The 11 Best Artists Who Owe Their Careers to Dr. Dre

I raced in my first triathlon this weekend. I'm a fairly good swimmer and managed to place in the top 10% of the competitors for the swim. I started happy...I'm new to the sport and I'm already making waves (pun intended). But then, I hit the bike section. I sucked it hard. And it wasn't my fault. I had a crappy bike. I was being passed by guys who weighed 300-pounds. And that's not a clever euphemism...there was a gigantic fat guy in the race who "bolted" by me like Krispy Kreme was giving away free jelly-filled pastries. I can't believe a bike could make that big of a difference. The fat guy's bike was wobbling from his intense weight...but he was still faster than me.

Both the swim and the run are almost purely based on the competitor's abilities. But the bike section has nothing to do with talent...but who has the most expensive bike. It just goes to show, you can't accomplish anything in life on your own. You always need help. And the richer the help...the better your chances.

The 11 Best Artists Who Owe Their Careers to Dr. Dre:

1. N.W.A.
2. Snoop dogg
3. Eminem
4. Ice Cube
5. Eazy-E
6. 50 Cent
7. The Game
8. Nate Dogg
9. Warren G
10. Blackstreet
11. D.O.C.

Buy The Game's new album, L.A.X.

The Unknown: Bloc Party - Another Weekend In the City

Bloc Party made a surprise release this week...digitally selling their new album, Intimacy, a full two months before the street date. Most media outlets are surprised by this turn...but this has become a rather common place event over the past couple of years (Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails). What no one is mentioning, is that this release is actually the second digital release by the band. The first release was Another Weekend in the City (named by and artwork by I Guess I'm Floating)..a companion album to last year's A Weekend in the City. Another Weekend In The City is a compilation of B-Sides and special edition tracks released alongside the release of A Weekend. The tracks come together to form a very strong cohesive onslaught in the style of Silent Alarm. For the casual fan, A Weekend was enough...coming with usually a couple random bonus tracks. But for the rabid fan, if you searched hard enough, you were rewarded with a second disc of equally strong songs. At the time, many bloggers were actually bigger fans of Another Weekend.

Now the setlist for the album has always been in dispute, but after a few listens to the various editions, this has been the song order I've found to work the best.

Here is Bloc Party - Another Weekend In the City

1. Version 2.0

2. The Once And Future King

3. Cain Said To Abel

4. Secrets

5. Selfish son

6. Vision of Heaven

7. We Were Lovers

8. Rhododendron

9. Atonement

10. England

11. Emma Kate's Accident

Please Buy Bloc Party's new album for instant download now....Intimacy. Support the artists, we have the power to shape the future of the industry. We want more of this...and less of the box store labels.

The 11 Best Bloc Party Songs:

Back from hiatus!

One of the things taken away from you as a parent is the ability to go to a movie theater and see a new release. You can do it...but you run the risk of your newborn breaking into a hysterical tanrum, yearning for a taste of boob. Not that that's not a good reason to go into a tantrum but it doesn't necessarily amuse the people around you, like the 6'8" biker who stopped into the air conditioned theater to get away from the summer blaze. So, you're left to cable and Netflix, hoping that if you move a movie to the top of your queue you run a better chance of getting it before everyone else. (you don't) But some theaters have reached out to new parents and have introduced "mommie movies." Once a week in the morning, some theaters will show movies for parents with kids only...so it's an entire theater full of screaming babies...and they charge you full price. But if you're itching for a fix...it's really the only choice you have. My wife and I went to see Tropic Thunder last week. I was disturbed. Not to see Robert Downey play a black man. Not to see Tom Cruise play a fat bald Jew. But that the woman next to me was feeding her six month old child...Coca-Cola. I sat there the whole movie, glancing to back to see if it was really true. And every time...I was more and more angered. the only thing that kept me from getting out of my seat and ripping the baby away from that crack dealer was to convince myself that she was only giving the child...Diet Coke. That worked. Because if you're going to give your kid soda...at least teach them good dieting habits at the same time.

Here Are The 11 Best Bloc Party Songs:

1. Helicopter (Silent Alarm)
2. Two More Years (Silent B-side)
3. Positive Tension (Silent Alarm)
4. The Once and Future King (Another Weekend In the City)
5. Hunting For Witches (A Weekend In the City)
6. Banquet (Silent Alarm)

7. Secrets (Another Weekend In the City)
8. Waiting For the 7.18 (A Weekend In the City)

9. Version 2.0 (Another Weekend In the City)
10. I Still Remember (A Weekend In the City)

11. Flux (A Weekend In the City)

Buy bloc Party's new album, Intimacy Now!!!

The 11 Best Bright Eyes Songs:

Going out of town...to a wedding in Reno...oh...yeah!

