The JayTunes Jam

With Halloween just around the corner, I decided to take this opportunity to post a list of The Best Monster Music.  I thought it would be pretty easy, with “Monster Mash” and R.E.M.’s Monster album coming to mind immediately.  As it turns out, it wasn’t that easy and I ended up having to go to a couple [...]

Hey, Beyonce… how’s it going?  Yeah, I just wanted to let you know that a while back I posted a list of my Top 20 Favorite Songs of 2007.  Yeah, it’s pretty sweet and the best part is that you’re on it.  In fact, you’re “Irreplaceable”.  Get it?  That’s the name of your Grammy-nominated song.  [...]

Hey, did you hear that the “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” guy committed suicide?  That was the hot rumor in 1988 and thankfully it wasn’t true, because since then Bobby McFerrin has had a great run as a solo artist, collaborator with Yo-Yo Ma and Chick Corea, and even as conductor of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.  My favorite [...]

When I look back at my favorite songs from 2006, I find an surprisingly good variety of music.  As usual, the acoustic guitar is well-represented with tracks by KT Tunstall, Rogue Wave, Erin McKeown, and (if you can get them) the superior acoustic versions of the hits by Corrine Baily Rae and Daniel Powter.  Also featured are nice pop tracks [...]

My first recollections of Sheryl Crow’s music were the unique tracks “Leaving Las Vegas” and “All I Wanna Do” from 1993′s Tuesday Night Music Club.  Since then, she has become a bit more mainstream, scoring hits with songs like “Soak Up the Sun”, “Love is Free”, and “Real Gone,” one of my kids’ favorites from [...]

In 1992, I bought my first (and probably my favorite) Cities 97 Sampler.  The last track was a live version of a song by The BoDeans called “Good Things” that immediately became one of my favorites.  Soon after that, “Closer to Free” became the Party of Five theme song and the BoDeans were in the [...]