Saturday, August 02, 2008

John's August Top 50 (pt. 1: 50-41)

Ok, so in the spirit of our recent flurry of music-related content here on Best Way, I decided to start writing a bit about my fake ipod charts that I started awhile back. When I worked at my college radio station I generated weekly charts that reflected what discs were getting lots of play, what were new ads, etc. and distributed those to various distributors to keep them posted when their releases were getting pick-up. It was one of the more fun pieces of my job, along with the weekly conversations these charts spurred with reps from the various distributors.

Since owning an ipod I listen mostly to my own music when driving in the car (via FM radio adapter), at home, etc. so I have started thinking of my ipod as a little self-contained radio station. Hence, in June I made my first monthly top 50 playlist. I had toyed with the idea before, and it was lots of fun, so this month I'm doing the same. Below are songs #50-41 in my top 50 for August 2008. Songs newly added to my ipod and the list are in green.

50. Soggy Tongues (by Vic Chestnutt)
Lovely song by a widely respected artist, someone whose music I've always meant to check out, but only recently downloaded some of his stuff.


49. Climbing the Walls (by They Might be Giants)

48. Living Room (by Basement Jaxx)

47. Salamalekoum - Les Escrocs (by Bantu, Docta, Sister Fa & More)
This is off a wonderful compilation of African hip-hop I found on E-music. The album is called "Many Lessons: Hip Hop, Islam and West Africa." Some really wonderful sounds here.

46. Sweet Talk (by Spank Rock)

45. I Woke Up Today (by Port O'Brien)

44. Keasby Nights (by Catch 22)
I used to listen to Catch 22 a lot in college, but never purchased the CD until about a month ago. This has been in pretty heavy rotation ever since. Ahh for the throwback songs we used to crank while driving around campus!

43. Walcott (by Vampire Weekend)
They're a little too phenom-y for me right now, I see their record everywhere, but their sound is good even if the whole African sounds filtered through preppyness vibe is weird to me.

42. Ladies of the World (by Flight of the Conchords)

41. You and Me (by Solomon Burke)
Solomon Burke is an incredible soul singer who could literally make the warnings at the end of a direct-to-consumer drug advertisement sound amazing. This is a relatively new cut.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey John,

I saw you're digging the Many Lessons comp. Good stuff!

I run a record label that also specializes in African Hip-Hop - if you'd like some music, let me know and I'll be happy to send some your way.

Best,
Ben

John said...

Hey Ben,

I hope this comment makes its way back to you because I couldn't grab contact info out of yours. I would love to check out more African Hip-Hop, and if you sent stuff my way I would be happy to give a listen and even try to write it up here on the blog. Shoot me an email to bluidevil00 at yahoo.com and we can chat more.

Many Lessons really is very enjoyable, and I'm always on the look out for new and interesting stuff.