him more exposure in the US again.
Embodying the rags-to-riches rap dream, Jay-Z pulled himself up by his bootstraps as a... 