Best of Ribaldry & Schmaltz 2007

Once again, here are the twenty finest songs purveyed this year on Ribaldry and Schmaltz. It was another fine year for strip-mining the Rhapsody Just Added lists and generally wandering willy-nilly in the wilderness of the Rhapsody catalog.

As irregular and undisciplined as I was in posting this year, somehow I still put up over twenty three hours of playlist. And of course, after sorting through for a couple weeks, I don't think there's a dud in the bunch. Sixteen of these songs were new to the Rhapsody catalog in 2007, and five of those (Adassa, Robbie Fulks, Kurt Elling, the Leverts, and Banda Jerez) were New Releases.

It was a great year to be a dumbass who pays fifteen dollars a month to rent music. As more reality-based Best of 2007 lists have shown, [Radish and Drake] there were hundreds of fine new albums well worth listening to that you might not want to pay for outright, or even spend your time and hard drive space pirating.

Beyond that, there were the thousands of illuminating additions that came in due to changes in digital rights or reissues: from the Touch & Go, Fantasy, Fania, BUDA, Musart-Balboa, Decca International, Universal Latino, and Dischord labels, just off the top of my head.

To get Rhapsody-specific, in 2007, regularly working on multiple partitions and machines forced me to spend alot more time with the Rhapsody Online interface. That service got at least two serious overhauls this year (one just last week), which made it easier to access your Library and playlists, and made it much easier and more flexible to craft and share playlists. Still, I get no or incomplete results performing a search by Keyword mixing Artist and Track data, under both Firefox and Explorer. And, my only call to India this year (which went very smoothly, thank you!) came after I tried to use Rhapsody Online on two different Vista partitions on the same machine on the same day (at least I think that's what broke my account).

On the Rhapsody application front, some time this year the cost of a basic subscription jumped 30%, and we were all force-upgraded to Rhapsody v4. On the plus side, at some point they mostly fixed v4. The mp3 player management section in particular was transformed from a dangerous black magic ritual to a transparent drag-and-drop love fest. One thing that appears to have gotten broken, though, is the Custom Channels creator. Luckily for me, I already had custom channels including Husker Du and the Housemartins. Now, no matter what combination of characters I type into those text boxes, no match for those bands (among others, I'm sure) is offered.

Here's to more fascinating, lovely bits of listening in 2008 and beyond. Cheers, all!

Best of Ribaldry & Schmaltz 2007 Playlist [Rhapsody Online Version]

Best of Ribaldry & Schmaltz 2007 Playlist [Rhapsody Player Software Version]

01 Après Moi - Katerine
02 i wanna drive - neutral nation
03 I Won't Hurt You - The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
04 Ohoho Gedama - Mahmoud Ahmed
05 Nod Scene - Monster Magnet
06 I'm Henry The VIII, I Am - Herman's Hermits
07 Ya Me Canse - Adassa
08 It's A Man Down There - Duster Bennett
09 Gugamuga - Unspecified
10 I Like Being Left Alone - Robbie Fulks
11 Bus Back To Birmingham - Drunk Stuntmen
12 A New Body And Soul - Kurt Elling
13 Nardis - Mariane Bitran
14 A Promise (Is A Comfort To A Fool) - Gregory Isaacs
15 You're The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly - Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn
16 Tapped - Eddie Levert Sr & Gerald Levert
17 A Medios Chiles - Banda Jerez
18 St. James Infirmary - Bobby "Blue" Bland
19 Des étoiles - Katerine
20 Show Me - Pretenders

Top 3 Driveway Shoveling Albums of 2007

I've spent quite a bit of time over the last two weeks out in the driveway with a shovel in my hands and the baby Sansa in my snow bib. And this weekend promises to bring even more opportunity to get in some music listening and crystal flinging. So why not take my findings and toss them onto the steadily-mounting slag heap of year-end best-of lists?

Despite the fact such lists are rapidly becoming the Fruit Cake of the 21st century, the staff here at Ribaldry & Schmaltz proudly present the

Top 3 Driveway Shoveling Albums of 2007:

3. Beyond - Dinosaur Jr
2. Roses - Bill McHenry
1. Sky Blue Sky - Wilco

All three albums were indeed released in 2007, share themes of muted persistence, and deliver chilled, fluffy atmospherics entirely appropriate for hours under a white sky, maintaining a form conducive to long-term lumbar harmony.

Keep a steady pace this holiday season, and remember to lift with the legs, everybody!

Top 3 Driveway Shoveling Albums of 2007 Playlist [Rhapsody Online Version]

Either Way - Wilco
Symphony - Bill McHenry
We're Not Alone - Dinosaur Jr

Good Times Tuesday Fresh Catch Playlist

Today a fresh catch playlist of good times tracks encountered recently on the Rhapsody Just Added list and in related wanderings of the catalog. One odd note: the Hep Stars were a 60s Swedish pop supergroup, harboring Benny Andersson before the formation of ABBA.

Good Times Tuesday Fresh Catch Playlist [Rhapsody Online Version]

Tanda Pa Varann (Save Your Heart For Me) - Hep Stars
Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries - Rudy Vallee
Sunny - Bobby Hebb
Everybody Can't Be Pretty - The Casinos
Happy Soul Time - Bill Doggett