"I think 2003 ranks among the very best years for popular music, and is almost certainly the best year for music of the past decade." —Don't believe Awl pal Matthew Perpetua? Consider that while it was the "Ignition (Remix)" of times, it was also the "The Laws Have Changed" of times. It was the "He War" of times. It was the "We Used To Be Friends" of times. It was the "Milkshake" of times. Relive it all here.
"An instrumental album is something I've been wanting to do for a long time. I have the ideas for it. I want to call it The Planets. I don't even know if I should be saying this, but fuck it. [Laughs.] It's just my interpretation of what each planet sounds like. I'm gonna go off on that. Just all instrumental. I've been studying the planets and learning the personalities of each planet. I've been doing this for about two years now just in my spare time so to speak. I wanna do it in surround sound. It'll have to be in surround sound for Saturn to work." -Dr. [...]
The post-retail era in American pop has resulted in Rapidshared collections of songs becoming a semi-legitimate way to find out about new tracks from big artists, and Tapemasters Inc's every-so-often "Future Of R&B" series of mixes is probably my favorite example of this trendlet. The just-released 32nd edition bears a few oldish songs (the Jamie Foxx/Justin Timberlake collaboration that soundtracks NBA-playoff ads, Mary J. Blige's dreadful violation of the "No Stairway" rule) alongside newly minted tracks; the first-listen standout is the sample-drenched "For The Sake Of Love" from the Virginia-born Trey Songz, on which the singer thankfully stops singing about the Internet and employs his [...]
When I was in eighth grade, I was madly in love. But the girl, who I wanted to marry and sometimes wrote sad poems about, didn't feel the same way. So I decided to prove my love with a mixtape. For me, music was (and still is) the most intense force in the world, so I thought this would truly make her reciprocate my affection. I set my plan in motion by stealing my oldest brother's Motley Crue cassette, putting pieces of tape over those tiny holes so I could record over the screeching of Vince Neil, and adding songs to my mixtape that would show just how great I [...]
"This is not a mashup album, this is an album about Wayne." That's the tagline accompanying a new mixtape circulating around Tumblr that mashes-up the lyrical stylings of Lil' Wayne with the soundtrack from (500) Days Of Summer. The biggest shocker of all though is probably that it's kind of awesome? I mean, for goofy looking white people, Lil Wayne was already pretty great, but now here he is rapping over a Zooey Deschanel sample and The Smiths (at the same time!). Go download this and then think for a long time about your life and wonder if it should be legal to rap over Hall And Oates. [...]
I just made a mixtape for a friend of mine. Which is something I should never do. Because I become obsessed with the choosing of songs and end up not getting anything else done for a week and losing sleep and making myself crazy with second guessing and internal back-and-forth-and-back-again. It's not healthy.
Now available for (slow) download: DJ Jazzy Jeff and Mick Boogie's 49-track beat-the-heat mix, which incorporates some of the greatest sunshine jams ever (including a remix of the title track). [Via]
