Spearhead
20.04.03
Michael Franti and Spearhead came my way via a crappy copied cassette that had been copied off of another copied tape of Spearhead's first album, "Home". I hung on to that tape for years until the songs became fuzzy and static-y around the edges. Once I got a full-time job in high school, I hurried out to buy "Home," and I managed to pick up their second album, "Chocolate Supa Highway" just in time for me to constantly listen to it on my headphones when discovering my new college campus. The songs on "Chocolate Supa Highway" forever make me think of freedom, confusion, sunshine, and California rain.
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Maybe that's fitting somehow. Franti, Spearhead's frontman, is himself a Bay Area resident, and Spearhead's music is full of powerful contradictions that make it revolutionary. Franti's deep, enticing voice turns rapping into more of a soothing bedtime story, even in some of the more "angry" songs on Spearhead's albums. This is more the type of rap music that you can listen to while watering your plants, taking a brisk yet relaxing stroll, or listening to the rain fall on your rooftop.
Franti has been respected since his early days with Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy, but it is perhaps with Spearhead that he really shines. Spearhead is a different type of rap: new, fresh, and bizarrely positive and uplifting. Their messages can range from views on the death penalty to homelessness to AIDS. Politically aware, and not afraid to show it, Spearhead makes the case for an appealing hip hop movement not based on "guns and alcohol" but instead on education and motivation.
This song is a remix of a track off of their 1994 debut album "Home" entitled "Hole in the Bucket." The original track is pretty kick ass, but as anybody can find it on any file-sharing program of choice, I thought it might be more interesting to provide this remix. I don't know where it comes from, but I have a pretty sizeable collection of "Hole in the Bucket" remixes (as it is probably their most successful song) and this one takes the cream. If you like it, buy the album. And then buy the second one and then the third. You won't be sorry.
Just dig it, and let me know what you think.
Download it here: download no longer available, contact me to find out how to get it.
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MJ (on his own)
02.03.03
So I hesitated with this one - should it go under disco, pop, or just pure friggin' genius?
I could put up the obvious MJ tunes. Lord knows I have listened to all of them repeatedly for two decades without yet getting tired of them. This song, however, I discovered much later than I had come to know "Thriller" and "Billie Jean". Michael was already a freak by the time I first heard "Workin Day and Night" But man, this song... it just gets me groovin! You can hear that Michael is just letting loose in every way, especially when he does his little hoots and sighs. I used to play it at work all the time, and I would always notice the customers cocking their heads up and tapping their feet.
This quality Michael. The one I love, anyway.
Groove to it. I dare you to put it on your headphones and to not walk with an extra little somethin' in your strut. No. I double dare you.
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Aretha
26.02.03
Aretha is so much more than just a soulful woman singing about respect. She's got several songs out there that beat the pants off of "Respect." And "Dr. Feelgood" is one of them.
I played this song in part of my regular rotation. I have been listening to it off and on ever since a friend of mine in college put it on a mixed tape for me (back then they were tapes, of course). Recently, while Aretha's soulful voice was bellowing throughout my box-like apartment, the Boyfriend turned and shouted into the bedroom "Hey. This is good. Who is this?"
And I said, "Aretha."
and he said, "Wow. This should have been the song that made her famous."
I agree. But I think I actually prefer that hasn't been in seven million movies and played over thousands of karoake machines. "Dr Feelgood" is above that.
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Can you argue with these lyrics:
Don't send me no doctor
Fill me up with all a those pills
I got me a man named Doctor Feelgood
Yeah! Yeah!
That man takes care of all my pains and ills
His name is Doctor Feelgood in the morning
To take care of business is really this man's game
And after one visit to Dr. Feelgood,
You understand why I feel good, in this pain. **
Oh! Yeah! Oooh!
Oh, good God a-mighty
The man sure makes me feel real........
Goooooooood!
** I always thought the lyrics said "you'll understand why Feelgood is his name" You have a listen and tell me what you think. Either way, I dig the lyrics.
Download it here: download no longer available, contact me to find out how to get it.
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Talib Kweli
16.02.03
I'm sitting in my room last night, enjoying a calm Saturday evening at home after the week's excitement. I head over to Imesh to start my downloads back up again, and decide to look up Morcheeba's "Trigger Hippie" 'cause my original version has a bit of a scratch.
