25 or 6 to 4 – Chicago

I was recently reading about how scientists were speculating that detonating a nuclear bomb in the eye of a hurricane could actually disperse the force of the winds and downgrade the impact. What? Wouldn’t it just create a radioactive hurricane? That sounds way worse to me.  This got me thinking, didn’t pop-rock-jazz-fusion-second-only-to-the-Beach-Boys supergroup Chicago create a radioactive hurricane?

“25 or 6 to 4” by Chicago is an old school rock barrage of horns, awesome vocals, and insanely ridiculous guitar solos. In fact there is basically someone dropping a crazy solo in the background throughout the entire song. It makes me want to jump and high kick and shank someone with a broken whiskey bottle. I hope this song is wailing in the background if ever I’m in a beat-up pickup flooring it away from a radioactive hurricane.

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Empire State of Mind – Jay -Z

I agree with the general consensus that the new Jay-Z album is kind of middle of the road. Too bad because Jay-Z is hands down my favorite rapper and, by doing something average, he hurt my feelings. Luckily, there are still a couple of good tracks like “Empire State of Mind”, a love song to NYC. He raps about the Knicks and the Yankees, but where is the love for the Rangers? I would love to hear something like “I am dressier then Messier” or “my rapping is as sick as Gaborik “. But the real highlight of this song is Alicia Keys; that lady has got some serious pipes. It is not a mind-altering piece of art like “99 problems”, but it makes me strut a bit when I walk down the street because I feel 8% cooler than I actually am. What else do you need from a song? Sign me up.

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Take it or leave it – The Strokes

I recently saw this video from back when The Strokes were in their heyday and it totally blew me away.  I dare you to watch this video and think it sucks. That’s how you know something is really good: it came out eight years ago and would still be as relevant and amazing as if it came out yesterday. These guys sort of single-handedly brought rock n roll back from its MC Mario-induced coma. Before this first album came out in 2001, Montreal only had a few small venues to see rock music. If you wanted to party, you had to expose yourself to techno DJs’ blippin and bloopin.  Hats off to you, The Strokes, you saved my twenties.