***Public Service Announcement***

Happy New Years! Welcome back to another Friday with yours truly. Here on Fresh Fridays I am going to do a few things a little different in 2012. I am still going to feature new music from the industry’s best and up and coming artists but I am also going to sprinkle a little sweetness onto Fresh Fridays. How you might ask, I am randomly going to feature classic tunes/best of ______ from some of my favorite artists through out time and genres. I am also going to feature “Retro Fridays,” some of my favorite songs from particular eras in music like 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. So, sit back; enjoy 2012 with Pop Culture Shock and Fresh Fridays.

2AM Club – Tell Her Hi: I have featured a few songs from this group before but this song here is very unique from the others. For one reason, there are MC lyrics on this track. I say MC over rapping because the content of lyrics this artist uses and the way he flows with the beat. I like the switch up on this single, pretty dope.

Beatrice Eli – The Conqueror: This song has a dope beat to it; the beat honestly caught my ear. The beat is just unique from this type of music genre (Indie Pop.) The lyrical content and vocals are intense and heart felt, just giving you all a heads up. I like it.

Capital Cities –Holiday: I have always been fond of the original version of this song but this cover is pretty cool. There is an Indie Rock, Electronica feel to this song. I like it, you all should like it also; enjoy!

Dreams – Inlove.: My 2^nd Jam of the Week! This song sounds like it should be background music in a movie. The feel of this song is kind of Old School Hip-Hop with a touch of Dubstep with its beats and breaks accompanied by repeated vocals. Dope-ness!

FortFairfieldWith Cosima Lamberth – Patience: This song is so freaking laid back, the female vocals just relaxes my mind to the point I am daydreaming. This is a great song to kick back to on a rainy day.

Harriet – I Slept With All Your Mothers: The title alone is awesome! The sound and feel to this song is classic like a real Rock. The lead singer’s voice is gritty and manly like a Rock song should be, cool beans.

Kanye West Featuring Sly Polaroid and Timmy G – Payback: Classic, unreleased Kanye; enjoy!

Sherell Rowe – I Told Ya: This artist was brought to my attention by my fellow PCS’er, LeRon. Introducing Sherel Rowe, I like this song because it’s very created with all the feature sounds in this song and it’s also a great club song. If you guys like this song, you can check out more form this artist at, http://soundcloud.com/sherellroweshow

Sunday Girl – Where Is My Mind (The Pixies Cover): If you love the original version of this song you will love this version. It doesn’t quite sound the same as the original but the feel of the original song is there in each lyric she utters. Classic!

The Weeknd – Outside: My Jam of the Week! This song is so, so freaking sexy! You all know I love The Weeknd! This song is so sensual and confident; every time I hear this song someone just might be getting “it” that night. Great song!

The 14^th Minute – Intern (Original Mix) 2: I do love me some instrumental tracks for some reason. This beat is very upbeat and makes me happy for some reason. It’s not one of my favorite instrumental tracks because in my opinion it’s missing something to its sound but it’s damn surely a great beat.

The Belligerents – Steal Money: This is a great, catchy Indie Rock song. This song reminds of The Hives because of the sound of the lead singer’s voice and their classic usages of Rock instruments, (Drums and Gauitars.)

The Lulls In Traffic – Silver Bells Are Ringing Only Grey: This song is so somber and relaxed in the beginning and then the beat builds up and to my surprise there are MC lyrics in this song. This song is a very interesting combination of genres.

The Mothership Orchestra – London Breeze (Navigatorz Mix): This is a cool song to me because of the settle beginnings. The vocals kick in and I am rocking my body back and forth. I love the whistling part to this song. Hey, I am easy to please!

Unouomedude – Frequency (The Soundmen Remix): This is an awesome mix here, the beat is great, the vocals are good, and overall, this song is just the sh!t to my ears. I feel like I need to be on a beach listening to this song.

“It’s Fresh Fridays; hope you have a nice weekend!”

Download Fresh Fridays Vol. 20

DC/Metro Area hip-hop duo have been puttin’ in work for a minute now, so if you haven’t heard of them by now . . . . please correct that mistake!

Earlier this morning, I tweeted about wanting to bring back the Afterschool Special. Of all the things we’ve been revisiting from the 80′s, I feel like we need that shit now more than ever. Especially if the below video is any indication.

