It’s that time of year again. When radio stations start playing Christmas music all day every day, and people that have been waiting to put up their Christmas trees have finally succumb to the Christmas spirit. Yes, it’s finally time to warm your hearts by the fire, make snow angels, drink eggnog, hang lights, buy presents and go sledding. You might want to hold off on the sledding thing until it actually snows, but that’s totally your call.
When we heard Dave Barnes was releasing a Christmas album, we got excited. Not because we love Dave Barnes. Even though we do. A lot. No, we got excited because it’s been a long time coming. Dave Barnes is full of Christmas spirit and has been due for an album like this for quite some time. Of course, it’s hard to do a Christmas album without tossing in some old favorites like “All I Want For Christmas Is You” and “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”, but Barnes has a unique, soulful delivery that’s lighthearted and upbeat. He’ll guarantee to brighten your mood in the first few songs. Seriously. If you’re not 100% satisfied with the results, you can return the music to your iPod for a full refund. Just say out loud to your iPod, “not 100% satisfied” and it will spit money out. It’s a new feature.
Of course, you won’t have to return anything because this album is certain to make the rounds at your Christmas festivities. Barnes has a knack for delivering performances with grace and comedic timing. Check out his Christmas “special” video from last year. You can probably expect another one this year. One can only hope.
Buy Very Merry Christmas:
If you’ve ever heard one of Ke$ha’s albums, you’ve also thrown up. There really is no avoiding it. It’s like watching a Saw movie while trying to eat lasagna. You just can’t do it. Her fake talking/”rapping” is the reason that radio is dying. You may argue, but I know this to be true. I read it on the Internet. But this isn’t entirely bad news. I mean it is, but there is a silver lining. It makes you appreciate actual female rappers even more. That’ s why when I recently heard Kanye West’s new single “Monster” that featured a number of different artists, I was immediately drawn in by Nicki Minaj.
Her style is 100% unique and 100% in your face. She is a very aggressive rapper and her flow makes you feel like you’re getting yelled at (in a good way.) Her debut release Pink Friday is full of hot beats and cameos from other rap icons including Eminem, Kanye West and will.i.am. With so much support, the album builds a strong repertoire of singles that are sure to get some radio play. Although I don’t completely agree with adding pop icons such as Rihanna and Drake to the mix, the added exposure for Nicki Minaj will help her gain exposure in this day and age of lost talent.
Hopefully in the future we’ll see some independent releases from Nicki Minaj as I think she would do better to showcase her unique style under her own terms. I imagine we’d end up with an album that shows the raw lyrical talent of Nicki Minaj without all of the production. Check out her video for Massive Attack featuring Sean Garrett. The music video is a little bit “Jay-Z”, but I suppose that’s what makes it so gangster.
Buy the album:
As we’ve mentioned on more than one occasion, Ari Hest is a hell of a songwriter, and I can remember a concert of his in which he’d just written a song he hoped someday to share with the lovely and talented Norah Jones. It never happened for Ari, so instead he usually just jokingly sings the Norah part in a high, smoky falsetto whenever he performs that song.
But duets featuring Jones and another performer most certainly have happened over the course of the last decade, which leads us to “…Featuring Norah Jones,” a compilation of songs that the sweet, contemporary jazz singer shares with other artists.
The list of musicians on this record is staggering—Willie Nelson, Ray Charles, Outkast, Q-Tip, Talib Kweli, Herbie Hancock, and the Foo Fighters, among many others. Stylistically the tracks cover the full gamut of musical styles, from soul to hip-hop and rock to, of course, jazz, and each and every one of them is as smooth and cool as we’ve all come to expect from Miss Jones. It’s a finely-tuned mix in the truest sense of the word, with plenty of creative and inventive stuff to fill the disc.
Sure, Norah Jones isn’t exactly a new and undiscovered artist, but this collection of tracks is classy stuff that casual fans of Jones aren’t likely to have heard before. Maybe, ten years from now, when “…Featuring Norah Jones 2” comes out, Ari Hest will find a way to be among the track listing.
In my experience, people listen to hip-hop for one of three reasons. They either want something to dance to, something that will bump in their car, or something with lyrics that actually have some meaning and poetry behind them. Once in a very rare while you find a rapper that can span all three of these requirements, but in general you’re lucky to find someone who covers two of the three. Joe Budden is one of those guys capable of batting 1.000, and in baseball that’d be like the greatest hitter of all time.
There’s no question that Budden is, in fact, a heavy hitter, especially lyrically. His new full-length solo mixtape, “Mood Muzik 4,” is rife with emotional prose with multi-syllabic rhymes and a flow that punches like a wiry welterweight.
We’ve come a long way from the “Pump It Up” days, way back Budden really was putting out tracks that could be rocked in clubs. He’s a more mature rapper now, focused more on the rhyme and the message more than anything. But that doesn’t mean the music suffers. On this latest mixtape offering from JB, the lead track is a sweet sample of Bon Jovi’s “Right Now,” and other songs like “1000 Faces” and “If All Else Fails” have hot instrumentals as well.
While this particular offering from Joe Budden isn’t all that heavy on tracks you’d shoot Jaeger bombs to, it’s definitely one a record with something to say, and in my world, that’s really all hip-hop has to do in order to be successful. We’re lucky, though, that Budden’s music does so much more.
From the first time I heard Matt & Kim‘s single “Daylight”, I was hooked. Their quirky indie alternative pop sound was distinctive and just catchy enough to make you think about it all day long. But how could they possibly keep it up? Surely they can’t continue to create catchy songs that will play on repeat in your mind for days on end? Well surely they can. Because they did. How ’bout them apples?
Sidewalks is the latest release from this Brooklyn duo, and it definitely lives up to their names: Matt & Kim. Synthesizers, hip-hop beats, high energy, dancing, toy pianos, killer drums and horns. All of the things you’ll find at Burning Man. Oh, and also all of things you’ll find on Sidewalks. They are practically interchangeable.
If you’re not fully familiar with Matt & Kim, perhaps this will jog your memory:
It’s not easy playing piano in bed. Or in the bathroom. Or in the car. Trust me. I’ve tried. All I got was six stitches and a moving violation. They got a record deal. How fair is that?
Their latest album is even more up-beat than this single, so if you are looking to push your Matt & Kim love a little further, make sure you pick it up. And don’t delay because it’s going to sell out everywhere. I’m not even sure if that’s true, but I like to create a sense of urgency.
Here’s a commercial-type thing for the first song off of Sidewalks:
Buy the album:
