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Author: Money Mike

  • Get Into the Groove: The Ultimate Madonna Mix

    She’s the Queen of Pop. She’s (like) a virgin. She’s a dance diva. She’s an Earth mother. She’s Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone Penn Ritchie, and she’s been a musical icon for the past twenty-five years.

    Much has been said about Madge’s body of work, not all of it complimentary. Truthfully, although I’m certainly a fan, I’d have to say she peaked early. In my eyes, her first album is still her best. However, each of her albums has at least a couple of strong songs, and, while her latest, Hard Candy, hasn’t exactly been critically or commercially praised, it’s not an altogether bad piece of work (dear Madonna: Justin Timberlake yes, Pharrell Williams no).

    If I had 80 minutes to describe the essence of Madonna in a nutshell to a stranger (although, let’s face it, who doesn’t know Madonna?) These are the songs I would go with:

    1) Get Together (from “Confessions on a Dance Floor”, 2005)

    The only way I can describe this song is: this is the way it feels inside a club when you’ve completely lost touch with your life and all the everyday crap you go through and just submit yourself to the music. I’m certainly not the clubgoer I was back in the mid-Nineties (actually, I hate clubs nowadays), but this song reminds me of those transcendent moments. It was really the only thing worth keeping on “Confessions on a Dance Floor”.

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  • Lenny Kravitz Bops Horizontally in New Dancin’ Video

    Those of you old enough might remember critics saying that Lenny Kravitz was too derivative and that he wouldn’t last. Well, twenty years later, the man is still here, still derivative, and sexier than ever. It Is Time for a Love Revolution is his most inspired record in a decade, and Dancin’ Till Dawn might be just the song and video to resurrect the underperforming album. Boasting a fantastically erotic video (and this is the edited version, boys and girls), I’m not sure that this’ll get much daytime play, but the song is bangin’ (even though, yes, it sounds exactly like The Rolling Stones’ Miss You). The man has held up fairly well for two decades in the game, no?

  • Chart Chat Express: Taylor’s “Swift” Rise To #1

    18-year old country superstar Taylor Swift enjoys an impressive debut on this week’s album chart with her sophomore release, Fearless. Nearly 600,000 folks bought or downloaded Swift’s album, making it the biggest selling first week for a country album since The Eagles’ Wal-Mart exclusive last year, which scanned over 700,000 units in its’ first week. Swift was not only on last week’s CMA ceremony (after which just about every artist to perform sees an increase in scans this week), but she is the rare country artist to get love from MTV, a platform which certainly influenced a lot of folks who may not necessarily count country as their favorite genre.

    The remainder of the Top 20 is filled with debuts, as the top six albums this week all scan over 100,000 units (indicating that the holiday season is right around the corner). American Idol runner up David Archuleta lands at #2 with his self titled debut, the latest edition of Now That’s What I Call Music! follows behind at #3, T-Pain enters at #4, a holiday album from Enya pops in at #8, Christina Aguilera’s greatest hits album is new at #9, and Seal’s new covers album pops in at #13.

    Here’s what this week’s Top 20 looks like:

    01-“Fearless” Taylor Swift
    02-“David Archuleta” David Archuleta
    (combined age of the Top 2 artists…35)
    03-“Now That’s What I Call Music! Vol. 29” Various Artists
    04-“Thr33 Ringz” T-Pain
    05-“Twlight” Soundtrack
    Expect this soundtrack to get a boost when the movie premieres this weekend.
    06-“Black Ice” AC/DC
    07-“High School Musical: Senior Year” Various Artists
    08-“Winter Came” Enya
    Already this year’s highest charting holiday album.
    09-“Keeps Gettin’ Better: A Decade of Hits” Christina Aguilera
    10-“Paper Trail” T.I.
    11-“Funhouse” P!nk
    12-“Evolver” John Legend
    13-“Soul” Seal
    14-“Incanto” Andrea Bocelli
    15-“Greatest Hits Vol. 1” Rascal Flatts
    16-“Take it to the Limit” Hinder
    17-“Rock & Roll Jesus” Kid Rock
    18-“Lucky Old Sun” Kenny Chesney
    19-“Death Magnetic” Metallica
    20-“Love on the Inside” SugarLand
    Kid Rock, Chesney and SugarLand all get significant boosts from the CMA Awards