The Mix

Listen along with our Classical Roundup, Early 2012 playlist.

Maybe it's all about starting at the beginning. The new year offers several exciting views of the Baroque period, during which the foundations of Western orchestral music were first built. For this edition of the Classical Roundup, there are dedicated Baroque collections from some of music's brightest young female stars -- Met soprano Danielle de Niese and violinist Nicola Benedetti, along with Lara St. John and Xuefei Yang -- and from Italian violin master Giuliano Carmignola, whose Haydn violin concertos are exhilarating and absolutely definitive (if you have time for only one, start there). The set is rounded out by a New Year's Day concert and a few excellent selections of contemporary chamber music.

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The "Rachel" cut. Flannel. Wonderbras. Roller blades. Seinfeld. Beverly Hills 90210. The birth of grunge, the aging of New Jack Swing, the rise to power of both gangsta rap and backpacker-hop, the (hostile?) takeover of the charts by boy bands and Brit-Brit. And the divas: Alanis! Lauryn! Mariah! Celine! Oh, the '90s. So ... cute, weren't they? Relive all your guilty pleasures -- and hey, stop feeling guilty about them, why don't you? We've got plenty of good reasons for a trip down memory lane on our '90s Hits radio station. Dig into the wide, eclectic range of pop music at the end of the 20th century.

Listen Now: '90s Hits

Listen along with my Spirit of '08: The Blog-Rap Explosion playlist.

Five years ago, hip-hop finally discovered the Internet. Yes, it's true that rappers have long used the World Wide Web as a promotional tool, and some will have memories of how the Wu-Tang Clan generated hundreds of fan sites in the late '90s; online magazines like 360HipHop.com and Platform.net were briefly in vogue. But 2007 was the year that rappers began making music specifically for viral distribution. They promoted songs on MySpace pages; indulged in meta-trends like rapping over "indie" hits by Radiohead, Animal Collective and Portishead; and issued dozens of digital mixtapes of original material. Most importantly, hundreds of blogs emerged during this period to document the scene, turning these artists into underground media darlings. It was a period when the Internet audience became an influential arbiter of popularity, a shift that was reflected in XXL magazine's famous "Top 10 Freshmen" issue.

This playlist is dedicated to 2008 because while the blog rap era arguably began in 2007, it reached critical mass the following year. D.C. rapper Wale signed with Mark Ronson's production company and released his mixtape 100 Miles & Running in 2007, but his career took off when in 2008 when he released both a freestyle over Justice's "D.A.N.C.E." and his full-length Seinfeld homage The Mixtape About Nothing. That same year, Drake's second mixtape, Comeback Season, turned him into a blog rap darling; the rest of the country took notice in 2009 when he dropped So Far Gone and "Best I Ever Had." And B.o.B recorded the Cloud 9 mixtape in 2007; its title track and "Haterz" became regional hits, and led to a major-label contract with Atlantic.

However, this tribute includes not only the ones who became legitimate stars, but also the dozens of others who caught the Internet's fancy, like the Cool Kids (who ruled hip-hop on MySpace in 2007), Charles Hamilton (who released a staggering eight mixtapes in two months) and Sha Stimuli (whose buzz predated this era, yet stayed relevant by issuing 12 mixtapes in a year). Many of the songs used are representational. Theophilus London's This Charming Mixtape isn't available, so there's "Late Nite Operation" from Machinedrum's Want to 1 2?. Drake's guest spot on Slakah the Beatchild's Soul Movement Vol. 1 was also included on the former's Comeback Season. And instead of Asher Roth's killer freestyle over Lil Wayne's "A Milli" instrumental, there's "Lark on My Go Kart" from his major-label debut, Asleep in the Bread Aisle. Meanwhile, Odd Future and Nicki Minaj deserve inclusion here because while they didn't blow up until later -- Nicki Minaj in 2009 with Beam Me Up Scotty and Odd Future in 2010 with Tyler, the Creator's Bastard -- they released their first material during this period.

Welcome to From the Rhapsody Vault, a look back at splendid Rhapsody TV videos of yore. Today we've got then-up-and-coming rapper J. Cole, going On the Record, telling us about his favorite album (congrats, 2pac!) in exactly 45 seconds. Of course, this year Cole went on to have a no. 1 Billboard album of his own, so congrats to him, too. Enjoy.

J. Cole Cole World: The Sideline Story

2pac Makaveli

Listen along with our Metal Roundup, February 2012 playlist.

Given pseudoscientific doomsday theories of galactic alignment and geomagnetic reversal and Nibiru collision and all, metal can certainly look forward to an eventful 2012. What's more metal than the End of the World, right? Unless it's the Return to Darkness, as typified by the recent phenomenon of cities like Highland Park, Mich., and Rockford, Ill., extinguishing thousands of streetlights to save money at a time of fiscal crisis, and scores of other municipalities now considering the same option.

Here's Virginia Tech history professor A. Roger Ekirch -- who in 2005 published a book called At Day's Close: Night in Times Past -- in a recent New York Times streetlight switch-off essay: "Before the Industrial Revolution, darkness conjured the worst properties in man, nature and the cosmos -- brigands, witches, and rapacious beasts were thought to lurk everywhere." How metal is that??

That said, here's to 2012! Here are 15 albums with which metal has kicked open its year's door so far. (Well OK, we cheated: two, including the class valedictorian in our No. 1 spot, technically came out in the waning weeks of 2011, but who's counting?) And OK, one of the best albums comes from some old-fart Californians reunited in proper form for the first time in nearly three decades, and one of the others is from some even older-fart Germans who've been around in some form or other since the mid-'60s -- and who spend their 2012 platter re-recording their oldies and covering other people's. Nevertheless, rest assured that there is sufficient rapacious darkness from vastly younger and more frightening creatures further down below. Dig in, and let the countdown to Armageddon begin.

