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Using New Marketing 2 Prove New Marketing

I’m taking part in an online experiment being conducted by one of the people responsible for inspiring me to start this blog, Joseph Jaffe. Jaffe is a highly-regarded marketer, podcaster, author, and blogger, with a background in advertising. He has become one of the leading voices in helping business leaders and communities understand how to navigate through the new digital frontier that is social media (or what he calls “New Media”). He just released his second book on the topic, called “Join the Conversation” – How to Engage Marketing Weary Consumers with the Power of Community, Dialogue, and Relationship.

(click to purchase on Amazon)

His experiment is to use “New Markeing” techniques to promote the release of his book rather than the conventional methods typically used by the publisher and distributor. He’s calling it Use New Marketing To Prove New Marketing, or UNM2PNM.

What does this mean?

Basically, instead of using the publisher’s marketing dollars to expose the book on end-caps at retail and buying banner-ads on various sites, etc, Jaffe is just sending a free copy of his book to the first 150 people who agree to write a review of it in his/her blog. It’s a simple but fascinating concept. I have no idea how much it costs the publisher per-copy, but I have to imagine that whatever it is + the cost of shipping to each participant, will be well worth it regardless of the number of readers each blog/review has. Here’s a complete list of all 150 the participating blogs.

It underscores the basic premise that in this age of recommendation I frequently refer to, the most effective advertisement is that of consumer-to-consumer, rather than that of marketer-to-consumer. In other words, most readers of this blog are likely to know me, or at least trust my views and opinions enough to be spending their valuable time here, in effect making the Futureshocked blog a “trusted” brand. And we all know that a recommendation from a known or trusted brand is far more valuable than one made by a publisher’s marketing tactics.

My book arrived last week, so I’ll be posting my review as soon as I finish reading it. I think experiments like this, and that of Radiohead’s album release last year, are important steps in our learning process about the effect of social media on consumer-engagement, and how social media has changed the way we value intellectual property as a whole. I’m looking forward to seeing the results of this experiment, so stay tuned..

In the meantime, you really should check out Jaffe’s podcast via iTunes here.

DJs & Producers Leveraging the “Free” Economy

AmpLive – Rainydayz Radiohead Remixes

Weird Fishez – AmpLive/Radiohead:

Weird Fishes – Original Radiohead vers:

A Radiohead In Rainbows Remix album…already. This one (I’m sure there will be more) is by Bay Area producer AmpLive (no relation…seriously). Radiohead’s appeal transcends sub-pop-culture genres, so I knew we would start to see DJ/producers giving their latest brilliant album the remix treatment, and then figuring out the legal end of things later.. Especially considering how Dangermouse’s unauthorized Jay-Z/Beatles remix LP The Grey Album launched his career.

The Gnarls Barkley producer leveraged social-media in 2004 by investing his time and energy into creating an innovative and provocative marketing tool and distributing it directly to his fans online for free, even though he knew he was taking a huge legal risk. It was a well known fact that no Beatles samples had ever been legally cleared. But it ended-up paying off for him in the long run, opening a flood-gate of opportunities and success since then, eventually leading to Grammy nominations in 2007 for the Gnarls Barkley “St. Elsewhere” debut.

AmpLive will not gain the same type of notoriety for this release that Dangermouse did in 2004 of course. His album features Del the Funky Homosapien, Too Short, Charli2na and other lesser-known MC’s over chopped-up samples from In Rainbows, while Dangermouse’s Grey Album grabbed major press by featuring Jay-Z vocals over uncleared samples of The Beatles, before being banned after just 3,000 pressings.

The Rainydayz Remixes album is now available as a FREE download..legally, but not before a cease-and-desist came from Radiohead’s attorney. The two sides were able to work out their differences after some legal-wrangling because he is not getting paid for it (and probably because it’s a very nice piece of work).

And of course DJs are also utilizing social media to market themselves in more ways than ever.. Downloadable-mixtapes are now almost a necessity for anyone trying to make a name for him or herself. Lately I’ve been enjoying local L.A.-area DJ Daz’s carefully crafted works posted on his Pod-O-Matic page as podcasts.

Check out AmpLive’s album and DJ Daz’s mixtapes.. Comments are encouraged..

The Business of Online “Buzz”

Before social media, the effectiveness of a marketing campaign was extremely difficult to measure. As a business, brand, artist, etc, you would generally try to A) determine who your audience was, B) blanket them with your message, and then C) gauge your effectiveness based on sales. Repetition was the name of the game. “X” number of impressions via print, radio, TV, etc, was supposed to lead to the eventual sale. But determining the value of “x” was always a mystery. How many spins at radio, magazine-ads, billboards, and commercials did it take? And which impression was it that really drove the consumer to invest in what you had to offer? Focus-groups, polls, questionnaires, radio station “research”, etc, have never provided accurate answers.

But in this new era of consumer generated media (CGM), there is no limit to the amount of information available about what is driving the consumer. The number of people you reach, how many times they interact with your brand, and their true opinion of your brand is easily available. The only problem now is that those opinions are being posted publicly for the entire world to see every day by the consumers themselves in blogs, social networks, user-generated videos, podcasts, and whatever may come next. So now monitoring your brand’s “buzz” and engaging with the consumer is equally as important as measuring their numbers, because what they actually have to say about you is now more likely to influence the sale than the number of people you reach. The shift from repetition-driven marketing to recommendation-driven marketing is taking place quickly.

There are a number of free and paid services out there that will give you specific information about how much and even what kind of exposure your brand is getting online..

Nielsen BuzzMetrics provides detailed analysis for measuring and monitoring the buzz of brands and businesses from the same “industry standard” company that measures TV/radio audience and album sales for the music industry.

Technorati monitors what is being talked about in blogs.

Custom Scoop, Media Miser, and others monitor media outlets mostly for PR and investor-relations purposes.

Buzzlogic claims to have developed their own algorithms to calculate online influence.

Big Champagne measures music file-sharing that takes place on P2P networks for music-related industries.

And the list goes on… Jeremiah Owyang, a Sr. Analylst at Forrester Research has a great post on his blog entitled “Companies that Measure Social Media, Influence, and Brand”.

There is no silver-bullet for monitoring any type of buzz online. Effective strategies usually require using a variety of these and/or other services, as well as just being familiar with as many social-networks and developing forms of communication as possible yourself. It is a bit overwhelming.. But you can either choose to keep up, or get left behind..

The Rise of Micro-Blogging

It’s the latest & greatest craze in social networking! …Whatever. There’s a new one every week. But this one I have to write about, because the “early adopters” in the tech-world have already declared that Twitter is a hit, and I am becoming a believer in the potential impact that “micro-blogging” can have on the way we communicate.

Antlively is:
“blogging about micro-blogging when he should be getting some sleep..”

That’s what my Twitter update would say right now. It’s a simple message of 140 characters or less that you text into your cell phone or computer at any time to instantly let all of your friends or “followers” know what you’re doing, how you’re feeling, where you’re going, etc.

Twitter sends the message out via SMS to all of your followers’ cell phones (or just to your Twitter page online if you don’t want SMS notifications).

And of course each user can check his/her Twitter-feed at any time for a list of all of their friends most recent updates, or “tweets”. It’s a simple, but dynamic concept of community. It may not sound game-changing, but it’s one of the features that has helped fuel Facebook’s rise over the last year and a half. Facebook users know of micro-blogging as “status updates”..

Myspace had to play catch-up after seeing how much success Facebook was having with it..

But the difference with Twitter is that it takes the entire concept mobile. And you don’t have to have a Facebook or Myspace account or own a Blackberry. It’s free and all you need is a cell phone and 3 minutes at a computer to set-up an account.

What makes this tool interesting is it’s limitless possibilities. Check out what Google did with Twitter for the recent Super Tuesday Primaries. Firefighters in San Diego used Twitter to help combat the 2007 wildfires. Barack Obama has been twittering throughout his campaign. The marketing and PR uses for Twitter are only beginning to be discovered and utilized. Some young business minds have been trying to use it’s service to help build community within organizations, and some even think Twitter can lead to world peace.

Yeah that may be a stretch, but I would say that micro-blogging is catching on… The number of Twitter users has gone from 300,000 in July/2007 to almost 800,000 by February/2008.

But they do have competition. Google saw the potential of this medium last year and purchased Twitter’s main competitor Jaiku. G_d only knows what plans they have in store for it’s re-launch.

And like any other social media tool, micro-blogging is not for everybody. I’m sure some people will find it to be completely useless, but I truly believe you have to at least try out the ones that create a huge buzz to see what kind of new possibilities are out there for us to connect, communicate, and build.

Try it out.. Add me and follow my tweets.. I just signed-up and need friends! Because of course there will not be much use for something like Twitter unless you build a community with it.

For real-time updates on what Twitter-users are doing around the world right now, check out Twittervsion.

Don’t be afraid to leave comments!!

Music, Social Media, and the Age of Recommendation

Friendster, Myspace, LinkedIn, and Facebook all displayed the power of social networks. But they were just the first phase. We are now seeing a phase of more highly-targeted social networks that are centered around people’s specific passions. Such as music. There are a number of music-discovery sites on the web, but the ones that are emerging as the most significant are the ones that make their social networks the core of the discovery process.

Pandora.com makes its recommendations based upon a scientifically-created formula called the “Music Genome Project“, which hyper-anylizes every song in its database for similar characteristics and produces a stream of music that the system thinks you’ll like.

iJigg.com has a very basic social network with limited features and very few users, but it basically lets those users share and rate music.

IMEEM.com incorporates a social network as well, and allows users to upload tracks and videos and create shareable playlists. But it does not focus entirely on music.

Qloud features an iTunes plug-in that tracks and shares the user’s listening habits, but has to rely on an external social network (Facebook, Bebo, etc) in order to connect those users.

Last.FM and MOG.com both use proprietary software that track their users’ listening habits as well, but they also have their own social network to match people with tastes.

And there are more. I have tried 3-4 of them, but for me Last.FM was the only one compelling enough to keep up with…so I did. Here’s my page. I would expect Last.FM to emerge as “the” social network for music lovers.

Why?

For a number of reasons. A) The user interface. It’s simple, clean, and very easy to understand. B) Their iTunes plug-in (called iScrobbler) actually works properly. C) Users. 20 million and growing fast. D) But most importantly, Last.FM digs far deeper into the user’s passion for music than any other service.

It provides real-time, interactive weekly/monthly/overall charts by artist, song, album, etc. It is insane for music junkies such as myself. You just plug it into your iTunes, and then every once-in-a-while check out your personal music charts. Obviously it works best for someone who listens to their music on their computer, but it can be set-up to track your iPod as well. It also provides more features than you can count, in order to give users every way imaginable to interact with each other and share.

We are currently living in the Age of Recommendation. The companies that tap into people’s specific passions and make the sharing-process the easiest and the most fun to use will win.

CBS’s Big Plans for Last.FM Revealed: Free Streaming Music For All

Last.FM has been back in the news recently for the first time since being acquired by CBS last May for $280 million (yes, dollars). CBS announced last week that it has struck a deal with all four major labels and over 150,000 indie labels and artists, to become the first free-on-demand streaming music service offering access to the worlds largest licensed catalog of music.

The deal creates an ad-based model in which advertisers get access to a highly-targed demo, artists and labels are payed royalty rates + a cut of the advertising, and unsigned artists are paid directly. So everyone is happy.

There are two catches for users. A) Of course the music isn’t portable. Since it’s available for streaming only, you need to have access to an internet connection. And no, it will not work in an iPhone browser. B) Each track can only be streamed 3 times before the user will be prompted to purchase the mp3 thru iTumes, etc. (Last.FM gets a cut of that sale) BUT for a TBA subscription rate, users will soon be able to remove the 3-play limit and stream as much music as they want from their computer, on-demand.

This is a very interesting way to bait the public into agreeing on a standard monetary rate for their personal music consumption. Revered and sometimes controversial music industry blogger Bob Lefsetz is one of a growing number of people who are convinced that the business is inevitably headed to a subscription-based model anyway. Gerd Leonard and Dave Kusek go into depth about this “music like water” concept in their 2005 book The Future of Music. It’s definitely bad for the radio and record industries as we know them, but I’m all for anything that at least pays the artists per-spin for their intellectual property. The US Constitution entitles them to compensation for it. But with DRM receiving it’s final death blow earlier this month, people seem to have lost sight of that fact.

Last.FM already had 20 million unique monthly users in 240 countries before the announcement. One day after making the announcement, their # of unique daily listeners had increased by 85%.. Then another 80% up from that on the following day.

So does the CBS announcement put Last.FM on course to become the “Youtube” for music? Nate Anderson of ARS Technica thinks so, as he explains in a recent post. But only time will tell. They have plenty of competitors, but early indications are that CBS/Last.FM are on to something..

Mark Cuban’s latest suggestion for the music industry..

DRM didn’t work. Rootkits/hacker-ware didn’t work. Watermarking won’t work. Gerd Leonard and Dave Kusek’s “music like water” subscription-model works for some owners of non-iPod mp3 players (which is already less than 30% of the market-share).

So Dallas Mavericks owner/dot-com Billionaire/blogger Mark Cuban is the latest to put his two-cents in, as far as another idea he thinks could keep the record industry afloat for a while longer. In his recent blog post entitled The Album Is Dead, he explains his idea.

Basically he suggests that rather than artists releasing full-length albums, they start releasing tracks one at-a-time throughout year, or serializing the releases, and relying on the singles & ringtone markets (lol).

Keep in mind this is someone who describes his typical music discovery process like this:

“I go to ITunes and I go through the top 10 lists and listen to samples and thats how I determine what music im going to buy.”

So maybe for a lot of those artists, his system wouldn’t be a bad idea. The 99c iTunes download model has already limited a number of artists to that already anyway. There are plenty of mainstream artists nowadays who can create catchy fast-food hits all year, but can’t sell any albums. This system would be great for them. And that way at least some of the albums that should never have made it to a CD pressing-plant will be weeded out of the system, and we won’t have record companies spending $50 million per year to dispose of unused plastic CDs.

But the idea would never work on a large scale. For many truly great talents, the recording/creative process isn’t something that takes place perpetually around the year. Their albums reflect a specific stage of their growth & evolution, and they are meant to be consumed as albums. There’s something to be said for a band like Portishead 10 years waiting 10 years between their 2nd and 3rd releases.. What could possibly compete with that kind of anticipation for their true fans? I would have to fight somebody if their 3rd album were to just trickle-out over the course of a year. Besides, tracks 2-11 would be leaked out somehow on the web within hours of track 1 anyway.

Now that music-DRM is dead and mobile phones increasingly have the ability to store and play mp3s as ringtones, I don’t see how the ringtone market can be expected to continue it’s current rate of growth anyway.

But you’ve got to appreciate Mark Cuban’s perspective from being a hits-driven consumer, and just for keeping the conversation going.. At this point any and all ideas are worth discussion in the digital wild-west.

A simple explanation of the difference between mainstream America…and the rest of us.

Seth Godin is a best-selling business author and one of the most influential thinkers in marketing, communication, business, new media, and where it’s all headed. This clip is a good example of why that’s the case..

Check out Seth’s blog here.

Best albums of 07

What better way to kick-off the first Futureshocked post than with this year’s Best New Music list for ‘07. Like last year, I tried to put together a list of nice bridge albums. Nothing too obscure.. And I didn’t want to rule out any of the more mainstream artists that I thought deserved the hype. I’ll admit that consumed less new music in ‘07 than in recent years, but I think I still settled on a strong Top-40.

Comments/recommendations are welcome…

1. Radiohead – In Rainbows
(alt/rock/indie/UK)

Jigsaw Falling Into Place

No surprise here. For everyone that has heard of Radiohead but thought they were a little too left-field, this is a perfect introduction record that will help you understand why they’re widely regarded as the best band in the world. It has been called their “most accessible” record, not only sonically, but because it was initially released without a price attached. It was the first time ever that an artist/band of this magnitude released an album directly through their own website, without a label, for whatever price people wanted to pay (if any). Radiohead’s music and marketing campaigns have long been the most provocative and experimental in music. In Rainbows and the campaign around it continues in that tradition.

