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Congratulations to Sam who was chosen by random to receive the Danielle Evin CD.

Stay tuned for our next giveaway!

A friend pointed me to this great site called Critical Metrics. Here’s how the site describes its mission:

Every week, artists, DJs, music tv networks, newspapers, magazines, retailers, and bloggers recommend hundreds of their favorite new songs.

Critical Metrics keeps track of recommendations and playlists across all media so you can easily find, try, and buy the best new music.

I’ve found some great music there. Check it out! You may find something new to love.

In March, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame released their Definitive 200, a list of albums that they consider essential to every music collection. The Beatles are heavily represented, of course, as are many of the 60s and 70s rock and roll giants. I am not surprised to see Dark Side of the Moon on this list. Or Thriller or Hotel California or even Blood Sugar Sex Magik. But Jewel’s Pieces of You? And Beyonce’s Dangerously In Love? And three Dixie Chicks albums (Wide Open Space, Fly and Home)? Really?

I have to wonder what sort of criteria was used to decide what is essential and what is not. I don’t question the appeal of these questionable “essentials” to their respective audiences, but their inclusion on this list seems like sloppiness. There is enough good stuff on this list that I may keep it handy as a reference for when I feel the urge to add to my own collection, but I think calling the list definitive may be a bit of an overstatement.

What would be on your essential list?

Leave a comment on Danielle Evin’s Featured Artist page by May 1st 2007 for your chance to win a copy of Danielle Evin’s eponymous CD.

Winner will be chosen at random and notified via email.

One entry per household please!

This is the companion post to the Ten Songs I’m Totally Digging (Male Edition) that I posted over at my site yesterday.

Again, it’s a mix of some older material and new artists, the only thing they have in common is that I’ve been listening to these tracks a lot lately. Once again, I’ve added links to the albums on iTunes for your convenience.

1. “Five Wishes” - Danielle Evin. This is one of the best female artists of the past year. I don’t know that she has gotten any radio airplay or attention at all, but she certainly deserves some. Her voice is [tag]seductive[/tag], at times [tag]breathy[/tag], and occasionally [tag]aching[/tag]. This song is the best track and is also fairly representative of the rest of the album. The lyrics are clever and meaningful, and her delivery is flawless. It starts off rather mellow, but the last half of the song is just kick ass.

   [audio:FiveWishes.mp3]

   
   
   

2. “Traveling Light” - Courtney Jaye. I wouldn’t really consider Courtney to be a [tag]folk[/tag] artist, but this track certainly has some folksy elements to it, like the quiet banjo arpeggio and airy production. This song evokes a video montage in my head of a sunny day in a field and a great bike ride with the wind in my hair. One line in the bridge says “rising above these missing pieces leaves me weightless.” Very much the feeling I get from this song.

   [audio:TravelingLight.mp3]

   
   
   

3. “Ugly Girl” - Fleming and John. I first discovered this band when I moved to California in 1998. This song was a minor radio hit, and it reminds me of how happy I was to be in the land of sun and possibility. The witty tongue-in-cheek lyrics left me in hysterics the first time I listened. The melody is definitely memorable and has a high potential for getting stuck in your head for a long time. This track also contains perhaps one of the best uses of a vibraphone ever. The rest of the album is a bit harder edged with some fantastic vocals.

   [audio:UglyGirl.mp3]

   
   
   

4. “Knock ‘Em Out” - Lily Allen. If you haven’t picked up this album yet, you need to do so right now. It’s incredible. This track is [tag]smart, sassy,[/tag] and hysterical. It’s got the potential to be the anthem for a whole generation of women who are sick of being hit on in singles bars by creepy jerks with bad comb-overs. I’m especially pointing this song out for Miss Britt and DutchBitch. Howard, you probably already love it.

   [audio:KnockEmOut.mp3]

   
   
   

5. “Le Disko” - Shiny Toy Guns. I’m not usually a big fan of the [tag]electronic[/tag]-[tag]dance[/tag] genre, but this song has such a strong [tag]industrial[/tag] influence that it reminds me quite a lot of [tag]Nine Inch Nails[/tag]. No really. I heard this band on a compilation disc of Electro-[tag]Goth[/tag] [tag]Depeche Mode[/tag] covers. I loved the sound so much that I put myself on the pre-order list at Amazon to get the album when it dropped. It’s the most [tag]danceable[/tag] song on this list by far.

   [audio:LeDisko.mp3]

   
   
   

6. “Rehab” - Amy Winehouse. How appropriate for Ms. Cokefiend to sing a song about her refusal to go to rehab. She sounds like an artist that would have been on the radio in the sixties, back when [tag]Dusty Springfield[/tag] and the girls of [tag]Motown[/tag] were making hits. Her old soul vocals are updated with modern beats and effects and the result is a [tag]chic[/tag] ultra-cool album that could supply the entire soundtrack for the next Quentin Tarantino film.