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Listen along with our Source Material: Van Halen, 1984 playlist. And don't forget to also check out this one: Van Halen: Their Greatest Hits With Diamond Dave.

If asked to list the ultimate '80s albums -- those that I most closely associate with the decade (even if I didn't necessarily listen to all of them) -- 1984 would sit at the top of the list next to Thriller, She's So Unusual, Purple Rain, Born in the U.S.A., the Top Gun soundtrack, Like a Virgin and The Wrestling Album.

Yet I must confess: I wasn't a big fan.

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Free Again is a crucial document, shedding as it does light on that shadowy phase in young Alex Chilton's career during which his time with The Box Tops was drawing to a close but before he had teamed up with Chris Bell. These passionately loose, some would say almost tossed off, recordings are closest in spirit to the post-Big Star Like Flies On Sherbert. This is Chilton filtering roots music (soul, blues, country) through his eccentric rock 'n' roll fantasy. The Stones might've written "Jumpin' Jack Flash," but with the menacing version herein, Chilton makes it his own -- pure dark energy. [Justin Farrar] Hear It Now!

Valentine's Day is almost upon us. It's true. If you are just now learning this news, your first stop should be Yelp (for restaurant recommendations) or 1-800-FLOWERS or some such; your next stop should be right here, whereupon we've provided a series of splendid romantic-like playlists to ease you through the most romantical of holidays. Whether you're a country bumpkin or a city hipster, a tango expert or a reggae fiend, we will help you either stage your own romantic comedy or kick off your own Anti-V-Day protest. All you need is love, it's true, but music sure helps, too. Enjoy.

	Stage Your Own Rom-Com: Only the sappiest, hugest love songs need apply			A Reggae Valentine's Day: Is this love that you're feeling? Yeah, probably.
	Hipster Love: They gotta procreate somehow. The Postal Service, Beck and others can help.			Rollin' in the Hay: Country love songs and assorted barn-burners.
	The Dance of Desire: A scorching-hot tango collection.			Love Bites: The ultimate Anti-Valentine's Day anti-celebration.

Listen along to this post with our Sub Pop Records, The '00s & Beyond playlist.

We've already highlighted Sub Pop's formative years, when the label helped launch a musical revolution, kick-starting the careers of grunge kings and indie-rock innovators. But that was only the beginning of the story. From longhaired grunge to squeaky-clean indie folk to a world-music imprint and now hip-hop, the Seattle label has proven time and again to be one of the most reliable tastemakers in the biz. For over two decades, they've helped define whatever "indie music" is, or soon will be.

By the 2000s, the Seattle-based label was giving us such indie darlings as The Shins, Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes, Beach House, Wolf Parade and Washed Out; they signed their first hip-hop act, Shabazz Palaces, in 2011; and they've even proven to have a hell of a sense of humor, releasing records from comedy iconoclasts like Flight of the Conchords, David Cross and Patton Oswalt.

Below, we spotlight key albums from Sub Pop's ever-expanding catalog.

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Listen along with our Source Material: Skrillex, 'Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites' playlist.

Skrillex, it seems, was made for memes. From Hipster Runoff to the self-explanatory Tumblr blog Girls That Look Like Skrillex, the electro-dubstep upstart -- or at least the version imagined by snarks and Cheeto-munching forum monkeys -- leads a vibrant second life in avatar-land.

The latest viral emanation from planet Skrillex happened in December, when the man born Sonny Moore posted a YouTube clip of Aphex Twin's "Flim" to his Facebook page, accompanied by the note, "my favorite song of all time fyi." (Gotta love that "fyi," especially coming from a guy who's never worked an office job in his life.) His evangelism clearly had an effect: since then, the post has accrued 8,325 comments (and counting). A few listeners, though, felt like there was something missing from Aphex Twin's chiming electronic balladry, as indicated in comments like these:

"i was hoping for a drop."
"Still waiting for the drop.......no?"
"I was waiting for a drop that never happnd lol"
"i didnt even here a nice drop-___-....i thought it was suppose to have atleast a good drop?????"

The drop, as any fan of today's super-sized stadium rave could tell you, is the moment in a dance track, right after the breakdown (a tension-building passage, often beatless, characterized by whooshing white noise), when the bass and drums return with supersonic impact, a brick wall of sound that contorts faces and jumbles guts. That roller-coaster path from extreme to extreme defines much mainstream club music right now, and many listeners, it would seem, don't ever want to get off the ride.

Some wag cut and pasted all the drop-related comments into a single thread, making it look like Skrillex fans are nothing more than thrill-seekers with tin ears. Some of them surely are; you find them everywhere. But that's not (entirely) Skrillex's fault.

Whatever your feelings about the result, the guy seems genuinely dedicated to introducing his fans to the music that inspired his own. In interviews, he's bigged up not just obvious touchstones like The Prodigy and Nine Inch Nails, but also Aphex Twin, Squarepusher and even Autechre. Using his 2011 EP, Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites, as a launching pad, we've fleshed out his list of influences and listed a few more records without which Skrillex might never have gotten his bumper car out of the gate.

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Listen along to this post with our Premios Lo Nuestro Nominees 2012 playlist.