And there I stumble across something else. Oh, you guys, it's just sooo good. So good I gotta share it. Right now.
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If you like really calm, chill hip hop, please give it a listen. Even if you think "hip hop is only guns and alcohol," this is a guy that makes references to Norman Mailer in his songs and represents a group of philosophical, intelligent hip hop artists with something worthwhile to say (did you not all listen to the album Blackstar? Mindblowing.). He works with Mos Def, who has been mentioned here already (and who I happen to think is fine as hell).
The man in question is Talib Kweli, and this song is a real gem he's produced with Morcheeba. I love the both of 'em. But this song is just great. Rarely do I hear a song that makes me stop everything for a minute, cock my head to one side, and contemplate. But this song did it.
I don't know what the song is called, but it uses a loop from Morcheeba's second album Big Calm, called "Let Me See." A song I have always liked but never loved. And Talib's rhyming over it just...ooo...delicious. I got ridiculously excited about it. I hope you do too.
Full bio to come later in the music section. I just couldn't wait. I'll just call it "Let Me See," but I'm sure that's not the name.
Download it here: download no longer available, contact me to find out how to get it.
(PS Spelling in filename is incorrect, but I'm too lazy to re-upload it onto my server just for a spelling error. Just in case you wanted to investigate further.)
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Sly
13.02.03
Here it is. Perhaps my favorite song. Sexy voice, groovy beat. I have certainly listened to it over a thousand times. I don't need to make an introduction. But for anybody that doesn't have it in their collection, you must get it. Now. It is absolutely imperative.
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Download it here:Sly and the Family Stone - If You Want Me to Stay - download no longer available, contact me to find out how to get it.
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Lenny
10.02.03
So I am pretty sure that Lenny Kravitz is a big asshole. And that he's a little bit self-absorbed. But maybe that's why I was so head-over-heals for him for almost ten years. I first discovered him when I was 11 or so - my sister had gone to college, we switched rooms, and I found her copied tape of Kravitz's 1991 Mama Said in amongst the crap she left in her dust. I listened to that puppy like a crazy woman, and became a fan.
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At the time, he was really only known for that "It Ain't Over 'til It's Over" song, and he wasn't seen as a total sell-out. Or maybe I was just too busy fawning over him to listen to his criticism. Anyway, needless to say, the obsession continued until I was 19, he chopped off his hair, and started getting too in-my -face. I still respect the guy (less, though), but I don't like his new stuff. It's just not my style.
However, I still pull out two of his older albums - Are You Gonna Go My Way and Mama Said - once or twice a month. That's a lot, when you consider how old they are. And how much other crap I am listening to, as well. They're really good albums. A little known fact about Lenny: he plays a shit ton of instruments. For most of the songs on most of his albums, it's him and this other guy, Craig Ross, running the show. Everything is just Lenny and Craig, recorded over previous recordings of them playing different instruments. Impressive. If you have any of his albums, check out how many instruments he knows how to play. Included in the list are green Heinken bottles (on his disappointing second-to-last album, 5)
At any rate, this precious gem from Are You Gonna Go My Way is a quiet little non-rock-star song called Heaven Help. I listened to the album version forever before finding this beautiful acoustic version. It's a far cry from that party-like "Fly Away" atrocity he pulled in 1999. Take a gander. It might just change your opinion of Lenny.
Download it here: - Lenny Kravitz - Heaven Help - download no longer available, contact me to find out how to get it.
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Donny...
23.01.03
Not Osmond. Hathaway. I first discovered Donny Hathaway by the humble means of an excellent compilation series called "Blaxploitation," a four-volume set (two CDs per volume) made up of - you guessed it - songs from Blaxploitation films of the 60's and 70's. That means we're talking about the original "Shaft" or the original "Superfly," and not the scammy 90's and 2000 remakes. This series of CDs has probably influenced my musical collection to date more than any other lone source. I recommend to anybody interested in soul, disco, funk, and their offshoots, to invest in at least one of the volumes. Even if you know every artist on the back cover, the combination of songs is so well done that it is worth the money. Even in these file-sharing program days.
Donny Hathaway's first single, "The Ghetto," has remained a permanent in my playlist ever since I discovered the song six or seven years ago. It is an excellent song to walk around town to: it is upbeat, funky, and musically just amazing.
