The 2005 Soapnix Sampler
The Goal of the Soapnix Sampler isn’t to choose the best songs of the year, or even really good songs in general. The some songs are things I haven’t posted, some are, some are from well-known acts, others are indies, and one isn’t even from 2005. The goal was for me to create a disc [...]
I just can’t get you out of my head…
The catchall term “African pop music” is about as useful (to my mind, anyway) a classification as “electronica”. It’s the kind of generalization that seems to imply fatigue, since it’s such a challenge to draw the boundaries of a genre which encompasses cultural influences from a greater number of sources than most, while simultaneously presenting [...]
Hippie Children
Devendra Banhart – Long Haired Child Devendra Banhart – I Feel Just Like A Child Hippie-ness has been a big part of my life lately. I suppose it started last weekend at an artists’ retreat when one of the attendees pointed out that “hippie” is an all purpose word. You can toss it into song [...]
Harry Nilsson’s Point
Harry Nilsson – Me and My Arrow Harry Nilsson – Think About Your Troubles Harry was once liked by the Beatles, they say. I don’t find that particularly hard to believe since he started out by writing advertising jingles which Paul would have liked. The question I have is this, which Beatle did he morph [...]
Amadou and Mariam
Amadou and Mariam – Coulibaly Amadou and Mariam – Senegal Fast-Food Afro-pop, when it is good, is fantastic. That’s all you should need to listen to the two tracks above. The rest of the story, near as I can figure, has the makings of a good novel. The two artists met at school together in [...]