With overarching category groups including Pop, Rock, Tropical, Regional and Urbano, Premios Lo Nuestro clearly aims to cover the widest possible spectrum of Latin popular music. What's more, Univision's annual awards show does a mighty fine job of it. You'll find some of the biggest names from the last year or so among the nominees: prolific stars like Gloria Trevi and Maná, wildly successful newcomers like Gerardo Ortiz and Prince Royce, hip up-and-comers like Rita Indiana and much, much more! Listen up and get primed for the big ceremony, which will be broadcast live on Thursday, February 16 on Univision.

Welcome to Who?, a possibly reoccurring new Rhapsody feature addressing artists, songs and general cultural phenomena that seem to come out of nowhere. Our first subject is Belgian-Australian (yes!) quirk-rock sensation Gotye, whose lithe, catchy, xylophone-driven single "Somebody That I Used to Know" is rocketing up any chart you'd care to name. Let's try this.

Who? Gotye, aka Wouter "Wally" De Backer, making him quite possibly the first "Wally" in popular music, which it's about time.

What? One of those one-man-band types who plays, like, dozens of instruments, he's broken through big-time with his third solo effort, Making Mirrors, which transports Beck's sample-heavy junkyard-pop cheeriness both forward into the 21st century and back to the '80s. "Somebody That I Used to Know" sounds like Sting fronting Men at Work; with a vocal assist from New Zealand chanteuse Kimbra, the song now joins the hallowed "post-mortem he said/she said breakup songs" canon alongside "Don't You Want Me" and The Postal Service's "Nothing Better."

Where? Born in Belgium, he moved to Australia as a toddler and is now a big whoop there.

When? Making Mirrors came out in Australia in August 2011. Like most overnight sensations, he's actually been at this forever -- he's a veteran of several bands and released his first solo album in 2003.

How? Since being uploaded to YouTube in July 2011, the "Somebody That I Used to Know" clip (leg-hair alert) has racked up nearly 66 million views at press time; just for reference, Lana Del Rey's "Video Games," which so far has inspired more heated Internet verbiage than the 2012 presidential election, has garnered about half that.

Why? "Somebody" is indeed the jam, with an infectious air of melancholy and a breezy Tropicália air. Pastiche is sort of his thing: Mirrors has plenty of similar joys, from the Motown ode "I Feel Better" to the George Michael/Michael Bolton walking-on-sunshine jam "In Your Light" to the more current (ha) chillwave-ian overtones of the lovely "Giving Me a Chance." Plenty of future YouTube sensations lurking here.

Live from Rhapsody's San Francisco office, here's our exclusive interview with Ethan Miller, magnificently bearded frontman for classic-rock revivalists Howlin' Rain. He talks about working with (the also magnificently bearded) Rick Rubin, how crazy a three-year layoff between albums can make you, the perils of writing personal lyrics and more. Enjoy.

Among the many early 1970s classic from Al Green. With this album, he cemented his status as Solomon Burke's replacement, crooning tender lyrics in obscenely addictive ways. While only a small handful of the tracks became hits, this album's full of winners. Even the cover of Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman" isn't too terrible. [Jon Pruett] Hear It Now!

Listen along to this post with our Grammys 2012: Victors and Highlights playlist.

Adele didn't win everything at this year's blowout Grammy fete - it just felt like it. But Skrillex, Foo Fighters and Bon Iver didn't do too badly either, and as always the night was punctuated by huge performances, this year ranging from Chris Brown to The Beach Boys to a splendid Glen Campbell tribute to, of course, the showstopping Whitney Houston homage delivered by one Jennifer Hudson. Quite a night, all told, leaving us with a lot to chew over. Here's some highlights to get you started.

The Dutch techno artist Conforce isn't trying to reinvent the wheel on his debut album; he's just trying to make it roll more smoothly. And he succeeds: His tracks glide as though slicked with grease and graphite, with just enough grit to kick up a delectable sense of friction. What seems grayscale at first opens up with rich, dusky colors, like roadside blackberries rinsed to a dull gleam. Escapism's muscle is informed by basement clubs, but its fluid dynamics and tempos are well suited to home listening. [Philip Sherburne] Hear It Now!

Kiss' fifth LP was unleashed during the bicentennial anniversary, and for many rockers it invoked a new spirit of '76. From Peter Criss' smash-hit ballad "Beth" to the dark rumbling "God of Thunder" and the ultimate party anthem "Shout It Out Loud," Kiss delivered a near-perfect (and highly influential) studio album. [Nick Dedina] Hear It Now!

Listen along to this post with our Tribute to Whitney Houston playlist.

Whitney Houston, who passed away Saturday, February 11 at the age of 48 from unknown causes, was America's black Barbie. She was svelte and thin, with a fixed, incandescent smile and a soaring yet smooth voice. She should have been celebrated, but instead, she often felt like a weighty burden, causing us to look in the mirror in disappointment because we weren't perfect like her. So we privately struggled against her 1980s reign as if she was the high school prom queen. It was futile to truly protest her near-constant ubiquity on music-video shows and radio stations, and so we resorted to nasty rumor-mongering about her sexuality, her eating habits and, worst of all, her music.

Whitney Houston seemed born into stardom. Her mother was Cissy Houston, a pop/soul veteran that sang background vocals for Paul Simon, Donny Hathaway, Van Morrison and many others. Her cousins were Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick, and her godmother was Aretha Franklin. She was still a teenager when she became Seventeen magazine's first black cover model; she landed her first hit, 1984's "You Give Good Love," at age 20.

