Lady Sovereign

is my new hero.

She's a young English rapper, and she rocks.

I'm reading Songbook by Nick Hornby which is this beautiful collection of essays about individual pop songs and their place in his life. Apparently the hardcover actually came with a mix cd to go with it, but I got the paperback used, and now it's killing me that I can't listen to Thunder Road while I'm reading his piece about it. In any case his tastes are incredibly varied (he's the guy who wrote High Fidelity) so he's got Ani Difranco and the Beattles and Badly Drawn Boy and Ben Folds... It's made me listen to music almost constantly this weekend. A shortlived radio show called Pop Vultures did the same thing to me while it was on. (the show is still available online, and is some great listening). I just suddenly find myself needing music in a way that I associate with adolescence, and I'm having to readjust that idea. Here I am all grown up, needing music in that same desperate way again. The only adult I know who craves and consumes and KNOWS music, especially pop music the way that Nick Hornby does is my father. He knows all music, devotes a huge piece of his brain and life history to consuming and integrating and loving pop music. And now, I guess, here I am, doing a similar thing, only with this part of my brain that tells me that I probably shouldn't. It's wierd.

In any case I've been planning a trip to the record store to stock up on MIA, Lady Soveriegn, Amy Winehouse, and the Blue Scholars. If I could find it, I'd buy a record by a band called Guns That Shoot Knives, who I saw last week at the Sunset, but I doubt they'll have them, since I can't even find them on Myspace! Sheesh. Generally, I walk into a record store with a very clear idea of what I want, and walk out with something that seduced me as I walked down the aisle instead. As a teenager, this was the Morphine problem... I'd walk in to buy a Morphine album and walk out with something else. This is top of the long list of reasons to buy music from a story and not online. The other reason is hip, short, attractive music geeks behind the counter who seem to be the same hip, short, attractive, music geeks who worked behind the counter in Rhode Island when I was in high school and college.... weird.

Anyway, rock some Lady Sovereign.

Oh, and PS use http://www.pandora.com

You type in the name of an artist or band you like and it tries to play you music that is similar. It's awesome.