CDs 12-17: Stone, LOE, Donnas, Jackson, Apple, Montoya; Fun Fact 31

Besides drinking a lot of beer over the holidays (see previous posting), we also listened to a bunch of new music. Some of it was newly released this year, as in Joss Stone's terrific new cd, Introducing Joss Stone, which represents the blue eyed soul tradition at its very best, ranging from Motown, funk, and neo-soul sounds.

Some of what we listened had been released in previous years, but was new to us, as in Wanda Jackson's compliation, The Queen of Rockabilly. This is a fantastic collection of her hits in the late 50's and early 60's. For the story of how hard it was for women like Wanda Jackson to break into the limelight, check out the DVD entitled Women of Rockabilly: Welcome to the Club.

We also finally got to Lesbians on Ecstasy, which we had been meaning to hear for a long time. LOE, more affectionately known as Lezzies on X, covers songs written by lesbians such as Melissa Etheridge, k.d. lang, Tracy Chapman, and a wide variety of others -- through the beats of heavy metal and electronica. Believe us, you'll never think of "Constant Craving" or "Like I Do" or "Talkin' Bout a Revolution" in quite the same way once you've heard this disc.

We also liked The Donna's Gold Medal, an interesting mix of alternative hard rock through a girl group sound. Our friend David had given us a copy of Fiona Apples' Extraordinary Machine before we left Athens and it is also very good piano centered, almost cabaret-like music with very interesting backing orchestrations. For international flavor, we have continued to enjoy the discs of Spanish music sent to us by our friend Miriam, and have been listening quite a lot lately to Carlos Montoya's very expressive Spanish Guitar Magic.

Fun fact: This burst of listening has been ocassioned by our near obsession with "10 Days in Europe" a board game that we gave to our friend Charlie this Christmas. The guy at the toy shop promised that it would be a big hit, and while we were somewhat skeptical, we found that we liked it so much upon playing it with Charlie in Athens that we came home and promptly bought one for ourselves. Each night as we have been working our way across Europe, we also have been working our way through our stack of cds. In keeping with the game, we should probably be listening to more European artists. Perhaps Amy Winehouse and others will appear here soon?