"I certainly enjoyed Catcher in the Rye. Read it up the same day it came. Regina said I was going to RUIN MY EYES reading all that in one afternoon. I reckon that man owes a lot to Ring Lardner. Anyway he is very good. Regina said would she like to read it and I said, well it was very fine. She said yes but would she like to the read it, so I said ( Read more... )

Omissions

The Lady Killer - Cee-Lo Green; Teflon Don - Rick Ross (apparently it's great?); Death of a Superstar - David Banner & 9th Wonder (apparently it's also great and features a lyrically conscious Mr. Mississippi?); I Am Not A Human Being - Lil Wayne (but I don't like his album albums anyway...); Man on the Moon II - Kid Cudi (what's a Kid ( Read more... )

Overall, it felt like a much more personally productive music year, thanks to Pitchfork’s Twitter feed and, most importantly, AmazonMP3. The combination of these two resources (especially Pitchfork’s Best New Music reviews and Amazon’s daily and $5 monthly deals) allowed me to stay informed on a diverse batch of artists and support them on a ( Read more... )

Welcome to Queensbridge via Jamrock, a journey that has produced Nas' most sonically and thematically consistent album since Illmatic. The bling is gone, replaced in full by social consciousness and a fascination with Africa, both of which Nas has been struggling to disentangle from his gold necklaces since the Puffy-induced coma of the late '90s ( Read more... )

On my 2009 music retrospective, I failed to mention three standout albums from last year that definitely deserve a spot on the Honorable Mention list:

Bill Cosby presents: The Cosnarati, State of EmergencyCan an album full of "I Can"s work? Absolutely. The long-awaited "Bill Cosby rap album" turns out to be better than anticipated, though Cos ( Read more... )

In association with my plan for a simpler life, I'm buying less new music and am instead listening to albums that I already have. Honestly, how many CDs do you listen to each month? Each year? If you're like me, you have a familiar circle of tunes and a constant flux of new music, whether it be new to me or new to everyone ( Read more... )

In an effort to spend less this year, I'm going to be purchasing the bare minimum of new music and will instead be catching up on all of my CDs. I probably won't finish all of them in one year, but it's time for me to revisit what I already have. As for new tunes, I can listen to nearly all of it for free on Grooveshark, but unless there's an ( Read more... )

The UglyGhostdini the Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City, Ghostface Killah ( Read more... )

If you'd like to read my reviews on any of the books I read this year, please visit my GoodReads page (and become a member yourself...and friend me on there so we can talk about books).

Best Books of 20091. Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon ( Read more... )

"Cats is smart, allowed the old man. Course it could of been a common everday housecat. They'll tear up anything they come up on, a cat will. Housecats is smart too. Smarter'n a dog or a mule. Folks thinks they ain't on account of you cain't learn em nothin, but what it is is that they won't learn nothin. They too smart. Knowed a man oncet ( Read more... )