Double Kooky Reviews!

Reviews are rare from The Kooky Jar for a few reasons.  One, laziness.  Two, I listen to a wide variety of music, but it takes something to convince me to actually write a review.  Three, I suck at writing reviews.

But there are some exceptions when the Kookymonsta knows that she needs to share her finds with others.  I don’t like listening to popular music much unless they’re really good, which brings me to my first item:

Sarah McLachlan’s Rarities, B-Sides and Other Stuff Volume 2. I’ve always been a fan of McLachlan’s lyrics, she has a gift of writing about things that relate closely to her listeners.  Lyrics that make you think for awhile.

I always love B-sides.  B-sides are tracks that were not recorded in an artist’s LP album (in Layman’s terms, the unheard music), and in my opinion I always feel that B-sides are the songs that really reflect the artist’s style of music.  There aren’t as many original songs written in here, most of them are covers or her old stuff recorded with other artists.  Among the live performances that I really like from this cd would be Angel with Emmylou Harris, Pills with The Perishers, an accapella number called Homeless featuring Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and the famous oldie Time After Time with Cyndi Lauper.  I was so glad she did a duet with The Perishers!  When I first heard Pills (originally sung by The Perishers) I thought it couldn’t get any better – I was wrong!

Does anyone remember The Rainbow Connection?  Kermit the Frog once sang it on TV, and I liked it very much since I was a kid.  And yes, McLachlan did a beautiful job with the song, as I played it over and over again.  And I do wish that someday, as the song says, “We’ll find it, the rainbow connection.  The lovers, the dreamers, and me.”

I give a 4 out of 5 for this album.

Off to the second hot stuff playing in the stereo!  My brother and I have been listening to the album over and over in the car for the past two weeks, and we like how the album greets us every morning with its first song, Make It Mine that begins with, “Wake up everyone, how can you sleep at a time like this?  Unless the dreamer is the real you.”

Introducing, Jason Mraz’s latest, We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things.

OK, I didn’t buy the album for this one cos I’m currently quite broke after getting Stan, but thanks to the wonders of the Internet, getting the whole list of songs was rather easy.

To be honest, I didn’t quite like his previous album Mr A-Z, but this one is really addictive.  Just like his latest single “I’m Yours” that has been playing in the radios, his upbeat numbers have this happy Jamaican-like beat, and he mixes it with his own unique style that I cannot describe but I sure know I’d want to get up and dance to the beat.  He’s a genius at lyrics too, keeping things short, but makes a whole lot of sense.

My personal favourites would be Make It Mine, Live High, Love for a Child and Beautiful Mess.  He did a song with Colbie Caillat called Lucky, a very sweet tune of being in love with one’s best friend and yeah, they make quite a good team – singing-wise.

The other songs are good too, it’s the kind of album you won’t get bored playing it over and over and they give you a feel-good feeling, even the slow ones.

This one gets 5 stars.

*Phew* This is one long entry.  I’ll go take a break from the laptop now, and spin The Rainbow Connection once more.