100best: Missy Elliott

This month we select our favorite songs by the incomparable Missy Elliott. As a producer, songwriter, rapper, and singer she’s a quadruple threat. Luckily, we only had to choose from the seven albums she put out herself, but she’s worked and featured on so many other great records it’s daunting. Whether you’re a fan, [...]

Backtrack: Ikara Colt, Chat and Business

In the process of ripping my entire CD collection to my shiny new external hard disk, I’ve come across tons of albums that I’d totally forgotten about. It’s kind of sad how that happens, but also nice to rediscover them later. Kind of like finding money in your pocket. Ikara Colt’s 2002 debut Chat and [...]

New Band Day: Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago

If you enjoy haunting neo-folk, then For Emma, Forever Ago, the debut album from Bon Iver (a.k.a. Justin Vernon), will be just what the doctor ordered. A haunting nine tracks of thought-provoking and introspective music written and recorded in an isolated cabin in Wisconsin.
Vernon released the album himself in 2007. So, it doesn’t exactly qualify [...]

Poptastic Day: Loverboy, “Working For The Weekend”

Musically, Canada’s super popular eighties band, Loverboy is somewhere between The New Kids On The Block and Bon Jovi. When I think of the cheesiest of cheesy eighties sound, I think of their biggest hit “Working For The Weekend” from 1981. I actually really like it, it embraces every eighties cliché with such infectious enthousiasm. [...]

Those Zany Charts …

During a visit to Rough Trade East last weekend, I picked up Best Of Grand Royal 12’s, a collection of, as the smart folks at Rough Trade note, “not strictly legit” Beastie Boys remixes released in September 2007. Beasties? Yes, please. Remixes? What more could a remix whore like me want?
Michael (Mike D) Diamond, Adam [...]