Buy Connor's new solo album.

The 11 Best Bright Eyes Songs:

1. Let's Not Shit Ourselves (Lifted or the Story is in the Soil)

2. Lua (I'm Wide Awake)

3. You Will. You?Will. You? Will. You?Will. (Lifted or the Story is in the Soil)

4. Middleman (Cassadega)

5. Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh (Fevers & Mirrors)

6. Something Vague (Fevers & Mirrors)

7. First Day Of My Life (I'm Wide Awake)

8. Ship In A Bottle (Digital Ash In a Digital Urn)

9. Four Winds (Cassadega)

10. Don't Know When But A Day Is Gonna Come (Lifted or the Story is in the Soil)

11. Light Pollution (Digital Ash In a Digital Urn)

The 11 Best Songs By The Faint

This week saw the death of one of the most important items in our lives. Scrabulous was removed from Facebook. At first, I was scared...did this mean I actually had to go and get a life? I needed to find something better to do with my time? Luckily, I soon found the email version at the scrabulous website...which I think I might like more than the Facebook version. But here's what I find perplexing about this whole situation, it's the fact that Hasbro's forced Facebook to remove the application from their website. The reason is for Copywright infringement. Okay, I get that in theory. But in reality, it may have been one of the dumbest business moves of all time. For months, people on Facebook have been playing scrabulous. Then, when they want to get a version to play at home with their friends...they can't go out and buy a Home Version of Scrabulous...they have to buy Scrabble. Scrabulous was free marketing for Scrabble! And what did Scrabble do? Write a thank you letter to Scrabulous for igniting a whole new legion of fans to the board game? No, they threatened to sue them. Now people are boycotting Hasbro. Good job!

The 11 Best Songs By The Faint:

1. Worked Up So Sexual (Blank-Wave Arcade)

2. Agenda Suicide (Danse Macabre)

3. Southern Belles in London Sing (Wet From Birth)

4. Let The Poison Spill From Your Throat (Danse Macabre)

5. Call Call (Blank-Wave Arcade)

6. Glass Danse (Danse Macabre)

7. Sympton Finger (Wet From Birth)

8. Desperate Guys (Wet From Birth)

9. Your Retro Career Melted (Danse Macabre)

10. Sex Is Personal (Blank-Wave Arcade)

11. Hypnotised (B-Side)

Buy The Faint's new album Fasciinatiion...now!

The 11 Best Songs By the Replacements

The Lost Boys 2 was just released directly to DVD. It's been a long awaited sequel...at one time being called Lost Girls...also, there was a "werewolf" version that floated around for a few years. And most recently, there was even a version that brought Jason Patrick's and Keifer Sutherland's characters back. But with all the ideas that were bouncing around...the producers opted for the very ordinary...average repeat telling of the first story. This time, the main characters are inferred to be the kids of Michael and Star from the first movie. Only, Corey Feldman returns and there's a brief but confusing cameo by Corey Haim. But the strangest thing about the movie was the fact that producers decided to incorporate torture porn into the movie, which contradicts the lure of the first movie. People liked the sexiness of the vampires and the magnetic nature of their lifestyle. In this movie...they went for the gross-out factor and forgot...that although there was a sexy vibe in the first movie...the vampires do not have sex. (usually vamps are asexual)...but in need of nudity for overseas distribution, that mythos was dumped for a bit of extra cash.

The 11 Best Songs By the Replacements:

1. Can't Hardly Wait (Tim Version)

2. Left of the Dial (Tim)

3. Alex Chilton (Pleased To Meet Me)

4. Bastards of Young (Tim)

5. I'll Be You (Don't Tell A Soul)

6. Black Diamond (Let It Be)

7. The Ledge (Pleased To Meet Me)

8. Sixteen Blue (Let It Be)

9. Here Comes A Regular (Tim)

10. Skyway (Pleased To Meet Me)

11. We'll Inherit The Earth (Don't Tell A Soul)

The new Paul Westerberg album...49:00... is only .49 cents. that's right...you can buy it legally for .49 cents. The ENTIRE album. That's cheaper than pretty much...everything.

Buy it now at amazon...Amazon

The 11 Best New Amsterdams Songs:

You know what day is the right day to have a kid? Yesterday.

It's actually an old saying about marriage. It's about how guys wait forever to ask a girl to marry them...waiting for the right time...when there is no such thing as the right time. Well, the same goes for having a kid. So many of my friends are "waiting" to have kids. Waiting to make more money...waiting to move into a bigger place...waiting until their emotionally ready. Well, none of this will EVER happen. If you want to get married...get married. If you want to have kids....have kids. I have close friends who were waiting for the right time to have kids...they kiept pushing it...next year...the next year. Now they're getting divorced because one of them got tired of waiting and went and got someone else pregnant.