2. Common – Finding Forever
(hip-hop)

Listen: Misunderstood

Finally. This is the album that I had been waiting for from Common. I think this is his “Illmatic“. That opinion has been met with a lot of debate this year, but to me, it’s his most complete album to date. It’s hard to believe the “Can I Borrow A Dollar” kid is still getting better…

3. Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
(indie/rock/soul)

Listen: Finer Feelings

Speaking of consistently getting better.. This is Spoon’s 6th full album and at least one of their best. Everyone that finds this blog must own this record. Dance floor certified.

4. Amy Winehouse – Back to Black
(indie/vintage soul/UK)

Listen: Back to Black

I can’t say much that hasn’t already been said about this debut. Future-vintage soul with the authenticity of Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, along with an edginess and attitude that all blend together perfectly.

5. M.I.A. – Kala
(alt/dancehall/electronic/ grime/dance/UK)

Listen: Paper Planes

M.I.A. has now proven that her first album and instant fame were no fluke. A true culture-mutt in every sence, Maya Arulprasasam keeps it innovative, rugged, controversial, and stylish, but most of all she keeps the dancefloor ghetto-red-hot.

6. Feist – The Reminder
(indie/alt/singer/songwriter)

Listen: I Feel It All

Believe the hype. Television marketing has now put Feist’s music on the mainstream map (iPod, Verizon), but Canadian singer/songwriter Leslie Feist has been nice for years and she deserves every bit of the attention she is getting.

7. Arctic Monkeys – Your Favourite Worst Nightmare
(indie rock/UK)

Listen: 505

With just their second album, Arctic Monkeys have established themselves as one of the best bands on the planet. Yes, the “indie rock” genre that they inhabit is flooded right now, but these guys make some of the most well written, effortlessly-catchy, party-punk-pop classics in music right now.

8. LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver
(electro/indie rock/dance)

Listen: Get Innocuous!

James Murphy runs his own label and fronts the best act on it. The Sound of Silver from the stars of NYC’s electroclash-indie-rock scene, LCD Soundsystem, was not quite as classic as their 2005 debut, but far from a sophomore jinx.

9. Wu Tang Clan – 8 Diagrams
(hip-hop)

Listen: Take It Back

I had pretty much written off any chance of these guys returning-to-form. 8 Diagrams has proven me wrong. I thought RZA had gone too far off the deep end with his beats to bring out what he had once brought out of the Clan. But the drums are still crisp, and the samples keep that signature dark, twisted, and grimy sound you expect from this crew. The deliveries by Ghostface, Raekwon, GZA, Method Man and the crew are still sharp as well. This album reminds you that even after all these years, they never quite sounded as good as they do over RZA’s beats. This was definitely a sleeper and one of the strongest hip-hop records of the year.

10. Kanye West – Graduation
(hip-hop)

Listen: Flashing Lights (feat. Dwele)

Kanye is a unifier of b-boys, hyphy-heads, southern “crunk” fans, indie-rockers, and mainstream America. He gives people something to talk about. So even though I didn’t think this album was worth all of the hype, I respect the fact that Kanye has put out another album that is good for the growth of the current state of hip-hop. He’s one of a very few who can consistently try new things and continue to win.

11. Sean Price – Jesus Price Superstar
(hip-hop)

Listen: Oops Upside Your Head (feat Steele)

Sean P’s 4th solo album delivers just what you’d expect from NYC’s Boot Camp Click…Guns, drugs, violence… I don’t advocate all of the fake rappers out there glorifying it, but when you hear Sean Price you know there’s nothing fake about him. It’s just art-imitating life. He’s not trying to out-thug anyone, just sticking to the grass roots of hard beats and hard rhymes about what he knows.

12. Lily Allen – Alright, Still
(pop/soul/UK)

Listen: Shame For You

Refreshing, feel-good, innovative, b-girl pop-songs at their finest. Lily made early headlines for being the first artist to leverage her Myspace-buzz into a major deal and mainstream stardom (at least in the UK). But she is for real and here to stay.

13. White Stripes – Icky Thump
(alt/rock/indie/blues/punk)

Listen: Bone Broke

A nice bounce-back record from Jack and Meg White. After their last album I was afraid they may be falling off, but I guess rumors of their demise were greatly exagerated..

14. Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha
(indie/singer/songwriter)

Listen: Imitosis

This guy is a musical prodigy from Chicago. He’s a singer, songwriter, violinist(?), and yes, whistler. But it works. Seriously…

15. Sia – Some People Have Real Problems
(soul/electronic/singer-songwriter/UK)

Listen: The Girl You Lost To Cocaine

Sia is one of the most dynamic soul-singers in the genre today. Anyone familiar with her from Zero-7’s music, or her break-out hit “Breath Me” from the 6-Feet Under SDTK knows what I mean. Sia, Amy Winehouse, and Lily Allen all have have completely different styles, but I’m hoping Amy and Lily’s success in the US in ‘07 will help open some doors for Sia in ‘08. Those who aren’t yet familiar, need to be. Milky butteryness at it’s finest.

16. Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
(alt/indie rock)

Listen: No Cars Go

These Canadians are a clan of young classically-trained musicians/indie-rockers. There was no way this second full album was going to live up to the their first, but it was a solid follow-up. This one is darker and wasn’t really a first-listen, but it continued to grow on me thru the year. Think U2 meets David Bowie meets the David Byrne (Talking Heads).

17. Liars – Liars
(indie/punk/experimental/rock)

Listen: Houseclouds

Liars are one of those bands that are on such a different planet that it’s nice when they decide to put out a collection of tracks that have some structure. Big scary drums and loud, melodic free-form strangeness that only Liars can pull-off. Very progressive, but it sounds so good.

18. Deerhunter – Cryptograms
(indie/alt/ambient/ experimental)

Listen: Cryptograms

This is a strange debut from an Atlanta-based band who’s front-man probably weighs 70 lbs. They create dreamscapes that stick to your ribs after a few listens.

19. J Dilla – Rough Draft
(hip-hop)

Listen: Nothing Like This

I’m pretty sure these are the last unreleased songs recorded by one of the great hip-hop producers of our time, the late J Dilla. It is a couple of years old now but it was finally released domestically in ‘07 through Stone’s Throw Records. Rest in Power, JD.

20. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Is Is (EP)

(alt/rock/indie/post punk)

Listen: Kiss Kiss

Another return-to-form here (even though it’s just an EP), after being bitten by a little sophomore jinx last year. They’ve had some commercial success from their first two albums, but this EP suggests they may be getting back to their early roots..

21. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Baby 81
(rock/indie/alt)

Listen: Need Some Air

This Bay Area trio came with exactly what I wanted to hear on their 4th album, after a serious departure on their 3rd. Raw and rhythmic guitar-walls, driving beats, and decent songs delivered well.

22. Pharoahe Monch – Desire
(hip-hop)

Listen: Let’s Go

I think Organized Konfusion first stepped onto the scene in 90-91, so Pharoahe is going on 20 years in the game. He has proven that he isn’t afraid to try anything musically, and I’m not always a fan of him trying to walk the line between hip-hop/singing, but this album was a nice surprise in 07.

23. Kings of Leon – Because of the Times
(garage rock)

Listen: My Party

Southern indie-rock is not something that I ever thought I would get into…and I haven’t. But I cannot front on KOL’s state-of-the-art approach to it. This is their 3rd full album and the best since their debut EP four years ago.

24. The Ponys – Turn the Lights Out
(indie-rock/post-punk)

Listen: Double Vision

Chicago remains thoroughly-repped on the the list, with the third album from The Ponys. Quite nice..

25. The National – Boxer
(indie/garage rock/soul)

Listen: Mistaken For Strangers

Lazy vocals, horns, and infectious drums. They’re a Cinci > NYC 5-piece. Also quite nice.

26. Panda Bear – Person Pitch
(alt/electronic/indie)

Listen: Bros (album vers)

The Indie-press had been raving about this record all year.. So I checked it out even though I’m not a big fan of the group that Panda Bear is a member of (Animal Collective). But I get it. It took a few listens and I still think there are still extras being put on it in the press, but it has been growing on me all year.
Click play to get an idea..

27. Justice – Cross
(electronic/dance/jungle/disco/UK)

Listen: One Minute To Midnight

I can’t deal with a lot of high-energy electronic stuff. Glow-stick-music freaks me out. But D.A.N.C.E. was one of the underground club hits of the year for the non-hip-hop crowd, and the buzz in the indie world convinced me to give them a shot. I was surprised to learn that I really like 85% of the album…and then I saw them rock on New Year’s Eve in L.A., I was officially sold.