Chicago rock group Secret Colours is kicking off 2012 with their video for “Faust”, in support of their latest release, EP3, which is now available on bandcamp.

It’s the end of the year, and it’s time for me, LeRon, and Eric to go through all the music we’ve listened to this year, and present our lists to all of you! We’ll each give our lists for five best albums of the year, five best songs of the year, and our biggest disappointments of the year. Fair warning, this is one of our longer shows, but well worth it, if I may say so.

PopCultureCast Music - Episode 5 [ 52:33 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

So, we’ve come to the end of the year, and it’s time for all you to put your votes down on who you think is the Future Ex-Wife of 2011. I think I’ve chosen a good selection of ladies that have all been having a great year in their respective fields, or some that I think y’all should be paying more attention to next year.

Here it is, my last Fresh Fridays of 2011. The following songs are my opinion of this year’s best tunes. I will share a sentence or two why the following songs are my top twenty-five of 2011. Nor two songs are alike…Annnd we begin!

• Ø     25. Terius Nash – Wedding Crashers: This song makes the list over so many good songs because this song really catches my ear; the beat, lyrics, and flow of the song is on point.

• Ø     24. Logic Featuring Lykke Li – Let Me Go: Young Sinatra was an impressive mixtape. Logic really brought my ear back to the lyricism in Hip-Hop. This is my favorite track on the mixtape.

• Ø      23. Lykke Li – I follow Rivers: This song is just crazy dope. This has been one of my favorite songs since the year begun.

• Ø     22. Patrick Wolf – The City: I love this song because it’s so catchy and it’s an easy sing along. Another song that has long playtime on my iPod.

• Ø     21. SBTRKT Featuring Little Dragon – Wildfire: From the first second I heard this song I knew I loved it. The lead singer of Little Dragon’s voice is f*cking beautiful on this song!

• Ø     20. Inc. – Swear: This song here! Man, this is my sh*t, hands down! I always want to just breakout and dance my a$$ off!

• Ø      19. Macklemore X Ryan Lewis – Make the Money: Wait, wait, wait, let the beat build annnnnd there! Just listen for a minute…See, dope-ness huh? That’s why I picked this song.

• Ø     18. Cults – Walk At Night: Cults’ album is amazing! This is one of my favorite tracks off their album. My favorite moment in this song is at 2:15.

• Ø     17. The Heavy – When I Die: I want this song to play at my funeral when I am old and gray. This song is a balling way to be put into the ground.

• Ø     16. Frank Ocean – Lovecrime: I originally picked Swim Good but I realized that I like this song much better than Swim Good.

• Ø     15. AWOLNATION – Sail: This song makes my head rock because the beat is crazy dope and the lyrics are just as dope.

• Ø     14. Tiger Waves – Friends: Every time “Oh whoa o oooooh” is sung in this song, I throw my hands in the air. Give it a try, it’s fun!

• Ø     13. The Generationals – Ten-Twenty-Ten: This is just Excellent! I love this group!

• Ø     12. Rizzle Kicks – Down With The Trumpets: The beat on this song is so sick, honestly the whole song is body moving material.

• Ø     11. Zeds Dead – Coffee Break: This song is so Hip-Hop without being Hip-Hop. I love it!

• Ø     10. Florence + The Machine – Take Care (Drake Cover): This version of Take Care puts the original to f*cking shame! This song is breath taking when it’s sung by Florence.

• Ø     9. M83 – Midnight City: Before you heard this was heard on a Victoria’s Secret commercial it was heard here first. So there! *B-Boy Stance*

• Ø     8. Metronomy – The Look: Here is another song that also has high playtime on my iPod because this is a damn good song, point blank.

• Ø     7. Kanye West & Jay-Z Featuring Otis Redding (Not really) – Otis: This is the only mainstream song to be featured on this list. This might have been a disappointing album to me but this song is my sh*t!

• Ø     6. The Black Keys – Sister: This song has me singing loud and proud each and every time. Works like gangbusters!

• Ø     5. STS Featuring Yelawolf – Hello Sunshine: Might not be Jay-Z and Eminem but this song is amazingly beautiful! I go crazy three minutes into the song because every element of the song comes together as one.

