Top Ten Tuesday: Kanye West & Lil Pump featuring Adele Givens "I Love It"

This song debuts at #6. And...well, it's short and to the point. It's certainly not my favorite song I've ever heard. Not by a long shot. I do like Kanye's face in the video when the lady turns around and it looks like he just got caught.

Special Countdown: 12 Years of Last.fm (Part 4) (#20-11)

Counting Crows ca 1994

I'm back with another installment of the countdown of the Top 50 artists that I listened to from 2/14/06-2/14/18. This episode is the much-anticipated Bottom 10 of the Top 20.


12 Years of Last.fm (Part 4)

***Featuring***
Ben Folds
Cartel
Counting Crows
Fall Out Boy
Green Day
Kanye West
Less Than Jake
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
R.E.M.
Radiohead
Red Hot Chili Peppers

Top Ten Tuesday: Rihanna & Kanye West & Paul McCartney "FourFiveSeconds"

This is a fantastic song. Anyone who balks at this because they feel Paul is somehow lowering himself to a  lower level of performance or playing with flavors of the month or whatever is missing out on a wonderful experience. It's a simple, lovely song and I really think that they all enjoyed making it. They all seem wonderfully comfortable in the video

Another Mockingjay Soundtrack Update

So iTunes revealed almost all of the tracklist for the Mockingjay Part One soundtrack. The two songs we knew about this afternoon are still on there (why would they go anywhere? why did I write that sentence??) and 11 more tracks have been revealed. There's still a track that's called "Track 5" by "Various Artists" that's listed with a duration of six seconds, so that'll probably be revealed later.

iTunes says the soundtrack will be available on November 17th. Here's a link to the iTunes page. It's not going to take you to iTunes, but it's basically like the browser version of iTunes.

Here's the tracklist:

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Pt. 1 OST:

01 Stromae: Meltdown [ft. Lorde, Pusha T, Q-Tip, Haim]
02 Chvrches: Dead Air
03 Tove Lo: Scream My Name
04 Charli XCX: Kingdom [ft. Simon Bon]
05 Various Artists: Track 5
06 Raury: Lost Souls
07 Lorde: Yellow Flicker Beat
08 Tinashé: The Leap
09 Bat for Lashes: Plan the Escape
10 Grace Jones: Original Beast
11 Lorde: Flicker (Kanye West Rework)
12 XOV: Animal
13 The Chemical Brothers: This Is Not a Game [ft. Miguel]
14 Lorde: Ladder Song

Throwback Thursday: 2007

10. Twista - Adrenaline Rush 2007
9. KT Tunstall - Drastic Fantastic
8. Chamillionaire - Ultimate Victory
7. James Blunt - All the Lost Souls
6. High School Musical 2 Soundtrack
5. Kenny Chesney - Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates
4. Barry Manilow - The Greatest Songs of the Seventies
3. 50 Cent - Curtis
2. Kanye West - Graduation

     1. Good Morning
     2. Champion

     3. Stronger
     4. I Wonder
     5. Good Life featuring T-Pain
     6. Can't Tell Me Nothing
     7. Barry Bonds featuring Lil Wayne
     8. Drunk and Hot Girls featuring Mos Def
     9. Flashing Lights featuring Dwele

   10. Everything I Am featuring DJ Premier
   11. The Glory
   12. Homecoming featuring Chris Martin
   13. Big Brother

Ok so the last time I did 2007 on this series, I featured "Stronger" from this album and so I wasn't going to feature the album this time around, but I realized how much I love this album (even though 2 of my least favorite Kanye songs are on it) and how much it "throws me back" to the morning I listened to it for the first time. It was in the lab I was working in and I was there early and I was the only one there. I'll never forget laughing out loud when "Champion" started. I had never heard the Steely Dan song it samples, but I love the way Kanye interacts with the sample.

And then we get to songs like "Flashing Lights" with one of the darkest videos of all time. The video is pretty mesmerizing, but listen to the song, too. No one else was making this kind of hip-hop.

Graduation is truly a fantastic album and well worth your time (except for those two songs I don't like)

1. Reba McEntire - Reba Duets

Top Ten Tuesday (UK Edition): Sigma "Nobody to Love"

So, because there aren't any new songs on the Top Ten in America, I decided to go check out the UK charts. Well, it turns out, they have a new number one over there. And here it is!

