From Jeff Pope to Fly Technoblues to the African-Nordic Four Seasons

If I were to compile a list of 100 things that I should be doing, one of them is to listen to radio deejay Jeff Pope more often. I've loved his work on KGGI (and before, when he was on X 103.9). Even though his station is an Inland Empire station, I get good reception on it even in Orange County. Which is more than I can say for our Los Angeles ESPN affiliate; why did the Lakers have to switch stations?

But I digress.

So anyways, one of the reasons that I like to listen to Pope is to introduce some new songs into my music mix. Let's face it - my normal music listening habits don't often veer into whatever the danged urban kids are listening to these days (or, for that matter, the suburban kids - ask my daughter). So if I listen to KGGI for a bit, maybe I'll hear a song that captures my fancy, and if I can figure out what it is, I'll introduce it into my music mix.

About my music mix - I'm still working on my "reduce the long tail" project in my last.fm library. Basically, it goes like this - if any artist in my last.fm library has only one play, I either listen to the artist again so that it has two or more plays, or I delete it the artist from my playlist altogether. (Goodbye, Diddy.) At the same time, I'm working on broadening my library, so during the last week, I've been listening to songs that are similar to songs by Novaspace, Baby Bash, and Charley Patton. Or, in other words, Eurodance bluesmen that are so fly.

Well, I'm introducing a new song into the mix, courtesy my Thursday morning drive time KGGI listening - "Beggin'" by Madcon. Here's the version that Google doesn't want me to embed into my Blogger blog. Here's the version that MTV does want me to embed.

Madcon - New Music - More Music Videos

And here's the version that I added to my last.fm library.

Incidentally, according to this biography (which details where Madcon actually comes from - is a Röyksopp collaboration in the works?), the song itself is a Frankie Valli cover. Here's how the Jersey Boys did it.

Jersey Boys. Beggin'. Frankie Valli The Four Seasons song.
Uploaded by christo59540. - Watch original web videos.

Sadly, no version by the Four Seasons, the Jersey Boys, or any other related entity is in last.fm. So I have to rely on the African-Nordic version for my scrobbling.

Postscript - when I have time, I like to add Creative Commons commercial licensed pictures to my blog posts. While trying to think of a perfect picture for this post, I wondered if there were one that somehow gave a musical slant to the word "fly" (from Baby Bash, natch). Well, I found one, but it kinda sorta distracts you from the content of the post itself. Therefore, I've placed it at the bottom of the post, rather than the top. (If Mr. Pope does vanity searches, I'm not sure how he'd react to THIS. Then again, maybe he'd try to put it on the air somehow. "The new way to listen to music...")

http://www.flickr.com/photos/petroleumjelliffe/ / CC BY-ND 2.0