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These perpetually soused, constantly mutating indie-rock gods here reconvene their beloved mid-'90s lineup, with oracle/genius frontman Bob Pollard backed by fellow singer-songwriter Tobin Sprout, bassist Greg Demos, guitarist Mitch Mitchell and drummer Kevin Fennell. Bizarre, scattershot, occasionally transcendent Beatles worship ensues, as always. It's ramshackle and spotty by design, but "The Unsinkable Fats Domino" is magnificent, and Sprout's songs, from the blissful "Waves" to the tender "Old Bones," are a revelation. Bee Thousand fans, look out. [Rob Harvilla] Hear It Now!

Listen along to this post with our The Grammy Awards: Song of the Year Victories Through the Decades playlist.

Since 1958, the National Academy of Recording Arts has bestowed the Grammy statue upon numerous talented singers, songwriters and musicians; in 1959, they presented the first Song of the Year award. Unlike its oft-confused cousin Record of the Year (which honors the full recording), Song of the Year is presented to the songwriters, whose work "must contain melody and lyrics, and must be either a new song or a song first achieving prominence during the eligibility year. Songs containing prominent samples or interpolations are not eligible." Hmmm.

Song of the Year is one of the four most prestigious Grammy Awards. Interestingly, the very first winner -- "Volare" by Domenico Modugno -- is the only foreign-language song to ever win, and Henry Mancini, James Horner and U2 are the only multiple winners in this category This playlist arguably represents the best of the best in popular music since 1958. Hit play and psych yourself up for this year's Grammy Awards, where Adele, Bon Iver, Bruno Mars, Kanye West, or Mumford and Sons will join the club.

Get the full experience by tuning in to my Friday Mixtape: Young Jazz Piano Trios playlist now.

This playlist may compile compositions from the sophisticated edge of pop culture -- Radiohead, Nick Drake, Elliott Smith -- but the performances are by some of the most exciting young jazz piano trios. Jazz musicians have a long and celebrated tradition of stealing tunes from the pop charts, but pianists like Brad Mehldau, Taylor Eigsti and Robert Glasper mine the territory of indie and avant-garde rock for surprising selections that have the potential to capture audiences outside the genre's borders. They are joined by a handful of visionary young European trios, led by the likes of Esbjörn Svensson and Colin Vallon, who offer their own visionary retooling of the piano trio format. This Friday Mixtape brings some of our favorite young artists together for a set of stylish, urbane classics.

Both excitingly fresh and satisfyingly classic, Ritmo Machine are a new collaborative project between Eric Bobo (Cypress Hill and Beastie Boys percussionist, son of Willie Bobo) and Chilean DJ Latin Bitman that cuts indie-hop through with thick Latin dance and pop grooves. These two clearly enjoy working together: Welcome crackles and pops with an easy vibrancy as Bobo and Bitman sketch a continuum between sizzling Latin jazz, beachy alt-electronico and sunny, scratched-up backpacker hip-hop (a Chali 2na collection helps solidify that reference). It's a warm, fuzzy thrill of an album. [Rachel Devitt] Hear It Now!

On the Record is a video series where rock stars gush about their favorite records -- in exactly 45 seconds. Click above to watch Jesse & Joy give it up for Adele.

Jesse & Joy ¿Con Quién Se Queda El Perro?

Adele 21

50 Cent's debut smash lives up to the hype and then some. Powered by impossibly great singles "In Da Club" and "P.I.M.P.," Get Rich Or Die Tryin' is the next step for crossover rap -- hard in the right spots, smooth where it counts and, with Dr. Dre producing four of the cuts, sufficiently connected to the old school to absolve you for knowing every song by heart. [Mike McGuirk] Hear It Now!

Listen along with our Senior Year, 1999: Country's Year of the Woman playlist.

The year 1999 was a stellar one for country music -- and for the women of the genre in particular. Not only did Faith Hill find phenomenal, multigenre crossover success with "Breathe," she also was seen on the small screen in millions of households as the new Cover Girl spokesperson. Meanwhile, the as-yet drama-free Dixie Chicks were still culling singles from their debut album when they released the follow-up, Fly, which garnered them even more hits. But that's nothing compared to Shania Twain, whose 1997 album, Come on Over, was still mining hit singles two years later, including its title track.

If you were a senior in high school in 1999 (and were also a girl), you probably wanted to be like Faith Hill, but soon realized her leggy physique and natural beauty was an "either you have it, or you don't" proposition. Not surprisingly, you opted for a midriff-revealing little number and/or a leopard-print ensemble like Shania Twain rocked in the "That Don't Impress Me Much" video instead. Back then, you actually might've had the abs to pull it off, too!

Welcome to From the Rhapsody Vault, a look back at splendid Rhapsody TV videos of yore. Today we've got superstar DJ/producer David Guetta giving it up for fellow French dance-music gods Daft Punk, in exactly 45 seconds. (He's oddly happy to be buzzed at the end, actually.) Enjoy.

David Guetta Nothing But The Beat

Daft Punk Homework

Listen along with our Top 15 Rock Albums, February 2012 playlist.

Full disclosure: This latest Rock Roundup creeps oh so slightly into the waning weeks of 2011. It's a minor indiscretion when weighed against the number of killer albums dropped over the last month and a half. Now, I know what you're saying: "Good new music this time of year?" Valid skepticism for sure. The December-to-February stretch is traditionally a kind of Phantom Zone, during which most labels and artists fall particularly silent in terms of new product, as well as live performances and touring.

But 2012 has proven to be different. We've already received excellent albums from a pair of icons: Leonard Cohen and Van Halen. Though Cohen titled his record Old Ideas, his finely honed skills as a songwriter and singer feel fresh and vital. Van Halen sound equally potent. A Different Kind of Truth, the group's first album with Diamond Dave on vocals since 1984, contains some seriously hard boogie.

