5 for 5: Another music thread

1. You're in for some good listening.
B. I still love CDs. I can rip the music and transfer it to any device, and I have access to the full, uncompressed files. The sad side of the ubiquity of iTunes is small, compressed music.

 

Being There, IMNSHO, is their masterpiece

 

Same here.

Used CDs are dirt cheap and I still play 'em in the car. At home, they're ripped to lossless and played on my computer through a USB digital-to-analog converter ... DACs are an incredible, often fairly inexpensive way to get GREAT sound out of your computer audio.

 

I was finding it impossible to pick five so I narrowed it down to contemporary artists and eliminated some of my favorites who have been done (Arcade Fire and Ben Folds were the two biggest ones):

Regina Spektor - She was the easiest pick, but hardest to narrow down to five songs. She's an enormous talent who has more than lived up to it over the past decade-plus:
"Us"

"Eet"

"On the Radio"

"Dance Anthem of the 80s"

"Chemo Limo"

The Gaslight Anthem - Easiest to pick 5 songs for since I ended up choosing them all from the same album (probably my favorite of the past decade):
"The Backseat"

"High Lonesome"

"Miles Davis and The Cool"

"The Patient Ferris Wheel"

"Here's Looking at You, Kid"

Florence and the Machine - Such an amazing voice that's just overpoweringly beautiful in person:
"Shake it Out"

"Only if for a Night"

"All This and Heaven, Too"

"Rabbit Heart [Raise it Up]"

"Drumming"

Mika - Best English-speaking pop musician going right now. Unfortunately, his stuff isn't played on the radio here so he's huge in Europe but barely heard of by most in the U.S.:
"Happy Ending"

"Blame it on the Girls"

"Popular Song"

"Elle me Dit"/"Emily" (French and English version of basically the same song, but they're both awesome in their own way)

"Grace Kelly"

Kanye West (Hi YG!) - He's made two of my 10 favorite albums of the past decade. Not a huge fan of the others, but those two have plenty to pick from:
"Last Call"

"Family Business"

"Never Let Me Down"

"Power"

"Dark Fantasy" (Picking my 2nd from this album was tough)

 

You're a weird kid.

 

I can't decide what's worse: That Kanye West is your favorite rapper or that you love him but don't like his best album, Late Registration. Had you went with Graduation or 808s and Heartbreak, I might have openly wept.

 

OK, this thread has hit its rap-related posts limit.

 

Late Registration would be my 3rd. I haven't listened to it in years so maybe I'll give it another shot, and Kanye is not my favorite rapper. I'd go with 2pac or Jay-Z. 2pac was out because of my criteria and I didn't feel like trying to decide on 5 songs for Jay-Z.

 

I was a little rapster wannabe in high school and a few years afterward.

Public Enemy:
Louder Than A Bomb:

By the Time I Get to Arizona:

Night of the Living Baseheads:

Can't Truss It:

Don't Believe the Hype:

Boogie Down Productions:
Love's Gonna Getcha:

I'm Still No. 1:

Jimmy:

My Philosphy:

T'cha:

Eric B. and Rakim:
Casualties of War:

Follow the Leader:

Paid in Full:

Juice:

Rakim solo:
Uplift:

Jody Watley feat. Rakim:
Friends:

 

Can you lock your own thread?

 

To be fair, a lot of rappers don't wear sleeves.

 

OK, that makes sense. And give Late Registration another spin (or, I suppose, click). It's deeper and more ambitious than College Dropout, and it is much more even than My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.