50 years ago, people lived in one-room apartments, with 10 kids, and ate big bags of oatmeal and rice. They did okay. You'll do fine.

The 11 Best New Amsterdams Songs:

1. Drinking In The Afternoon (Killed or Cured)

2. Hover Near Fame (Worse For Wear)

3. Turn Out the Light (Story Like A Scar)
4. Blood On The Floor (At the Foot of My Rival)
5. Smoking Gun (Worse For Wear)
6. Every Double Life (Never You Mind)
7. Just So Over You (Killed or Cured)
8. My Old Man Had A Pistol (Para Toda Vida)
9. Ex's and Oh's (The Companion of My Rival)
10. Watching The World Cave-In (Killed or Cured)
11. Doctor My Eyes (Story Like A Scar B-side)

Buy Matt Pryor's new solo album....Confidence Man.

The 11 Best Songs By The Vines

Hep B is a sexually-transmitted disease. So I've been told...it's quite nasty to catch. And by all means, I think it's a disease worth vaccinating against. But who needs to be vaccinated against it? If you thought "I think infants need to be vaccinated!" then you would get a gold star for today. Turns out that the very first vaccination shot an infant gets is the Hep B vaccine. And the doctors give it at 1 WEEK!!! Honestly, why in the world do infants need to be protected against a sexually-transmitted disease? I did some research about it. Turns out...more kids die from the vaccine in one year...than have EVER died from the disease....EVER! I understand the small pox vaccine...the mumps...chicken pox...polio...lupus (is there a lupus vaccine...if there is, then I get it), but Hep B? It's a sexually-transmitted disease. What infants are out on the town having unprotected sex? And if there are infants out there having unprotected sex...well, then their parents have much BIGGER problems than worrying about their kids catching Hep B.

The 11 Best Songs By The Vines:

1. Ride (Winning Days)

2. Get Free (Highly Evolved)

3. Animal Machine (Winning Days)

4. Autumn Shade II (Winning Days)

5. I'm Only Sleeping (I Am Sam Sdtk.)

6. Vision Valley (Vision Valley)

7. Outtathaway! (Highly Evolved)

8. TV Pro (Winning Days)

9. F.T.W. (Winning Days)

10. Take Me Back (Vision Valley)

11. Don't Listen To The Radio (Vision Valley)

Buy the Vines new album, MELODIA . BTW...who knew they even had a new album?

My Daughters's 11 Favorite Songs

My daughter turns 3 this week. Here are her favorite songs:

1. Don't Stop - Fleetwood Mac (has the whole song memorized)

2. ABC - The Jackson 5 (thinks Michael Jackson is just a little boy)

3. Lolly, Lolly, Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here - Schoolhouse Rock (timeless songs)

4. I'm Mr. Heat Miser - The Heat Miser (even though she's jewish...she loves the xmas songs)

5. I'm Mr. Snow Miser - The Snow Miser

6. Three Little Birds - Bob Marley

7. Interjections - Schoolhouse Rock

8. 5 Lil Ducks (live) - Trout Fishing In America

9. Class of 3000 Theme Song - Andre 3000 (the whole album is sorta avant guarde jazz/rap fusion...and she digs it)

10. All Apologies - Nirvana (she likes the "yeah, yeah, yeah" part)

11. When I Get To 11 - The Terrible Twos (Best post-Get-Up Kids release)

The 11 Best Me First and The Gimme Gimmies Songs

I've come to the conclusion that having a new baby is kinda like being a celebrity. Here's why. The moment you walk into a store with a new baby...everybody takes notice. Now not everybody looks directly at you...some people just check you out from the corner of their eyes...but they know you're there. They are trying to get a good glimpse...but are trying to be sly about it at the same time. No matter where you go in the store...you're watched...people want to know what you're going to buy (for the baby). Then you have the people who come up and talk to you. I'm not a celebrity...but I would assume that most people who approach celebrities are people who will never be celebrities themselves. Along those lines, those people who approach people with babies are people who can't have babies themselves, meaning, old people and ugly people. Man, it must suck being a celebrity.

Here are The 11 Best Me First and The Gimme Gimmies Songs:

1. Wild World (Blow in the Wind)

2. Science Fiction Double Feature (Are A Drag)

3. Crazy (Take A Break)

4. Rocket Man (Have A Ball)

5. Hello (Take A Break)

6. Goodbye Earl (Love Their Country)

7. Phantom of The Opera Song (Are A Drag)

8. Danny's Song (Have A Ball)

9. Country Roads (Denver)

10. Jolene (Love Their Country)

11. I Write The Songs (Barry)

Buy the new MFGG album...Have Another Ball NOW!!! (early B-sides and 3 new songs)