Another key release comes in the form of the Mark Lanegan Band's Blues Funeral. Funny thing, the grunge icon and his raspy croak sound older than Cohen and Van Halen combined, but that's always been his m.o.: moody hard rock and rickety folk from a guy who sounds like one of them ancient souls passing from body to body through the millennia. Blues Funeral is cool because it finds him incorporating touches of electronica, an aesthetic he previously explored on the Soulsavers' 2007 collaborative effort It's Not How Far You Fall, It's the Way You Land.

The last month or so has also seen the release of several notable reissues and archival collections. Alex Chilton's Free Again is a gem of a document, containing as it does a slew of recordings the young artist made in and around 1970, when The Box Tops were just about kaput but before he had met Chris Bell and subsequently formed the immortal Big Star. Another couple of treats are the expanded editions of The Doors' L.A. Woman (totally rocking) and Elvis Country (arguably the last truly great record of Presley's career). A loose concept album from 1971, the latter is a stunning panorama of the Southern music experience: country, gospel, soul, rockabilly, bluegrass, blues and so on.

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Listen along with our World's Top Ten, Winter 2012 playlist.

You know that holiday season/beginning-of-the-year lull in new music everyone always talks about? Well, forget about it. The world of world music has been busy the last couple months, churning out a ton of new releases that are both high profile and highly interesting. We've got some stragglers who snuck out in late 2011 and ended up being some of the year's best releases, like Sia Tolno's vibrant Afropop effort and the Hawaiian folk-drenched soundtrack to George Clooney's Oscar-nominated film The Descendants. We also stretched back a bit further into 2011 to pinpoint some things you might have missed, like Buraka Som Sistema's über-hip global club cuts and Sevara Nazarkhan's intimate neo-traditionalism.

But we didn't even need to look backward: 2012 has already been offering up a wealth of riches, from flamenco punks Rodrigo y Gabriela's excursion into Cuban big band to Novalima's sleekly innovative reworkings of Afro-Peruvian traditional music. If you've got the winter blues, we've got the cure for what ails you right here. Dig in!

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Thin Lizzy's bones are bare: Guitarist Brian Robertson's broken hand nixed the band's twin-lead approach for much of Bad Reputation. Nevertheless, Phil Lynott's muse is at peak performance. This is better than their previous LP, Johnny the Fox, and nearly as good as their masterpiece, Jailbreak. It rocks and rolls with heavy numbers like "Opium Trail," but also has some classic pub fare, namely "Dancing in the Moonlight." Dig that sexy sax making its way through the middle-of-a-big-city night. [Justin Farrar] Hear It Now!

Listen along with our Stage Your Own Rom-Com playlist.

In case you hadn't heard, a certain love-obsessed holiday is nearly upon us. Have you made a dinner reservation yet? Ordered flowers? You HAVEN'T?!
Just kidding -- we haven't either -- but we got you covered. This year, instead of renting or going out to see a romantic movie, we had a brilliant idea: Let's all stage our own romantic comedy -- or rom-dram, or tearjerker, or whatever your pleasure (or level of relationship seriousness, or dysfunction). In that interest, we've created the perfect soundtrack for it: a collection of the sweetest, most sensitive, most sweepingly dramatic, sexiest, sappiest love songs EVER. (That's right: EVER.) Throw it on and get to work planting engagement rings in soufflés or reconnecting with your childhood sweetheart or accidentally dating your best friend's sister without realizing it or whatever your rom-com cliché of choice. Or, you know, just play this while you make dinner for your sweetie (bo-ring). Happy Valentine's Day!

Listen along with our Source Material: Beck, 'Odelay' playlist.

Perhaps the finest and weirdest sonic collage of the '90s, Beck's Odelay pierced its way into the hearts of alternative, hip-hop and pop kids alike when it came out in 1996. By then, he'd convinced the world he was a loveable "Loser" -- which also meant many had him pegged as an inevitable one-hit wonder. But with what was actually his fifth album, he proved himself a master of smart, genre-smashing songwriting, thanks in part to The Dust Brothers, the production team behind The Beastie Boys' iconic Paul's Boutique.

How to explain this album? It ain't easy. It's got funk, punk, folk, jazz, country, bossa nova, hip-hop, pop and rock; it's got a mix of Beck's irony-tinged monotone and all-out guttural yells, plus his metaphorical musings, witty commentary and occasional nonsense talk -- and we're just talking about the first few songs here. But most noteworthy is the sampling: Beck and The Dust Brothers did some serious crate digging, excavating beats from Pretty Purdie; riffs from Them; funk grooves from Sly & the Family Stone, Mandrill, Rare Earth and Freedom; sound clips from Mantronix ("I got two turntables and a microphone") and The Frogs ("That was a good drum break"); even a symphonic snippet from Franz Schubert in "High 5 (Rock the Catskills)." Beck also nods to experimental troubadour Gary Wilson ("Let the man Gary Wilson rock the most") and Musical Youth's "Pass the Dutchie," for starters, in "Where It's At," whose video included a quick shot of him impersonating Captain Beefheart.

These, of course, are just a few of the influences behind the weird, wild and wonderful Odelay. Below, dig into the artists and albums Beck sampled, referenced or likely just adored during the making of this classic.

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Listen along with our Bay Area Mobb Music Sampler playlist.

Ever since Oakland rapper Too Short started slanging cassette albums like Players out of his car trunk in the early 1980s, the San Francisco Bay Area rap scene has been a source of curiosity and fascination. Centered in the city of San Francisco; East Bay cities like Oakland, Berkeley and Vallejo; and Peninsula cities like East Palo Alto, it's a region truly unlike any other.