   [audio:Rehab.mp3]
   
   
   

7. “Snow on the Sahara” - Anggun. Here’s another relatively old track that I recently rediscovered. Ok, truthfully, I just found the cd under my dresser where it had been living among the dust bunnies and spiders. I had forgotten how beautiful Anggun’s vocals were, especially on this song. Snow on the Sahara could be a song off of [tag]Sting[/tag]’s fabulous “Ten Summoner’s Tales” album. The lyrics are meaningful and sentimental, and the [tag]spacey[/tag] production makes me think of “Fields of Gold.”

   [audio:SnowOnTheSahara.mp3]
   
   
   

8. “LA Song” - Beth Hart. “She drank so hard the bottle ached,” is one of the first visuals you get from this song full of vivid imagery. The song is basically about how we take our problems with us wherever we go and no matter how hard we try to escape our situation, unless we face our demons head on we will never be happy. Yet another artist that got overlooked by mainstream radio. The album is a solid example of good songwriting.

   [audio:LASong.mp3]

   
   
   

9. “Just a Ride” - Jem. A song made for a road trip in a convertible. A great driving bass line and a [tag]hooky[/tag] chorus that seems tailor-made for a cool car commercial. Jem’s album dabbles in so many different styles that it’s rather hard to classify where she fits in. I’d suggest you pick up this album if you are fan of [tag]Dido[/tag], [tag]Imogene Heap[/tag], or [tag]Sia[/tag].

   [audio:JustARide.mp3]
   
   
   

10. “Poor Man’s House” - Patty Griffin. A woman, a guitar, a slight twang, and a social conscience. Patty Griffin is one the best modern [tag]folk[/tag] artists still making records. She gets absolutely no radio play, and if you don’t follow other artists in the genre you’ve probably never heard of her. Luckily, I do happen to like a lot of the modern folk movement, and have come to discover some pretty amazing artists like [tag]Ellis Paul, Billy Mann,[/tag] and Patty. I’ve been listening to this song a lot as a reminder that there are people in the world who have things a lot tougher than I do.

    [audio:PoorMansHouse.mp3]
    
    
    

Here’s the iMix at the iTunes Music Store

So there you go, there’s my list for now. I may put these together every so often, as the whole point of this site is to expose you to our favorites, and help you discover artists that you might never hear otherwise.

Is there a song here that you particularly love or hate? Let me know in the comments section!

I just posted a list of the ten songs by male artists that I’m totally digging right now over at my site. You can click over there to read my comments and listen to the songs, or you can check out this selection that the iTunes music store had available.

Enjoy!

[Editorial note: Please welcome the newest contributing author to N2Notes.com, Bianca. Her bio is available on the Authors page and you can visit her personal website at www.stirfrykitty.com.]

Rather than a traditional album review as my first post at N2Notes, I thought I might review a batch of songs to give you readers an idea of my musical taste as well as a picture of how I discover new music, because I think I might be at least a little unusual in both cases.

About a month ago I put together a mix CD of music that I’ve stumbled across over the last couple of years. These particular pieces have each held a place in my heavy rotation at one point or another, and it’s an eclectic enough mix that it will give you a broad spectrum musical experience.

1. The Jane Doe’s - Junkie –I pride myself on being current on internet fads, and even if I don’t actively participate in everything, I like to at least know what people are talking about. That being said, when it was discovered that lonelygirl15 was not, in fact, simply a young and popular vlogger, but instead an actress portraying a young and popular vlogger, and the blog/vlog community was up in arms about the betrayal, I figured I’d have to go watch a couple of webisodes just so that I would at least know what everyone was talking about. I watched the first half dozen or so webisodes for the sake of this research, and I stumbled across this particular song featured somewhere in the first few, and I loved it after just the first few chords. I kept watching lonelygirl15 for a while after that. Not because the show itself was any good. (It’s not.) But because they kept including interesting music that I had previously never heard, and I love finding new music. Eventually the good music petered out, and I stopped watching, but I managed to add a couple of gems to my collection because of this particular internet phenomenon.

2. Arling & Cameron - Multiplication Blues –I believe I stumbled across this particular song on one of the many music blogs that I follow. I don’t remember which, and I don’t remember when, but I know that this one one of the first bluesy type songs I have ever actually liked, so it made an impact.

3. Bettie Serveert - You’ve Changed –Another music blog find. I actually like her song Attagirl better, but it was too much a [tag]Grrrl[/tag] song, and at least half of my audience for the CD wasn’t women, so I included this instead.