Now, to some of you, this might sound a little familiar. Well, it turns out this song started life as a bootleg remix of the last (and in my opinion best) track on Kanye West's latest album, "Bound 2". Pretty cool. I wish they'd gotten the original vocalist from this part, Charlie Wilson, but it's still kind of cool to see something so underground DEBUT at #1. It really is a different world over there, strictly speaking of charts, of course. Here's the video for the original song.

And then a shot-for-shot tribute video from Seth Rogen and James Franco

And then just for the sake of completeness, here they are side-by-side:

Congratulations Sigma!

One Year, 100 Albums: #40 Kanye West "The College Dropout"

Kanye West The College Dropout, 2004

First of all, I certainly didn't plan to have this post come out two days after the 10th anniversary of the release of this album. It's a pure coincidence. But I'm really glad that this coincidence happened, because I like to see that people still value this album as much as I do.

In fact, I have not liked Kanye more in recent years than I did after reading this post from Pigeons and Planes

So. My history with Kanye West. I saw the video for "Jesus Walks" at some point and paused for a moment on it because the beat was SO different from the other popular songs in hip-hop at the time. Then I saw him perform in the movie Dave Chappelle's Block Party and I really enjoyed that. And finally, the guy that I worked with at Perdue (who I believe I mentioned in the Carbon Leaf post) played this and also Late Registration (the follow-up to this) a lot and so finally (Amazon tells me) I bought it for my birthday in 2006. I think I probably bought both albums, but I don't think I'll check because this isn't about both albums. It's about this album.

This album finds KWest as a new rapper, but one with a number of years of experience as a producer. So he's made friends (Mod Def, Jay-Z, Ludacris, etc.) and has lots of fun production tricks.

The thing that finally sold me on this album is the beginning. An old man asks Kanye to sing a song that the kids can enjoy and so he starts "We Don't Care" by saying yeah he knows JUST the song. And then a chorus of kids comes in singing (with him), "Drug dealing just to get by/Stack your money till it gets sky high" and I have always (and will always) found that hilarious and irreverent. And it stays that way for the whole album. There are surprising turns of phrase and surprising points of view that keep this album fresh and enjoyable even into its second decade.

Kanye West - We Don't Care
Kanye West featuring Jay-Z & J-Ivy - Never Let Me Down

You can buy The College Dropout at Amazon, Amazon MP3, and iTunes

Throwback Thursday: 2007

10. Rihanna featuring Jay-Z - Umbrella
9. Plies featuring T-Pain - Shawty
8. Fabolous featuring Ne-Yo - Make Me Better
7. T-Pain featuring Akon - Bartender
6. Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah
5. Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls
4. Timbaland featuring Keri Hilson - The Way I Are
3. Kanye West - Stronger

Both Kanye and Daft Punk are still doing big things, but this was the moment when they briefly touched. And it was explosive. I was so excited to listen to this song over and over, but then Graduation had "Champion" on it and this song became a distant second. This was also the first time Kanye moved away from the soul beats that he had become famous for.

2. Soulja Boy - Crank That (Soulja Boy)
1. Fergie - Big Girls Don't Cry

All Time Hot 100 (Part 5)

Here we are at the last of the lower half of this All Time Hot 100 that Billboard is releasing. I feel like we've had VERY few misses. And I would imagine it can only get better, right?

60. Ace of Base - The Sign (1994) (yay!!!!)

59. Timbaland featuring OneRepublic - Apologize (2007)

58. Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx - Gold Digger (2005)

57. The Monkees - I'm a Believer (1966)

56. Ke$ha - Tik Tok (2010)

55. Kenny Rogers - Lady (1980)

54. Bee Gees - Stayin' Alive (1978)

53. Mario - Let Me Love You (2005)

52. Blondie - Call Me (1980)

51. Black Eyed Peas - Boom Boom Pow (2009)

Top Ten Tuesday: Kelly Clarkson "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)"

So, Kelly Clarkson won the first season of American Idol, right? Well I think she has made some great music in the past decade or so. For instance:

Love that one. But that's 8 years ago. What's she doing now? This. It's not bad, but I feel like, for me, it doesn't rock as hard as I'd like it to. I mean, I don't need shredding guitars, but just a little more edge would be good.