Donny has remained a bit of a lesser-known figure in the music history (besides his mediocre hit featured here, and a few bigger hits in the form of duets with another well-known star of the times, Roberta Flack) probably because his career was cut short by a mysterious suicide - he jumped off the 15th floor of the Essex Hotel in New York at a point when his career was just getting moving. He was 34 years old.
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But don't think about that while you're listening to the song. Put it on your headphones, go walking around town. I guarantee you, you'll be smiling to yourself throughout the whole thing. You'll walk with a little extra bounce in your steps or swing in your hips. You'll wonder why the hell you were stressing so much about whatever it was you had been stressing about. This song does that to me every time. Somehow "The Ghetto" makes the whole world move to its beat.
Download it here: - Donny Hathaway - The Ghetto - download no longer available, contact me to find out how to get it.
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Lost Boyz
18.01.03
My last year of high school, my best friend's brother made a mixed tape. We listened to that tape more times than I can count, and it became somewhat of the sountrack of our first summer as high school graduates.
A year or three later, in college, I started investing a lot of money in my CD collection. Randomly, I found I was rediscovering the songs bit by bit that had been on the tape. It was always by coincidence. There had never been a case attached, never a list of songs or artists. Just the tape. So each time I heard a song from that infamous tape on a new CD I had bought, I rejoiced at my slow, steady reconstruction of one of my favorite mixes.
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I had forgotten a lot of the songs, and would only remember them upon hearing them years later. There was one song, however, which I would hear tidbits of repeatedly in my head. Never the whole song, mind you. Occasionally, I would try and spurt out a line or two to anybody I knew that showed an even slight interest in hip hop. To no avail. I searched for this song for years.
Six years after last hearing the song, I was in Boulder visiting that same friend that had once been the proprieter of the long-lost tape, Laura. We drove into Denver for me to catch my flight, which I missed by about seven minutes. I scheduled a 6 am flight for the next morning. Together, we all decided (there was a third member there, Pam) to go out to a long, nice dinner, and at midnight or one, I would work my way back to the airport and sleep in the lounge. We ended up partying up the town, randomly running into a mysterious character in one of our pasts, and giving away cheesecake from a doorway in downtown Denver.
Around 4.00 am, one of our cheesecake-eaters had been conversing with us for quite awhile when yet another pimped out car drove by blasting some bass-heavy song. But this time, I stood up in disbelief and said, "Holy shit! Laura, that's the song!! They're playing the song!" and I quickly told the cheesecake-eater the story. He was a friendly, talkative, slightly drunken guy, but in that happy and outgoing way. He listened intently and said, "I'll be right back." He ran up to the car and asked the boys in the big, scary car who the artist was and what the name of the song was. And then he gave them some cheesecake.
So here's the song. It's been a long road, but it's a great, fabulous, wonderful song that I have listened to at least three hundred times since that fateful Denver night.
It's by The Lost Boyz. I admittedly don't know anything about them, other than that I have heard their name several times in various American hip hop circles. I don't think they're of the MTV variety, thank God...they seem a bit more underground and media-shy (I couldn't even find a web site for them!). I bought their album. But this song, "Renee" remains my favorite. I still recommend the album.
Anyway, check it out. Great stuff.
Download it here: download no longer available, contact me to find out how to get it.
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Stevie...
10.01.03
Not Stevie Wonder or Stevie Nicks. Not today. Today is Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Personal story: when I was about thirteen, I discovered Jimi Hendrix. "Little Wing" quickly became my favorite song. Very quickly. I bought a blacklight poster of Jimi's head floating amongst some butterflies and zebras.
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And then, maybe five years later, I discovered Stevie Ray Vaughan's version of the song. "Little Wing" has probably been remade as many times as "I Will Survive" has been played on karoake night, but Steve's version is different. I played it six or seven times in a row while lying on my bed, just listening.
Your turn.
I don't want to say anymore about it. It's just a beautiful, beautiful song.
Download it here: - Stevie Ray Vaughan - Little Wing - download no longer available, contact me to find out how to get it.