4. Blonde Redhead - Messenger –I used to work at Borders Books and Music, and there was this sort of darkly hip girl named Amy who worked there. You know, the kind who had funky colors in her hair, who wore clothes she crafted herself out of finds from the Salvation Army, and who always, always had good taste in music. Well, she suggested Blonde Redhead for the overhead system, and it didn’t last long because it’s probably a bit too melancholy for the average Borders customer, but something about those minor chords and the singer’s aching voice caught my attention, and I bought the album (Misery Is a Butterfly) soon after. This is just one of many great songs on that album.

5. Butterfly Boucher - Life Is Short –If you’re a fan of Grey’s Anatomy, and you pay attention to the music featured on the show, then you probably remember this song. It’s [tag]peppy[/tag], without being [tag]cheesy[/tag], and captures the mood of the show perfectly for me.

6. Charlotte Hatherley - Behave –I wish I remembered where I ran across this song. Most likely a music blog. It’s got minor chords (are you noticing a theme yet?), and it’s a bit [tag]twangy[/tag], but not in a country music way.

7. Damone - Just What I Needed –There’s this goofy lesbian coming-of-age movie called But I’m a Cheerleader. I say goofy, because I think maybe you have to be a coming-of-age lesbian to get anything out of this movie (I’m too old to be coming-of-age anything, and I’m so heterosexual I think I defined it.), but it’s got a pretty decent soundtrack. This is a cover of the Cars original, and it’s bouncy and singy and Grrrly (and why did I bother censoring the Grrrly with Bettie Serveert when I ended up with so much [tag]Grrrl[/tag] stuff anyway).

8. The Matthew Show - Office Suite, Part I –This is another lonelygirl15 find. It’s kind of a spoken word rap, and reminds me a little bit of The Distance by Cake. To say this artist is [tag]obscure[/tag] is probably major understatement.

9. Tattle Tale - Glass Vase, Cello Case –There is a love scene in But I’m a Cheerleader between the main character and a girl who was previously a total bitch to her, and this song plays over the scene. It’s lovely, a little [tag]bittersweet[/tag], and it’s the kind of song that I would love to have someone write about making love to me. Because I think of my life in terms of soundtracks. And I’m a dork.

10. Kings of Convenience - I’d Rather Dance With You –Back when I was still a MySpace addict I would occasionally surf around to see what people my age in Tulsa were doing, what music they liked, what they liked to read, and to see if there was anyone interesting that I wanted to meet. I ran across this guy, and he was probably too cool to ever want to talk to me, but he had this song on his profile, and I figured I could at least steal that. I love how the singer holds his Ms and his NGs. This is also the only song I ever introduced to my former friend Daniel that he actually liked. He’s sort of a music snob. So I guess that says something.

11. G. Tom Mac - Half –This was at the end of an episode of Scrubs, and I think I liked it better a while back. Can music ungrow on you? I think this has. Anyway, it’s got cello, which I like.

12. Anjali - Misty Canyon –I think this was on an episode of Veronica Mars, but I won’t swear to it. Either way, it’s the sort of trip-hoppy, breathy type song you might like to hear when you’re sipping a martini while wearing your sexiest boots and something on top that shows off your assets and makes the cute guy at the end of the bar buy you your next cosmopolitan.

13. Deceptikon - Ashes of Shanghai –Another music blog find. What do you do with this song? You don’t sing to it, it has no words. You could maybe dance to it a little, I suppose. A sort of sway up against someone kind of dance. It’s too cool to be just background music. Unless, I guess, you’re in a bar somewhere that’s too cool even for itself. And then I guess you’re stuck buying martinis again.

14. Daft Punk - Technologic –Another one that I don’t know where it came from, but you’ve probably heard of Daft Punk before. This is sort of an unsong. It’s robotic, and would probably look great over a totally experimental artsy fartsy music video. It makes me want to drive fast when I listen to it in my car.

15. Chin Chin - Can’t Walk No More –A music blog find. It takes a moment to pick up, but then it’s another cool trip hoppy track, with a great, breathy voice.

16. AK-Momo - Time for the Muse –A music blog find. I don’t know why this feels like it should have come from a cop show from the 60s. It’s definitely taken a cue from early [tag]Portishead[/tag], and for that I love it.

So, there. That’s my totally schizophrenic mix CD for ya. If you’ve heard any of these and you love them, I’d love to know!

You might have noticed that it has been very quiet over here for a while.

When I started this site, I had great intentions, but not nearly enough time. Things have changed, and this site will be updated much more regularly.

I’ve revamped the site design, and will probably continue tweaking it over the next few weeks. Just one more reason to come back often!

Here are things that are upcoming on N2Notes.com:

• Additional Reviewers
• Guest Posts
• Interviews
• Featured Artist Pages
• Podcasts
• Music Samples
• and more!

If there’s anyone out there who is interested in becoming a guest reviewer, or would be interested in joining a review-circle music exchange, please drop me a line.