Oh my gosh!! Today (and for the next few days, at least) Amazon's MP3 store is offering two amazing, free samplers...I can't decide which I like better: this one or this one...

I think one reason I'm so excited is because on The End Records sampler there's a new song by Audio Bullys, a group I loved about six years ago and hadn't really heard anything new from since....their song "Only Man" dares you not to dance...and a track on the Cantora Records album, called "Crime Pays" by Bear Hands, is simply majestic and yet oddly cynical at the same time.

So much on both samplers that I just can't stop playing...think about checking them out and have a great evening!!:)

Singer Zola Jesus once said, "I want to write songs about things that are important...like why we're here, what the future holds and the apocalypse...maybe the apocalypse has already started. If you look around America, there's a lot of sadness and a lot of suffering. Most people turn a blind eye to it. I want people to come to terms with it."

As someone who grew up loving the bounce and wackiness of so many of my favorite 80s songs, I can't help but think today's music is so much sadder. People say today's music is worse than their own generation's, but I don't believe that's necessarily true. Maybe it's just that some of the best musicians writing and performing today are more accurately reflecting what's going on around them.

There's less escape and more truth today...and that can be kind of bleak, but it can also be kind of what we need.

I can't stop playing "Is It Fair Enough" off of Kingdom Come's new album, Rendered Waters. I read about their newest cd in Classic Rock's special AOR issue. I must have missed Kingdom Come when they first arrived on the scene in the late 80s. But I probably wouldn't been ready for them anyway...I was always on the lighter side of music back then.

"Is It Fair Enough" is both mesmerizing and maudlin, heavy on the drums and sad on the guitars. Its beat is so infectious I can't get enough of it...

I would definitely recommend checking out Classic Rock magazine. They aren't just invested in the past, but in current groups as well and their reviews are top-notch (though my wallet sort of resents that fact since I sometimes end up buying their highly rated albums.)

The sampler from the July issue of Uncut is just wonderful, full of terrific tracks like Little Willie John's seldom heard cover of "Fever" (my favorite version ever!), Barrett Strong's "Money (That's What I Want)," Sam Cooke's "Chain Gang" and Bill Dodgett's "Honky Tonk (Part 2)."  Most of the songs can easily be found on other cds, but all of them gathered together on one disc make this extra awesome...worth the rather hefty cost of the magazine...whether you read it or not! :)

Here are some tidbits from the sampler write-up accompanying it:

-Sam Cooke joined the Soul Stirrers at the age of 15 in 1950...and seven years later would hit it big as a solo artist with "You Send Me."

-Smokey Robinson's "Shop Around" was Motown's first chart-topping, million-dollar selling single.

-Ray Charles would often perform "What'd I Say (Parts 1 & 2)" at the very end of his concerts, saying after it was over: 'That's the end for me. There ain't no encore, no nothin'. I'm finished."

 

The problem with cleaning and sorting trash from recycling is when you discover your old magazine collection and end up slumped in a corner reading things you missed the first time around. In the September 2010 issue of Nylon there's a small blurb about an album I had never heard of before called Forget by Twin Shadow.

I like the way Juliet Linderman refers to it: "It's a very rare record that makes you want to simultaneously dance on a rooftop in your underwear and sit in a corner of a dark bar making sexy eyes at strangers, but that's exactly what Twin Shadow's debut Forget inspires."

The man behind Twin Shadow is Dominic Republican-born George Lewis, Jr., who was raised in Florida and now lives in Brooklyn. Grizzly Bear member Chris Taylor, after hearing his amazing voice, signed him to his label, Terrible Records.

And the rest is music history...something incredible to listen (and dance) to while you revel in the wonderful sounds:)

One of my favorite ways to spend Sunday is to catch up on my newspaper and magazine reading. And my favorite magazine is Q, which has a "50 essential tracks section to download," both online and in print.

June's issue has a lot I really enjoyed listening to, though I could only afford to pick three or four:

Q the music Top 50

 I especially like #31...a slow and sad cover of  "You're the One that I Want" (yes, the one from "Grease.")

hear it here

Two songs from the past caught me by surprise this week and sent a flood of memories coursing through my mind that I'd rather forget. Still, once the pain went away I realized how pretty both of them are. The first ("Make It Real" by The Jets) used to sort of annoy me when I was younger, but now I realize it's one of the saddest and most heartfelt songs ever...

The second song ("Somebody" by Depeche Mode) never ever fails to make me fill up with tears, especially if it's not something I put on my iPod, but a song playing on the radio when I least expect it. I think a lot of people might feel this way about "Somebody," even if they're not Depeche Mode fans. The song is so vulnerable and sincere and full of the kind of yearning that only comes with longing for a kind of love that is true and eternal. Of course, it's also the kind of love that's almost impossible to find.

Oh, boy, I'm in a corny and cynical mood at the same time..never a good combo!!:)

so excited Ally Walker is returning to tv in a starring role in another crime show (though, thankfully, this time a crime show with a lighter side!!):

read here

Don't get me wrong, The Profiler was terrific and ahead of its time in exploring the darker side of crime shows, but it could often be a draining experience watching it and Ally Walker (who did such a great job on it) played a woman with a tortured past and present. 

I saw a brand new copy of The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg on the shelf at work the other day and grabbed it out of curiosity, never having heard of the author before.

Boy, am I glad I did. I picked it up again to read last night when I got home and have had trouble putting it down since. Ms. Eisenberg has this amazing talent for writing about things that are seemingly non-eventful (or even downright boring) and making them absolutely riveting.

It's the emotional complexity and the dark humor and the keen observations on life that make this collection unforgettable (at least, so far.)

There is something unnerving about her work, whether it's the mundane interactions between a woman and her new roomate in "Flotsam" or the awkward and taboo relationship between a high school girl and a twenty seven-year-old man in "What it Was Like, Seeing Chris.'