hyssop

There are better tunes out there, but you’ve got to appreciate the attempt at conscience tugging rap that Kanye and Jay-Z turn in here. Plus I get to post a theme song from a James Bond movie. Dead Prez grabbed it too, and I’ve been digging them recently after I finally realized their track “Hip Hop” was the intro song for The Chapelle Show, and also finding a Diplo remix of M.I.A based on the same tune. “Hip Hop” sounds to me like proto-dubstep, but that’s probably because I’ve been listening to WAY too much dubstep lately… well, another post.

Shirley Bassey – Diamonds Are Forever

Kanye West – Diamonds From Sierra Leone

Dead Prez – Psychology

When a song is called “Born On Halloween” that pretty much means you HAVE to listen to it. And you know what? There’s some serious falsetto in here, including the intro croon pitched to match the wolf howl.  What to do? Pitch that baby up and sample it!

Blue Magic – Born on Halloween

Dilated Peoples – Right and Exact

I’ve railed against drm (digital rights management) before here. Well, I got an email last week from yahoo.com about their music store because I’ve purchased a couple of tracks from them. Here’s an excerpt:

The Yahoo! Music Store, along with the ability to purchase and download single songs and albums, will no longer be available as of September 30, 2008.

Songs and albums that were purchased through the Yahoo! Music Unlimited Store are protected by a digital rights management system that requires a valid license key before they can be played on your computer.

After the Store closes, Yahoo! will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for music purchased from Yahoo! Music Unlimited, and Yahoo! will no longer be able to authorize song playback on additional computers.

Yup, another one bites the dust. Look, everybody loves the ipod, and years from now it will appear in all it’s white plastic glory on some list of “the most influential products of the last 50 years,” but the  iTunes store is problematic. Their m4p format uses drm, and since nothing lasts forever, the day will come when they shut down the servers and all your iTunes songs will stop working.

Long story short: where do you buy your music, and will it be taken away from you when some corporation decides to pull the plug?

Speaking of George Benson, he was in a group called Harlem Underground Band, and they made this great tune, which was sampled on a couple of songs, like this Eric B & Rakim track.

Harlem Underground Band – Smokin’ Cheeba Cheeba

Eric B. and Rakim – What’s Going On

Oh yes, you will love this one too, and even better it’s a sample of a cover, so I dug up the original as well.

Jefferson Airplane – White Rabbit

George Benson – White Rabbit

Styles of Beyond – Outro

Check out this Manhattans track and tell me Amy Winehouse isn’t pulling from the same bag of tricks. This is a nice RJD2 track as well…

The Manhattans – Follow Your Heart

RJD2 – Silver Fox

I was at a pool party Saturday (working, not playing I’m afraid) when some Bob Marley came on and I was reminded once again just how perfect summer can be given a sunny afternoon, outside, preferably drinking cold beer and listening to some reggae.

Max Romeo & The Upsetters – Chase The Devil

Jay-Z – Lucifer (Produced By Kanye West)

Can’t bring up the blues without Howlin’ Wolf in the conversation. This is a great tune, and it’s got some of the same lyrics as “I Asked For Water,” which is quite possibly my all time favorite Howlin’ Wolf song (and in which the opening lyrics are “I asked for water/She brought me gasoline/That’s the troublin’-est woman/That I ever seen”). The Soul Coughing track? Hmmm, they’ve done some stuff that’s definitely better than this, but they don’t include any Howlin’ Wolf samples, so this is what you get…

Howlin’ Wolf – Smokestack Lightning

Soul Coughing – Down to This

Just in case you thought I wasn’t serious about Electric Mud. I don’t listen to the Gorillaz a whole lot, but I like how the groove drops on this one. The Suzuki melody campyness makes it a hard track to listen to more than once though, in my opinion.

Muddy Waters – Mannish Boy

Gorillaz – Left Hand Suzuki Method

I’m staying with the blues. This one’s from Electric Mud y’all – great, great album. Buy it.

Muddy Waters – Tom Cat

Cypress Hill – Ultraviolet Dreams