• Ø     4. Bombs and Bottlers – When The Lights Go Out: A song about f*cking, story of my life. I love it!

• Ø     3. The Weeknd Featuring Drake – The Zone: The Weeknd is one of the best new artists in 2011 to me! This is one of my favorite Weeknd tracks, hands down.

• Ø     2. Childish Gambino – Heartbeat: Another artist that was amazing this year; Camp is an instant classic in my mind. I get kind of emotional whenever I hear this song.

• Ø     1. VACATIONER – Trip: Here is my song of the year! This song gives me that throwback, B-boy feel to it. The beat is freaking dope and I actually adore this song second by second.

“It’s Fresh Fridays; hope you have a nice weekend!”

Download Fresh Fridays: Best of 2011

Pages calls upon Randy Valdes and his GlassWorks MultiMedia team to create a stunning and innovative visual for the single, “Mainstream Nightmare.” The music video was partially shot underwater and compliments the dramatic nature of the song with an ominous, gloomy look. Director Randy Valdes describes it as a “result of 300 meeting Biutiful in a Hip-Hop world.” Produced by long-time veteran Nick Fury of Liquid Shield (credits include Slick Rick, Ras Kass, Skam2? and more), the song also features Liquid Shield’s very-own songstress, Juliet. In “Mainstream Nightmare,” Pages aggressively expresses his thoughts towards those not upholding the essence of Hip-Hop culture, balanced by the sultry voice of Juliet, creating a smooth dynamic and perfect blend of edginess and harmony.

And Lyndsy takes to title for another week!! Personally, I was actually pulling for Maimouna Youssef, but as always, I remain impartial.

So, Fresh Fridays was created for up and coming, independent artists with great talent and sound to their work. Not every up and coming artist is Fresh Fridays worth therefore I want to get back to the essence of Fresh Fridays by featuring more up and coming artists in 2012. With that being said, if you (the artist or fan) feel as you’re music is actually good music do not hesitate to e-mail me your work or works of others to – erin_s_daddy@yahoo.com

Now that’s out the way; allow me to introduce the amazing Jade Lawhon.

Why am I featuring this artist? I am happy you asked that! Lately I have been listening to Jade’s EP/tracks that’s attached below. I honestly love her musical sound and style of performing. Jade’s music is a bit exotic with flares of Electronic, Psychedelic, and Jazz accompanied by sensual, abstract lyrics. Her style reminds me of Amy Winehouse because of her uniquely beautiful, raspy voice on quite of few tracks on this EP that favors Winehouse’s vocal style. Jade’s voice isn’t the traditional, sweet, overly feminine lead vocalist voice. At first listen you would think as the listener that she just might not be a good singer but once the song kicks in her voice is so hypnotizing with elements of soul behind each lyric. Another reason she reminds me of Amy Winehouse because of her adult lyrical content in some of her songs. She’s not afraid to reveal “the hateful love” in relationships, lust, passion, or exposing herself as a vulnerable woman. The last reason I am in love with this woman because her music style varies from Dance (Sound from the Tomb) to Experimental (Shut Up.) The various styles to her music give each and every song an interesting aspect from the previous song. Jade’s various styles also peeks my interest as a listener because I feel as if she could perform almost any type of music genre and sound excellent as an artist. She’s still fresh but I have great confidence in her musical abilities that she will blossom into a marvelous artist. I am looking forward to hearing more from Jade Lawhon throughout her career. Please, give this up and coming artist a listen; trust me, her voice will have you lost in a sea of musical melodies and sensuality.

I usually give you guys my favorite songs from the featured albums or EPs on Fresh Fridays but every song on this EP is awesome and different from the last. My least favorite song is Drown with Me but it’s still a solid song. I will leave you all with this, I follows Jade Lawhon on Twitter and she’s freaking hilarious on Twitter. The things she tweets about are priceless! Most definitely check her out on Twitter and most importantly check out Sound from the Tomb – EP presented by yours truly and the great folks at Pop Culture Shock.

Happy Holidays!

Enjoy!

“It’s Fresh Fridays; hope you have a nice weekend!”

Download Jade Lawhon – Sounds From The Tomb EP