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Prince
04.01.03
I would never proclaim myself a huge concert-goer, but I have managed to see a few. I think I have seen enough to distinguish between good, bad, and so-so shows. Or to tell you if there is something extraordinary to be noted. And so I am telling you all, for a huge concert in a huge stadium, Prince really knows what the hell he is doing. Just believe me on this one.
Have you ever seen a very small man jump off of a piano in stilletto heels, spin gracefully, and come to a full elegant stop all while playing a guitar?
I didn't think so. And I hadn't either, until I saw Prince. Really, he's more than he comes across as on TV. Size-wize, he is actually a bit smaller, mind you. But the man can dance. And jump. And run around from one side of the stage to another while singing and playing a guitar. To me, that means one thing: Rock Star.
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Plus, who else can almost come across as a pimp in a Santa costume?
So this entry is about a little Prince song. My sister introduced me to an a capella remake version of this song done by the Carleton Knights when I was a in my early awkward years. For some reason the song stuck with me. I just kept on singing it in the shower for years without ever hearing it for a second time. And then when those magical file-sharing programs came along over a decade later, I decided to search for the song. On a whim. I had no idea it was by Prince!
So download it. It's just a great song about little kids. And starfish. And coffee. And I am not really sure what all of that has to do with maple syrup and jam. But don't worry - it will all make you feel good. Almost fifteen years after first hearing it, this song still makes me smile.
Download it here: Prince - Starfish and Coffee - download no longer available, contact me to find out how to get it.
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Al Green
21.12.02
Al Green is well known for his hit song "Let's Stay Together," a song most commonly known by people 20-something and under because of its use in the cult film "Pulp Fiction." But Al Green has been on the music scene for a long while, and is still doing concerts (although I hear they are more like gospel church concerts than soul concerts).
Regardless, after picking up a couple of his tunes here and there, I decided to really invest in the man's talent by buying "Al Green - Anthology." Just get the album. You really won't regret it.
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I discovered on precious piece while listening to one of the four CDs in the Anthology on my walkman. I was on my way to a large lecture hall class at the Univ. of California -Santa Cruz. I was numbed by the song. Upon arrival, I played it for a friend of mine who insisted on listening to it four or five times straight with his eyes closed. I have since played it for several other people who had similarly dramatic reactions. Either my friends are all drama queens/kings, or this is a damn good song.
Its name describes it perfectly: "Simply Beautiful"
Download it here: download no longer available, contact me to find out how to get it.
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Bill Withers
18.12.02
Bill Withers is probably the least-known singer-songwriter who wrote a lot of well-known songs. "Lean on Me?" Bill did it. "Ain't no Sunshine?" Bill again. "Just the Two of Us?" That was Bill, not Will.
Regardless, the recognition Bill is really missing out on is for some of his other, less Hallmark-ad-like songs. If anybody knows the groovin', smooth bit entitled "Use Me," then you can say you know Bill Withers (that song will, I am sure, be featured here at a later date). Today's pick, however, is the quieter, gentler "Grandma's Hands." Bill's voice comes really comes through in this song, and I still occasionally get chills when listening to it.
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There are several versions, as well as a fairly popular remake by Gil Scott Heron. Gil's version is much more grandiose but still worthwhile. It is, in fact, what led me to discover Mr. Withers. Bill's original version, however, is extremely personal and is a different song entirely than the perhaps better-known remake.
Most of Bill's albums have the same, or very similar, version of "Grandma's Hands." You can most likely find a Bill Withers "Best of" type of deal without much effort and for little cash. I had the good fortune to stumble upon this little gem of a song, yet in a different versions than all the ones I own, the other day.
It is absolutely wonderful.
Download it here: download no longer available, contact me to find out how to get it.
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Mos Def & Co
14.12.02
I don't know if I am just way out of the American loop or what, but finding good new American stuff is a bit of a task for me. Especially hip hop. I get a lot of American crap over here, but, it's just that: crap. So I downloaded this song by Common (who oddly enough does not appear to have his own site), Mos Def (who might just possibly be, just maybe, the winner of the cutie rapper of the year), and The Roots (who just released a new album). Collaborative efforts are usually pretty interesting, even if the distinctive style of some rappers manages to get suffocated at times. This song manages to blend together the three styles without losing the personal edge in each group's/rapper's segment.
Download it here: download no longer available, contact me to find out how to get it.
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