howdy

"Check It Out," I Added.

I think that song is ridiculous too, but this guy says it better.

What You Got?

P. Diddy/Puff Daddy/Sean "Puffy" Combs ain't got nothing on Jay-Z.

It's not just the stupendous piles of crispy multicolor bills they had to throw at this thing, but the details and the concept. Monaco? Ferrari's? Danica and Dale, Jr.? Awwww shhheeeeeeeyyyyettttt. We've come a long way since Dr. Dre did the tango in Been There Done That.

How much does it cost to vacation in Monaco, exactly?

That's one of those "if you have to ask" things, isn't it?

\m|/ PANDORA ROCKS \|m/

I think I've posted about Pandora before -- it's a great and free music service that not only plays the music you know, but also suggests other music you might like. And it's pretty good. It's replaced my use of radio, MP3s, even the regular streams I used to listen to at work. Commercial free, no DJs. It's like satellite radio at your desk, except customized.

What you do is enter the name of a song or artist you like, which then becomes the seed for Pandora's suggestion engine. That song also becomes a "station" that you can return to, and also send to others to have a listen. They've even created some blog-compatible sidebar modules that let you share your stations and bookmarked songs, which I've just installed. Feel free to suggest stuff for me to listen to, in the little forms underneath each one.

There's a whole lot of nerdosity behind this, but also some non- computer geek expert knowledge: the recommendations come via characterizations of each song, made by professional musicians. And it's all wrapped up in a smallish Flash player that you can load in a webpage or stick on your desktop as a widget.

Hide and Seek.

I've heard Hide And Seek by Imogen Heap (fourth song on that page's player) many times on KCRW, but the other day I heard an a capella rendition by a UCLA singing group. I really like the song, any way it's sung. The arrangement is very um lyrical? but the lyrics in turn are very conversational. The part that starts with "They were here first" is great.

Young Folks.

I like everything about Young Folks by Peter, Bjorn & John (should be the first song that plays on their MySpace page right there). I heard it on KCRW.

Damn, Why She Want To Stick Me For My Paper?

There's more.

Where Do I Put My Stickers?

Such Actions Are Unacceptable.

Still funny, after all these years:

From One More Chance by Notorious B.I.G.:

And my jam knock in the Mitsubishi
Girls pee pee when they see me
Nava-hoes creep me in they tee pee
As I lay down laws
like I lay carpet
Stop it - if you think you're gonna make a profit

Translation:

I enjoy playing my music loudly on my car stereo. Apparently, women enjoy this also because they become sexually aroused when they see me driving. Oddly enough, when I visit the Native American reservations, some of the more sexually promiscuous Indian women attempt to seduce me in their homes. Their intent is to divest me of my earnings. Such actions are unacceptable.

But wait, there's more! (Although it's better when the original lyrics are included.)

License to Chillax

The Mash-Up.

I grew up loving the mix, and its cousin, the remix. For the former, talented DJs overlaid the borders of songs and blurred them together with a mix of thoughtful creativity and physical dexterity. For the latter, studio-based producers tore down my favorite songs and rebuilt them back up, realizing them in whole new ways.

If those two are related through a common grandfather, then the mash-up is the werewolf that the family doesn't want to acknowledge: amateur music hackers blend together two, three, or even a half-dozen complete songs, introducing humor and irony along with the usual beat-matching and deconstruction. If a mix overlays songs so that their edges overlap, then the mash-up takes stacks those songs one on top of the other, before chopping and recombining a la the remix.

To me, the mash-up is part of the natural progression of things. Hip-hop taught us the value of referencing in music, and the mash-up is taking it one step further. (I wonder when things will come full circle, when we start hearing mash-hop. Well, not full circle. More like returning to the same x,y points in the spiral, but advancing upwards in the z-direction, always.)

One day, I'll build a searchable archive of all known mash-ups, so everyone can get credit. Until then, check out this collection from DJ Earworm.

Oh yeah, the best part is the titles. For example, Goldfrapp's "Train" + Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" = "Jesus is my Personal Trainer."