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The songs listed here are not necessarily the absolute best songs of 2010. The best songs for any listener can vary so much that it’s pointless to name The Best when our intentions are only to share music, highlight deserving artists and experience it all with our community of readers. These tracks here did kickstart our mornings, fueled long nights and provided the running soundtrack for a day’s course. Read the rest of this entry »

Oh where was this lil’ cretin when her album was on its way to Bricksville? Overused, like most new artists, Nicki Minaj still found a way to steal the show and raise the fee for her appearances (just ask Usher, Luda and Trey Songz). But the fireworks were still soon to come, when she was asked to attend the imaginary festivities for Kanye’s illustrious 5th album. Read the rest of this entry »

Albums have lost their allure to customers, at least that’s the impression we’re given. In part, the assumption’s accurate. As rap acts continue to increase in astonishing numbers, numerous components increasingly pull fans attention from consuming full bodies of studio work. The accessibility and surprisingly equal quality of the mixtape game has narrowed the public’s reasoning for actually paying for music, if utter garbage didn’t turn them off to begin with. As a result, some get severely overlooked and overall record sales continue to plummet, forcing artists to scrounge and scrap for other ways of revenue to sustain a lifestyle. Read the rest of this entry »

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go grab your popcorn or whatever junk food your clog keyboard with. Everything to be remembered at the end of the year isn’t all sugar and dumplings. With sales down and attention spans waning by the second, it is more than vital for a musician to use their allotted spotlight to give us the best they got, or get off the pot. Simple as that. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever heard of hype? You know, that minor stipulation that keeps all your favorite artists off the radio and the regular, sometimes undeserving, 140 characters being plastered in the general public’s faces instead. In a perfect world, good music doesn’t fall on deaf ears, but since there are too many artists aiming to jump through the same window, the shards of glass may have hindered the easy access to the diamonds in the rough. Read the rest of this entry »

Evolution is an inevitable part of the human cycle, but it is still remarkable how modifications can settle in so quickly. Take the “mixtape” for example. As the primary blood vessel that keeps an artist’s promo alive and thriving, it has progressed and weened itself off of DJ shouts, unsolicited gun shot sound effects and neverending tracklists to the point where it is indistinguishable from a retail album. Read the rest of this entry »

The first few months of the new decade have been bountiful for music and its fans. Emerging artists are living up to expectations, while established acts continue to crank out quality tunes. Right now, music is live, fully charged and promising. So we deemed it necessary to bookmark a handful of the musicians we liked and tracks we have loved.

This isn’t a be-all and end-all list. Around these parts, we view those kinds of endeavors as slightly egotistical and nearly pointless. Instead, we put our collective heads together as a Crew to list a smattering of songs that have powered our individual playlists from January to July. There are a few tracks that may have been posted throughout the year, but deserve reiteration. Others listed are songs we should have mentioned earlier, however we never got around to it.

And at this point, we’re going to take a rare, but much needed break and recharge our engines. Enjoy the offerings. See you all on Monday! Read the rest of this entry »