While other underground scenes in the South and on the East Coast focus on mixtapes, the "Yay Area" (somewhat fancifully nicknamed for the hustlers who slang coke or "yay yo") produces hundreds of full-length albums a year from both well-known and obscure artists that employ cryptic yet imaginative local slang. Vallejo artist E-40, perhaps the best known Bay Area rapper next to Too Short and 2Pac (who moved to Los Angeles before his 1996 death), even put out a dictionary of "slanguage"; terms like like "D-boy" and "captain save a ho" have been adopted into the hip-hop lexicon.

Bay Area rap dates back to the 1980s, but its most crucial development took place during the '90s. This was the golden age of West Coast hip-hop, when G-funk pioneers like L.A.'s Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube and Coolio enjoyed a near-monopoly on the rap music charts. In the Bay Area, producers like Ant Banks, Studio Ton, Mike Mosley, E-A-Ski and Tone Capone developed what became known as mobb music. It was a derivation of G-funk's emphasis on "funky worm" keyboard melodies and Zapp-like trunk-rattling bass, yet the bass seemed deeper and the funk arrangements were less dependent on P-funk samples and interpolations. Since most Bay Area artists, like JT the Bigga Figga ("Game Recognize Game") and R.B.L. Posse ("Don't Give Me No Bammer"), recorded for independent labels like In-A-Minute, Sick Wid It and C-Note, they created a hardcore sound rawer than L.A.'s slick, major-label-funded gangsta rap.

The mobb music era roughly breaks down into three overlapping periods that are most easily defined by the style of certain landmark tracks: the N.W.A.-like sampling of the early 1990s and hits like Too Short's "Money in the Ghetto," an Ant Banks production that culled from Kool & the Gang's "Hollywood Swinging"; the sluggishly monolithic trunk bass of Luniz and Tone Capone's "I Got Five on It"; and the bouncy, wholly original funk of 3 X Krazy's "Keep It on the Real." The latter period, which picked up in the late '90s, came from a wave of area artists briefly signing to major labels, and was a response to "jiggy era" hits like Diddy's No Way Out and the resulting influx of mainstream-rap fans. This set the stage for the Bay Area hyphy movement of the 2000s.

Much like the Los Angeles scene that was permanently damaged by the East Coast-West Coast rivalry between Dr. Dre's Death Row label and Diddy's Bad Boy Records, Bay Area rap isn't as popular as it once was. But the players who emerged during the mobb music era continue to thrive as regional stars. In the Bay, independent hustle is a must, and the region will continue to pump out dope music for the streets, whether the pop market pays attention or not.

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Listen along with our Tango: The Dance of Desire playlist.

The torrid push and pull of melody against rhythm. Syncopated beats that build and release almost beyond the breaking point. Languid, smoky vocals. And the accordion -- oh, the gasping breaths and moans that sensual little squeezebox is capable of. OK, not every tango is so hot and bothered, but it's hard not to hear seduction, longing, desire in just about every strain of Argentina's classic musical-dance form -- even without the visual aid of dancers expertly twisting their bodies around each other in time to it. 

On the Record is a video series where rock stars gush about their favorite records -- in exactly 45 seconds. Click above to watch Ben Kweller give it up for Violent Femmes.

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Leon Ware was the sound swami behind Marvin Gaye's hit album I Want You, and this suave lovefest proves that Ware had more than one conga-drum-and-strings-laden masterpiece in him. The greatest track here is "Instant Love," but the entire enterprise comes gift-wrapped in silk and contains the faintest whiff of Ivory soap. The CD adds five sophisticated cuts. [Nick Dedina] Hear It Now!

Listen along with our Bob Marley's Hidden Gems playlist.

As with all great musicians, Bob Marley's music can't be summed up by just one attempt at a definitive collection -- even the definitive definitive collection. 1984's Legend is his oldest best-of, released just three years after he passed away; it also happens to be the best-selling reggae album of all time, with more than 25 million copies sold globally. Incoming college freshmen are basically issued it upon setting foot in their dorm rooms. And while it features some of his greatest and most well-known songs, Legend's oversaturation has cast a shadow on his other great work.

To celebrate the 67th birthday (February 6!) of the man who shared reggae with the world, I decided to celebrate his lesser-known gems. Bob Marley is known for many things, but he was first and foremost a revolutionary: A "Soul Rebel" fighting for equality, inspiring rebellion, and urging us to "chase them crazy baldheads out of town." "All we have got it seems we have lost/ We must have really paid the cost," he wails on the emotional "Burnin' and Lootin'." He was a voice of the vibrant Jamaican people, telling stories of life in the concrete jungle: "Darkness has covered my light and has changed my day to night/ Where is this love to be found?" Though he's usually associated with such feel-good music as "Three Little Birds" or "Stir It Up," much of his work actually involved dark stories of oppression and perseverance. But they were always delivered with genuine passion, uplifting the listener with hope. So check out this playlist of slightly less overexposed songs selected from his original releases, and discover a new side of the king of reggae.

This duo's second album has pins all over the American map. Sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg harmonize like Appalachian twins. Their sweet yet somber indie-folk -- enhanced by mostly acoustic guitar, autoharp and keyboard -- has hints of Seattle's Fleet Foxes. They name-check Southern greats: "I'll be your Emmylou, and I'll be your June/ If you'll be my Gram and my Johnny too." And it all comes freshly recorded from the heartland, with production from Bright Eyes' Mike Mogis (Conor Oberst guests on "King of the World"). It's all so convincing, you'll never believe they're Swedes. [Stephanie Benson] Hear It Now!

