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Entries categorized as “Friday MP3 Shuffle” 276 results
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Pusha T Edition
[photo from Saving for Laundry]
Today we wish a Happy Birthday to Terrence "Pusha T" Thornton. As one-half of the Virginia Beach, VA sibling rap duo Clipse (along with Gene "No Malice" Thornton) backed by cutting-edge production from the Neptunes, he was part of the ‘00s wave of rappers who moved the genre from the ‘90s gangsta rhymes of Snoop Dogg and 2Pac to the ‘10s impressionist realism of Kendrick Lamar and Vince Staples. Issues with various labels and beefs with other rappers led the brothers to part ways in 2014, but they have since hinted that a reunion may happen sometime in the future. In the meantime, T’s got a full plate both as a solo artist and president of Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music label.
Wish Pusha T a Happy Birthday by pushing the “shuffle” button on your MP3 player and share the first 10 songs that play...
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Lætitia Sadier Edition
[photo from Drag City]
Today we wish a very Happy Birthday to Lætitia Sadier. She emerged into prominence singing and playing guitar with the French experimental Pop group Stereolab, a band that operated on creative and political wavelengths well outside the MOR norm while pointing the way forward for untold numbers of artists and bands working in the ‘90s and ‘00s (their sounds helped lay the groundwork for what we know today as Post-Rock). For the past few years Sadier’s been a solo act, crafting music that has a lighter and more romantic but no less expressive touch, not unlike a 21st century torch singer.
To wish her a bon anniversaire, take your MP3 player, press the "shuffle" button, and share the first 10 songs that play:
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Tommy James Edition
[picture from the Tommy James web site]
In boxing and pro wrestling, the “mid-card” is the slate of competitors who aren’t the superstar headliners. They may be talented and even accomplished, but they spend most of their time a notch below the main events. In the storied history of Rock and Roll, one of the most successful mid-card pop bands of the British Invasion era was Tommy James & the Shondells, a band from Niles, MI.
For about five years starting in the mid ‘60s with their chart-topper “Hanky Panky,” a garage-Pop ditty very much in the spirit of the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie,” the band produced a succession of FM Radio stalwarts that remain in rotation today, including the smoky and sensual “Crimson & Clover” (later covered by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts); a second “Louie Louie” descendant called “Mony Mony” (later covered by Billy Idol); the testosterone-injected bubble-gum Pop track “I Think We’re Alone Now” (later covered by '80s teen-Pop sensation Tiffany); and the psychedelic blue-eyed soul of “Crystal Blue Persuasion” (recently used to great effect in the TV series Breaking Bad). [James also had a hit with the folksy-funky “Draggin’ the Line” as a solo artist in 1971].
You would probably have to wait a little bit to see their name appear on most folks’ lists of the greatest groups of the ‘60s, but few bands managed to put together as impressive a collection of durable, radio-friendly songs. It’s Tommy James’ birthday today, so celebrate by taking your MP3 player, pressing the "shuffle" button, and sharing the first 10 songs you hear...
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Besse Smith Edition
(photograph by Carl Van Vechten)
Today is the birthday of Bessie Smith, now and for all time “The Empress of the Blues.”
As the most popular female Blues singer in the 1920s and 1930s, she had a glorious voice and was a fearless force of nature with a temper as big as her pipes (in the segregated South, she once chased a group of Ku Klux Klansmen away from one of her shows at a time when Black folks wisely avoided such confrontations). Bessie Smith’s recordings have influenced untold numbers of Blues and Jazz singers. Rockers and rappers, too - Janis Joplin not only appreciated her music but also helped pay for a tombstone for her as-then-unmarked grave, and Queen Latifah recently portrayed her in a 2015 HBO bio-pic.
Bessie Smith’s impact continues to be felt throughout American music. In her honor, let’s play the MP3 Shuffle. Take your MP3 player, press the "shuffle" button, and share the first 10 songs that play:
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Izzy Stradlin Edition
Great news, everybody! Guns N’ Roses has finally reunited!! Well, most of them anyway. Even with a so-called “classic era” lineup, the group that annihilated the late ‘80s / early ‘90s LA Rock scene and will be coming to a Coachella near you is missing one important piece - founder and rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin. He and Axl Rose formed the band from the remains of Hollywood Rose and L.A. Guns, and was with the group through their most explosive period when they became the biggest Hard Rock band in the world with the albums Appetite for Destruction, G N' R Lies, and Use Your Illusion I and II.
Despite their tabloid-ready personal disputes and hedonistic excess, GNR was the real deal and a worthy sucessor to the titanic Arena Rock bands that came before like Led Zeppelin and Van Halen. Stradlin left the band in 1991 because he wanted to get sober, and has since launched his own solo career while occasionally rejoining his old bandmates for occasional gigs. But not the upcoming 2016 tour, which he has confirmed he will not participate in. Sometimes, you can’t go home again, and when you’ve got a full life of your own, that’s not at all a bad thing.
Today is Izzy’s birthday, so let’s celebrate by taking your MP3 player, pressing the "shuffle" button, and sharing the first 10 songs that play: