80's Redux by Seb Jarakian
Here's a great playlist of tracks from the 80's that were either redone/remade or original tracks remixed. All of the tracks on here are very recognizable.
The playlist starts with Hyper doing an awesome version of Adam & The Ant's classic, early 80's tune Ant Music. It'a a very upbeat and energetic version, perfect to set things up for a 80's themed party.
I then head off to Laidback's White Horse remixed by Funkstar De Luxe, This track keeps keeps to the original sound but it's perfectly remixed and given the extra "oomph" by Funkstar De Luxe. Funkstar De Luxe did an awesome remix back in 2000 of Bob Marley's Sun Is Shining and it was part of a remix CD he put out called Keep On Movin. Other great remixes on the album Keep On Movin include Tom Jone's She's A Lady, Pull Up To The Bumper by Grace Jones and Ring My Bell by Anita Ward. It's a great album and definitely worth checking out if you are at all into remixes.
Electric Avenue (21's Century Mix) by Eddie Grant is an upbeat electronic dance club stormer. It has thee full on beats for the best house party/club nights out. It's several years old as a remix but still sounds fresh today.
Duran Duran's Girl's On Film remixed by Salt Tank keeps to the original track but has been updated with the current beats and sounds. It still has the feel of the original song but has the feel of an extended re-edit. It's definitely fun for the 80's music lover.
I found the next track off a free cd that I received from a magazine back in the late 90's. It's a remake of Gary Numan's Cars by Dave Clark. It's still sounds like the original tune but extended and the vocals are by I'm assuming Dave Clark the techno artist/DJ.
The next track on the playlist is Something To Do (Black Strobe Remix) by Depeche Mode. Of course everyone knows Depeche Mode and alot of you know who Black Strobe are. A great French duo who did an awesome track called Me And Madonna a couple of years back. A dirty, sleazy sounding gem that's great to listen to over and over. Anyway this remix is off the Enjoy The Silence remix single from 2004. The track has been given the modern stripped down electronic club sound and the track still hangs onto the original melody of the track. It's definitely great to listen and dance to. Of course Dave Gahan's vocals are great too!
Everyone knows the next track as it's very popular and has been licensed to many compilations and featurned in countless films. It's Soft Cell's Tainted Love remixed by Soulchild. This version comes from Soft Cell's greatest hits cd from 2003 and I assume this version that's on the CD is an edit clocking in at just under four minutes but still sounds awesome. The remix basically has made the track much more upbeat and energetic. I think it's definitely perfection!
Ok this next track is basically a mash-up. It's taking I Begin To Wonder by Danni Minogue and mashing it with You Spin Me Round Round by Dead Or Alive called Begin To Spin Me Round. It's a marvelous remix and a great job whoever did the work in creating this work of art. The original Dannii Minogue song is ok but this makes the song sound like the 80's all over again thanks to Dead Or Alive's great beats!
I love Buffalo Gals by Malcolm Mclaren and this updated remix by Roger Sanchez is also great. It's upbeat and fun to dance to. I wish alot more of Malcolm Mclaren's music would get remixed. Like one of my all time favorite tracks of his is Deep In Vogue from 1989.
Everyone knows Blue Monday by New Order and Hardfloor did an amazing perfect remix of that track back in 1995 so I decided to include that remix up next. It's a big beat techno floor filler and the remix still sounds awesome after 10 years just like the original sounds great today.
Culture Club's Do You Really Want To Hurt Me (TMS-PMS Mix) is another fresh sounding update/remix of the classic 80's track. It sort of has an electro 80's sound as a remix. Fun to dance too!
Rapture (Guru's Fly Party Remix) by Blondie has been given the sped up hip-hop sound. It's fresh sounding and perfect to dance to. Although the remix 12 years old it's still sounds great and it includes a new rap which complements the remix and Blondie's singing.
Up next is one of my favorite remakes, an updated remake of Crockett's Theme by FPU. It's quite pleasant to listen to and has that added moody element. It's definitely hundred times better than the original. Hate to say that to fans of Jan Hammer but this is perfection!
This remix of Erasure's Who Needs Love Like That was done in the early 90's, I believe 1991 to coincide with their Pop! Greatest Hits CD. It's a good update but still sounds like the 80's. I guess alot has happened in the world of electronic music and remixing and things just sound better nowadays versus how remixes sounded in the early 90's. It's still a fun track.
The Jason Nevin's remix of Run DMC's It's Like That is a great update/remix. It keeps to the original sound but again giving that extra added "oomph". Nice and upbeat and a little sped up for the dancefloor!
I end the playlist with a cheesy (I can say that because it is) remake of Bryan Adams's Heaven by DJ Sammy. It's an overplayed pop/dance track and it's fun too.
Ant Music by HyperWhite Horse (Vs. Laid Back) by Funkstar De LuxeElectric Avenue (21st Century Mix) by Eddy GrantGirls On Film (Salt Tank Mix) by Duran DuranCars by Dave ClarkSomething To Do (Black Strobe Remix) by Depeche ModeTainted Love (Soulchild Remix) by Soft CellBegin to Spin Me Round (Extended Verison) by Dannii MinogueBuffalo Gals Stampede (B-Gals Stampede Radio Mix) by Malcolm McLaren & The World Famous Supreme TeamBlue Monday (Hardfloor Mix) by New OrderDo You Really Want 2 Hurt Me (TMS~PMS Mix) by Culture ClubRapture (Guru's Fly Party Mix) by BlondieWho Needs Love Like That (Hamburg Mix) by ErasureIt's Like That by Run-D.M.C. vs. Jason NevinsHeaven by DJ Sammy & Yanou Feat. Do
About the Author
Seb Jarakian is the owner of Musync http://www.musync.com a music research and licensing company based in San Francisco California. Seb's client list includes: Google, Microsoft XBOX, Esurance, Clorox, VISA and Adidas. Seb also owns and updates Best Playlists http://www.BestPlaylists.com and Beatzblog http://www.Beatzblog.com - Two blogs about electronic music and Apple's iTunes/iPod technologies.

Ben Harper - A Rising Legend In Music Grows by Jay Nault
Of all the new rising sensations in the music world, perhaps none embody the true eclectic and multi-faceted influences more than Ben Harper. Harper is known for his crowd-embracing live performance style, and he's hitting the stage again in 2006. Below you'll find a look at Harper's life, musical development and career highlights that you should consider when deciding whether or not to catch his high-quality act.
Early Life
Ben Harper was born in Claremont, California on October 28, 1969. Although Harper was born to musician parents with limited means, he enjoyed a relatively "normal" childhood, and as early as he can remember, he was in love with music. His obsession was with two figures in particular: Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley. Harper had a melodic ear even when he was a child, and he was mesmerized by the pure blend of sound each of the two artists created.
In regards to his overall perspective on life, growing up poor in the Inland Empire of Southern California created a person in Harper who was and is extremely sensitive to several social issues and the struggle of the "second-class" citizens of the world.
This environment contributed to Harper beginning to play the guitar by the time he was six. His specialty, then and now, is the bottleneck guitar. This love was further developed by Harper's childhood job at his grandparents' music store, the Folk Music Center.
After several years of balancing music and work at the "family" business, Harper realized by the time he was a teenager that he needed to dedicate himself to his music if he was ever to make it as a performer. He began like many others - playing in local coffee houses and slowly building a small but loyal following.
Career Path
Harper's parents were supportive of his musical ambitions even though he never did well in school. As a result, he landed his first big-time gig at the age of 16 at a blues show in Fontana, California. Harper did continue to go to school until he had completed one year in college, but after his first big performance, he began to build a larger following in the Southern California blues scene.
In 1992, Harper joined the blues band Taj Mahal and embarked on several tours. In 1994, Harper was "discovered" by Virgin Records and cut his solo first album, entitled Welcome to the Cruel World. The album did well, reaching gold or platinum levels in France, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand.
Harper's second album, Fight For Your Mind, was released the following year, and it featured further development of Harper's combination of socially-relevant lyrics and ballad-driven melodies. Harper was becoming known as a blues musician, but his style was actually much too eclectic to be molded into one genre.
Harper's style continued to become more diversified in his following two releases, The Will to Live in 1995 and Burn to Shine in 1997. These two albums were not mega-hits, but they definitely helped Harper find his niche as a true "musician."
Following these releases, Harper began to collaborate with the likes of John Lee Hooker, Jack Johnson, Metallica, Radiohead, Pearl Jam and Marilyn Manson. Working within this enormous spectrum of styles, critics and fans still haven't been able to pin down Harper's style, other than the fact that he is truly talented and could wind up defining his own genre over the years.
If you have not yet had a chance to see Harper live, you should take the opportunity to do so before demand moves his shows from smaller venues to enormous stadiums.
About the Author
By Jay Nault sponsored by http://www.stubhub.com/ . StubHub sells sports tickets, concert tickets: http://www.stubhub.com/ theater tickets and more to just about any event in the world. Please link to this site when using article.

Multiple Ways Of Utilizing Jogging Music
by Glen B. Porter


Jogging is a popular and healthy activity which combines exercise and fitness with a visual feast of our route. Jogging in parks and scenic areas allows us a mini-vacation, with park ponds, chirping birds, quail families or a beautiful seaside vista, a respite for the mind.
If you're not so lucky and your regular route takes you past the gas station and local middle school, ending back at your apartment in Brooklyn, you might want a different tact to keep yourself going with your jogging program. An excellent solution? Jogging music. Many people listen to music while they jog, to provide mood and interest to keep them keepin' on. Jogging music can be powerful sensory stimulation.
You'll certainly want to consider your equipment. A CD player won't do. The CD will skip with each step! Better choices include an MP3 player or portable cassette player. You'll also need secure headphones. Headphone clips are commercially available just for the purpose. These simply clip to your hair. Music is a wonderful thing. Everyone has their favorites, but when you're looking for jogging music selections, consider more the mood you'd like to enhance to get the most enjoyment from your run.
If you're feeling rushed, maybe a little classical music will calm you and take you to a romantic place, away from the noise, crowds, everyday worries and stress. Nights in the Gardens of Spain comes to mind. Ah! Handel's Messiah might be just the thing on a brisk winters' day. Maybe you're trying to break your own record and want to push hard today. The theme from Chariots of Fire should keep you competitive.
For some of us of a certain age, the 1960's and 1970's rocked! This genre of jogging music includes Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater and the Allman Brothers. Good any day of the year. The Beatles, the Stones, the Doors, Pink Floyd, ELO, Patti Smith, Frampton and Rod Stewart are all guaranteed to keep you moving.
Lyrical favorites can promote creative visions or simply a reflective mood. Try some Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, B.B. King, Albert King, Bob Marley, B.I.G., Inner Journey, Louis James Corrigen, Shareffa, Rhianna, Dominico, Fat Joe or Black Uhru.
Is today gray and rainy? Do you just need to get the adrenaline going? Some gym-trainer heavy-beat music can get your blood moving. Pop music artists can be your best friend for this situation. Some Madonna, BT (with a song like "Superfabulous" you'll want to run all day long!), Olivia Newton John, Fergie, Black Eyed Peas, Nine Inch Nails, Randall Brambrett, Soundgarden, Phil Brown, Peter Luts, Blue Man Group or the Chemical Brothers are worthy of investigation.
You can see, with jogging music choices, it all depends on what kind of experience you're looking for today. Basically, it comes down to whatever floats your boat. Music and jogging really go hand in hand. You can create whatever world you desire, if only for the length of your run.
About the Author
HobbiesAndGamers provides readers with the latest news on recreational activities & other entertainment issues.

The Gen X Shuffle
by Amy Wink Krebs


I've downloaded my self-proclaimed "eclectic" CD collection onto the computer's media player; now I have a mystery DJ in the room who tirelessly spins everything from Paul Simon to Phish on a continuous, random play mode.
Usually this is a good thing.
Right now, however, I'm being treated to a live version of Sussudio by Phil Collins -- and I have to ask myself what kind of crack I was smoking when I added this shit to my play list. I'm tempted to skip ahead to the next song, but I tell myself I'm going to see Phil's puffed-air version of the lame 80s tune to its painfully overdue conclusion. Alas; I can't take it anymore, and fast forward almost all the way to the end. There may be more crack-induced crap to come, but I'll take my chances.
Don't get me wrong - I adore most 80s music and find it appealingly nostalgic. After all, the 80s ushered me from girl to woman -- age ten to twenty -- becoming a soundtrack recording for growing up Gen X.
Boy George really did it for me, I'll admit, and Ah-ha's Take on me was the coolest video anyone had ever seen. But I never did like Phil Collins (I was more of a Peter Gabriel girl), and so I look forward to the next song with ever-increasing impatience. I'll delete it later, I think, wondering how I ever came to own Sussudio in the first place.
Next I hear the opening violins of Selling Out by the Brooklyn Funk Essentials, and it feels like coming in from the cold. Yummy-warm funk meets frenetic sitar, slides into trip-hop, and dances with reggae... all in the groove and just oooooozing cool. I heard this stuff at a friend's house and immediately asked for the name of the album, which I wrote on my hand so I could run home and buy it online right away. I never tire of the Brooklyn Funk Essentials' innovative sound, which sounds even better if you're listening at, say, 4:20.
As if reading my mind, the computer next decides to send some Bob Marley this way, specifically Stir It Up. Now that's what I call easy listening. Easy like a soft chair and a smile. I'm always up for a Bob Marley tune...probably not fifteen Marley tunes in a row, but then that's why I use random play.
It's fun to take note of the strange mix of songs that would never, ever be played back-to-back on any real radio station, anywhere, at any time. Only in my house does The Beastie Boys' No Sleep Till Brooklyn segue peculiarly into Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here.
I admittedly read too much into the media player's "random" song order. One time, I wrote song titles on a paper as they played, later attempting to divine some sort of fortune from the resulting message, doubtless sent by aliens or God. Because the Talking Heads' And She Was played just before Eminem's Without Me, I assumed my recently deceased friend Gina was dropping by to say hello. When David Byrne's The Accident preceded Sublime's Wrong Way, I knew better than to get behind the wheel of a car...at least until I heard Roger Miller's reassuring King of the Road or Cake's rousing Race Car Ya-Yas. You can't be too careful when interpreting the nonexistent significance of haphazard song play.
I suppose I'd better quit identifying all my songs before it becomes blatantly obvious that my music tastes, albeit diverse, are rapidly approaching "geezer" status. My 18-year-old cousin has categorized most of my CDs as "wuss rock" - a term for which I can certainly glean the meaning, but have never heard before and definitely hesitate to embrace.
I prefer to pretend it's 1991, and the cousin in question is just 6 years old, all wide-eyed at my college-age, too-cool, flannel-clad rebellion. Let me tell you, sonny-boy, those were the days. Now please excuse me while the Pixies scream Debaser and I relive them once again.
About the Author
Amy Wink Krebs is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Creative Writing.She lives in upstate New York with one husband, one son, one cat, and one fish.

Katrina: The Big One
by John F. Burnett


John F. Burnett is the author of "Uncivilized Beasts and Shameless Hellions."
Storm refugees, nearly all of them black, are on the move throughout the city. And they are refugees, as in, people fleeing misfortune and seeking refuge. NPR and other news organizations caved to pressure from critics who did not like the word. We substituted "evacuees." Some listeners thought "refugee" carried a pejorative foreign connotation, something that happens in Sudan or Somalia but never the United States. That's precisely why I preferred the term. I hoped it would shock people into realizing that an American city had sunk to Third World conditions.
Hawke and I hop out of the truck to interview a ragged string of refugees walking up Howard on the way to the Superdome, trailed by an obese woman in stretch shorts. "I got a bad heart. I ain't got no business travelin' like this," she says.
A woman with matted hair in a Tweety Bird T-shirt says, "We slept all night on the bridge. They say go across the river and the buses will pick us up. Now they're turnin' us all around. We need somebody who knows what's goin' on!"
I ask more questions, but they want answers. Where to get a meal? Where to find a bus?
"Tell the truth," a young man in a Bob Marley T-shirt asks in exasperation. "Y'all care about us?"
"Of course we do," Hawke replies.
"Well, help us," he says sharply. "They got people layin' up there on the bridge dyin' . . . I know y'all want our story, but we need help!"
We don't know where they should go, either. And we're worried that if we hand out the little food and water we have in the truck, we'll cause a scene. Still, he makes a powerful point: We need a story; he needs a rescue.
A couple of weeks later, a listener will e-mail NPR and ask, "What about the demands of suffering humanity? Do you ever feel that journalism is an inadequate response to the tragedies you report on?" Other listeners suggest we should have turned our sat phone over to the cops after they lost communication.
The role of journalist as detached chronicler or part-time rescuer will be discussed intensely after Katrina. Purists argue that journalists should never participate in a story -- period. We bear witness to history; we don't step into it. But it's not that simple. We don't leave our humanity at home when we cover a disaster. Anytime I, as a journalist, record a person in misery and then walk away, I feel like the photographer who queasily described his role, saying, "We came to take our trophies and left." There's something unbecoming about that behavior, particularly if we can offer a small kindness without neglecting our job.
Later in the week, Hawke and I hand out water and snacks to individual refugees we encounter, and the NPR crew gives four desperate Canadian tourists a ride to Baton Rouge. I heard of other journalists using their news boats to rescue people. I believe you do what you can, but you never let go of the story. And on this story, in particular, journalists will perform a service by being on the ground and in the water to show the world and our own government the terrible conditions in New Orleans.
The unrelenting sun turns the morning into a sauna. I crank up the Ford's A/C and think sadly about the people stuck in the sweltering Superdome or sitting on their rooftops. This is the same heat wave that warmed the gulf and created the monster hurricane. Our world is heating up. There could well be more Katrinas in future summers. But at the moment, they've got to fix this one.
In the Rose Garden, President Bush ticks off all the federal aid bound for New Orleans: 400 trucks transporting 5.4 million meals, 13.4 million liters of water, 10,400 tarps, 3.4 million pounds of ice, 144 generators, 135,000 blankets. It probably sounds reassuring to people everywhere but here, where they know the truth. The relief effort -- if there is one -- has fallen into chaos. No one is in charge. Storm survivors are adrift in the gulf of New Orleans. The city needs every thing -- food, water, buses, boats, doctors, soldiers, ice, and body bags. And what does Governor Blanco do? She calls for a statewide Day of Prayer.
I zigzag through fallen limbs along St. Charles Avenue, famed for its Mardi Gras parades and formerly shady oaks. When I spot more refugees wading up the street, I pull onto the streetcar tracks and kill the engine. We climb out and introduce ourselves to Latoya Solomon, a 24-year-old hotel employee who's walking with 12 members of her family, from a tot happily splashing along the pavement to a grim old woman in an orange life vest. As soon as my first question is out, Solomon starts to rant. "The water's off, the light's off, everything's flooded, everything's soakin' wet, we can't eat, we can't cook, stores ain't open. We thirsty. What? What? I don't see nobody tryin' to help us. Everybody just walkin' around lookin' lonesome. This ain't gonna work," she says. I wish I could put her on live with the president.
Reprinted from: Uncivilized Beasts and Shameless Hellions: Travels with an NPR Correspondent by John F Burnett © 2006 John F Burnett. Permission granted by Rodale, Inc., Emmaus, PA 18098. Available wherever books are sold or directly from the publisher by calling at (800) 848-4735. www.rodale.com
About the Author
John F. Burnett has been in the midst of the biggest news stories of our age, and 2005 marked his 20th year reporting for National Public Radio. He is the recipient of a 2004 Edward R. Murrow Award for Investigative Reporting and a 2003 National Headliner Award for Investigative Reporting. He lives in Austin, Texas.