Haden and Jones recorded their first duo in 1995, the sublime, deeply personal Steal Away, a collection of hymns, spirituals and folk tunes. The same concept and elegantly understated playing is behind this, their immaculate follow-up, recorded just before Jones' death in 2010. Though Jones was 91, his treatment of these simple songs is loving, powerful and lyrical. On Sunday standards like "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?" and "Down By the Riverside," there is not only a deeply spiritual connection between the players, but also between two deeply spiritual men and their maker. [Nate Cavalieri] Hear It Now!

The most influential stoner-metal album to emerge from said movement of the '90s, Holy Mountain translates the crush-thud of Sabbath doomology into the post-Saint Vitus era, permanently setting a bar for heavy music. While it's hard to write about this album and not turn into a blubbering zealot, it's even more difficult to listen to "Dragonaut," the title cut, "Aquarian" and "From Beyond" -- all of it -- without wetting your pants if you're even a casual fan of the sanctified moves of Tony, Geezer, Bill Ward and Ozzy. [Mike McGuirk] Hear It Now!

Get the full experience by tuning in to my Winter White Mix playlist now.

If seasons can be assigned personalities, winter would be a loner -- aloof, scowling and eternally clothed in shades of gray. It's a somber attitude that rubs off on everyone within reach of its icy fingers, making us all a little darker and a bit more introspective.

Fortunately, winter's moodiness also provides plenty of inspiration for headier creative types. While we no doubt have summer to thank for musical masterpieces like "The Thong Song" or "California Gurls" (and The Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling" just had to be penned poolside), all the tracks in this wintry mix are wonderfully, perfectly chill. Current artists like Fleet Foxes, Iron & Wine and The Decemberists are joined by classic acts from Simon & Garfunkel to The Mamas & the Papas, all celebrating that least sunny of seasons. So whether the view out your window is snow-covered or it's simply winter in your heart, this icy collection of songs is sure to send a shiver down your spine -- in a good way.

For this seminal 1980 album, Pendergrass perfects the persona of a tragic romantic with a dabble of passion and a douse of tenderness. The maudlin hit single "Can't We Try" frames Pendergrass as "a hapless fool in love," while he takes "the bumps and bruises of a two time loser" on "Love T.K.O." Tendergrass is basically Isaac Hayes without the smut, or the thetans. [Sam Chennault] Hear It Now!

Listen along to this post with our Songs Madonna Should've Sung at the Super Bowl playlist.

So Madonna did a splendid job this past Sunday in surviving perhaps the biggest gig in pop music: The Super Bowl Halftime Show. Not quite transcendent (see Bruce Springsteen and U2), but far from disastrous (alas, The Black Eyed Peas). It all looked very expensive. And while her setlist was OK, beforehand we here at Rhapsody had cooked up a quick playlist of suggestions, mixing her own estimable hits with a few potentially rad cover-song ideas. She didn't take any of them, but still, it's fun to imagine. She could've redeemed Janet! Paid tribute back to Gaga! Let Nicki Minaj do a hit of her own! Ah, well, maybe next year.

I remember my first experiments in clubbing, back in the early '90s, in New York. I wasn't the trainspotter I am now; I didn't know my house from my techno. It was enough to get past the velvet rope, surround myself with a crowd that was a hell of a lot more glamorous than my Oregonian ass, and soak up the atmosphere while cocooned in a basso throb. At one of my group's regular joints, housed-up hip-hop and R&B were standard; at another, anthemic house, techno and rave classics ruled the roost.

Rhapsody's Dance Crossover Hits station starts from those two reference points and brings them up to speed with the anything-goes pop amalgam that comprises contemporary club culture. House music's four-to-the-floor chug and disco's jubilant oonce oonce provide the foundation for hooks from pop and hip-hop's biggest hits, plus all the spine-tingling whoosh of this decade's big-tent dance productions.

You'll hear everything from Deee-Lite to Diddy, Ace of Base to Yolanda Be Cool. Keep your indie cred via Hot Chip and Ewan Pearson, unleash your inner diva with J-Lo and Wynter Gordon, and flash back to the '90s with tracks from Moby and Paul van Dyk. Also, to remind you what time it is right now, there's plenty of Guetta and Gaga to go around.

Listen Now: Dance Crossover Hits

Mac Rebennack added atmospheric voodoo vibes and twisted psych-rock flourishes to his New Orleans R&B piano sound, and invented Dr. John in the process. The good doctor has had a long, worthwhile run, but this classic debut is still a career highlight (though bayou acid trips like "Croker Courtbullion" get bested by the slow boiling, amazing "I Walk on Guilded Splinters"). [Nick Dedina] Hear It Now!

Listen along with our Cheat Sheet: Indie Hype playlist.

Indie Hype. We all claim to loathe it, we all claim to ignore it, but ah, the truth hurts: the buzz/backlash/backlash-to-the-backlash saga of a fresh new artist like, say, flashy noir siren Lana Del Rey is an irresistible lure. Her new Born to Die, finally out this week after months and months of think pieces and message-board wars, is the latest record in the hot seat, joining a pantheon of wildly overhyped acts in the past decade that range from cautionary tales (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Bravery) to tentative successes (Vampire Weekend, Interpol) to enormous, arena-filling triumphs (love you, Arcade Fire). Will Lana fade into obscurity like Black Kids, or hack out a respectable career like Arctic Monkeys? Who knows, but by the time we find out, we'll have moved on to someone else.

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Listen along with our Leonard Cohen Through the Years playlist.