And just to complete the whole Nietzsche thing:

Thrones

So this post is just going to be 3 videos. The first is my favorite song from the collaboration album of Jay-Z and Kanye West: Watch the Throne. It's called "Niggas in Paris"

And I still love that song. I feel like it's different than the rest of the album. And I like that. The next song, however, is I guess a parody of it by Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) that I saw on The Needle Drop today. It's called "Niggas in Poorest"

And I think that is just fabulous, also. I think it's smart and funny and poignant. And it is so very Mos Def.

That part about "Don't Get Caught Up in No Throne" reminded me of No Kings so, once again, here's Doomtree's version of "This Land is Your Land", "Bolt Cutter"

And that's mostly what I've been thinking about today. Rap music.

Billy Corgan

So, I was watching my DVD of Smashing Pumpkins videos yesterday while I was cleaning my room and I was thinking about Billy Corgan's ego.

I have a very special place in my heart for the Smashing Pumpkins. They were the band that I wrote lyrics for on my notebook in school. And the thing that's always kind of bugged me has been all the stories about BC's control-freak, egotistical attitude.

And then I realized that I feel the exact same way about Kanye West. I think he is so talented, but his actions in the media always make me SO embarrassed.

And I guess the thing is that there can be a difference between an artist's personality and the music they make.

Which, I suppose is what I'm always saying about Michael Jackson. He made some really great music, regardless of what he was doing in his personal life. It doesn't excuse anything he did, but I feel like I can enjoy the songs....

Anyways, back to Billy and Kanye. I'm thinking that maybe I like music that comes from egotistical Chicagoans. Which brings me to my question: Is Jeff Tweedy egotistical? If he is, then I may need to get a hold of some Wilco, ASAP.

In other news, Billy Corgan (as Smashing Pumpkins) is going to release 44 songs for free as 11 4-song EP's. FOR FREE. And it starts around Halloween. Then I guess they're going to release the whole thing as a box set. The album is going to be called Teargarden by Kaleidyscope.

Which is SUCH a Billy Corgan title. :)

Watching the Lost finale and posting to my blog...what an age we live in!!

I simply love this show. So much.

Anywho, on to some music. First, some bracket action!

Round 1d:

1. Kanye West vs The Suicide Machines

Kanye West - Champion from Graduation
The Suicide Machines - Did You Ever Get a Feeling of Dread? from A Match and Some Gasoline

2. Bad Religion vs No Use For a Name

Bad Religion - Requiem for Dissent from New Maps of Hell
No Use For a Name - Part Two from Keep Them Confused

Happy Voting! Please vote!

In other news, Weezer has released their Red album. And it's certainly an improvement from their recent efforts. Maladroit was ok. But the Red album almost makes a Blue Album/Pinkerton-esque showing. I'm going to post one track, but I'm saving my favorite track for the end of the year. The funny thing is that I've read some negative reviews of that very track...more on that later.

But here's the track.

Weezer - Troublemaker


Finally, I'm going to start a new feature on this crazy thing. I'm thinking of calling it CP B-sides!

Basically, I will use this feature to allay the anxiety of wanting to post more songs to the Contrast Podcast than I'm allowed to. For instance, this week was Babies. And I submitted this:

Alan Wilkis - Bad Mamma Jamma from Babies Dream Big

but I wanted to submit this, too!:

Barenaked Ladies - Baby Seat from Maroon

and now everyone can enjoy both of them! Hooray Internet!

OK everyone! Have a great week or so!

NYE

Well, according to the two clocks that are directly within my field of vision, it's either 9:10 pm or 9:01 pm on New Year's Eve. I'm really getting this in under the wire, but I just feel like maybe it won't be as relevant tomorrow.

I'm going to preface this list by saying that I still don't have the cords I left at my mother-in-law's house and, in fact, have lost another cord (the power cord to the external hard drive) to our little Bichon puppy. She's cute AND destructive. So, I won't be able to post any songs until I get that situation figured out. I'm going to try to call the company that makes the hard drive on Wednesday and see if they'll sell me another power cord, but if they won't do you think I could find a 12V DC/ 2.0 A power thingy on ebay and have it do the trick? I feel so lost without being able to add new music and I feel so cluttered not being able to update the 'Pod.

But aside from all that, here is my Best of 2007 List and it'll get songs associated with them as soon as I can manage it. Maybe I'll do another post with just the songs! Won't that be fun!?

