Since I am going to a wedding this afternoon, this seemed the appropriate mix. Hooray for Christopher Rubino and Megan McGowan! Yes, I am a closet romantic. Stole My Heart is on the Amazon Kindle commercial. Sister Hazel actually has some good stuff beyond their most popular late 90s period. Carissa’s Wierd was a Seattle “chamber pop” band, one of the members went on to Band of Horses. They apparently didn’t know how to spell. Good to see Jennifer Knapp coming back with some good stuff. Ima see Katie Herzig live pretty soon, so am looking forward to that. The Lily Allen song has weird grammar but maybe that’s a Brit thing… “get a Chinese” rather than “get Chinese”? I assume she’s talking about Chinese food and not adopting a Chinese baby. The song has a nice cover by some UK kids choir, was listening to that the other day and it was utterly charming… possibly even a little better than the original.

Stole My Heart – Little & Ashley
Dead Hearts – Stars
You’re Not The Only One – Paul Thorn
What Kind Of Living – Sister Hazel
Raining In Me – The Benjy Davis Project
Lions – Samantha Crain
Chinese – Lily Allen
Princess – Lee Dewyze
Die – Carissa’s Wierd
Things I Used to Know – Riley Etheridge Jr.
Blue Sunshine – Blue Giant
Check Your Pocket – The Benjy Davis Project
Dive In – Jennifer Knapp
Wasted Daylight – Stars
Static Waves – Andrew Belle & Katie Herzig
Queen of the Lot – The Spring Standards
Heart To Tell – The Love Language
Smile with Candy Hearts – Clara C

Oh man. This girl is good with the production values and all the instruments and of course, being pretty and Korean. That’s called wide appeal. Having Kal Penn give you props and get you White House gigs ALSO helps.

BOB mashup covered by Clara C and Jason Yang, and the rap verse is sung. 1:00 to 1:30… musical heaven.

Kings of Leon, Colbie Caillat and John Mayer mashup.

Blu Cantrell and Paramore mashup. Nice take on Misery Business!

Random music wanderings this evening. First up, Brian Austin Green from back in 1996. He does sound like Dilated Peoples (which coincidentally produced some of the CD… also the Black Eyed Peas lent a hand as well) and it’s actually kinda nice. It’s got that 90s jazzy hiphop flow (his voice kinda reminds me of Left Eye for some reason too). It was panned, but of course it’s gonna get panned when a 90210 schmo makes music – regardless if it’s good or not. I feel bad for him, with the horrible reviews the CD got at the time… kinda like I did for Scarlet Johansson on the release of her first CD. Oh wells. He’s now got Megan Fox to make up for the crushing blow to his music career (and his acting career?). And Scarlet has… well, just being herself is the consolation prize – meaning AWESOME.

Speaking of Megan Fox, here she is helping to protest California school budget cuts. Like seriously, seeing her beg for money would make any fool empty all his pockets at her feet. Probably a lotta slobber too. Helps that it’s for a good cause though – and not actually for money, but for political action.

Next up: a Korean MC named Dumbfoundead. Asian rappers… there’s a bunch of good ones out there. Some of the bigger ones were kinda ass (ahem, Jin) but there’s some quality out there too. Mostly based out of LA, of course, since huge Koreatown there. Maybe it’s just my browsing habits but it’s been easier to find good Korean rappers so far. He doesn’t seem particularly Korean or include much Korean subject matter on the tracks though – no worries bout cultural awkwardness for non-Asian listeners. Love this track since it’s a nice mellow soul/R&B track. It’s a collabo with Sam Ock outta Maryland, who wrote the instrumentals and sings.

This next song is another Dumbfoundead collabo, but with Jay Park (another MC) and a big fave of mine, Clara C. You can download the track from her BandCamp page. I’ve got no problem shilling struggling artists, especially Asian homies. BTW they be mastas at that viral shit, 400k plus views in 3 days. Gee.

Big Sean deserves more attention. Maybe he’ll get some when his debut CD finally comes out this year. He’s signed on Kanye’s label. This song is so dope: Getcha Some from his mixtape, dropped all the way back in 07. Three years to make it big? Crossed fingers. So many wack rappers that don’t deserve the bacon they be hacking off the pig (Birdman? Pitbull?) but this guy has got some chips. How about some other talented rappers? Pill, K’naan, K-OS, Theophilus London… Speaking of talented, what happened to the Gorillaz? Their new single (well, a few months old now) was kinda… well, not shit, but definitely not to my liking. I did like all their old stuff but their reinvention is wack.

Last one: awesome shit from Fred Falke. Usually love his stuff, though sometimes he has missteps (after listening to the Tik Tok remix a while, I decided it was horrendous). Example’s aite, but live he’s pretty bad. His stuff is club-friendly though, so as long as he’s not communicating it mano-a-mano with yall, it’s tight.