The early reviews are in, and just about every media outlet of note, from The New York Times to NPR, is gushing over Leonard Cohen's latest release, Old Ideas. We here at Rhapsody are smitten, too. So much, in fact, we decided to dedicate this week's Artist Spotlight to the man himself. Whether you belong to the uninitiated or you're a veteran fanatic, there's plenty to explore.

Leonard Cohen is arguably the most unique of the first wave of singer-songwriters who emerged from the 1960s. A brooding poet from Montreal, he wasn't a true folkie like James Taylor, Jackson Browne, or even fellow Canadians Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. Moreover, he didn't fall in love with the redwoods of California and all those groovy canyons in Los Angeles. Or, if he did, that love never dominated his music.

No, Cohen's inner reality -- steeped as it is in classic existentialism, Romanticism and Zen philosophy -- has always been too swayed by violent passion and an uneasy sense of melancholy to ever entertain the wispy, sensitive ruminations that characterized the Denim Mafia. In a weird way, his ability to explore the psychological dimensions of despair and torment (especially highlighting that point at which love, lust, obsession and alienation dissolve into one another) has more in common with such country-based songwriters as Lee Hazlewood, Mickey Newbury and Jay Bolotin, brooding crooners who shared that aching sense of impending doom.

For all his accolades as a songwriter and poet, Cohen's overall sound has proven to be just as influential. Let's face it: a lot of us don't even know what the guy is singing about half the time. He's just too damn smart. But what we do know is that he sounds grim, dark and intense. He's a master of atmosphere and mood -- monochromatic, obsidian and ghost-like. Through the years, these qualities have inspired hordes of goths, arty rockers such as Nick Cave and PJ Harvey, and even the occasional metal-dude auteur. Because of this, Cohen is one of those rare artists whose work actually bridges the hippie/punk divide. Here's a guide to the highlights of his catalog.

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Listen along to this post with our Senior Year 2001: Mickey Mouse Club Alumni Reunion at the Top of the Charts playlist.

What if you spent your senior year of high school on the verge of a group-superstar turn in the pop-star spotlight? What if your "senior class" wasn't so much a class as a bunch of mega-talented kids who grew up together on The Mickey Mouse Club? If your name started with "Britney" or ended in "-lake" (J.T., can you hear us?), this was your life as a late teenager. OK, fine, so most of our own senior years were a far cry from teenage superstardom (though being on the Yearbook Committee kind of counts as paparazzi training). Luckily, we got to reap the musical benefits of that atypical youth as, one by one, Disney's former child stars climbed to the top of the charts (or at least somewhere near it) and became pop's next generation. Relive the glory days of Brit, JT, Christina, JSimp, Mandy Moore and more of Walt's little darlings here.

Listen along to this post with our Jazz Roundup: January 2012 playlist.

The first jazz releases of 2012 have kicked the year off in remarkable fashion. Trumpeter Jeremy Pelt offers a dusky collection of ballads and blues. There's more trumpet with a Wynton Marsalis compilation that focuses on his life as a composer, along with Jimmy Owens' clear-eyed look at the works of Thelonious Monk. The set continues with some disarming efforts by an international trio of rock-, fusion- and avant-oriented pianists: U.K. crossover sensation Neil Cowley, Italian experimentalist Stefano Battaglia and Spanish newcomer Juan Galiardo. Last but certainly not least is the long-awaited follow-up to Hank Jones and Charlie Haden's 1995 record Steal Away. The new Come Sunday is a set of ethereal, elegant, deeply spiritual duets.

1. Charlie Haden & Hank Jones
Come Sunday
Haden and Jones recorded their first duet album in 1995: the sublime, deeply personal Steal Away, a collection of hymns, spirituals and folk tunes. The same concept and elegantly understated playing is behind this, their immaculate follow-up, recorded just before Jones' death in 2010. Though Jones was 91, his treatment of these simple songs is loving, powerful and lyrical. On Sunday standards like "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?" and "Down by the Riverside," there is a deeply spiritual connection not only between the players, but also between two deeply spiritual men and their maker. [Nate Cavalieri]

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Listen along with our 2012 Rap Producers on the Come Up playlist.

Hip-hop production often splits between the craftsmen who make hits out of popular styles (like Drake's "emo-rap" sound) and the innovators who make their own visions regardless of whether it's commercially viable. When I posted my first roundup of rising rap producers last winter -- featuring Lex Luger, J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League and others -- it drew comments that the list was too focused on the mainstream. (One reader said I should have included Oddisee, even though he's been producing albums since the early 2000s.) Over the course of 2011, the divide grew even starker, as many artists drawing attention for the first time -- including Block Beataz (G-Side, Freddie Gibbs) and Squadda Bambino (Main Attrakionz) -- made their best work on Internet mixtapes, not the rap charts.

However, everything rises from the underground, whether through regional trends or Internet memes. Mixtapes are not only an avenue for gaining attention, but also a piece of currency between artists and producers who want to avoid messy label deals and contracts. These days, it's rare to find a producer at any level of the rap industry who hasn't spent time on the underground circuit. It's a problem when mixtape trends begin to outpace the retail side, but as the following list demonstrates, there's less separation between the two than we sometimes think.

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One of the 1990s' most commercially successful and critically acclaimed albums, Sex Packets is classic in every sense of the word. Combining P-Funk's funky strut with hip-hop's bluster, songs such as "Rhymin' on the Funk," "Freaks of the Industry" and "Doowutchyulike" recalibrated West Coast rap. "The Humpty Dance" remains a radio staple. [Sam Chennault] Hear It Now!