Favorite Things: Song

Another of "my favorite things" postings. This time it's about music. Music has powers to soothe the savage beast/breast (depends on who you talk to). For me, one song that moves me and soothes me is "Warwick Avenue" from the album "Rockferry" by Duffy.

It's got a 60s sensibility that reminds you of Pet Clark or Dusty Springfield. It's smooth and cool and her voice is just velvety.

Official Video

The entire album is amazing. More songs:

Mercy; Stepping Stone (not The Monkees!); Rockferry; Syrup & Honey

When Bollywood goes HORRIBLY wrong

First watch the video. THEN read the blog.

Where do I begin?

Who knew that Superman and SpiderGirl had a thing? Or was the wardrobe department not able to find Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman outfit?

I don't speak Hindi or Punjabi, but I loves me some Bollywood as long as it's subtitled in Engrish. Because when it's not, sometimes I think I'm hearing things. Like in this clip I swear I hear SpiderGirl singing "Do me now Supermaaaan" and Superman responding "Do me now laaaaadeeeeee". Now I could be WAY off on this because in my experience with Bollywood films, s-e-x is just not that obvious and spelled out.

And while we're on the subject of songs, let's not forget the Disco-fabuloso soundtrack and the grooooovy dancing inspired by Napoleon Dynamite. While I've never seen the entire film, I've seen clips of the Buonaparte Dynamo and I have to say that somebody stole them some moves from someone. Speaking of moves, check out the Mile High Club action (Bollywood style) and the Disco Ninja action. Supa-supa-supa-supa-supa Man has WAY awesome power that he can just spin that dude over his head and dude KEEPS spinning long after SM has lost interest.

And when the beleaugered boyfriend and swooning sari-clad sweetheart are saved, SupaMan and SpiderLaaadeee take a quick break to work on their jazzercise to rebuild their strength before easin' on down the road err.... sky to their next destination...

The Miss Delhi Scholarship Pageant and Breakdancing Contest. With a Cammeo (har har) by Rick James. And a Lindy Hop Jack-n-Jill. And a Soul Train dance line. Heck, they pulled out ALL the stops for this one. It's Indian Bandstand! We'll be back after this brief message about nail varnish quick dry from our sponsor, Sally Hansen...

And while this video is particularly humourous, I have to give mad props to this one. Especially the guy who subtitled it.

Merry Christmas Baby!

Today is the 1st Sunday of Advent which marks the official "waiting for Christmas" period. While Christmas songs won't be sung in Church until December 25th, and since stores and radio stations are probably inundating you with "holiday cheer", I thought I'd spare you a bunch of agony and just tell you what I think you should be listening to. Generally, I buy one or two new Christmas CDs per year. This year I scored FIVE. And every one is excellent.

Without further ado I present The Empress' Christmas Listening List:

That Special Time Of Year: Gladys Knight & The Pips (featuring Johnny Mathis on 3 tracks)

This album was originally released in 1979 and was re-released in 2006. It tops my list of most listenable. I "heart" Gladys Knight. She's my biggest musical inspiration.

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Sounds of the Season: Have Yourself A Very KT Christmas (Target Exclusive): KT Tunstall

Has an AWESOME rendition of Mele Kelikimaka, one of my all time favorite songs. This album is chock full of KT goodness.

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Stockings By The Fire: A Starbucks Exclusive

This album is full of classics performed in new and exciting ways. Sarah Maclachlan performs my all time favorite hymn "I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day" beautifully. It's wistful and longing and so perfect.

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Noel: Josh Groban

Lovely and peaceful. And has an awesome rendition of Ave Maria AND Panis Angelicus. It's a Latin hymn double header. And well worth the price of admission.

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Holiday Jazz: Lifescapes (Target Exclusive)

As smooth as a warm brandy. And just as tasty. Gets you in just the right frame of mind. Especially when there's a fire going.

So ask Santa to stuff your stocking with one of these. You'll be glad you did!

12" Vinyl LIVES!!!

So I poster earlier about the new turntable, right? I have to say it is absolutely A-Mazing. I have ripped about 10 albums as WMA files and the quality is superb. I haven't done any digital clean-up of the files either. There's really no need. Most of the albums were in excellent to pristine condition so there was no popping or hissing to be dealt with. The one album that did pop and hiss a bit was "To Sir, With Love" (the original movie soundtrack released in the 60s).

My set-up uses the ion turntable as audio source, Windows Sound Recorder (yeah the basic thing that *comes* with Windows) to record & Roxio Sound Editor to make it all into separate tracks & remove beginning and end silence. Once an album is physically captured - done in real-time - it takes about 1 minute to convert a full side of a platter to separate tracks.

While I'm ripping in real-time, I scan the original album cover art in two pieces since I'm using a mulit-purpose print/scan/etc machine that has a legal size/a-4 size glass. I then take those two files into PhotoShop and edit them together for a pretty decent facsimile of the original cover. I tweak them a bit to get rid of any flaws from storage or what-have-you.

All in all, I'm extremely satisfied.

Baby Loves Jazz

And so does mommy! This disc is probably my favorite children's music disc of all time. I've spent a small fortune on music to broaden my kids horizons - Tom Jones to Barry Manilow and Abba to Shakira. You name it, we've got it. But this one is a particular favorite of mine.

I picked this up at the local Whole Fools Market this past Saturday (gotta love those impulse buys). The baby digs it so much it's awesome. He loves "Happy And You Know It" (track two). It's got this way awesome West Coast Swing rhythm and he claps along with it. As the saying goes "It's got a beat and I can dance to it!".

I think most anyone would love this. Let me be plain, it blows Baby Einstein CDs out of the water as far as listen-ability. First, it's REAL instruments not synthesized ones. Second, it's children's music done to adult rhythms (although I'd posit that Jazz transcends age barriers). This stuff SWINGS. I've counted West Coast Swing, Balboa, Lindy and Collegiate Shag (IIRC) among the rhythms. As a dancer, this thrills me to pieces.

A+ from the kids and 5 dance steps from me.