28. Lupe Fiasco – The Cool
(hip-hop)

Listen: Gold Watch

I know this is the third Chicago MC on the list… But Kanye, Common, and Lupe are three of the nicest in hip-hop right now and they all put out new records in 2007. Lupe is easily one of the best writers in the game, but I will admit, his flow/delivery/style tends to loose my attention every once in a while. But even without a very unique delivery, he manages to stand out in a crowd of mediocrity with what he has to say. The Cool has peaks and valleys because it’s 19 tracks long. But that’s the beauty of iTunes.

29. Mark Ronson – Version
(funk-jazz/soul/alt/dance/UK)

Listen: Just (feat Alex Greenwald)

The hipster poster-boy/DJ/producer surprised me. I knew he had an ear for quality, but I didn’t expect him to turn out such a funky soul/jazz/alt concept-album. Each track is a cover of a UK classic, recreated by various current artists including the ones he helped launch, Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse.

30. Mary J Blige – Growing Pains
(soul/R&B)

Listen: Roses

This was a huge surprise for me and a last-minute addition. I hate to say it, but I have not been nearly as big a fan of Mary’s music as I was when she was high and drunk. But Growing Pains is probably my favorite since My Life. Seeing what Mary has done with herself warms my heart, so yeah I’m biased.

31. Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings – 100 Days 100 Nights
(vintage soul)

Listen: Nobody’s Baby

Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings is the most slept-on act in the soul music genre. This is their 3rd top-notch album. There’s nothing ground-breaking about them. It’s just straight-forward funky vintage-soul goodness made for dance-floors.

32. Electrelane – No Shouts, No Calls
(ambient rock/pop/indie/UK)

Listen: After the Call

I may be the only person in the world with this record on his/her best-of list. Melodic simplicity with driving rhythm and a just enough of an edge.

33. Beirut – The Flying Club Cup
(alternative/folk/gypsy/indie/rock)

Listen: Nantes

If you’re not at all familiar, it’s tough to describe.. You have to see what this band is all about in order to understand.. Click here.

34. Mos Def – Tru3 Magic
(alt/hip-hop/soul)

Listen: Lifetime

More experimentation from Mos. Yes, I would like for him go back to doing hip-hop as much as anyone, but I also understand that he is as talented as anyone with a microphone in his hand. So even when he puts out a head-scratcher like this, I think it deserves a solid listen, and then a re-listen if I don’t understand it the first time. This one took three or four but it has been growing on me ever since..

35. The Long Blondes – Someone To Drive You Home
(indie/rock/UK)

Listen: Giddy Stratospheres – The Long Blondes

Of course no one in this 5-peice is blonde. But they were some of the more exciting newcomers on the music scene for me this year. Lead singer Kate Jackson’s Madonna-like pop sensibilities with the rest of the band’s edge made this record another solid find by the legendary UK-based Rough Trade Records.

36. The Sea and Cake – Everybody

(lounge/indie-rock/pop/alt)

Listen: Exact To Me

Chicago repped hard in 07. The Sea and Cake are a “supergroup” comprised of members of a number of highly-respected bands, but they have been doing this side-project for years. It’s their 7th record.

37. Blonde Redhead – 23
(indie/ambient/experimental/alt rock)

Listen: Spring And By Summer Fall

Blonde Redhead is a three-piece from NYC with most of the vocals by a female lead. I think this is the band’s 6th or 7th album, and one that has convinced me that I need to dig into their catalog.

38. Chromatics – Night Drive
(disco/soul/indie/lounge/electronic)

Listen: Mask

Mellow disco-electro pop songs with creamy vocals. Perfect late-night driving music as the title suggests.

39. Brakes – Beatific Visions
(garage/indie rock/punk/folk/UK)

Listen: Beatific Visions

The Brakes produce a high-grade quality of UK indie-rock songs and really only get noticed in the UK’s post-punk scene. Rough Trade Records proves again why they have survived for almost 30 years now.

Disclaimer:

Just incase certain people see this…Emily King and Alicia Keys are exempt