and the 8 Ball Says...

- Open iTunes
- Turn shuffle on
- Press play
- The first 5 songs are:

1.) David Bowie - Golden Years : Trainspotting Soundtrack #2
Simply put, what a great movie. Good enough to give birth to not one, but two excellent soundtracks. There's not much better than watching a movie about a bunch of Brits running around performing all sorts of illegal deeds in order to pay for their drug habit. And to be honest, I would have fallen for Diane, too.

2.) The Raveonettes - Red Tan : Pretty In Black
The Raveonettes started out with a little schtick of their own: making an album entirely in Bb minor, surrounded by only three chords, and each song had to be less than three minutes long. Since then they've abandoned these rules, but they still have an enjoyable low-fi sound to them.

3.) Cab Calloway - Tarzan of Harlem : Are You Hep To The Jive?
Of course if you ask anyone about real swing music, they will think of Louis Prima and his tune Jump, Jive and Wail (thanks to that Gap commercial). Cab kicked out some good tunes of his own, too, though. Some are a little kitchy, but fun never the less. Cab also was hep (hip that is) enough to star in The Blues Brothers, for which he earns a bunch of cool cat points from me.

4.) Tricky - Pumpkin : Maxinquaye
If someone asks for dark electronic music, you would be hard pressed to choose a better singer than Tricky. With that gold tooth and his extremely distinctive gutteral voice, Tricky's lyrics just draw you into his dark ethereal dreamworld.

5.) Zap Mama - Bandy Bandy : Ancestry In Progress
If you've never heard of Zap Mama and you enjoy world music what-so-ever, please download this track and give it a spin. They put together a nice mix of African influences, occasional French lyrics, and dancehall beats. Even the songs you can't understand (unless of course you speak French!) will get you singing along.