Some of My Favorite Albums of 2007 (Because I balk at the use of the word "Best")

(in no particular order other than the order I wrote them down in)

1. Bright Eyes - Cassadaga - This was an album I was very much looking forward to, having absolutely loved several songs on Digital Ash in a Digital Urn and the entirety of I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning. And I wasn't disappointed. This album sees Conor at his finest. He's not bitching quite so much, and he retains the country-ish sound that made IWAIM so delectable.

Song I recommend checking out that I'd post if I could: Classic Cars

2. Smashing Pumpkins - Zeitgeist - If you ask me, Smashing Pumpkins has always been mostly Billy Corgan's thing. It was nice when you could name the other members of the band and they stayed the same from album to album, but all you really need is Billy. In the same way that Tool and A Perfect Circle, to me, are really just Maynard James Keenan's bands that take different directions, Smashing Pumpkins is a genre of Billy Corgan Music. But enough generalities. How's the album? It's wonderful. Some of it may sound like Zwan or sound like an attempt to rekindle the past, but I just ate it up. The songs have textures and feelings to them in a way that niether of the Machina albums did. I hope we have a lot more Smashing Pumpkins albums to go before it's all said and done.

Song I recommend checking out that I'd post if I could: Death From Above

3. Radiohead - In Rainbows - Ok, I'm really not going to say anything that someone hasn't already said, so I'll keep it brief. It was a very cool marketing tactic. The album stands up to scrutiny and Radiohead maintain their place in the planet's Who's Who of music that kicks ass.

Song I recommend checking out if you seriously haven't heard anything from this album: Faust Arp

4. Fall Out Boy - Infinity on High - This is the much publicized band's first truly pop album. With any other band, that would not be a good thing, but FOB thrives on this kind of thing. They have put together a great album and I wish that they didn't have such a stigma of being teeny-bopper crap. Give it a listen if you can.

Here's a good starting point: You're Crashing, But You're No Wave.

5. Soundtrack - Across the Universe - OK, so an album full of Beatles covers. It could be hit or miss. Luckily this one is a hit. Unfortunately, I haven't seen this movie, though Andy tells me that the soundtrack gets even better after you've seen the movie. So Netflix will be hearing from very soon after that one's released. Oh, and if you decide to pick this one up, get the Deluxe Edition. It's two-discs full of (Andy tells me) all the songs that appear in the movie. When I went to buy it, it was only a dollar more. Worth it.

A Song From Disc One: Let It Be

A Song From Disc Two: Oh! Darling

6. Maroon 5 - It Won't Be Soon Before Long - This is another band that has a stigma of being MTV pre-prepared Top 40 crap and it's just not true. Songs About Jane was a geat album and this one is just as good. It's got a good beat and you can dance to it, I'd say. I just wish that they'd release a version of their cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" that they played in concert when we saw them with Less Than Jake and Rahzel at school.

Get Your Groove On to This: Kiwi

7. Soundtrack - Spider-man 3 - The first movie's soundtrack was a study in Mainstream Rock of the Nickelback/Saliva vein. The second movie's soundtrack was a collection of Emo/College Rock that worked very well with the themes of the movie. This soundtrack surpasses the movie by having music that was far better than the CGI-laden, constant-mask-removing silliness that made up the third installment.

Here's one example: Wolfmother - Pleased to Meet You

8. Pash - The Best Gun - Maybe I'm biased because I went to High School with the lead singer, but I think this is an incredibly strong sophomore album from an up-and-coming band that we're going to be hearing a lot more of in 2008! In fact, if you live in the DC/Metro area, they're playing a show at the 9:30 club on January 26th.(EDIT: It's at the Black Cat. You should still go!) You should go!

A Song That I'm Hoping to Hear: Cosmopolitan

9. Kanye West - Graduation - This is another album that has ventured out of the genre it came from and into the pop arena. Again, this is not a bad thing. Mr. West has delivered an album that is absolutely beautiful. It has one or two iffy moments, but overall, I could listen to this album all the livelong day.

Especially This One: Champion

And, as it was written the covenant, I'll stop right there. And it couldn't have come sooner. That was tougher than I ever imagined. I hope that you guys enjoyed reading this. It was fun, but I'm glad I have a whole year until I do it again. Happy New Year everyone!